One of the things I loved about Factorio from the moment I "got" what the game is all about, was that every part is simple. The Unix philosophy - every part does a single job, but does it well.
I've read suggestions about RTS style builder robots. I feel this would go against the simplicity, in the direction of unpredictability, even bloat. Why order a robot to do a thing just once? That's already in the game - there's one "manual inserter", all others are better in solutions they are typically used in because they don't require micromanagement.
What I'd love to see would be a builder robot incapable of thinking. No pathfinding, no "orders" per se, just simple logic, like what's already used in the game.
Solution 1:
Robot has no own method of transportation, it is transported by belts in a similar way a player standing on it is. It consists of a 4-sided inserter and a program: list of quads - (
- building {inserter, radar, pipe},
- direction {N, S, W, E},
- rotation {0, 90, 180, 270 degrees},
- are we building? {Y, N - if N, destroying instead}
When placed over a building on that's the list, it would try to put it in choosen direction (then another one, if more than one and last placement failed).
Deconstruction would be the opposite - if a building in the direction exists, deconstruct it and place it under the robot (if possible, of course). Rotation could be ignored in this case.
Solution 2:
A modified inserter that works while being transported on belts and just places buildings from one side (where they are items, like those inserters about to be made into science) to the other (built buildings), or the opposite for deconstructor.
Building anything more complicated than a straight belt would require at least 2 lanes.
Advantages of having automatic construction/deconstruction bots:
- Large sections of walls could be maintained. This could allow much more powerful creepers to be spawned without difficulty overload (or overhaul).
- Tree cutting. No need for a dedicated woodcutter bot.
- Building/upgrading large belts could be automated.
- Cleanup/scraping entire bases.
- Automated robot dispatching.
- Defense line could be moved forward without tedium of moving it 4 tiles at a time or stress of having to load it all before your face gets chewed off.
- It's not a huge undertaking in terms of coding (not the smallest either, though), but a great step towards letting players build self-sustaining bases. Mods could also use it to make prospector bots, tree planters, constructor creepers and spreading, all-consuming alien moss.
