TL;DR
New technology that enables roboports to work on one of two different channels instead of one.What?
Roboports by default would have their network on one channel, working like it does today. A new technology would unlock a second channel and roboports can be configured to use one of the two channels (default being 1st channel). New circuit parameter for setting the channel of the roboport.Channels determine how the roboports logistics/construction networks "link" as they only link with roboports in range on the same channel. Essentially resulting in overlapping but separate networks where drones in one network does not "see" requests in the other network and vice versa. A logistics chest (and similar) in both networks "area" would need to select which channel it is in, which should be possible to set with circuity.
Construction requests should probably either be on "any network area" overlapping the location making it a race between the two networks (an inefficiency from overlapping) or that there is a channel selection in the GUI when/before placing blueprints/requesting things.
Why?
Having two separate and isolated logistics/construction networks that are able to overlap would enable different factory designs, e.g.:1) Enable separate networks for construction and logistics
2) "Island networks" would have their drones allocated for their task and their charging stations are not leeched upon by other drones in the other network, preventing drones that are needed in one area from wandering off or having to wait unnecessarily for recharge
3) "Island networks" are possible while enabling construction bots from a "global network" to handle construction tasks in same area
4) possibility to toggle channels on logistics chests from circuitry enables "island networks" to e.g. stack up on a certain resource and when done would make those stacks available for the "other" nerwork. This would enable some interesting designs and optimizations.
Essentially it would give more freedom and flexibility on how to design the factory and how to use the roboports without changing any fundamental behavior of them or the related entities.
While some of these are achieveable today by workarounds and mods, I (perhaps naively) assume that this is possible to support in the base game with reasonable effort/refactoring.
