Robots suddenly leave the main network

[TheDeadFerryman]

So I've been playing for a while and suddenly started receiving weird "destroyed" messages from the area close to my base. I didn't understand what was destroyed, but later I've noticed that a group of construction bots have left my base heading towards one of the outposts that have an isolated bot network each.
I've marked that group with a red circle in the attached screenshot. The group was carrying some belts I've marked for destruction earlier so it wasn't like a group of bots with repair packs trying to outrun a train to repair it, so I guess it might be some kind of bug where bots forget about the network they're in.

01-22-2025, 01-07-59.png (461 KiB) Viewed 329 times

[jodokus31]

Are those personal bots from the personal roboport in the armor? If they did something and you took the train to the other base, they will try to get to you, no matter how far.

[TheDeadFerryman]

No, I have no personal roboports yet (not that they make a lot of sense to have when only modular armor is equipped)

[Muche]

Was electricity supply/network stable? Did biters destroy some electric poles between outposts?
When roboports lose all stored energy, they are no longer part of logistic network, and bots that are currently out will start looking for new home.

[TheDeadFerryman]

Looking through my energy chart I couldn't find any outage close enough to the event. Also there were no "kills" of big electric poles (apart from those two I drove over with my tank).
So I guess it is safe to say that this wasn't related to any kind of power outage

[TheDeadFerryman]

Well, it happened again, but this time it is a complete disaster. Basically all drones in my main network just left.

01-22-2025, 22-03-27.png (540.36 KiB) Viewed 217 times

But this time it is definitely because of an energy outage. I was reconstructing my rails and went out of coal without noticing, and now all my drones are out there and won't go back to the main network.
Is there a way to get those drones back home without manually removing all the roboports at all outposts?

[nethus]

You could configure a request in one roboport for let's say 100 con bots (or logi bots), and pick them out of that robopurt using a filtered inserter that stores them in a chest

[Muche]

Similarly, if temporarily connecting outpost network with base is possible, you could set requests in multiple roboports, in both base's and outpost's, so that bots move themselves based on numbers.
For example, if you want 10000 bots in base and 50 in outpost, set 40x250 bots requests + 1x50. After the bots settle, disconnect the networks again.

[TheDeadFerryman]

Thanks for answers, but it's kinda not important anymore. All those bots have just died out there, and now I'm like 1/3 of what I had in my network and my robot-rush setup is gone

I mean... While it is not exactly a bug, it is a huge pain nevertheless. As if a blackout wasn't enough of a problem on its own, having half of your bot network just run into the woods and die makes it kinda feel like it's the end of the run. And I don't think this behaviour was there before 2.0

[Rseding91]

It has always worked like this since robots were addded to the game.