Factorio Forums

I have this on Fulgora:



To the left is my new factory for electromagnetic science. To the right its my old one. For convenience when building more stuff, both are in the same logistics network.

Now, bots will fly from the left side (where most of the electromagnetic science is getting produced) to right, to load rockets. Why is this? The are ready rockets right next to the chests with the science packs, they don't get loaded. I also have lots of roboports right next to the left rockets, for charging.

I can cut off the two logistics networks, but it will be a bit of a hassle... It has been bothering me for some time, so I'm asking here.

The title appears wrong as the description suggest bots do take the shortest path for loading rockets.

You don't know which bots, and it can be any bot, so if you just built things on the left, many bots are still on the left part,therefore statistically, when a bot is tasked to do something it will more often be a bot that was located on the left part.

I have seen this too. The problem isn't the bots themselves but which rocket silos are chosen to translate the orbital logistic requests into ground logistics requests; there doesn't seem to be any smarts to it.

My solution is to use belts and direct insertion into rocket silos, so the science is pre-loaded and launched only from those silos.

kpreid wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 2:33 pm I have seen this too. The problem isn't the bots themselves but which rocket silos are chosen to translate the orbital logistic requests into ground logistics requests; there doesn't seem to be any smarts to it.

I was under the impression that the order in which the silos are used for orbital request is fairly straightforward : the first silo built has priority, if busy then the 2nd then the 3rd and so on
So if the silos on the left are not used it would be because they were built last and those on the right are enough.

kpreid wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 2:33 pm The problem isn't the bots themselves but which rocket silos are chosen to translate the orbital logistic requests into ground logistics requests; there doesn't seem to be any smarts to it.

Ah... That is unfortunate. I'll cut off the two networks I guess... I do this on every other planet, moving items with a spidetron when I need them in another network (e.g. when I drop them from a space platform).

Shulmeister wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 2:36 pm I was under the impression that the order in which the silos are used for orbital request is fairly straightforward : the first silo built has priority, if busy then the 2nd then the 3rd and so on

I didn’t say it wasn’t predictable; I said it wasn’t smart, that is, it doesn’t choose the shortest distance from the supply of the item, or anything like that.

kpreid wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 2:44 pm I didn’t say it wasn’t predictable; I said it wasn’t smart, that is, it doesn’t choose the shortest distance from the supply of the item, or anything like that.

you mean the silo the game activate should be decided based on the location of the requested goods ?

trancexpress wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 2:37 pm Ah... That is unfortunate. I'll cut off the two networks I guess... I do this on every other planet, moving items with a spidetron when I need them in another network (e.g. when I drop them from a space platform).

You can make a simple bridge with a requester chest on one side and an inserter to transfer to a provider chest on the other network if you separate them by 1 tile it's fairly comon and doesn't require manual intervention like using spidertrons.

You can also use buffer chest to make sure all the goods are in the middle of your two silo group to minimize travel time.

Otherwise expecting smart thing here is akin to wishing the game to magically guess which silo is the "best".

Shulmeister wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 3:37 pm Otherwise expecting smart thing here is akin to wishing the game to magically guess which silo is the "best".

What is magical about short travel times? Distance over air is a fairly simple metric.

trancexpress wrote: Tue Jul 22, 2025 4:02 pm What is magical about short travel times? Distance over air is a fairly simple metric.

Yes, distance over air is a fairly simple metric. It's the other part where the game understand which silo should be loaded first that require magic imo. With bots needing to charge and possible surfaces covered by LN ?

In my experience, if I truly need haste, I will simply have dedicated silos loaded by inserters. In slightly less urgent cases, I have a buffer chest with the required items next to the silo, and bots will reliably take from there and rapidly load the rocket, as otherwise bots can occasionally take a surprisingly long time even if the distance is pretty short. I don't have many mixed (bot-loaded) silos typically, so I've not encountered this exact circumstance for the problem.