Factorio Forums

Disclaimer: As always it's possible that this has been suggested before. I don't know.

I like the idea of follower robots. Other then the little capsules used in battle, the following ideas assume
a more sturdy construction that doesn't have a limited life span. They serve more peaceful purposes,
although a military version is of course also possible.

1. Expensive to build, should probably be larger then regular robots
2. Has storage similar to a chest or car that can be accessed by the player and maybe by other robots
3. Selfpowered, i.e. requires solar panels to build (stole the idea from https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=7991)
4. Can either follow the player around or be told to remain stationary (might get annoying otherwise)
5. Can work as construction robot and place down items out of it's inventory (or accessible providers in the local
   logistics network).
6. Can work as a logistics robot, being able to move large chunks of items at once (i.e. in order to quickly empty
   a chest and remove it). This could also enable it to self-supply on requested items, i.e. you tell it to ‘collect
   this stuff and come back’.
7. Maybe can even serve as a mobile roboport (possibly only while in stationary mode, when it doesn't consume its
   own power). It should however be a lot more limited then a regular roboport.

Quite possibly a single robot that can do all of the above might be quite overpowered. An obvious solution to that is to
split it up into multiple types of robots, especially the ‘mobile roboport’ idea.

Why I think this is a good idea
Even if you split them up, this may seem quite OP. However, it mostly serves to do the tedious tasks in a more flexible
manner. Currently you can set up massive networks and blueprinted constructions as long as you are in range of a
roboport network, which is already a huge relief. It means however, that, as soon as you go out to build an outpost,
everything becomes useless. You can set up a new, local network, but that is very tedious and quite often overkill.

So, the above ideas basically serve the following purposes:

• Make the tedious jobs like collecting and transporting resources a little less time consuming.
• Provide an intermediate sollution between setting up a static roboport network and doing everything yourself
• Offer a sort of replacement for cars in the later game. It just seems weird to be driving around in a fragile, fuel
  powered vehicle while hundreds of weightless robots are zooming about.

Lemme know what you think

How do you want to "tell the bots doing a job"? I ask cause I think the user interface for that bots is very complex question and should be part of this suggestion.

Heh, didn't see that post until now. You've got a point, that logistics functionality might become a little complicated.

Let's see, I can think of two ‘modes’ for that bot to work in, potentially via a checkbox in the bot's GUI:
Once as a "collector", where you have a simple [GO] button to send it off and collect a set list of items similar to using the player's own requester slots. It may or may not receive help from other regular bots while doing that.
The other mode would be just "go work as a regular logistics bot".

So here's a beautiful (ymmv) ascii art GUI mock-up: At the top is the robot in regular logistics robot mode. At the bottom of the GUI is a button to toggle that mode. The lower GUI shows the request slots and a Go button labeled Collect.

This is just the thoughts of a few minutes, it's certainly not ready-to-go material. I guess that is the nature of most suggestions.

Regardless of whether this specific logistics-robot-behaviour makes sense or not, please also consider all the other (independent) ideas in the initial post.