Factorio Forums

Has anyone else noticed that getting speed upgrades doesn't increase the distance a robot can move before they need to recharge?

My factories typically use a global robot net, so as to facilitate construction (their primary purpose) and occasionally to move materials. The construction robots typically have the furthest to travel and end up traveling across large areas with no roboport coverage. I thought speed would make it more possible for them to reach the other side without having to recharge, but all it does is increase the speed and the rate at which they drain their energy. Making energy usage per second decreased by the speed of the robot would be really nice.

I agree that there needs to be some upgrades of either flight time and/or recharge speed.

I see different issues though - with large construction projects (the worst is deciding to concrete tehe entire base) you end up with most of the bots hanging around roboports waiting to recharge rather than doing useful work.

Not sure if it'd be better to add a separate research upgrades for these, or just add it as an additional effect of the current speed upgrades.

jonatkins wrote:I agree that there needs to be some upgrades of either flight time and/or recharge speed.

I see different issues though - with large construction projects (the worst is deciding to concrete tehe entire base) you end up with most of the bots hanging around roboports waiting to recharge rather than doing useful work.

Not sure if it'd be better to add a separate research upgrades for these, or just add it as an additional effect of the current speed upgrades.

I totally agree. Probably one way is that add speed module and productivity module support port robo port. Speed module adds charge speed and productivity add slots how many robots can charge. Example so that 4 module place and if you set 4pcs of 3 level productivity modules it makes 12 extra charging slots. If you add 3pcs productivity and 1pcs level 3 speed module it will make 9 extra slots but all slots work 50% faster.

Probably robot battery capacity can be researchable technology. Another hand it can be cause problems if it make negative effect for charging time.

new research:
- roboport charging stations: +1 station/lvl (5lvls)
- roboport charging duration: -10% duration/lvl (5lvls)
- robo endurance : +15% reach (10lvls/unlimited)

And maybe a roboport upgrade tech that lets it charge more than 4 bots + charge faster.

Jarin wrote:And maybe a roboport upgrade tech that lets it charge more than 4 bots + charge faster.

The bot charging points are part of the graphic, so it would not look nice just upgrading the number of charging points.

As we've now had a MK2 version of the personal roboport, perhaps a MK2 of the standard roboport is in order. More charge points (8?), larger logistic area, faster bot charging, more internal storage space for bots/repair packs...

A logistic range of 70 or 75 would be about right - approx twice the area, rather than double the range as I've seen in some mods.

jonatkins wrote:

Jarin wrote:And maybe a roboport upgrade tech that lets it charge more than 4 bots + charge faster.

The bot charging points are part of the graphic, so it would not look nice just upgrading the number of charging points.

As we've now had a MK2 version of the personal roboport, perhaps a MK2 of the standard roboport is in order. More charge points (8?), larger logistic area, faster bot charging, more internal storage space for bots/repair packs...

A logistic range of 70 or 75 would be about right - approx twice the area, rather than double the range as I've seen in some mods.

roboport mk2:
- recipe: 4 roboports + ..
- range *2 vertical, *2 horizontal (size of 4 roboports)
- charging: *4 (16)

A MK2 roboport should be more expensive than MK1s covering the same area - that's common for many items already (e.g. power armor, battery equipment, assembly machines, etc)

I'd suggest 4 MK1 roboports and, say, some processing units and speed modules. (45 of each perhaps, as MK1 needs that many advanced circuits - ??)

I stick with my original range of 70 or 75, and suggest 8 recharge spots, and twice the recharge rate than the MK1 - 4 times the area (double the range) is too much.

With thrse stats and cost, you won't just place them everywhere unless the factory is running at high capacity. That way, you'll use them occasionally much of the time - just where you need the extra recharge support (e.g. by a cluster of storage chests) or need the extended range (e.g. where there's a hole in logistics coverage as water or existing mining/production meant a MK1 couldn't be placed on a neat grid.

I do like the idea of 75 for the range - as it does allow upgrading from MK1 and keeping 1 in 3 roboports horizontally or vertically on the original grid, if you really wanted to do that.

jonatkins wrote:A MK2 roboport should be more expensive than MK1s covering the same area - that's common for many items already (e.g. power armor, battery equipment, assembly machines, etc)

I'd suggest 4 MK1 roboports and, say, some processing units and speed modules. (45 of each perhaps, as MK1 needs that many advanced circuits - ??)

I stick with my original range of 70 or 75, and suggest 8 recharge spots, and twice the recharge rate than the MK1 - 4 times the area (double the range) is too much.

With thrse stats and cost, you won't just place them everywhere unless the factory is running at high capacity. That way, you'll use them occasionally much of the time - just where you need the extra recharge support (e.g. by a cluster of storage chests) or need the extended range (e.g. where there's a hole in logistics coverage as water or existing mining/production meant a MK1 couldn't be placed on a neat grid.

I do like the idea of 75 for the range - as it does allow upgrading from MK1 and keeping 1 in 3 roboports horizontally or vertically on the original grid, if you really wanted to do that.

I'd rather have all stats *4 and the cost *10 or more.

There needs to be a big upgrade from roboport to roboport mk2.

If you look at the belts you see also they are doubling stats. The roboport behaves in 2d so all *4. (*2 in each direction)

if supply area in each direction is *2, you get a repetition with big power poles every 5 poles.

jonatkins wrote: The bot charging points are part of the graphic, so it would not look nice just upgrading the number of charging points.

And the player can happily charge 20+ robots at once with enough personal roboports. Graphics shouldn't enter into it.

Ranakastrasz wrote:

jonatkins wrote: The bot charging points are part of the graphic, so it would not look nice just upgrading the number of charging points.

And the player can happily charge 20+ robots at once with enough personal roboports. Graphics shouldn't enter into it.

yep thats true. I dont see any problem even charger charge more bots at once.

FrodoOf9Fingers wrote:Has anyone else noticed that getting speed upgrades doesn't increase the distance a robot can move before they need to recharge?

I thought speed would make it more possible for them to reach the other side without having to recharge, but all it does is increase the speed and the rate at which they drain their energy. Making energy usage per second decreased by the speed of the robot would be really nice.

The bots energy are drained over time as well as per distance traveled. The travel energy is the big energ drain though, even more so the faster they go. But they will travel a tiny bit further when they go faster. It's not really enough to be noticable, but just letting you know.

Klonan made a mod for robot battery research. Of course that would mean that they charge for longer time to refill, but that makes it balanced. So you still need the same amount of roboports with constant use and the energy cost on the network will about the same.

jonatkins wrote:

Jarin wrote:And maybe a roboport upgrade tech that lets it charge more than 4 bots + charge faster.

The bot charging points are part of the graphic, so it would not look nice just upgrading the number of charging points.

As we've now had a MK2 version of the personal roboport, perhaps a MK2 of the standard roboport is in order. More charge points (8?), larger logistic area, faster bot charging, more internal storage space for bots/repair packs...

A logistic range of 70 or 75 would be about right - approx twice the area, rather than double the range as I've seen in some mods.

burner wrote:yep thats true. I dont see any problem even charger charge more bots at once.

Charging ports and charging speed
No. Charging more bots at once or faster seems really OP (Both have the same effect in a multi bot network). At the highest material throughput you can reach in the game (green circuits + cables fully beaconed I think) the amount of roboports needed is a fair and pretty low amount that doesn't take that much space. It's very space efficient compared to belts. More charging ports would be OP. There are no factories big enough to need more charging ports and it will just remove all design considerations for where and how many roboports to include in your bot base design. If you think you need more you are ver likely doing it wrong. Install a mod if you want them to be OP enough to solve your problems without the need for you to think about how to fix it.

It might be possible to have it be balanced if the roboports charging rate was not increased, so that you can charge bots faster in burst but not sustained. Under sustained load the roboport would shut down because it's completely drained. But that would only make them more unpredictable and not sure it's good design.

Larger logistics area
This does mean including roboports in design becomes easier, but for high volume you need roboports close by so the bots do not have to go so far to fly home for a recharge. With increased internal battery on the bots the recharge trips become less often which would make this impact you less. Either bigger logistics area or larger bot battery capacity is probably fine for balance, but both together could be imbalanced if taken too far.

Larger construction area
Some huge blueprints don't need roboports in their design but still need to be constructed somehow. Having much larger construction area would make it possible for construction bots to reach all parts of a design without having to place temporary roboports with the design that then have to be removed and replaced manually. This would remove tedious manual work that only has the effect of you going back to manually place stuff again once you reach the scales of big base design. Larger construction area would be a nice upgrade.

Qon wrote:The bots energy are drained over time as well as per distance traveled

Ah yes, good point. That opens up the option of experimenting with this idea with a mod. Might give it a go when I have a chance to test it throughout a range of bot speeds and roboport densities.

Qon wrote:Charging ports and charging speed
Larger logistics area

When I wrote this post, I (like many players, I suspect) hadn't played with stock bots doing the heavy lifting, instead sticking with keeping most things on belts. I'd end up with 12-lane blue belts coming out of my iron + copper furnace setups, 6 blue belts of green circuits - and would go further but FPS/UPS would drop to unplayable levels much beyond this.

I'd still use logistics, but only for low-volume production of (mainly) buildings and other entities needed to keep me supplied and expand the base. Other than a burst of activity when I'd return to base for supplies there would be less than 50 logistics bots active.

In this setup, roboports would be arranged, where possible, in a neat grid, just enough to give 100% logistics coverage but no more.

For this play-style, better roboports make some sense. They'd ease the charging delays that happen when large construction blueprints are placed - placing flooring in particular is a nightmare as every tile needs a separate delivery. Larger logistics area would be handy to reduce roboport density, or to fix coverage where MK1 roboports can't be placed on-grid.

However, since writing that post, and after discussions on another thread, I've had a chance to play a game where I switched from belts to bots for the end-game. I'd just not thought it would be practical until I tried it, but have found that with a high enough density of roboports for charging, and enough bots, they can actually manage high throughput. I think I've doubled the production rate compared to my belt-based base, and FPS/UPS has barely dropped from 60, rather than being in the 30-40 range for belts.

So, now I've had a chance to explore the full potential of logistics I agree there's less argument for improving roboports.

However, even with this infrastructure in place there can be times that large construction projects - particularly flooring and tree-clearance at the edges of the base, can lead to long charging queues.

So, an alternative suggestion: Improve construction bots. Either get them carrying more items for construction, using the stack-size bonus that the rest of the logistics system uses (I believe the devs are already considering this), or change only construction bots to be more power efficient so they charge less often. This way, there's no benefits to a logistuc-powered base, but for those who stick with belts and have the bare minimum roboport coverage, construction bots become less painful.