Chapter 20 ‐ Worker robots part 1 ‐ Roboports and basic services

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Introduction to worker robots

Worker robots are flying robots that assist you with managing items and construction work. They are not necessary for completing the game but you can do handy things with them. Logistic robots assist with tasks like personal inventory management, simplified assembling machine setups, item transport across the factory, and mall building. Construction robots assist with tasks like automated repairing, rebuilding ghosts of destroyed buildings, and using blueprints to copy and paste building arrangements.

All worker robots require flying robot frames in order to craft them. Crafting this intermediate part requires lubricant, which is a product obtained from advanced oil processing. Most worker robot features can be unlocked with chemical science research, and their carrying capacity and flying speed can be significantly improved via research. Only the advanced logistic chests require utility science to unlock, but they are very useful.

Worker robots are managed by roboports, which they need to be near around for charging and coordination. Therefore you often need multiple roboports spread across factory areas. However, there are also personal roboports for construction robots that you can add to your armor equipment and carry around with you.

Worker robots also generally need logistic storage chests (also called yellow chests) in order to store and manage any items other than repair packs. Again, the personal roboport is an exception because the construction robots can use your character inventory instead of a logistic storage chest.

Most robot related technologies can be unlocked using chemical science packs. When you unlock construction robots, you can start using them immediately, but the personal roboport needs to be unlocked separately and then installed into an armor equipment grid that generates its own power. You can use logistic robots for personal logistics and trash as soon as you unlock them, but creating a full logistic network that has requester chests requires researching logistic networks, which requires utility science packs.

Roboports

Roboports are robotic buildings that can store, dispatch, coordinate, and recharge worker robots. They can hold up to 7 stacks of worker robots and up to 7 stacks of repair packs. Robots are dispatched when needed, but they are limited to the space around the roboports. Logistic robots can only work within 50 tiles of a roboport and construction robots within 110 tiles. However, the robots can migrate between roboports that are connected to each other, which means that a large logistic network with several roboports can be used for various jobs around your factory.

Roboports consume a lot of power while recharging robots and they can charge only 4 at a time, while other robots get in a queue for charging.

Two roboports can merge their networks if they are within less than 50 tiles of each other.

Personal roboports

A personal roboport is a type of armor equipment that can dispatch construction robots around you. It uses your own inventory as the source and storage point. It does not connect with other roboports but it can work in the same area as them. The robots used by your personal roboports always dispatch from and return to your main inventory. This equipment does not support logistic robots, and it has two charging ports, and a capacity for 10 construction robots. It requires a good deal of power being generated from your armor equipment for it to work. It has a working range of 15 tiles. If you equip multiple of it, the robot capacity and charging capacity add up linearly while the range increases with diminishing returns, with 21 tiles for 2 roboports and 26 tiles for 3, and 30 tiles for 4.

The personal roboport make 2 is an upgraded version of this equipment that can be unlocked with later technology and has better stats.

Repairing and placing or replacing buildings with construction robots

If a roboport has a construction robot and a repair pack inside its inventory, then it can dispatch this robot to go and repair damaged buildings within construction range. This consumes some power and some of the repair pack.

If a damaged building is completely destroyed it leaves a holographic ghost behind. The same holographic ghosts can also be placed onto the world when you paste down a blueprint (not yet supported). If a logistic network has an extra item version of the destroyed building available in any of its logistic storage chests, then a construction robot can be dispatched to pick it up and deploy it at the ghost location.

Introduction to personal logistics and trash

Personal logistic requests are a system for programming your logistic network. For each item you create a request for, you declare a minimum count and a maximum count that you want the system to maintain as long as you are within reach. Logistic robots take and remove items from your inventory and from the logistic storage chests in order for this system to work. If you have less than the requested minimum amount for an item, logistics robots will look at logistics storage chests and try to bring more of the item to you from them. If you have more than the requested maximum amount for an item, your excess will be held at your logistics trash inventory, and logistics robots will come when available to empty your trash inventory into the nearest logistics storage chest.

You can use personal logistic minimum requests to make your factory keep your inventory resupplied continuously if you put logistic storage chests or logistic passive provider chests as the output chests for your assembling machines, especially in a mall area.

You can use personal logistic maximum requests to get excess items such as wood out of your inventory, and they will fill up your logistic network chests instead.

Setting logistic requests

The following features and controls exist. For these controls, the selected item refers to an item held in hand or an item slot selected within the player inventory menu.

• Check the overall status of your logistics requests, by pressing "L" with no menus open or with an empty inventory slot selected.
• Check the currently set logistic request for the selected item by pressing "L".
• Increase the minimum requested quantity for the selected item by pressing "SHIFT + L", and decrease it by pressing "CONTROL + L".
• Increase the maximum requested quantity for the selected item by pressing "SHIFT + ALT + L", and decrease it by pressing "CONTROL + ALT + L".
• Pause or resume your entire set of logistic requests, by pressing "CONTROL + SHIFT + L".

Next page: Chapter 21 - Electricity part 3: Nuclear power