[MOD 0.18] Robot Army. v0.4.4

[doktorstick]

I really liked this mod and would like to get back to using it at some point.

To overcome the biter-AI-belt-logic problem, I had started putting robots in walled gardens. They were "free turrets" that I could pick up and "robot creep" whenever I needed to push back a biter nest. Not how this mod is intended, but the belt problem was too great (for me).

A change was made at some point where robots trapped within walls despawn effectively shutting down my evolved playstyle and last vestige of hope from the belts of doom.

Which leads me to... can biters be modded to fly? And if so, could flying robots be a fix for the belt problem?

[kyranzor]

Flying robots would actually fix most problems people have actually.. trees, walls, belts etc would all be bypassed as sources of problems.

[b38917ce-3ad3-4fae-b]

I have to agree that flying robots seems the only viable option with the game in its current state.

After some back and forth with the author on reddit (can't link due to this being my first post) I gave up on trying to use the mod on an end-game map since there doesn't seem to be any way to make it even close to viable.

But using it on a new map at a stage where flamethrower bots are potent (since they're best equipped to clear forests) revealed the same frustrating and unpredictable experience. They would still get stuck in forests (and eventually just despawn) or decide to turn around and path through my belts, even though biter settlements were much closer to them than my base.

I'm not sure if at this point the author would consider such a large change in scope though. Perhaps appealing to the dev team is an option? With combat the way it is right now, it seems to me that it would benefit them to at least empower mod authors to come up with ways to make it more interesting and more in tune with the game as a whole.

[kyranzor]

Well I just tested integration of Klonan's Combat Robots mod (flying style robot units, but they have no AI) with my mod and made them able to be hand-placed and they can join squads and it was really awesome to watch.

I will add support for all of Klonan's mods units and I will integrate his mod into mine (he gave me permission to do this a long time ago btw) so that it lines up nicely with my current way of doing things.

[hitzu]

Well I just tested integration of Klonan's Combat Robots mod (flying style robot units, but they have no AI) with my mod and made them able to be hand-placed and they can join squads and it was really awesome to watch.

I will add support for all of Klonan's mods units and I will integrate his mod into mine (he gave me permission to do this a long time ago btw) so that it lines up nicely with my current way of doing things.

Awesome!

How about an idea to directly control a bot while sitting in a safe bunker?

[b38917ce-3ad3-4fae-b]

That's great to hear, I actually stumbled upon that mod yesterday but from reading the description it seems to be a mostly defensive thing. A combination of the two sounds great.

How about an idea to directly control a bot while sitting in a safe bunker?

The Drones mod seems pretty close, with the exception of combat, of course. You could use its maintenance drones right now if you don't mind turret creeping, since I don't think placing turrets is disabled.

[kyranzor]

My testing last night was pretty fun, but I found some depressing things. The "unit" pathfinding doesn't allow "flying" paths, where the unit's collision box is just zeroes. This means if a squad of flying combat robots is told to move outside of walls which are fully enclosed, they will not know how to do it and will quickly despawn

[Woehler]

Would be nice if you decreased the physical resistance of rocks so flamebots wouldn't get stuck.
In vanilla the rocks have 100% fire resistance and can thus not be destroyed by flamebots.

[kyranzor]

Would be nice if you decreased the physical resistance of rocks so flamebots wouldn't get stuck.
In vanilla the rocks have 100% fire resistance and can thus not be destroyed by flamebots.

I might just add some small component of physical damage to their fire attack so a direct attack on a rock will eventually destroy it

[impetus maximus]

just installed Robot Army 0.2.2 on 0.13.20 and it's really cool so far.

one question. my bots sometime shoot at me (no damage).

Robot.Army.Friendly.Fire.png

just wondering if this is a know issue, or perhaps a conflict with my other mods?
Base Mod
Color Picker 0.1.0
Creative Mode 0.1.4
EvoGUI 0.4.107
Foreman 0.2.5
Moweather 0.3.90
Nixie Tubes 0.2.10
Player Color 0.1.0

thanks for this helpful and fun mod.

[kyranzor]

just installed Robot Army 0.2.2 on 0.13.20 and it's really cool so far.

one question. my bots sometime shoot at me (no damage).

Robot.Army.Friendly.Fire.png

just wondering if this is a know issue, or perhaps a conflict with my other mods?
Base Mod
Color Picker 0.1.0
Creative Mode 0.1.4
EvoGUI 0.4.107
Foreman 0.2.5
Moweather 0.3.90
Nixie Tubes 0.2.10
Player Color 0.1.0

thanks for this helpful and fun mod.

Wow that's weird. Is your player character "force" different from the droids?? Do you shoot them first in order to make them start shooting you?

[impetus maximus]

no i'm on the same force. not shooting at them. they are friendly then all of a sudden they shoot at me.
they shoot for a while then stop.

[kyranzor]

no i'm on the same force. not shooting at them. they are friendly then all of a sudden they shoot at me.
they shoot for a while then stop.

I don't know why.. can they hurt you? Or is your armour too good?

[impetus maximus]

i'm not taking any damage. my shield doesn't show it's being hit.

[MtnDew]

If you are in a wooded area then they could be shooting trees and not really be shooting at you. Other then that, I have never seen them shoot a player unless they were shot first.

[impetus maximus]

it happend in my creative mode (mod) save.it hasn't happend in my campaign save yet.
[edit] ok it happend on my campaign save as well.

[kyranzor]

it happend in my creative mode (mod) save. it hasn't happend in my campaign save yet.

I wonder if creative mode does something strange with player forces?

[impetus maximus]

maybe. is there something i can do while it's happening to track down what is causing it?

[kyranzor]

Not that I can think of. This behaviour sounds like a Factorio game bug and could be triggered by an internal game state.

Next time it happens try to take note of where and how the droids were spawned, what they are doing at the time, if it's multiplayer or single player, if there are any mods that adjust forces and/ceasefire rules, if you have killed any droids recently or fired at one with flamethrower ... stuff like that will help work out what causes it.

[impetus maximus]

ok it just happed again. spawed 20 battle bots at my base. hunt size is set to 20.
was following them out walking behind them. i haven't fired at them and they are shooting at me.
i've listed all the mods i'm using in my earlier post. [edit] single player offline.