Friday Facts #92 - Personal roboport

[Phillip_Lynx]

The personal roboport looks amazing, but running dozens of free energy drones from the player instead of a dedicated drone vehicle seems kinda cheaty. There's no way a suit can generate power of that magnitude! But then again we're talking about a player inventory that can hold enough rocket defenses to hold the eye of terror.

What would work better, a player roboport or a vehicle based one? The former goes with you anywhere, while the latter lets you go most places but be fully loaded for battle.

The problem with Vehicles is that they're not an early game thing, since setting up Engine production is non-trivial and resource-intensive.

Cars are earlyer then an Powerarmor (in my games) so the personal Roboport ist later than vehicles

[bobucles]

The problem with Vehicles is that they're not an early game thing, since setting up Engine production is non-trivial and resource-intensive.

What? Making engines for the personal car isn't difficult. The highest tech is green science, and the manufacturing takes iron, steel, and a bit more iron. Tanks are a short hop down the line, taking one line of oil production and a tiny amount of blue science/advanced circuits that are easily crafted by hand.

Power armor needs the WHOLE oil system, liquid assemblers, processing units, huge factory systems, and artifacts from combat. You must be confusing "what is easy to get" with "what I skip on my tech rush".

If vehicles had modules (and perhaps an innate module energy generator) they would valuable all game and well worth the low investment to get. Vehicles would work GREAT with the personal roboport because they have a huge inventory, the potential for laser defense/shields, and can slide around on conveyors for all sorts of wacky shenanigans.

[kiba]

If vehicles had modules (and perhaps an innate module energy generator) they would valuable all game and well worth the low investment to get. Vehicles would work GREAT with the personal roboport because they have a huge inventory, the potential for laser defense/shields, and can slide around on conveyors for all sorts of wacky shenanigans.

Vehicular conveyor parkour!

[dee-]

If vehicles had modules (and perhaps an innate module energy generator) they would valuable all game and well worth the low investment to get. Vehicles would work GREAT with the personal roboport because they have a huge inventory, the potential for laser defense/shields, and can slide around on conveyors for all sorts of wacky shenanigans.

Vehicular conveyor parkour!

Let's see if the revised belt logic in 0.12 still does this...

[TBog]

The problem with Vehicles is that they're not an early game thing, since setting up Engine production is non-trivial and resource-intensive.

What? Making engines for the personal car isn't difficult. The highest tech is green science, and the manufacturing takes iron, steel, and a bit more iron. Tanks are a short hop down the line, taking one line of oil production and a tiny amount of blue science/advanced circuits that are easily crafted by hand.

Power armor needs the WHOLE oil system, liquid assemblers, processing units, huge factory systems, and artifacts from combat. You must be confusing "what is easy to get" with "what I skip on my tech rush".

If vehicles had modules (and perhaps an innate module energy generator) they would valuable all game and well worth the low investment to get. Vehicles would work GREAT with the personal roboport because they have a huge inventory, the potential for laser defense/shields, and can slide around on conveyors for all sorts of wacky shenanigans.

It would be great If I could use a conveyor to move a "robotport" around my defences instead of building a whole network for repairing the turrets

[FrozenOne]

Roboports on trains.

[TBog]

Roboports on trains.

Then I would need a way to limit the top speed of the train. Sure I can use lots of wagons, but It's an ugly fix.
The conveyor has three speeds.
Maybe we could have an electric locomotive with an included robotport

[RoddyVR]

Roboports on trains.

Then I would need a way to limit the top speed of the train. Sure I can use lots of wagons, but It's an ugly fix.
The conveyor has three speeds.
Maybe we could have an electric locomotive with an included robotport

Lots of stops along the line that is intended to carry the robotrain. 10 second stops each 100 (or 200 i guess tiles) so that the robots have time to fly to the wall/turrets repair and come back... yes if bitters attack the spot where the train is, new robots will fly out as the train is leaving and probably never catch up to it, that's the cost for repairing whole perimiter with one roboport instead of a network.

[Gandalf]

Roboports on trains would be entirely useless. Even without the personal roboport, setting up a local roboport network is much faster then laying tracks. Whatever use case you could have it's either covered by setting up a local network or by being on a train with your personal roboport.

[Koub]

Being on a train with your personal network is not automation compatible. If I want ultimate automation, I want the rail to lay itself to the coordinates I want it to get to. One solution would be a blueprint layer, and a roboport wagon. It's not the only solution possible, but I find it quite elegant.

[kiba]

IRL, train tracks aren't built by flying quadcopters, but with specialized equipments designed for the job. I would like to see that in-game as well.

[RoddyVR]

Roboports on trains would be entirely useless. Even without the personal roboport, setting up a local roboport network is much faster then laying tracks. Whatever use case you could have it's either covered by setting up a local network or by being on a train with your personal roboport.

Not true. and the first example is what this discussion started with. Using it to repair the walls/turrets on your perimeter. That perimeter can be MUCH larger than your existing roboport network, and extending it all the way out can be a mammoth task because of the problem robots encounter when the network has holes in it (they tend to get lost in the empty spaces because they just fly strait and take jobs even they are the worst candidate for filling that job). An automatic single moving roboport (be it on a train or a belt) is much more efficient. slowly goes around your whole perimeter and repairs everything that has been damaged/destroyed since its last visit.

A moving roboport would also make automatic expansion reasonably doable (if that roboport can slap down blueprints as it goes also, than you can make an auto expanding factory relatively easy).

[Peter34]

Not true. and the first example is what this discussion started with. Using it to repair the walls/turrets on your perimeter. That perimeter can be MUCH larger than your existing roboport network, and extending it all the way out can be a mammoth task because of the problem robots encounter when the network has holes in it (they tend to get lost in the empty spaces because they just fly strait and take jobs even they are the worst candidate for filling that job). An automatic single moving roboport (be it on a train or a belt) is much more efficient. slowly goes around your whole perimeter and repairs everything that has been damaged/destroyed since its last visit.

A moving roboport would also make automatic expansion reasonably doable (if that roboport can slap down blueprints as it goes also, than you can make an auto expanding factory relatively easy).

If the train carries Logistics Drones too, then it could also re-supply the Requester Chests that feed ammo to Gun Turrets. That alone wouldn't be worthwhile, but in combination with Construction Drones to repair Walls and Turrets, it might be.

I think it's be preferable for such a train to drive very slowly, though. I haven't yet worked with trains myself, but as far as I know there isn't a way to program a train to drive slowly. It's my impression that they'll always drive as fast as they can.

[bobucles]

I think it's be preferable for such a train to drive very slowly, though

You mean a vehicle, with a roboport, on a conveyor? That would take care of the slow patrolling repair system. The only downside is you can't cross it with a railroad track.

[vampiricdust]

I think it's be preferable for such a train to drive very slowly, though

You mean a vehicle, with a roboport, on a conveyor? That would take care of the slow patrolling repair system. The only downside is you can't cross it with a railroad track.

All you need to do is lay stations at a distance of the coverage area. Then the train would never move farther than set distance at a time & give plenty of time for robots caught out to catch up. Considering the way that trains seem to work, I would assume the roboports would only release drones while the train is stopped.

[ltnickmage]

You could also add that all robots be put back into the train before the train is allowed to leave the station

[nobodx]

We "may" get advanced train logics in 0.13. Maybe robo-port trains could only work, while they're stationary ( at a trainstation or stopped per hand) and only continue to move, when their drones are back in the train or destroyed ( the logic behind "who's drones are this" shall be in game with the personal port)

[Gaiadragon]

love the personal roboport

[The Phoenixian]

Being on a train with your personal network is not automation compatible. If I want ultimate automation, I want the rail to lay itself to the coordinates I want it to get to. One solution would be a blueprint layer, and a roboport wagon. It's not the only solution possible, but I find it quite elegant.

While it is elegant, an alternative to a mobile roboport would be to have long range construction use a vehicle that is a construction robot in its own right: Sort of like FARL but with more versatility. (I've taken a liking to the idea of smaller drones within established areas and large, robotic vehicles for tasks outside the factory perimeter; C&C style harvesters, construction crawlers, robot tanks, etc.)