Logistics net: Less research needed

[dragontamer5788]

And I've suggested a solution, which is what I think is the developer's intent: Use Combinators and Mixed Belts / Sushi Belts for that situation.

Well, given the logistics system is far older than combinators (I checked old changelogs - logistics <= 0.6, combinators first in 0.12), I find it unlikely it was ever the original plan. I feel that logistics was never intended to be better than belts, but by overloading things with sheer numbers of bots + roboports players found ways of pushing them beyond their intended capabilities.

Changing the research requirements for this one part of the system seems so out of place, and a knee-jerk change from the devs to 'fix' this abuse. But it's ended up annoying a bunch of players like me who never even tried pushing the logistics system like that.

I don't consider it abuse however. The Devs clearly intend for robots to be an endgame solution to solve all problems. They solve all layout problems, they solve the majority of bandwidth problems (the few other bandwidth problems are solved by trains). Its fine to have overpowered stuff in the game, as long as its locked behind an appropriate level of research. Indeed: Requester Chests being locked to Yellow Science exactly solves the problem elegantly. It means that you have to work with layout issues through Green, Blue, Purple, and Yellow Science before you get the magic device (requester chests) that negate layout issues. That's... perfectly fine.

As I've said, in the two games I've played through I ended up frustrated without requester chests, and ended up setting up single assembler production of the required science packs, etc and, as there was no space to belt things around, ended up spending a couple of hours manually ferrying items around until I had enough. So while tedious and not fun, the 0.15 change hasn't actually fixed anything. I then got lazy, and converted this temporary science production to use requester chests, and ended up researching things like MK2 power armor earlier than I would have otherwise done, and completely skipped using things like tanks.

And as I stated earlier: there are plenty of tools in the Red / Green belt science theater that solve that problem. Combinators can be used to calculate what objects are on belts to create a "logistic system light" that's practical to use as soon as Construction Bots are researched. The use of Cargo Wagons and Filter inserters (erm... outserters??) can accept "generally" any item and then organize them into neat little belts. And of course, the tried-and-true strategy of "Main Bus" exists. There's a variety of strategies available to make an extendable factory. I understand that its frustrating when you first realize that your design doesn't scale to the midgame... but that frustration is canceled out by the joy of coming up with a layout strategy that actually works. And there are many such strategies available.

Indeed: the #1 solution... which is "refactoring", becomes as easy as "Deconstruction Planner" with Construction Bots. Delete Everything, have your Construction Bots return everything to Storage Chests. Then, design an extendable design and plop down blue prints. Realize that you need 5-more square right here to make things work? Blueprint your current factory, deconstruction-planner it. Then shift everything over by 5-squares. Its... kind of easy, and automated. The Construction Bots and blueprints already solve any layout concerns automatically. Just not as EZ-mode as Requester Chests.

So true, Layout issues are a major concern in the mid-game. But the game provides so many opportunities for the creative player to actually solve any layout problems, even without Requester Chests. Its just that when Requester Chests are finally unlocked, all of those layout concerns become straight up trivial, negating all of the other strategies in the game. Logistic Bots just fly point-to-point through the air, solving any possible issues.

[jonatkins]

The Devs clearly intend for robots to be an endgame solution to solve all problems

That is not clear to me - requester chests were on blue science <=0.14 - no alien science needed. This placed it nicely as a mid-game feature. So what changed in 0.15 that it's now an end-game feature? Nothing that I've seen...

Anyway, I don't think we're ever going to agree on this, so will stop replying for now.

If someone can get an answer from the devs to clarify reasons for this change it'd be nice (or if I've missed any posts about it elsewhere, point me there), but while they are very active when it comes to the bugs area, they don't seem to be very active in other areas of the forum.

[BlakeMW]

I'm also firmly in agreement with the 0.15 placement in the tech tree.

I've been playing a few Deathworld games, in my latest game I did the whole "human logistic bot" thing to make the 600 high tech science packs for Logistic network, I had +40% prod bonus and +20% in the labs so only needed ingredients for ~350 packs. It's what, 11 stacks of blue circuits, 7 stacks of speed1 modules, 2 stacks of batteries and lots o' copper (I think I eventually belted the copper in to make the wire) - it's not hard to leave an assembler chugging away filling a chest with blue circuits then just transfer a bunch into the high tech assembler.
When I played a standard game it was just ridiculously easy to human logistic bot it.

This thread also reminds me of the grumbling about Personal Fusion Reactor (also High Tech now), when people complain that using personal solar panels they don't have enough power to do everything. I felt they lacked gratitude for what a leap in capabilities Modular Armor with a personal shield, 2x Roboports and some batteries and portable solar panels is over Heavy Armor. In a similar way having construction robots is an AMAZING upgrade in capabilities, not only do they let you make use of blueprints they'll also repair and maintain your defenses which lets you focus on production, and then with another tech logistic bots will deliver you the materials you need to expand the factory. The first great leap in capabilities is having robots (basically) build the factory for you, the second great leap in capabilities is having the robots pretty much run the factory.

[Tev]

This forum needs +1 function so I can just +1 posts like the BlakeMW's one above.

[Kelderek]

The Devs clearly intend for robots to be an endgame solution to solve all problems

That is not clear to me - requester chests were on blue science <=0.14 - no alien science needed. This placed it nicely as a mid-game feature. So what changed in 0.15 that it's now an end-game feature? Nothing that I've seen...

What changed is that the devs corrected the problem and put this tech in its rightful place. If they did not think it should be in the end game then they would not have changed its location in the tech tree. The evidence is quite clear about their intentions, all that is missing is a more in depth explanation of the "why" part. But as has been repeated in this thread numerous times, we can make educated guesses about the "why": logistic bots are very powerful and therefore may be better suited for the end game than the mid or early game.

[Engimage]

I also do agree on devs' decision on placing logistic network that high in research tree. Bots are really super powerful and trivialize gameplay in many ways.
On my latest marathon playthrough I did really enjoy being forced to build tons of belts and design cool belt builds around to make high troughput and make it look nice.

I do also agree on placing fusion reactor that high in research.
However mid game feels a bit lacking playing with personal solar panels as they are. Maybe some kind of MK2 solar would help.

[doomsday101]

Having been one of the players put out by this change enough to register. I personally do not think the current technology split is the way to do it.

The general defence I do not mind it being high up the tree, because I can hack the technology tree and get it anyway, is just new player unfriendly. So I personally do not think that is the best way to go, the more newer players have fun the bigger the player-base.

Since most people would like bots quite early so that they can avoid some tedium and remote build via blueprints. Creates a very artificial technology spread. I am however on board with the idea that technology that solves all the problems should be end-game. So I feel a better option would be to not restrict the ability to use them to run your whole factory but to make this a comparable choice to running belts. Same as nuclear is hard-sih to use before Korvex processing but then becomes the no brainer after.

I think however the problem is not the bots, it is the chests. These chests make using bots completely trivial, either to build things with blueprints or via factory deliveries. They also allow a throughput equal to the number of bots. So I think introducing a level of "bad robot chests" then unlocking "the current chest system" at high tech would be a better way to do it. Considering that bots are flying drones, call it logistic landing pads or similar, I doubt anyone would complain about running a factory off bots if each bot took x seconds to deliver their item giving a throughput equivalent to like 1% of a belt.

It also has a slight advantage of requiring people to think a bit about how they are going to blueprint everything as their base might not have the ability to launch enough items into the air to build it that quick.

[jonatkins]

I think introducing a level of "bad robot chests" then unlocking "the current chest system" at high tech would be a better way to do it

That's similar to an idea I'd been thinking about, but had not yet mentioned.

The idea I had was to rate-limit access to chests by bots:

• Only one bot can access a chest at any one time
• Accessing a chest - either in OR out - takes a certain amount of time
• Research available to decrease chest access time. Maybe even research for parallel access too?
• For mods that add larger chests (e.g. warehousing), mods can define multiple access points for them.

This would apply to all chests - requester, provider and storage. It would make chest access work in the same way as roboport charging of bots.

Other changes I've been thinking of - change bot energy use from being distance based to being time based. They'd start of much worse than the current system, charging very frequently, but once speed research has been done they'd be able to go further than they do now. Also, as large construction orders often tie up most construction bots with charging, I'd suggest construction bots are several times more energy efficient than logistics bots.

As for matching the current bot performance with this change even at the end-game? I don't think that should be required. I've had a chance now to play a game where I switched over from belts to bots for the end game (quite a large setup, over 750 roboports, and 10,000 logistics bots) so I now know what they're capable of now. And I'd say they're overpowered, and need changes so that belts remain relevant to the end.

[greep]

Ideally a solution would exist that would allow bots to be used for their intended purpose earlier: that is moving a select few items that are hard to bus as opposed to replacing your entire factory.

I think a good quick and dirty balance would simply be moving cargo size upgrades to start at high tech + production and move log net back to blue, so cargo 1 would cost now what cargo 3 costs. Speed would be kept at blue to make for speedy personal item delivery, which only needs a few hundred bots at 0 cargo upgrades. It might make bots a bit of a newb trap in that players might think they could replace their factory and find themselves having to build thousands of bots with tens of thousands of solar panels, though, but then again the logistic network is confusing for nebwies anyways so they probably wouldn't know about it's full power to start with.

But honestly, doing nothing and keeping it at yellow isn't that bad, it's better than trivializing the game. And it also means normal players might actually use the circuit network every now and then

The general defence I do not mind it being high up the tree, because I can hack the technology tree and get it anyway, is just new player unfriendly. So I personally do not think that is the best way to go, the more newer players have fun the bigger the player-base.
.

This is a really good reason why the current way isn't that great imo, though. Costing only 150 science means unless I'm playing deathworld/marathon, I'm just going to jumpstart it, whereas newbies would not think of this. So it doesn't stop veteran players from swiching their whole factory out at all, but it does put off newbies to a large part of the game. Honestly, if the desired idea is moving it to endgame entirely, I'd bump it from 150 to 1000. That is: trivial if the science is automated, but nearly impossible to handcraft from parts.

But I prefer my idea above.

[Jap2.0]

I think, like it looks like many other do, that this isn't a good position for bots. Unfortunately, there aren't any solutions that please everyone. Moving research up would make bots OP, moving them down would make everyone have a giant belt base before using bots, and keeping it how it is makes very little sense, as the player is literally a active provider and requester chest. So my suggestion: Change the researches so that passive provider and storage chests are a very early blue or very late green technology, and active providers and requesters are a very early purple or very late blue technology. Now, some people would say that no matter how late of a technology we make bots, they are OP. I won't debate whether that is true or not, but to justify making them available so much earlier I would suggest making one of several changes:

• 1. Moderately increase their power usage. Many people say that bots are amazing, and, again, I won't debate if they are, but increasing their power cost would keep them viable for low- production items but cause consequences for solely bot bases.
  2. Increase the cost of bots, especially logistic bots - perhaps have construction bots take 1 advanced circuit or 8 regular circuits, and logistic bots take 1 or 2 processing units.
  3. Any of the other excellent solutions mentioned in this thread, such as wait times to pick up items from chests or limits to active bots (increasable by research).

Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the issue. If the majority of the players or the developers decide to do it differently, I won't complain (too much ...)

[Claudius1729]

After a bit more playing I have come to understand people's position on *logistic* bots to be further down the tree tech. I actually prefer building belt factories, so maybe I am biaised.

I still feel construction bots should be buffed by a large margin, in a generalized effort on all fronts to make construction fun and smoother.

[mrvn]

There's a few key points I was thinking of making, and some of your comment gives the perfect place for them.

If you are desperate for that requester chest you could craft or move some science packs by hand or you could automate it using belts like everything else in the early game.

For me, at least, it's not about making the production/high-tech science packs with the logistics bots - all that I do on my main bus. It's about being able to easily automate the building of assemblers, oil wells, chemical plans, refineries, plus supporting infrastructure such as inserters (long, filter), power poles, splitters, underground belts - basically things that are needed in small(ish) quantities when building stuff, so only a single logistics-supplied assembler is more than enough capacity. Once they're running with logistics then it makes the expansion needed (to get production + high tech science up and running nicely) much easier, removing the need for hand-crafting most things.

This is an entirely subjective opinion. There is no right or wrong way to do things in a game like this and the game certainly doesn't have a way that it "tells you" how to do it.

But, with this change, the game is telling me not to use logistics to deliver - taking away my choice to get the full logistics system up and running once blue science is automated. Making the full logistics system available from blue science, as before, does not force anyone to actually use it. And oddly, the rest of the logistics system, including delivering to the player themselves, only needs red+green science! One small addition - delivery to machines - needing such a jump in science requirements - just seems crazy.

So far, in my two playthrougs on 0.15, I've been so frustrated without requester chests at this point I've set up single purple/gold science assemblers, a handful of assemblers for the ingredients, and just manually moved resources around until i've got the required science packs. This is a very tedious period in the game, and it really spoils the experience.

Maybe I'll eventually learn to play differently and it won't be so bad, maybe it'll put me off the game, or maybe I'll just have to install the mod that reverts this back - but while I do use mods, I don't like the idea of actually making a change to core gameplay - rather just adding new features I can choose to use or not while playing.

This is similar to saying that substations are the best way to distribute power to your factory, therefore we should get substations much earlier in the game. The problem is that would break progression and greatly devalue small and medium poles. I can get along with small poles just fine even if I don't prefer to use them until I get access to medium ones and eventually substations. In the same fashion, if you get full access to logistic bots too early, then it may devalue the use of belts and trains.

Ditto on loving small power poles. And they're a perfect candidate for building with requester chests: not needed in high quantities, and without requester chests you have to manually deliver raw wood to the system.


I don't think anyone complaining on this thread is asking for the full logistics system to be available really early - but rather restored to it's 0.14 state - red, green and blue science only. Yes, blue science is a little easier now - you don't need batteries any more(?) - but you still need oil refining in place for the plastiic in advanced circuits, so the complexity isn't reduced that much. Perhaps increase the requirements from 150 science packs (to 200 or more?) to make up for this?

Personally I have 3 main uses for requester chests:

1) poor planing, no way to get a belt in there or too lazy to put one in for just one assembler. So put a requester chest there.
2) Return items from the storage chests back into production. Mostly wood but also any items I pick up while modifying and stuff into trash slots. Like any ore picked up building or changing a mining outpost.
3) Request items from the logistic network by putting down a chest and
a) seeing who many are one the way by hovering over the chest
b) being able to run around, leaving the logistics network for a second and then come back and pick up the chest
c) being able to request 1000 items while only having space for 100 without having 900 logistic bots hovering over me failing to drop an item

[Lubricus]

I like that requester chests is locked behind the yellow science. It's fun to try to get the big mess with belts to work. Simple arrays of assembling machines is boring. Figuring out and optimize layouts and belts is the fun part of the game, so it's great if the game force us to play the fun way. So my first rocket I launched was without a single requester chest.
My bob's mod late factory is built the boring way with straight rows of assembling machines without any belts and trains. The supersonic robots is way to tempting and the effectivity and production of the factory is insane.

I like to use bots to build and fetch stuff for me, that eliminate boring repetitive game-play and make it easier to build complex stuff not to use them for the automation of science and rocket production.

[Jap2.0]

I did my first factory without bots too, my major problem right now (personally, I'm not the author of the thread or maybe even the majority) is the tech difference between storage & passive provider and active provider & requester chests.