[2.1] Roboports should report ghost entities

[worph]

TL;DR

There should be a way to read unbuilt entities/ghosts from the roboports.

What

Currently, I don't know of a way to get which items are scheduled to be build but missing the actual item.
The ghost entity in the following example image, does not show up anywhere in the circuit output of the roboport.

grafik.png (721.32 KiB) Viewed 700 times

I would expect some way to show these like pictured below.
Now that we can separate outputs to red/green wires this is a prime implementation to use this feature with.

grafik.png (211.96 KiB) Viewed 700 times

Why

First of all, it's cool to tell your automall which items need to be built on demand.
But the more likely and better application is Aquilo (or any other planet that should be supplied by a mall in orbit).
Currently, especially on Aquilo, one has to keep at least one of every item on the planet surface and resupply that item once it's used, if you don't want to handle this stuff manually.

With this change, and some circuitry magic, I can cue up a large batch of buildings and the Cargo Landing Pad should eventually, if I programmed it correctly, request and fulfill all the projected items eventually.


(*edit: In case you are wondering: Changing the settings from "Read ... contents" to "Read ... requests" on the roboport changes nothing. I knew that before taking the screenshots, but I should have selected that option)

[robot256]

Previously:
viewtopic.php?t=133812 (in Outdated/not implemented)
viewtopic.php?t=39474 (very long thread where all the suggestions of the same kind were merged, except the one that was moved to outdated/not implemented)

[worph]

Missed those, mea culpa. The one from 2017 is a bit old anyway. But the one from last month is not only recent but pretty clear.
It begs the question though, how the game cannot know these things, but I digress.

[eugenekay]

It begs the question though, how the game cannot know these things

The Number of Ghosts in range of a given Construction RoboNetwork can be counted, but this is a potentially expensive operation as it requires searching through all Entities on a surface; potentially each Tick if you want to have an accurate Circuit output. More complexity comes from the fact that Construction RoboNetworks can overlap where there is not an overlap of Logistics Networks (which are merged into a single Network) - leading to inaccurate/duplicated Ghost Counts on both Circuits. Trying to add/remove a "running Total" each time a Ghost is placed/cancelled/Revived would require careful logic handling everywhere that Ghosts are interacted-with (Robots, Planners, Scripts, Events...) to ensure it stays accurate; or set you back to performing a potentially-slow "sweep" as above.

The current implementation scans "a few" Ghosts each Tick, and then creates a timed Notification. It performs well with tens-of-thousands of Entities pending.

[worph]

I don't think implementing an accurate list of those entities is in and of itself a hugely complicated problem. Sure you need to find all the edge cases and test it thoroughly. It's probably just too much work for relatively little benefit. I can totally see that.

[Ruuttu]

I understand providing an accurate list in real time would be expensive, but I also don't think it would be necessary. The robots take their time to work through the list of ghosts, and it makes intuitive sense that those with missing materials would be "discovered" at some point. A list which tracks and cross-references all the items and requests across the entire network in real time would seem like magic.

The roboport could provide a list which updates infrequently, and which isn't perfectly accurate even when it does, and I would still be perfectly happy. I can't imagine a legitimate use case where the signals for the ghosts would have to reflect changes immediately.

[macdjord]

+1

[JackTheSpades]

+1

For performance consideration, it doesn't have to be on the same tick as the ghost is placed just output the signal eventually.
Plus the missing construction materials literally show up on my HUD so it's not like the game isn't already scanning for them.

Personally, I tried to build a system that would craft Captive Biter Spawner on demand when I build ghosts (since they spoil and can't be pre-build) only to later realize with disappointment that ghosts don't actually show up on signals. Still useful since I can toggle it with a requester chest but just requires those few extra steps.

07-07-2026, 09-12-22.png (816.2 KiB) Viewed 406 times

[aaron311]

I, too, would love an output signal for this even if it was only output every so many ticks (e.g. every 10s or so). I can latch it, or the game can

Complicating this however is that you have to consider things like:
* ghost entities
* ghost tiles
* inside-entity things (module slots, etc)

However, even a best effort implementation would be appreciated.

[worph]

RE: my earlier comment about it totally being possible.

I have no idea about the source code of factorio, but I strongly believe the game uses some sort of eventmanager, like any other modern game.
Looking at it from an event based perspective, there really are not that many cases that can create a ghost entity.
It's always player input (I know there are mods, that do it, but they will use the same functions, I assume).

It would be perfectly fine to keep a per-surface list of unbuilt entities in memory. Append to the list on place_ghost_event, or whatever.
And checking which ghosts are in range of which roboport could be done every so often and also kept in memory for every robonetwork.
The cornercase, of a ghost being in range of two networks, shoud just report the ghost in both networks.
And whenever a construction bot starts his journey to grab and later place an item to build, or whenever a player builds over a ghost entity, should remove the ghost from the list. Also when the ghost itself is removed.

It's not too many if statements and not a lot of events, and lists to keep track of, considering how much stuff the game already tracks each second. Even if it's twice or three times the amount of conditions, that still seems reasonable and manageable to me.

[Peťan_Máša_Křižák]

Hello,
this idea can help us in our 1000x science prize game, where we have automated delivery stations and we have to manually enter the required quantity of specific items for delivery into a constant combinator.

07-09-2026, 07-36-54.png (1009.19 KiB) Viewed 233 times

Control circuits are "powerful magic" that can be incredibly helpful - especially when MALL can subsequently produce the required amount of things for construction. All this thanks to radars transmitting signals from control circuits.

[The-Zee-System]

+1 so automation can be more efficient and not have to rely on massive amounts of alerts on my screen blocking and blinking everywhere

[Lingkar]

+1
I also just figured out that there is no way to retrieve ghost entities from the surface (within logistic network).
It feels a bit unintuitive as this is supported for ghost entities on the space platforms, which give the possibility of reading orbital requests based on ghost entities.