Factorio Forums

TL;DR breakdown at the end

I've been thinking about logistics robots recently and there have been times where I have felt that while nice and useful, it feels like an incredible task to get that first Roboport.

I propose a mod to add one item, a mini-roboport, and some minor tech tree modification to integrate it.
The full Roboport costs 45 steel, 45 Iron Gears, 45 Advanced Circuits, takes 15 seconds to craft, and is unlocked by the Logistics/Construction Robotics Technologies. It is also a 4*4 building.
I propose the Mini-Port cost 15 Steel, 15 Iron Gears, 30 Basic circuits, take 10 seconds to craft and is unlocked by the Robotics Technology. It should be either a 2*2 building or a 3*3 building.

So far this isn't a big change but I also propose that the Mini-Port should have slightly different functionality. as an earlier tech, and in miniature as well, it should not be able to do everything the full Roboport can do or at the least the full Roboport has to do it better, but I want to to have niche uses that won't allow it to be entirely eclipsed by its bigger brother. The default roboport has a logistics area of 50*50 and a construction area of 100*100. I would suggest that the Mini-port have a much smaller range and would suggest it's range to extend only half that distance giving it a logistic area of 25*25 and a construction area of 50*50. I would also prefer, if possible, that it would only be able to support a maximum of one stack of bots of each type.

These limitations, while important, are not the only limitations I would place on the Mini-port. Also befitting it's less developed nature I would not allow it to be part of Robotic Networks. In practice this might be more of a feature than a limitation. This could allow a Mini-port to act over a portion of a Robotic network, Micro-managing a specific portion of it or allowing two Robotic networks to trade materials without also trading bots, isolating but not wholly separating the two nearby networks by using the Mini-port as a buffer.

As a final note, maybe meld it into the progression by changing the Roboport recipe to be 4 Mini-ports, , 90 Plastic Bars, and 180 Copper cable instead? This would increase the cost of the Roboport to a total of 60 Steel, 60 Iron Gears, the equivalent of 45 Advanced circuits, and 30 Basic circuits. If it was constructed using 3 Mini-ports. 90 Plastic Bars, and 180 Copper Cable instead the material cost would be the same for the full Roboport as it is in the Stock game but I prefer the idea of constructing it out of enough Mini-ports to match the logistic area of a single Roboport.

Name suggestions: RoboGarage, Miniport
TL;DR I want a Miniature Roboport added to the Robotics technology that, compared to the existing one, is 1/3 of the cost, has 1/2 the range (1/4 of the total area), can not be part of a Robotic Network, and can support a maximum of 50 bots (one stack) of each type. To go along with this I would move the Logistic and Construction robots down into the earlier Flight technology.

A similar mod might already exists but if it does I can't find it.

So, er. Having some coding experience and getting curious about modding Factorio I sorta went and figured out how to do it for myself. So I went and took the existing Roboport and put it in my handy dandy Shrinky Dink oven and out popped my RoboGarage.
I managed to get it to do most of the things I wanted it to including it's lower build cost, location in the tech tree, and even relocating the bots down into the Flight Technology so it actually unlocks something rather than just acting as a prerequisite. I put the Robo-Garage right next to the Flying Robot Frame as part of the Robotics Technology.

One thing that I would have liked to do was to find a way to prevent the Robo-Garage from forming Logistic Networks with the Roboport and other Robo-Garages but the networks connecting just seems to be an innate property of having a logistic area rather than something I can toggle. Unless I am missing something I am probably just going to have to accept that as a constraint of modding.

Another thing I didn't do was I did not modify the recipe for the base Roboport. Simply modding in a recipe would likely overwrite the base one but I did not actually attempt this.

I succeeded in having a roboport with reduced range and cost. I believe, but have not tested, that I also limited it to 50 bots at a time using the flag used to limit Personal Roboport bots to 10 but as this was a flag for the Personal Roboport and not the full Roboport I am unsure that it is functional. Regardless the Robo-Garage only has inventory for two stacks of bots and two stacks of repair tools.

So here it is, made by my curiosity for personal use, shared freely for use and modification. But if you do use it and liked it let me know. If you know how it might have been made better let me know. I'm running on A Youtube Tutorial I found on the forum some Documentation from the wiki and probably not enough sleep. Have fun.

EDIT: Just a note, the robots are slightly larger than the door they go into on the Robo-Garage because I shrunk it so much. Slightly humerous.

EDIT2: Decided to try my hand at building a Git for it instead of just posting the file to the forum.

Or there's this: viewtopic.php?f=93&t=25309