Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Add button “Toggle robotic network” to disable construction robots from stationary roboports.

What ?

I’d like to have some way to make some construction/deconstruction using personal robots only, even if robotic network is available on that area.

Why ?

It’s a common situation: I select part of forest for deconstruction, half of it is immediately destroyed by personal robots, and another half is waiting for network robots which takes half an hour to arrive to the remote border. I’m stuck and have to wait.

Another example: I place some blueprint and again, half of plant is quickly constructed by personal robots, and another part (may be located outside of personal roboport construction area) is waiting for network robots which take some time to arrive over big base. So, I have personal robots, I have enough items in the inventory but still have to wait.

New toggle button could command for the network: do not touch what I gonna do now. It shouldn’t affect any construction started before.

Which network? All of them?

What about multiplayer? Are you toggling networks which belong to your force, i.e. shared with other players who didn't want that behaviour toggled?

You can avoid this situation simply by not having roboport construction coverage where it isn't wanted or needed.

Deadlock989 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 11:17 am You can avoid this situation simply by not having roboport construction coverage where it isn't wanted or needed.

Nonono. The correct factorian solution is: YOU NEED MORE PERSONAL ROBOPORTS.
As this only happens when the blueprint entity count > personal roboport deployment slots.

What OP really wants is the age old idea of "build my next blueprint with my personal robots only", but as that would require a complete rewrite of how robots work it's not gonna happen as has been said many times.

Deadlock989 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 11:17 am Which network? All of them?

What about multiplayer? Are you toggling networks which belong to your force, i.e. shared with other players who didn't want that behaviour toggled?

You can avoid this situation simply by not having roboport construction coverage where it isn't wanted or needed.

I think this toggle button should affect blueprints placed of button owner, and all networks should respect this. The main idea is – player wants to construct blueprint as soon as possible. If network can build so fast like personal robots – it’s welcome, but if it takes 10 sec. longer – sorry, too long. It’s not necessary for repeated strategic tasks like “plonk and forget”. Speed is important if I develop new layouts and cannot move forward while some part is incomplete or if there are still obstacles left. It’s also important for defense lines, there’s a war.
I can’t evade roboports because they are everywhere for other tasks in the background. I don’t want to go to the desert to construct new line

eradicator wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 12:01 pm What OP really wants is the age old idea of "build my next blueprint with my personal robots only", but as that would require a complete rewrite of how robots work it's not gonna happen as has been said many times.

Does it really require to rewrite robots’ behavior? It looks like blueprint items are distributed (assigned) between personal and network robots at the moment of blueprint placing. I think new toggle button should alter this algorithm in very simple way: “not some, but all items are dedicated to personal robots”. The rest stays unaltered. Of course, I don’t know what are real difficulties, I just guess.

coppercoil wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 12:05 pmI can’t evade roboports because they are everywhere for other tasks in the background

You can, you just don't want to.

I can only think of one situation where I was annoyed by the kind of issue you describe and it was solved by using buffer chests. If it takes a very long time for constructor bots to build something because the resources and the destination are very remote from each other, it is because you have told them to do that. Solution: don't tell them to do that. Make the resources more immediately available, or introduce a temporary break in the logistic coverage. You don't need special buttons and a game engine rewrite to solve these problems.

Deadlock989 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 12:35 pm You can, you just don't want to.

I can only think of one situation where I was annoyed by the kind of issue you describe and it was solved by using buffer chests. If it takes a very long time for constructor bots to build something because the resources and the destination are very remote from each other, it is because you have told them to do that. Solution: don't tell them to do that. Make the resources more immediately available, or introduce a temporary break in the logistic coverage. You don't need special buttons and a game engine rewrite to solve these problems.

Of course, I play in the style I like, and I don‘t want to play using things I don’t like.

For example, my border networks are dedicated for repair only, there’s few robots and no chests. I could deploy delivery/removal infrastructure here, but I won’t. Defense lines are built once and left forgotten without any deposits in the chests. That’s my philosophy.

Network in the base contains single source point of items. This is how I understand word “order” in my factory. Strategic lines are built slower – it’s ok for me, because personal robots are for fast building. Unless they are not as fast as they could...

Factorio is a unique game to play in the million different ways. There can be various tools, someone will use them, someone will not. Would you say “you can use belts instead of robots, you just don’t want to”? I play this game BECAUSE I can do it how I want.

coppercoil wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:13 pmFactorio is a unique game to play in the million different ways. There can be various tools, someone will use, someone will not. Would you say “you can use belts instead of robots, you just don’t want to”? I play this game BECAUSE I can do it how I want.

I don't disagree. Of course you're free to play the game the way you want. Even in really inefficient ways that could be avoided with minimal effort. That's your choice.

But if people are asking for core game mechanics to be changed to suit their individual playstyle, especially ones which might affect game performance or introduce unpleasant unintended consequences, you might expect people to have an opinion on the matter.

coppercoil wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 12:21 pm

eradicator wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 12:01 pm What OP really wants is the age old idea of "build my next blueprint with my personal robots only", but as that would require a complete rewrite of how robots work it's not gonna happen as has been said many times.

Does it really require to rewrite robots’ behavior? It looks like blueprint items are distributed (assigned) between personal and network robots at the moment of blueprint placing. I think new toggle button should alter this algorithm in very simple way: “not some, but all items are dedicated to personal robots”. The rest stays unaltered. Of course, I don’t know what are real difficulties, I just guess.

Just search the forum. The question is really old. I even agree that it'd be nice to have some solution to the problem. But it won't happen. As far as i know when a ghost is built is requests for a bot, until it gets one. And while personal ones are priorizited (i think), there's no mechanism to completely block normal robots. And anyway it'd only ask for problems when people then in the middle of it decided they want normal robots after all.

Deadlock989 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:18 pm

coppercoil wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:13 pmFactorio is a unique game to play in the million different ways. There can be various tools, someone will use, someone will not. Would you say “you can use belts instead of robots, you just don’t want to”? :) I play this game BECAUSE I can do it how I want.

I don't disagree. Of course you're free to play the game the way you want. Even in really inefficient ways that could be avoided with minimal effort. That's your choice.

But if people are asking for core game mechanics to be changed to suit their individual playstyle, especially ones which might affect game performance or introduce unpleasant unintended consequences, you might expect people to have an opinion on the matter.

Lulz. If you don't understand a problem, maybe you shouldn't barge into the room and declare the problem naught. You're only gonna make a fool of yourself. Which you've been doing a lot lately.

Deadlock989 wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 1:18 pm I don't disagree. Of course you're free to play the game the way you want. Even in really inefficient ways that could be avoided with minimal effort. That's your choice.

But if people are asking for core game mechanics to be changed to suit their individual playstyle, especially ones which might affect game performance or introduce unpleasant unintended consequences, you might expect people to have an opinion on the matter.

The word “inefficient” is subjective. The word “could be avoided” depends of the goal. Don’t say like it’s a bad thing.

I don’t know so far, if it will affect game performance, or if it requires redesign the core of game mechanics. It seems, we have different opinions about it. Nevertheless, I’m here to explain X/1000000th point of view

When you notice you've tried to deconstruct too big, and bots from the other side of the map come to deconstruct some trees while your personal bots have already finished their share of the work, you can "undeconstruct" with [shift] the trees you don't want to wait for, and re-clear the part with your personal bots again. At least it should be possible.

Koub wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 4:23 pm When you notice you've tried to deconstruct too big, and bots from the other side of the map come to deconstruct some trees while your personal bots have already finished their share of the work, you can "undeconstruct" with [shift] the trees you don't want to wait for, and re-clear the part with your personal bots again. At least it should be possible.

Hm...for *de*construction it should be easy enough to write a modded selection tool that only marks as many things as you have free personal robots available. Would mean you have to constantly re-mark the forest though.

Construction is less easy to solve unless you don't want half blueprints...

eradicator wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 5:32 pmConstruction is less easy to solve unless you don't want half blueprints...

Just fooling with ideas here, but if there were a "cancel/stop" function that worked similarly to Ctrl+Z, except that it only undid things that the bots had not already done, the construction half would be just as easy.

Theikkru wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 5:43 pm

eradicator wrote: Sat Jun 01, 2019 5:32 pmConstruction is less easy to solve unless you don't want half blueprints...

Just fooling with ideas here, but if there were a "cancel/stop" function that worked similarly to Ctrl+Z, except that it only undid things that the bots had not already done, the construction half would be just as easy.

Place blueprint -> deconstruct (filter:ghosts) -> Place blueprint? Eh. Not automatic. Also i was talking about what can and can not be modded. And there's no way to know if there's a bot heading towards a ghost or not as far as i can tell. Unless i misunderstand what you were trying to say.

Yeah, I meant the deconstruct ghosts part, but also remove given deconstruct orders (without restoring blueprints for already executed ones). You'd want to ignore bots en-route since the point is to interrupt jobs assigned to base bots further away. As you said, not automatic, but it would be as easy as deconstruct/cancel. Would also have other uses as well (e.g. you're out building something when the biters come knocking and you need to halt construction to keep bots out of harm's way).

Theikkru wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2019 8:07 pm You'd want to ignore bots en-route since the point is to interrupt jobs assigned to base bots further away.

That would also ignore personal bots en-route, making the feature annyoing to use as you'd have to be careful not to use 0.5 seconds before a bot places something. I don't do broken-by-design mods.

As an alternative, an 'enforce personal roboport usage' might be feasible? The game appears to check for bots from your personal roboport before falling back to the fixed roboport network. Might be possible for the game to just be told to not fallback if a construction project is within your personal roboport range.

Maybe when using alt or shift for construction/deconstruction you can force the bots to come from your personal roboport.

Sometimes when deconstructing, I have to deconstruct in bits or remove roboports to keep bots from the wider network from interferring. Quite a pain.

merged with existing topic

Most arguments have already been dropped. Very low chance of implementation, because it would be against the basic idea of automation.

There is a mod that attempts to give the desired result, but they use a lot of code to trick the existing system and it has to be manually applied to specific ghosts. https://mods.factorio.com/mod/BotPrioritizer