Friday Facts #225 - Bots versus belts (part 2)

[Caine]

I use 8 or 12 wide blue belts at mining outposts. Laying down all the belt sucks ass in vanilla with 100 personal bots at 20 UPS. Thinking about it... I should use bots for it. QoL is what matters here.

If I read your post correctly then I feel the need to point out that this whole discussion is solely about logistic bots, not construction bots. So far everybody seems to be pro construction bots.

[Bauer]

This is one of the few FFF threads ever, that leaves me downright angry. Hence the comment, although I somewhat doubt if will get many reads so far down the thread...

I have played about 20 serious maps with vastly different styles and (self-chosen) objectives. Only one of these maps was pure-bot at the end (4 rpm megabase in 0.14) and 5-7 other used bots to a different extents (including a 1rpm mainly belt-based, 1.5k spm, mainly bot-based), the rest was pure belt. My personal conclusion concerning the *overpoweredness* of bots is: They are only better in each regard when coming to the point, where construction costs and power are irrelevant and you have quite a lot of the upgrade technologies. In other words: When reaching (or at least approaching) megabase status. For most other objectives, the fastest and most direct path is to skip them entirely (e.g. no speedrunner uses bots).

So the whole discussion secretly revolves around megascale production. When asking *is this mass-bot playstyle fun* you are effectively asking, whether megabase-building is fun. When discussing nerfs, you are essentially discussing how much to screw with megabases.

In this threads dozens of people propose different ways to nerf bots. I ask myself, how many of them ever built a megabase themself. Somehow I suspect, this thread is about many players who do not need a feature to its full extent discussing how to make life harder for those who need it. This is what makes me angy. I am quite sure, the majority of the players have no idea about the topic of mega-base construction. Thats ok. But then they should stay silent about screwing with this specific playstyle.

As I did build some larger basis, I feel confident giving my opinion/experience: First of all, building these larger bases was fun. It took more time than the other maps (so much for trivial) and gave me lots of new problems to solve. The problems that bots allowed to skip, were those I had already solved several times and was not keen on solving again. The single modular production cells were rather boring to build. However, they would be equally boring on belt-basis. For me, they are just black boxes with train input/outputs on this level of play. You mainly design the choice, placement, number, interaction of these black boxes. I am not even super keen on using bots inside them. If you can find an equally UPS efficient way with belts, it would be cool. But just making these black boxes worse in terms of throughput/UPS-efficiency without replacement actually reduces the type of challenge you are seeking here.

Last comment: The new splitters are really cool

+1

[vampiricdust]

You don't care about resource or energy costs in late game.

What matters is player time, QoL, and UPS. (and maybe foot print)

Hence, nerving or buffing resource or energy costs is useless if not exaggerated up to crippling the game. And nerving player time, QoL, and/or UPS doesn't make any sense (and engages ppl). Belt UPS has been optimized with 0.16 already. Thanks for that!

That leaves, as some have pointed out already, only buffing belts with respect to QoL and player time. Enough suggestions have been made in this thread.

Then go play on creative mode or make everything just cost 1 of everything if costs dont matter. Why bother locking them behind research too, just make it 1 science pack, cause in end game costs dont matter! Nevermind cost and research progression are the top 2 ways to balance items in just about every single game...

[Bauer]

I use 8 or 12 wide blue belts at mining outposts. Laying down all the belt sucks ass in vanilla with 100 personal bots at 20 UPS. Thinking about it... I should use bots for it. QoL is what matters here.

If I read your post correctly then I feel the need to point out that this whole discussion is solely about logistic bots, not construction bots. So far everybody seems to be pro construction bots.

Well, no.
I'm talking about the "fun" of building belts vs. bots. The tediousness of laying down hundreds to thousands of belts is an argument to use bots.

[HurkWurk]

am i the only one that gets to the point where i have massive logistics and think "its time to start a new game, this one is very over" ?
i dont ever get to the mega base stage. at that point im only researching infinite stuff, so the game is "done" for me.

[Bauer]

You don't care about resource or energy costs in late game.

What matters is player time, QoL, and UPS. (and maybe foot print)

Hence, nerving or buffing resource or energy costs is useless if not exaggerated up to crippling the game. And nerving player time, QoL, and/or UPS doesn't make any sense (and engages ppl). Belt UPS has been optimized with 0.16 already. Thanks for that!

That leaves, as some have pointed out already, only buffing belts with respect to QoL and player time. Enough suggestions have been made in this thread.

Then go play on creative mode or make everything just cost 1 of everything if costs dont matter. Why bother locking them behind research too, just make it 1 science pack, cause in end game costs dont matter! Nevermind cost and research progression are the top 2 ways to balance items in just about every single game...

Don't get me wrong. I don't want everything for free. I'm saying that I will accept the associated costs as a given. Look at the energy costs of bots as of today. It already is ridiculously high. Do I care? Not really. I just plug down as many solar panels as needed. This consumes player time but doesn't add to the fun if you increase by a factor of x.

[Caine]

Well, no.
I'm talking about the "fun" of building belts vs. bots. The tediousness of laying down hundreds to thousands of belts is an argument to use bots.

Ok, then I misunderstood you. Apologies, it's late. Time to go to bed.

[Bauer]

Well, no.
I'm talking about the "fun" of building belts vs. bots. The tediousness of laying down hundreds to thousands of belts is an argument to use bots.

Ok, then I misunderstood you. Apologies, it's late. Time to go to bed.

Never mind. I wished I had written it more clearly.
Time to get up where I am currently...

[FasterJump]

(...)
A previous poster showed a great little mockup of item stacking on belts.
https://webmshare.com/VGWYj

I'm surprised it doesn't get more love because it's a very simple and effective solution. It gives late game belts exactly what they need to compete with trains and bots: More throughput. The visuals are incredibly simple and obvious, I don't think anyone can look at this picture and be confused. (...)

• I like this idea. You could allow items to stack up to piles of 4 when stack inserters are used (and buff stack inserters capacity from 12 to 16)
  It's a very simple solution that adds a new layer of optimization to do. And it doesn't looks strange to me. For ores, each stacked version would looks richier.
  Alternatively, it could be done without rendering stacks on the belt, or in a minimalistic way: darker textures...
• Another idea: divide the distance between items by 2 (=twice density). But change overlaping priority so there is an alternance: 'below' - 'above' - 'below' - 'above'

[Bauer]

am i the only one that gets to the point where i have massive logistics and think "its time to start a new game, this one is very over" ?
i dont ever get to the mega base stage. at that point im only researching infinite stuff, so the game is "done" for me.

I guess you're not the only one. However, there are many ppl out there who have fun building really huge structures. Look at the railway junction discussion. You surely don't need 8 to 8 junctions to launch a rocket or two. Maybe this it the big conflict in this thread: ppl like you have to use the same game elements as mega base builders.

(I am not saying that one or the other has a better right to exist!!)

[anarcobra]

So, by all accounts the bot charging nerfs are a reality now, but could the devs please provide a modding API to limit bot interactions with chests?

[Hertzila]

I haven't read most of the thread, but IMO if there were to be some sort of bot nerf to bring them closer to belts, the often-floated idea of enforing congestion through non-zero chest-access time sounds like a good feature to try out and see how it would change things. Intuitively, it should limit bots to a much less volume transportation, while still filling the niche of, well, niche transportation of ingredients between the player and storage as well as between storage and small low-throughput manufacturing areas around the base that would complicate belt lines too much.

Also, YAY smart splitters!

[yekkusu]

My only regard about this FFF now is this:

Nerfing Bots won't change the playstyle of people who uses only belt.
It will make the life of people who really like bots, more expensive.

So, those people will feel like they're being punished, and people who use only belt won't see any difference in gameplay.
So why?
Nerf bots is the only logical solution for a problem only, and only some staff members have, because the majority of players I know of Factorio, don't want bots being nerfed.

To tell the thruth, bots are a hassle to deal with sometimes, they're good but in giant structure they're useless anyway.

For me, it looks and I'm sorry devs, I know how hard is to code a game, but it looks like someone there are sick of having people asking for better bots logistics or better physics for them, or better charging stations, none of those will ever come by, and I don't mind.
But why take away something that won't will make the like of people who love belts, better?
I don't know, it's like: Take the ball of that kid on the street because I don't like how his ball moves faster than the pieces on my chestboard.

[vipm23]

Concerning stacking: I think as discussed it's an excessively clunky mechanic, and that there is a less clunky, more intuitive way to achieve the same goals.

Namingly:
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/twanvl/pallets
It works exactly like barrels, but for items instead of fluids. Make bots incapable of carrying pallets, and this would be pretty much good to go.

[pleauser]

one of the wonderful things about factorio is that there is no one way to play. Please do not change this!!!

stop incentivizing one way to play over another. first you do you ad fiat change to both barrels and tankers and now you're (apparently) planning on nerfing bots.

please focus on adding to the game and not taking away. take blizzards example and walk away from that dark path, please...

i agree with xterminator, it sounding more and more like it might be time to stop downloading updates

[Floaf]

It sounds like you guys want to decide what I think is the most fun way to play the game
etc.

Oh boy, here we go again. I'm not quite sure HOW you managed to read that much into the dev's intent and turn it so negative so quickly.

Well, they do write stuff like: "We believe that belts are more fun, but we are guiding the player towards a less fun style of play." and "If a new player looks at a random Twitch stream, Youtube video, or Imgur album of a megabase, everything he sees now is a train network connecting a bunch of segregated robot production cells, which is visually repetitive, and compared to belt bases, visually less interesting.".

[starfyredragon]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but I noticed the debate, and the problem, and thought of a solution, and couldn't remain silent.

A way to increase speed, be visually interesting, and improve belts without being just another iteration of speed increase.

A belt teleporter.

A belt transport, kind of like the underground belt, but with greater range and instant transmission from one side to the other (but maybe increasing energy requirements with greater range.) As factories get really big, criss-crossing so many belts in close proximity gets to be a pain, that having some faster range options that skip the in-between areas would be a very nice option. And visually, having arcs of lightning bounce between sender & receiver could make for a pretty interesting visual.

Addendum: If that's too far fetched, as an alternative to a teleporter, having a material launcher on one end and a receiver basket on the other, and get the fun of watching products go flying through the air (maybe require level 3 belts built before them to give 'em a 'running start'.).

[JimiQ]

My proposal of nerfing the bots:
Make roboport larger (4x6 or maybe even 6x6)
Make roboport bot storage lower (2 stacks instead of 6)
Make bot cargo space research require space science
Make bot recharge rate slower at start, but with infinite research option

----
As for buffing belts - like it was already said - make blue belts twice as fast as red belt (instead of 3 times as yellow)
Stack long inserter
Stack inserter stack size infinite research, but only when interacting with BELT (container - container max out at 12)
Fix the compression - always compress (side loading, inserters)

[GenBOOM]

Addendum: If that's too far fetched, as an alternative to a teleporter, having a material launcher on one end and a receiver basket on the other, and get the fun of watching products go flying through the air (maybe require level 3 belts built before them to give 'em a 'running start'.).

you sir, are a genius.

this is something we all need in our lives.
think of the musical symphonies that could be written with materials flying through the sky like fireworks.

how romantic.

[CremionisD]

As I noted in round one, nothing about nerfing bots will make belts more fun.

This is actually a very good point IMO. Perhaps bots should not be "nerfed", but re-imagined to be more fun. I mean, currently they are basically item teleporters that make stuff "magically" appear where they are wanted once the bot networks is set up. IMO That is not fun, it is powerful and convenient, but not fun at all. So, how to make bots themselves more fun instead? What/how could they be changed so that there is continued challenge specifically in bots after the initial set-up of the bot network?

If this is already discussed, I'm sorry for repeating it. (The thread is too long to read through completely).