Guide to Robots Logistic and Construction drones Factorio 1.0 ⚙️ Tutorial/Guide/How-To

[@JDPlays]

Want more Factorio Fundamentals? kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZpnOo4qPgsaCnNU

[@akineosun]

hi. i have a problem. when I use @upgrade planner@ or decostruction functio, then drones stay and waiting for free space in logistics storage because I use for all storage chest filters. How I can isolate chests for buildings ? if I use green chest and set up filters, then drones give up new producted elements too. (red chest)

[@AbleAnderson]

Possibly the steepest learning curve of any game I've ever played. The mechanics and options available to the player just keep increasing the entire game so that once you feel good about one thing, you get 8 more new things with that newly researched tech. When you're brand new, you just have so much to learn

[@idekenterprises9734]

Very true, and while you're thinking everything through your character is just standing there waiting for your orders

[@badb666]

After 65 hours, (and multiple worlds to test) I’m finally at the stage of learning how to work with robotics 😄

[@vincentchapman8595]

personally i dont find it has a very steep learning curve compared to a lot of games ive played but it definitely is fun.

[@youtubevanced4900]

Definitely not the most complex or steepest learning curve. I pretty much only play complicated games. Try out Gary Grigsby's War in the East. Holy moly. That game is insanely complex and difficult to learn. I gave up and I love in depth complicated games. Dwarf Fortress is a close second. Really hard to learn and rediculously complex.

[@AbleAnderson]

@@youtubevanced4900 "Possibly the steepest learning curve of any game I've ever played" The key in there was "that I've ever played" so it was subjective

[@andrewgross144]

I had played hours and didn’t want to try to get into robots, as someone else said, steep learning curve, and I didn’t have the time. But your video helped me so much and now I’m so much happier with my game!

[@FractalPrism.]

Yellow - Can Put In, Can Take Out, can be filtered for X item, w/o a filter Bots will randomly fill an empty Yellow with excess items. Red - Cannot Put in, Can only Take Out. Purple - (same as red but) Bots will aggressively keep it empty. Blue - Bots will maintain a specific stock of an item (like a vending machine), Cannot Take Out. Green - (same as yellow but) further in higherarchy than Yellow, has 'invisible to Network' toggle "Request from buffer chest".

[@xzantrax]

This video is one of the best guide to the most important parts of robotics. Parts that are almost always glossed over in other guides. 10/10, would watch similar tutorials.

[@JDPlays]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Sawta]

Thank you for breaking down what to _do_ with the chests at the end. I had been thinking of them purely in the sense of "Okay, I can empty/fill my inventory quickly, and construct/deconstruct things." It's great to know that this can help fight spaghetti!

[@FieryEgon]

I was confused, watching this video, I am now more confused, theres so much to take in, still very informative.

[@daisysinior4070]

I started playing factorio like 3 years ago. I stopped after like 10h because I was overwhelmed by the complexity of this game. Now I installed it again and I cannot get enough of it, already 35h. I just got to the point when I feel like I want to use the robots so this video is really helpfull. Thank u so much

[@AtillaDaPun]

Lovely guide! Made it much easier to grasp! Newbie to Factorio here and I'm loving it!! Subbed for more excellent guides 😉

[@hugmonger]

I had no idea about the copying recipes from the Assembler to the Chest that is so convenient.

[@FartButtPizza1234567]

Just what I was looking for to understand how bad I fugged myself with the wrong colour chests. Also this video made me realize that the spinney thing atop the robo bay isn't perfectly looped..

[@JDPlays]

hahah nope its isnt perfeclty looped but maybe the devs tweaked it since this video

[@figa5567]

Funny, I personally barely use passive provider chests anymore, in favor of storage chests with some wire logic. My problem with them is that eventually you end up with crap all over the base. Say I have factories that produce steam engines, and then they output into a passive provider chest, which I limit to some number say 200 steam engines. When I build something, they're grabbed from there, brilliant. The problem is at some point I will deconstruct a build with steam engines. Now they have nowhere to go since it's a passive provider chest, so I need to have a bank of storage chests to hold anything that ever gets deconstructed. Yes, if I ever re-use the steam engines they will be grabbed from the bank of storage chests before the passive provider, but still. Steam engines all over the base. My solution is to have the factories output into a filtered storage chest for steam engines. And then instead of locking the chest to 200 via the red box, I read the content of the logistic network and attach a wire to the inserter, so the inserter only swings if there are less than 200 steam engines. That way, I am still halting production if more than 200 are available but most importantly, if I ever deconstruct a build, the items are immediately placed there, since the storage chest is filtered (assuming it doesn't overflow). Now I only have to look for items in 1 place!! It might sound like a trivial improvement, but if you have a factory hub (or mall) build based on bots, which is basically the only place where bots truly truly shine, by doing it this way you're automatically recycling your materials - anything you deconstruct gets placed in the correct chest in the mall, which can then be used to craft the upgraded version of that item (assembling machine mk2 for example) automatically, instead of layoung around somewhere lost in your factory to never be used again. So I'd definitely say that storage chests and requester chests are the heart of your factory, not passive provider chests. Avoid them like the plague.

[@MascotCoding]

Very interesting.

[@Kahnugo]

If you do this bots will keep returning to the hub with stuff they deconstruct. Passive providers would decouple production and storage, which you might want or not. Personally I would probably prefer building a little bigger, but preventing storage and production to interfere. (It's a bit hypothetical because what I'm doing in my own game is quite a bit different than this kind of build and it's not even a question).

[@cf453]

"the only place where bots truly truly shine" I run my entire base on isolated sub-networks of bots with trains as the go-between. The throughput is monstrously good, and you can build extremely densely because belts cease to be relevant except for a few edge cases. UPS isn't an issue if you keep to a few hundred bots per network.

[@figa5567]

@@cf453 Eh. If you want to use bots for bulk operations, it allows you to scale much faster, since every build looks basically the same. I often do bot bases as the midgame, so that I unlock all sciences and have all technologies before going for a train-based megabase. But in almost all instances where you'd consider bots, using belts is just better (other than the mall or if you're very constrained for space). Simply because belts don't use power and are much friendlier on UPS. And also, let's face it, bots are cheating.

[@cf453]

@@figa5567 Using LTN is cheating--Using bots just means I value my time. :D

[@DNozz777]

Good job explaining such a confusing topic.. Still confused but after watching a few more times while I play hopefully I'll grab the concepts..

[@cf453]

Yellow chest receive priority is filtered -> similar items -> order of placement.

[@Brahlam]

Thanks for this guide! Found out very late what the Active Provider Chest actually does, and even if it looks pretty on the map seeing hundreds of bots flying around at some point it gets very inefficient and destroys update rate. ^^

[@tonyyarbray]

I'v been playing Factorio for a long time and still don't know anything apparently this was a very helpful guide for the chest for me gonna subscribe and go through some of you other videos

[@famafka]

It's such an amazing guide! Thanks mate

[@mertarican5456]

I love the i know this now ROBOTS are AWESOME!

[@Jules_Diplopia]

Nice. Concise explanation of bots and chests.

[@Kahnugo]

A little side note on chest priorities, as the video shows requester chests rank higher than buffer chests (it wouldn't really work if it didn't). Also requester chests that request from buffer chests rank higher than "ordinary" requester chests. I sometimes use this to prioritise requests. It is also worth noting that requests will be made from storage chests before passive provider chests, but after buffer chests if available.

[@cf453]

I use the varying priorities to balance train loading and unloading. Reds with a few greens per wagon for unloading, and greens with a few blues (checkmarked) for loading. It results in a few more very short bot trips, but it's incredibly robust and space-efficient.

[@robertyang4365]

Ah I was confused about the requester chests being prioritized before the buffer chests, and then shortly after him saying the buffer chest gets filled first. Thanks for clearing that up!

[@cyndigreenwood3272]

yeah the requester chest is always before buffer

[@bukkist]

Why does the narrator sound out of breath the whole time?

[@DubElementMusic]

ok thank you, after the video i learned, there are 5different chest types

[@JDPlays]

Glad I could help

[@xxsnipes_4_lifexx_33]

Thanks!

[@modddjo]

thank you verry much u save to spaghety

[@Rh0dan1970]

JD I have a feeling you are a very smart cookie, with a lot of information to share but please...sloooow down. My brain is still processing what you said a minute earlier.

[@Zcyteck]

My mind cannot fathom this robotics stuff... 400+h in the game, I still dont get it with all those damn chests, wires and stuff. Maybe one day i'll learn...

[@JDPlays]

robots change the game! they will simplify so many things

[@Ghost-Ghost-Ghost]

Is there any point to trying to use robots when you don't have yellow science/requester/buffer chests unlocked? Seems fairly useless when you only have storage and provider chests.

[@simon2493]

only personal use

[@nathaos01]

11:17 HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM me who thought it worked like the passive one and placed it literally everywheren and now got problems.... Great video!!

[@jsteel89]

fantastic! tyty

[@JDPlays]

Glad you like it!

[@bobi_lopataru]

But if I have a belt assembler outputting to a passive provider chest, and I request 100 belts, but then put them in trash, what do I have to do for the belts to go back in the passive provider chest? Do I just put a storage chest with the filter set to belts and use an inserter to feed the belts back in the passive provider chest?

[@ahtoshkaa]

I've built lots of purple chests. Noticed that shit is wierd. Googled your video to sort things out) Thank you for your help!

[@meneither3834]

Idk what's the problem of active provider. That sounds like a good way to just send stuff to storage.

[@cyndigreenwood3272]

I throw them down when I trash ... say like a whole train of iron when fixing train ratios to get the bots to trash my inventory instead of coming to me, it keeps me clear of flying bots so I can work.

[@delftac]

I always ended up flooding my base with bots. Thanks to this video that won't happen anymore :D

[@reydus6651]

Best instructional video ever, thanks a bunch for making this.

[@ev5837]

why do my logistic drones get suck with an item. there is room in the requester chest it is supposed to drop into. i am very confused

[@secretasianman2937]

damn was confused thinking the passive provider and storage chest worked like passive provider and request chest, I thought i was doing some kind of logic wrong but just didnt have the tech researched thanks for the tutorial!

[@Bamwich]

i think i could speak for a lot of people here and say the reason they are watching this video is for 4:42. HOW are you giving them orders of what to build?

[@josecorral9254]

i like the slave part

[@lamaraproductions9202]

1. My robots don't spread out, have the robot port like in the video where all robots come in but after it's full they don't spread out. 2. They stopped building in some places even though I connected them all can someone help me please

[@immortalsun]

Fantastic video! Thanks for the tutorial! 💙

[@tobbi1983]

Excellent guide. Thanks for this.

[@dialmeup669]

Ok I am confused, at around 18:30 you say you have blue technology and want to fly material around the base but then you show a blue active receiver box which you showed earlier (around 9:25) is yellow technology. Is there a way to fly material around at the blue level because I could really use a suggestion on how. I have managed to make a mess and have belted myself into a corner.

[@tomeknowak8149]

thanks man!

[@juanmanuelsosapadron8795]

So helpful! Thanks mate :)

[@JDPlays]

Glad it helped!

[@HappyfoxBiz]

yes, this still confuses me, but I'm still practicing using you and other youtubers, as long as I practice while watching, I will eventually get it.... *glares at his sink* like doing the dishes, if I practice enough times and not just watch others do the dishes, I will get it one day.

[@JDPlays]

It takes time and Practice, Eventually it becomes second nature and you wont have to think about it any more

[@justalpaca4943]

Love how he as calmy as possible say's "you slaves..."

[@FelixDegenaar]

What I don't understand (but I'm still a noob at Factorio) is why you need the other chests when you can do everything with buffer chests. What am I missing here?

[@hds66nl29]

Nice question, I am no factorio expert but I hope I can give you some tips. The active provider chest (purple) I use for some trains, example my construction train can empty excess items when it returns to base. I let it dump in a provider chest so the bots empty those chests (no matter what) and the train can always unload. The storage chest I use as a sort of passive provider chest. Example I output the production of inserters in a storage chest and set the filter for inserters. That way the bots take supply from that chest but also return access. It also functions as a garbage bin, if the bots can not dump the items they hold somewhere they can always dump it in a storage chest. But with most thing in Factorio, experiment with it and you end up with something that will suit you as a player.

[@MasterSteve_117]

I'm really having a hard time at the simplest thing of your video. How are you placing the blueprints at 4:25. What key are u yousing? When i left click my character builds them himself.

[@lakatosjuraj]

can you read items missing from the logistics network and output it as a signal?

[@chriswhittington9552]

What are the applications where you would use active provider and buffer chests?

[@JDPlays]

Active provider is when you NEED this chest empty no matter what, Most common use is spent nuclear fuel leaving a reactor. Buffer chests are nice to bring say guns/walls closer to the front line of your base, but often they are used as 'recycling' chests, So a buffer chest that gathers up all the yellow belt so it can be upgraded to red belt, but because its a buffer chest robots can always get the yellow belt back out if they need to replace a broken one

[@solaire7046]

Damn so I can literally just bluetooth my expensive products to where they need to go.

[@JDPlays]

Yes except the delay on this is slightly longer than bluetooth hahaha

[@tomjames4818]

Whats the best way to input materials into the network? just dumping from inventory, or just have a few assemblers dedicated to the network, or branching of from the bus?

[@JDPlays]

All of the above, I often have dedicated chest to put resources off the bus into the network, as well as having dedicated Assemblers to create items and put them directly into the network

[@kevindomenechaliaga8085]

What a neat way to explain the chest herarchy, you should work as a teacher :)

[@SuiSideex]

Its possible to make drones carry the stuff to chests after some stuff in chests gonna miss, i mean for example i order my drones to bring 100 iron plates in one chest, but this chest and iron plates are used to create for example ammo, so they dissapear very fast, and my drones just fly like mad, so its possible to order them to bring those iron plates if for example theres be lower value of iron plates in chest than for example 50? if yes, can someone explain me how, or make a video?

[@JDPlays]

the bots will move things around as ordered if your demand for iron plate is higher then your supply, the bots will EVENTUALLY put iron in the box you want but it will take them a long time if your demand is way higher than supply

[@Vinchester87]

This is very helpful and well explained!

[@Ikdulo]

I can see the purple box being a faster garbage can. Instead of requesting your robots take unwanted items from you directly. You put it in a purple box yourself and they'll take care of it from there, you don't have to wait for them to take all of the stuff you don't want.

[@keyofdoornarutorscat]

You can also put stuff in any chest and then mark it for deconstruction

[@munchaking1896]

Good tutorial video

[@JDPlays]

Thanks

[@monstersaint]

Well Done Sir!

[@ybamrvibe8341]

Hey do you know why my logistics bot only take out my item from trash slots in the logistics menu but cant put item in my inv to fulfil my request same goes to the chest except when they are taking out the trash from trash slots it can enter it into chest can u help me

[@cyndigreenwood3272]

What chests are you using to get said items? Yellow Storage chest will fill your inventory, Red passive will fill your inventory.. and Also the Green Buffer will fill your inventory. So what chests are you using and where?

[@12miabella]

Did you know why I have Alexa home theatre on my Firestick not on my Firestick 4K please

[@Benjackalope]

So… if you’re getting boys about the same time or before blue belts… is there a point in using belts after this?

[@enanta7]

Isnt the buffer chest the same as the storage chest?

[@TheShadowofevolution]

the biggest flaw is how late you get the chests, especially the advanced ones. By the time you've built a yellow science pack factory, you've nearly finished the game.

[@close7228]

It all seemed very complicated and strange to me for some reason lol, your video helped me a little and I have a question, if, theoretically I didn't put any other chest but the yellow one, would every thing work okay? I mean I wouldn't be able to request etc, but the robots would bring stuff in and put stuff away if I left it in the rubbish category, or am I missing something here?

[@tejasss757]

Nob

[@CarlosRangel99_]

Thank you!!

[@gfan83]

Does anybody knows why construction bots carry only 1 item when constructiong bleuprints or when deconstructing something while tech reserched wich increase their cargo size to 4 items. I construct line of belt but they carry only 1 belt than go back and take another one. The same thing happens when I deconstruct that line. How does that tech (increase cargo size) work applying to construction bots??

[@happypandaface710]

i think when you deconstruct something like a chest with a bunch of ore, constructions bots will store the ore in stacks. but yeah, for building, it seems like they only carry one? maybe ive always had enough bots so that was the fastest way. i dont think im hurting for stacks during construction yet though, I dont do it enough.

[@ap5672]

Great video thanks. How do you balance the number of cons and logistics bot across a number of roboports.

[@tschichpich]

I just realize that i should use storage chests and not provider chests. They sound much better (for simple starter base)

[@AbleAnderson]

I still don’t understand what the point of an active provider chest is. You basically said the point of putting something in there is to make it go away. In what context would that be the goal? Can’t I just drop items if I don’t want them?

[@chriss2031]

To make sure that a production machine of your choise never stops production due to clogging, no matter what. That would be one handy reason.

[@cyndigreenwood3272]

YES That what I use them for. When doing a huge project or say maybe changing a train that I cant empty I just pick up the materials throw them into an active provider and whatever it is will get picked up and sent to my storage area.

[@Clarke2316]

Good tutorial but parts your gasping for air because your talking so fast lol, had to rewatch a few bits was so fast

[@bobi_lopataru]

Does automatic robot thing work for the entire network or just the roboport?

[@cyndigreenwood3272]

If you use the Total T like he explained it will work for the entire network

[@bigal1093]

Nice overview but I am confused by the purple chests. You say they are used incorrectly very often but you never give an example where they should be used. If their sole job is to be empty, why not just put a buffer chest there?

[@figa5567]

that's not what buffer chests are for. He made a bad job of explaining active provider chests, but they can be very useful for any build that has a side-product that, if it is not removed from the system, would clog the system. The best example is barelling. Let's say you decided to move liquids around in barrels. But you don't want to have to manually take care of the empty barrels and what not. So what you do is, in the machine that takes the liquid out of the barrel, you put the now empty barrel into an ACTIVE provider chest, to make sure that the empty barrel goes away: otherwise, it would clog up the system eventually. If you only used a passive provider here, you couldn't guarantee there would always be an empty space to output to. Truth be told there aren't many uses for active provider chests in vanilla factorio. I could iamgine them being used in some kovarex process, but just using filter splitters does the same thing. They really shine in complex mods that have recipes that will clog up your system with by-products.

[@kiwidude68]

The best usage I have seen (and used myself) for the purple chests is what KoS does with her building trains, whereby the last carrage is dedicated to "trash". So at your outpost stations for the building train the last carriage is only ever loaded into, from yellow storage chests (where the trash is being sent while in that outpost area). Then back at the home base that same last carriage is then only ever unloaded, this time into purple chests. That forces the bots to move this "trash" out of those chests to somewhere more useful - such as into your buffer or storage chests that you have around your home base. You wouldnt want buffer or yellow chests directly at the unload station there, because they would be far more likely to just fill up, eventually resulting in your building trains being able to unload the trash etc...

[@Kahnugo]

I'm not sure exactly what he's thinking about, but they can be a bit volatile to use. If you don't make sure that the network only accepts items it actively need, the active provider chests will make those requests on its own, moving stuff you didn't intend to be moved. Edit: I realise I didn't give an example on where to use them.. Ultimately I haven't found a good use for them in continuous processes, but they can be used as a clean up tool to force the bots to use whatever you put in them first/move it to storage. Active provider chests take priority over other provider chests (buffer chests and passive provider chests), so if a requester chest wants iron plates or construction bots needs belts, they will pick it from active provider chests before other chests.

[@cf453]

In addition to the other excellent examples, another common place for them is to get rid of empty fuel cells at nuclear reactors.

[@Subjagator]

There are lots of uses for active provider chests, especially in some mods that I use. People have already pointed out a few but things I have used them for also include emptying barrels and recipes with multiple outputs and/or waste outputs.

[@terrydactyl2077]

Just got to bots. Didn’t realise you could actually not use belts if you wanted!

[@MasterSteve_117]

how to you ghost build??????

[@Beeevaaa]

This made no sense to me :( you have so many menus that I don't have for some reason.

[@JDPlays]

Check the playlist there are videos that show you how to get the extra menus

[@Beeevaaa]

@@JDPlays Okay. I won't give up hope. Thank you! I appreciate the reply

[@jamesklark6562]

my robots are not using the storage chest at all

[@cyndigreenwood3272]

If you've done your hubs correctly, they shouldn't need to!

[@andrewg3196]

Spent more time talking about how to use an inserter than actually showing how to do anything with the bots

[@JDPlays]

I started at the start, that being how to add bots to the network, If you wanted to see how the logistic bots work you could of used the chapters to skip forward to the next section. Thats why the chapters are there!

[@adamziegelmueller5889]

40 thousand log bots take it or leave it >:( Got bored with a map so I restarted it and the whole thing runs on logistics. no belts or trains at all.

[@real-American-man]

So there is really no need to use the red chest….

[@DavidLindes]

19:53 - what was that weird glitch? Is there a bug?!? Or just the bots were waiting on order cycles, and you were impatient, or... ?!? :-o

[@K21040]

Who was here just for the buffer chest?

[@MikeGuarino69]

A "fundamentals" tutorial that covers everything except the fundamentals, hmmm

[@laweh]

+

[@போகர்மஹான்]

IT would have been nice if you explained robots without going into fancy circuit tech.

[@tekkitmater7168]

23000 bot mmmm

[@cyndigreenwood3272]

I had 40K, had to bring them down to about 15K

[@c0ldsh0w3r]

You speak wayyyyy too quickly, and it's impossible to follow lol

[@outlawgaming2439]

If only the devs provided any form of instructions. Overly complicated. Glad I didn't pay for this shit. Piratebay saved me a headache. Shit game.