Aren't construction bots available too late?

[4xel]

Though I do have to lol at this, "The correct way to use them is to abuse the game's mechanics" xD

(I think we should be able to slowly -15mins to 1h- reload modular batteries from the main grid, but that's for another topic)

[...]

+1
excellent points. I'm midly irritated by people thinking

In fact I'd say trying to use bots with just the Modular Armour is pretty painful in general, but the Power Armour still requires Processing Units as does the Fusion Reactor.

,
that at least some times, the only way to use bot is personal armor and fusion reactor.

So I'm not seing things straight and am exagerating a bit.

I now have around 500 construction and 500 logistics bots (no research beyond green) and TBH they are nearly worthless.

As for construction speed goes, 50 unupgraded bots are at least a bit better than the human player.

https://prnt.sc/kd61qh

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Copy blueprint

It takes them 1m47 to build that mine, and it took me 1m52.

• Even though that's not what a typical factory is, a straight line 2 or 3 buildings large would be faster by hand.
• The build is dense and simplistic. Any sparser or more intricate build (eg a very simple assembly line) would be built faster by bots.
• The build has ca 250 objects which is kind of a worse case scenario, since they have to recharge themselves and try to do so all at the same time. Less than 200 and the bots don't have to recharge, significantly more than 250 objects and the charging gets spread out, removing idle time.

So, your 500 worthless construction bots are typically 10 times less worthless than yourself when it comes to build things, 18 times with full green err blue research.

[Zavian]

I now have around 500 construction and 500 logistics bots (no research beyond green) and TBH they are nearly worthless.

As for construction speed goes, 50 unupgraded bots are at least a bit better than the human player.

The first few bot speed increases are really very cheap compared to either 500 construction bots or 500 logistics bots, so if you have that many bots, you probably should have at least worker speed 2. (Admittedly it requires blue science, which the bots themselves don't require, but they do need oil and steel, so no reason you couldn't automate blue science by the point you have 500 bots made).

[mrvn]

once you launch a rocket you could crash ontonthe next planet

The main character is a very unlucky guy. Landing, landing is much better than crash into it.

Good point.

For the backstory maybe the origininal crash planet lacked an ore (or ores) needed for long-range travel, so he needs to exploit additional planets. That could open the door to significant replayability and even expansion into previously untouched tech research.

He learned from his first crash so the second rocket performs better. You still crash, no fuel left for a proper landing,a but you packaged the roboport and bots and maybe some other stuff to survive it. So you get a quicker start the next game.

[darkfrei]

He learned from his first crash so the second rocket performs better. You still crash, no fuel left for a proper landing,a but you packaged the roboport and bots and maybe some other stuff to survive it. So you get a quicker start the next game.

On the first planet was no titanium nitanium, the element, that you need to research new technologies. Without nitanium on the chemical fuel you just cannot travel faster than light.

[Koub]

He learned from his first crash so the second rocket performs better. You still crash, no fuel left for a proper landing,a but you packaged the roboport and bots and maybe some other stuff to survive it. So you get a quicker start the next game.

On the first planet was no titanium nitanium, the element, that you need to research new technologies. Without nitanium on the chemical fuel you just cannot travel faster than light.

[BlueTemplar]

Solution 0 : Building by hand.
Solution 1 : going on site, using personal roboport, running around, babysitting construction.
Solution 2 : going on site, dropping a temporary roboport, babysitting construction, dismantling roboport and repeat.
Solution 3 : open radar view and drop blueprints containing rails, radars and roboport.

• Solution 0 is really not as bad as you think, maybe 2 to 3 times slower than other solutions to build new double railways.
• Of course solution 2 are much lower tech than solution 1, but that's part of what you want to change, so I won't touch further on this.
• A mobile roboport like solution 1 benefits from the thin long characteristic of the structure, since you can cut robot wandering time by running around.
• For solution 1, you're limited by the power of your armor, and by the construction bot count. That's not too bad for thin long structures, but it does mitigate the advantages.
• Solution 2 can be refined by dropping the whole railway at once, going from roboport to roboport with a car, for robot to build the whole railway in parallel. It goes from significantly slower than solution 1 for a single track to siginficantly faster. (In a sense, it makes the power and robocount advantage matter, despite the structure being long and thin).
• Solution 3 is probably the slowest, in the sense construction time is the biggest, but it also is the one requiring the less player time, by a huge margin. You only have to click the blueprints, and you can order dozens of other bluprints during the construction you'd have to babysit otherwise.
• One disadvantage of solution 3 and refined 2 is the roboports (and chest) you have to leave along the way. It can be mitigated by removing them during a one pass after the track is built. For that particular use, I'd recommend personal roboport if available, but they're not a gamechanger.

Which is why I say personal roboport are mostly useless, reguardless of their cost and technology requirement.

Have you included "placing rails while driving a car/train" in "Solution 0" ?

[4xel]

Solution 0 : Building by hand.

Have you included "placing rails while driving a car/train" in "Solution 0" ?

Good observation. If asked I would (general principle and feel is the same, and it's low tech as well). I think I did not considered it when I said 2 to 3 times slower. I'm personally a very bad driver and can't take significant advantage of it, but I assume it's potentially massive, further nullifying the need for a (personal) robotport for your first few raillroads.

[mrvn]

Solution 0 : Building by hand.

Have you included "placing rails while driving a car/train" in "Solution 0" ?

Good observation. If asked I would (general principle and feel is the same, and it's low tech as well). I think I did not considered it when I said 2 to 3 times slower. I'm personally a very bad driver and can't take significant advantage of it, but I assume it's potentially massive, further nullifying the need for a (personal) robotport for your first few raillroads.

I often place a blueprint with rails and then place the rails manually in the map view. You start where you stand and place over existing rails till you hit the new part. That lets me finish at least a main loop so I can drive there by train and set up everything else.

[zOldBulldog]

Solution 0 : Building by hand.

Have you included "placing rails while driving a car/train" in "Solution 0" ?

Good observation. If asked I would (general principle and feel is the same, and it's low tech as well). I think I did not considered it when I said 2 to 3 times slower. I'm personally a very bad driver and can't take significant advantage of it, but I assume it's potentially massive, further nullifying the need for a (personal) robotport for your first few raillroads.

I often place a blueprint with rails and then place the rails manually in the map view. You start where you stand and place over existing rails till you hit the new part. That lets me finish at least a main loop so I can drive there by train and set up everything else.

The only problem with that approach is that while it let's you get from point A to point B quickly, it is a deadly trap for your personal bots.

Boys will get lost every single time you drive past that incomplete blueprint until the whole rail's blueprint is filled in.

And if the line is long and makes a few turns, it could easily be 10 minutes (or more if you keep placing, running out of supplies and going back for more, rinse and repeat). I once lost my bots for 30-60 minutes while placing a perimeter rail. Bots just kept going back and forth between my supply depth and where I worked the rail... they'd go in a straight line while my train followed the loop I was making, completely unable to catch up. Then if they managed to catch up I'd forget to remove the roboport and lose them again on the next trip.

Sooo... yes, you can place and drive, but it comes with a price to pay.

[mrvn]

Solution 0 : Building by hand.

Have you included "placing rails while driving a car/train" in "Solution 0" ?

Good observation. If asked I would (general principle and feel is the same, and it's low tech as well). I think I did not considered it when I said 2 to 3 times slower. I'm personally a very bad driver and can't take significant advantage of it, but I assume it's potentially massive, further nullifying the need for a (personal) robotport for your first few raillroads.

I often place a blueprint with rails and then place the rails manually in the map view. You start where you stand and place over existing rails till you hit the new part. That lets me finish at least a main loop so I can drive there by train and set up everything else.

The only problem with that approach is that while it let's you get from point A to point B quickly, it is a deadly trap for your personal bots.

Boys will get lost every single time you drive past that incomplete blueprint until the whole rail's blueprint is filled in.

And if the line is long and makes a few turns, it could easily be 10 minutes (or more if you keep placing, running out of supplies and going back for more, rinse and repeat). I once lost my bots for 30-60 minutes while placing a perimeter rail. Bots just kept going back and forth between my supply depth and where I worked the rail... they'd go in a straight line while my train followed the loop I was making, completely unable to catch up. Then if they managed to catch up I'd forget to remove the roboport and lose them again on the next trip.

Sooo... yes, you can place and drive, but it comes with a price to pay.

But you aren't moving while placing the rail. You can do it all in map view.

[zOldBulldog]

Have you included "placing rails while driving a car/train" in "Solution 0" ?

Good observation. If asked I would (general principle and feel is the same, and it's low tech as well). I think I did not considered it when I said 2 to 3 times slower. I'm personally a very bad driver and can't take significant advantage of it, but I assume it's potentially massive, further nullifying the need for a (personal) robotport for your first few raillroads.

I often place a blueprint with rails and then place the rails manually in the map view. You start where you stand and place over existing rails till you hit the new part. That lets me finish at least a main loop so I can drive there by train and set up everything else.

The only problem with that approach is that while it let's you get from point A to point B quickly, it is a deadly trap for your personal bots.

Boys will get lost every single time you drive past that incomplete blueprint until the whole rail's blueprint is filled in.

And if the line is long and makes a few turns, it could easily be 10 minutes (or more if you keep placing, running out of supplies and going back for more, rinse and repeat). I once lost my bots for 30-60 minutes while placing a perimeter rail. Bots just kept going back and forth between my supply depth and where I worked the rail... they'd go in a straight line while my train followed the loop I was making, completely unable to catch up. Then if they managed to catch up I'd forget to remove the roboport and lose them again on the next trip.

Sooo... yes, you can place and drive, but it comes with a price to pay.

But you aren't moving while placing the rail. You can do it all in map view.

If so, you are not placing the rail, just the blueprint

And yes, if you were to then move slowly through the blueprint, your bots would place it.

But he was speaking specifically of placing rails while driving. So if your blueprint is in place and you get on your train and fast-place track by hand (on the spot marked by the blueprint)... your bots will be left behind and lost.

[4xel]

Solution 0 : Building by hand.

Have you included "placing rails while driving a car/train" in "Solution 0" ?

But he was speaking specifically of placing rails while driving.

He was speaking specifically of placing rails by hand while driving.

Sure losing bots puts a hard limitation on what can be done with a personal robotport and augmented speed, be it vehicles or exosquelettons.

My wild guess about the ultimate way to use a car to build railroads would be my refined solution 2 above :

Blueprint a fully roboported railway, from the map or as you go, and only build the robotports and their support (construction bots, powerline, storage chest and dumping material/logistic bots) yourself, by hand. And go from roboport to robot port using car.

[Maddhawk]

Having launched my first rocket in one game, all new games I make, I use the addon Mega Bot Start. Gives me a Mk2 armor, 4 fusion reactors, some batteries, I think 2 personal roboport mk2s, and 50 bots. Makes sense to me as well if you go by the scenario given by the devs that you are a survivor of a spaceship that crashed onto a mysterious and uninhabited world. I know I'd have my armor and tools stashed in my escape pod for damn sure.

[4xel]

I know I'd have my armor and tools stashed in my escape pod for damn sure.

What if there were only 3 inventory slots in that pod?

(I would personally go construction bot, roboport, and probably assembly machines I guess, maybe electric miner or even burner drills. Three because you start with a furnace, some iron and a miner)

[Maddhawk]

I know I'd have my armor and tools stashed in my escape pod for damn sure.

What if there were only 3 inventory slots in that pod?

(I would personally go construction bot, roboport, and probably assembly machines I guess, maybe electric miner or even burner drills. Three because you start with a furnace, some iron and a miner)

First off, if I am on a starship capable of interstellar travel, which we are or were on such a ship according to the devs provided scenario, then I would be wearing the Mk.2 Armor right off the bat. It would also already be outfitted since, given that we apparently posses a wide range of construction and engineering skills, we are or were engineers on that ship. That means my bots would occupy one inventory slot. For the other two, I'd bring a stash of copper and iron plates to begin building with.

[dog80]

I know I'd have my armor and tools stashed in my escape pod for damn sure.

What if there were only 3 inventory slots in that pod?

(I would personally go construction bot, roboport, and probably assembly machines I guess, maybe electric miner or even burner drills. Three because you start with a furnace, some iron and a miner)

we should contact NASA to give them this tip so that if ever an astronaut gets lost on another planet they are sure to have a burner drill and a furnace as well as some iron plates with them, so they can make their way back to earth!

[BlueTemplar]

Good observation. If asked I would (general principle and feel is the same, and it's low tech as well). I think I did not considered it when I said 2 to 3 times slower. I'm personally a very bad driver and can't take significant advantage of it, but I assume it's potentially massive, further nullifying the need for a (personal) robotport for your first few raillroads.

I often place a blueprint with rails and then place the rails manually in the map view. You start where you stand and place over existing rails till you hit the new part. That lets me finish at least a main loop so I can drive there by train and set up everything else.

The only problem with that approach is that while it let's you get from point A to point B quickly, it is a deadly trap for your personal bots.

Boys will get lost every single time you drive past that incomplete blueprint until the whole rail's blueprint is filled in.

And if the line is long and makes a few turns, it could easily be 10 minutes (or more if you keep placing, running out of supplies and going back for more, rinse and repeat). I once lost my bots for 30-60 minutes while placing a perimeter rail. Bots just kept going back and forth between my supply depth and where I worked the rail... they'd go in a straight line while my train followed the loop I was making, completely unable to catch up. Then if they managed to catch up I'd forget to remove the roboport and lose them again on the next trip.

Sooo... yes, you can place and drive, but it comes with a price to pay.

But you aren't moving while placing the rail. You can do it all in map view.

If so, you are not placing the rail, just the blueprint

And yes, if you were to then move slowly through the blueprint, your bots would place it.

But he was speaking specifically of placing rails while driving. So if your blueprint is in place and you get on your train and fast-place track by hand (on the spot marked by the blueprint)... your bots will be left behind and lost.

Yes. But.

hand-placing-rails-and-poles.png (426.96 KiB) Viewed 5565 times

I did this by placing rails (and, later, power poles) manually while driving the train as fast as I could.

(Disregard the mods, the screenshot was taken later - it was done with vanilla + RSO only .)

The goal was to get my first oil patch, so I didn't have any bots yet.

(Yeah, it took many many tries, I kept getting stuck on trees/spawners/rocks...)

[osric_athanasius]

Construction Bots are not too early at all. My build order is basically Red & Green Science, A basic mall and then a bot facility. In my last no spoon run, I had bots up within 2 hours 45mins (edit: the previous figure of 3:45mins was wrong). Now this can be done even faster as my Bot facility was 4 roboports away from my basic mall (caused by some inconvenient ore patches that I need in between).

To use bots proper requires a fair amount of thought and planning to do right. You need to plan your base to be expanded by bots which means integrating roboports in the starting base design and making sure your bots only have short distances to travel to get to your starting mall. Bonus points if the mall is covered by the logistic radius of your first roboport.
I have spent a lot of time on a new map recently ironing these problems out but it is worth it. Because once it is figured out, the best use of your time is dropping blueprints and hand placing anything that runs in long straight lines while running (belts). The bots will do the fiddly work. Military science is basically bot built while I get hold of more ore. Ditto for everything else.

I might post my latest bot facility and starter mall facility at some point.

Honestly, if bots were a blue tech item, it would not be too painful even though I love my bots.

PS: it turns out even 3000 bots are not quite enough to realign my mall design quickly by tearing it down and rebuilding it. However, 80 steam engines can cope easily with the power load of 3000 bots if you don't go overboard on recharge points.

Edit: Wrong time listed and some spelling corrections.

[mrvn]

Good observation. If asked I would (general principle and feel is the same, and it's low tech as well). I think I did not considered it when I said 2 to 3 times slower. I'm personally a very bad driver and can't take significant advantage of it, but I assume it's potentially massive, further nullifying the need for a (personal) robotport for your first few raillroads.

I often place a blueprint with rails and then place the rails manually in the map view. You start where you stand and place over existing rails till you hit the new part. That lets me finish at least a main loop so I can drive there by train and set up everything else.

The only problem with that approach is that while it let's you get from point A to point B quickly, it is a deadly trap for your personal bots.

Boys will get lost every single time you drive past that incomplete blueprint until the whole rail's blueprint is filled in.

And if the line is long and makes a few turns, it could easily be 10 minutes (or more if you keep placing, running out of supplies and going back for more, rinse and repeat). I once lost my bots for 30-60 minutes while placing a perimeter rail. Bots just kept going back and forth between my supply depth and where I worked the rail... they'd go in a straight line while my train followed the loop I was making, completely unable to catch up. Then if they managed to catch up I'd forget to remove the roboport and lose them again on the next trip.

Sooo... yes, you can place and drive, but it comes with a price to pay.

But you aren't moving while placing the rail. You can do it all in map view.

If so, you are not placing the rail, just the blueprint

And yes, if you were to then move slowly through the blueprint, your bots would place it.

But he was speaking specifically of placing rails while driving. So if your blueprint is in place and you get on your train and fast-place track by hand (on the spot marked by the blueprint)... your bots will be left behind and lost.

No, I'm placing rails in map mode. You can place any length of track directly as long as you start within reach.

[BlueTemplar]

Yeah, I don't think that I knew about that yet when doing the above...
But wouldn't it be kind of problematic to do it where you don't have sight ?