Logistic network
Logistic network (LogNet) consists of different chests, Logistic robots and Roboports covering the area of one logistic network. Depending on the type and configuration of the chests and area of the Robotic network the robots will transport items between these chests as alternative to the items manually, by belts or Railway network.
The player character can also act as Requester chest in the Logistic network. After researching Character logistic slots. You can configure an amount of Items and Logistic robots will start to move the specified Items from network to your characters inventory.
Do not mix up LogNet and Circuit network. They share a common component (smart inserter), but are otherwise disconnected and do not exchange any information.
Items
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Spawns the Robotic network in which the Robots can move and with it's coverage also the logistic network. |
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Moves items between Logistic Chests. (*) |
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Logistic Chest: Supplies the contained items to the Logistic network. (**) |
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Logistic Chest: Stores Items currently not requested. (**) |
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Logistic Chest: Will be filled by Logistic robots until the configured amount is reached. (**) |
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Smart inserter: Can be turned on/off depending on contents of a logistic network it is located in. |
(*) At the beginning each robot is carrying only 1 item. This amount can be increased by researching Logistic robot cargo.
(**) logistic chests are also usable for a Circuit network by using wires.
Basic
This is well usable for creating more and more complex items in your main factory. Low complexity (smelting) can (and should) keep using belts.
The basic thing you need are Roboports. When you placed the port and hover it, you see a orange and a larger green area.
- the orange zone is the logistic network area. This is also the maximum distance for connecting two roboports.
- the green zone is the construction area.
When the zones of two or more roboports touch or overlap they are linked together to form a single network. This will show as a dotted line between the linked roboports (if they have power).
The inner area covered by a Robotic network is identical to that of the Logistic network. You see that also, when you build a roboport, if the Roboports are connected. All Logistic network/Chests inside the area are connected and build the Logistic network. Imagine the logistic chests send their containments to the Roboports.
There can be many separate logistic networks. Two roboports are in the same network if you could fly from one to the other without leaving logistic network coverage. To prevent roboports from linking, you need to build them far enough away from each other so that the orange zones don't touch. If you don't link a roboport, the construction area isn't linked, too!
Bots do normally not fly from one network into another (exception: power fail).
Advanced
Network info
Logistic network knows the numbers of all Items stored in all logistic chests and also the number of all items currently carried by Logistic robots. This information can be seen by hovering a logistic chest: you see the sum of all items in logistic chests or on the way in this logistic network.
Negative numbers
For some reasons, you can see negative numbers in the network info. This is not a bug. This means, that the bots can transport more thn available (Logistic robot cargo).
How it works
Place some logistic bots anywhere or in a Roboport, they will immediately begin to work.
The logistic bots try to fulfill the configured requests (requester chest) by moving items from storage- or provider chest to requester chest or from provider- to requester chest.
Order of movement
The bots fulfill all requests with the same priority. The algorithm looks for the next free robot, then the next request in the queue and after giving orders to the robot, this request is put at the end of the queue, so that first all other requests are done. (The results are not optimal; it can happen, that the furthest next bot will be requested, even if there is a much closer. Because of this, it's recommended to use the bots not for high throughput. For that the Railway network is much more useful.)
Requests are coming from the requester chests and storage chests.
- a requested item is first looked up in the storage chests, then in the provider chests (storage chests are emptied first)
- if robots are free and there is space left in storage chests, and there are unrequested items in provider chests, the items are moved from provider to a storage chest.
- if any storage chest already contains items of different type, empty storage chests are filled first. This should prevent having storage chests with different items inside.
In other words: the storage chests are filled last, emptied first and try to store the items they already have.