Factorio Forums

It would be great if you could add ghost bots by shift clicking. This is useful for spidertrons building outposts for example or other cases where you want to deploy a certain amount of bots remotely.

What do you mean here? The spidertron should be automatically deploying the bots required to build the nearby ghosts.

This suggestion doesn't make any sense to me as written.

My guess: the suggestion is for shift-clicking on a roboport (presumably while holding a robot) to create a request to place a robot in a roboport, in order to populate a newly created network (eg an outpost) built using a remote spidertron. Conceptually similar to, in person, being able to open the roboport and place robots from your inventory, and perhaps functionally like requests for construction robots to insert modules into assembling machines etc.

Assuming so: the end goal can already be achieved by having the spidertron build a train stop that results in a train automatically arriving with the robots, set up so that the robots will be inserted from a wagon into a roboport. The underlying idea here is a "supply train" which is also useful for (several) other reasons.

So (my understanding of) this suggestion would just create an "easier" way to do something that is already possible. For me at least, the fact you currently can't do it this way leads to an interesting end-game puzzle, one which is in line with a core principle of the game: automation. While I can see reason behind the idea, on balance, I don't think it would be a good addition for this and other reasons.

As it stands, there is no way to populate roboports using only spidertrons.

The train solution does require laying rails to literally everywhere you want to do it which isn't ideal, but it's not awful either.

You'll end up having rails to go to new places where you build which is... nothing but a good thing, but it does require spending extra time and resources to lay said rails, whether you accomplish that by having extra, dedicated rail-builder spidertrons or otherwise.

Let me clarify.

Let's say that you are using a spidertron to build a remote outpost that isn't connected to any previous logistics network. The spidertron will use it's internal roboport and bots to build the outpost. It can build all the buildings, but it can't deploy any bots to the newly created outpost. If you could create ghost bots, the spidertron would be able to deploy them. After being deployed the bots would then go to the constructed roboport, avaliable to be used for other duties.

Sorry for being unclear.

This is one of the problems that could be solved by allowing blueprinting item request proxies in more inventories and not only in locomotives and module slots. (I know this has been discussed before, but I couldn't find offhand where exactly.) It doesn't really make sense to me that bots can insert items into things, but only train fuel or modules. Being able to set a chest to request its current content would be enough.

If you're willing to edit the blueprint, you can add other item-request proxies, which will probably work for robots into a roboport. I know I've seen a poor-man's requester chest that uses proxies on a steel chest, but I can't find it right now.

romanticapplepie wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2023 4:53 pm Let me clarify.

Well, that's different in detail to what I thought, but the same principle and what I wrote based on my assumption still applies.

DaleStan wrote: Mon Jan 16, 2023 5:32 pm If you're willing to edit the blueprint, you can add other item-request proxies, which will probably work for robots into a roboport.

Seems to, for now at least:
Copy blueprint