Factorio Forums

eradicator wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 25, 2021 6:55 pm

ssilk wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 25, 2021 7:17 am

I would change it so: robots should try to avoid parking in roboports, that have currently not enough power supply.

It's easy to say "enough" but how do you even define that? (Let alone making it not kill performance.)

“Enough” is a matter of balancing the game. Because we cannot know that, because it is too complex.

For example it could be made so, that the power level must be above 66%. That should give enough reserve to handle remaining incoming bots and keep the port powered for some while. The problem here is, it gets very fast complex, when you’re going into power brownout. Bots need more power when charging, so there are ups and downs where a roboport is open and closed, because sometimes over 66%, sometimes below. And that’s true for other ideas in this thread, they think it’s all that easy, but don’t take in account what other situations can and will happen...

It is much easier to handle that from player perspective: first I build some kind of supporting roboport grid. Just roboports and big poles. You don’t need to cover the logistic area, just the construction area, so I build “rows” of roboports with a distance of 100 tiles. Enough space to place my blueprint inside that area and go away.

Energy buffer inside the roboport should be smaller than robo-drone need to recharge.
Therfore right afte build, roboport connects itself into grid only if there is a powerline.
As a side effect, robport off the grid will not be available for recharge - that is definition of "enough energy"
aas second nice effect, you can swiitch off roboport immediately to prevent start ,so your construction bots will not die in your own flametower fire.

This issue basically only occurs when someone lays down enormous blueprints that include roboports and things don't happen to build in the right order.

It seems like a case of "Doctor, it hurts when I do this."

jodokus31 wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 25, 2021 10:08 am

Maybe roboports could stay part of the network, even if unpowered?

There is also this case, when you have an outpost with a roboport for automatic building and repair, and somehow the power gets cut while constructing. After a rather short while the robots flee to the next powered roboport, which can be miles away

I never thought about that, but now I want this badly.
Having roboports remain part of networks on power loss would not only keep bots from getting lost in cut of portions of a network, but also allow me to cache networks for Ghost Scanner.

I think the solution is that the bots should not park in the roboport if there is still stuff to build! If they try to charge off an unpowered roboport and exhaust its small internal buffer, they should find the closest roboport with power to charge, not just park.