Nanobots: Early Bots Continued

A community-maintained continuation of Nanobots: Early Bots for Factorio 2.1.

Nanobots provide automated construction assistance before normal construction robots become available. Equip the Nano Emitter with constructor ammunition and it will automatically handle nearby construction, repair, deconstruction and upgrade tasks using items from your inventory.

This continuation keeps the original gameplay, graphics, concept and public interfaces as intact as possible while updating the mod for Factorio 2.1 and Space Age compatibility.

Important

This is not an official release from the original maintainer.

This continuation exists to keep Nanobots playable on newer Factorio versions. If the original maintainer returns and wishes to resume maintenance, this continuation can be archived, redirected or transferred as appropriate.

Compatibility

Factorio 2.1
Space Age is supported but optional
Requires kry_stdlib version 2.2.4 or newer
Incompatible with the original Nanobots2 package

Early construction nanobots

Research Nanobots after the early automation technologies, then craft a Nano Emitter and the appropriate ammunition.

The Nano Emitter automatically scans an area around the player. When it finds a valid task, it consumes ammunition and, where required, the corresponding construction item before dispatching a visual nanobot projectile.

Nanobots are intended to bridge the gap between manual construction and full construction robotics. They are especially useful for early blueprints, factory expansion and cleanup.

Nano Constructors

Nano Constructor ammunition can perform several construction and maintenance tasks.

Supported tasks include:

Building entity ghosts
Building tile ghosts
Repairing damaged structures
Deconstructing marked entities
Completing upgrade-planner orders
Handling rotated upgrade targets
Fulfilling item-request proxies
Inserting requested modules and items
Demolishing cliffs after the relevant technology has been researched

Required construction items are taken from the player inventory, vehicle inventory or train cargo when available.

Items retain their quality when moved, inserted, returned or spilled. Higher-quality blueprint ghosts therefore require construction items of the matching quality.

If a queued action can no longer be completed, consumed construction items are returned whenever possible.

Nano Termites

Nano Termite ammunition targets nearby trees.

Termites destroy trees instead of collecting wood. The process may also damage nearby structures, so care should be taken when using them close to the factory.

Manually firing constructor or termite ammunition only produces the visual nanobot cloud. Automatic construction work is performed by the nearby scanning system.

Logistic network behaviour

By default, nanobots avoid operating inside areas already covered by an active construction network.

This prevents nanobots from competing unnecessarily with normal construction robots.

The Nanobot Logistic Interface equipment module can override this restriction and allow Nano Constructors to operate inside active logistic and construction networks.

Equipment modules

Nanobots also includes equipment-grid modules that extend personal-roboport behaviour.

Most automatic equipment functions require:

A character with an equipment grid
A powered personal roboport
Available construction robots
The relevant equipment module

Automatic item retriever

Marks nearby items on the ground for collection by construction robots.

Items are not marked while enemies are detected nearby.

Automatic tree cutter

Marks nearby trees for deconstruction.

This allows personal construction robots to clear trees automatically while the player moves through an area.

Automatic unit launcher

Automatically launches available combat-robot capsules when enemies enter the configured range.

The module uses combat capsules from the player inventory and respects the normal follower-robot limit.

Automatic feeder

Automatically uses supported healing items when the player is injured.

If suitable healing items are unavailable, the module can provide a smaller emergency healing effect. Each feeder has a cooldown between activations.

Nanobot Logistic Interface

Allows Nano Constructors to operate inside areas covered by logistic and construction networks.

Only one interface module is required.

Programmable Roboport Interface

The Roboport Interface is a placeable programmable device that assigns additional jobs to an existing logistic network.

The placed interface consists of a visible roboport-style structure, a scanner and a configurable constant combinator.

Set virtual signals on the combinator to control the work performed by the connected logistic network.

Supported jobs include:

Marking items on the ground for collection
Marking trees for removal
Gathering fish
Deconstructing exhausted mining drills
Limiting operations to the nearest roboport construction area

The interface only operates when enough construction robots are available. A configurable percentage of robots can be reserved for normal construction work.

Automatic network tasks pause when enemies are detected nearby.

Negative signal values

Some signals support negative values as inventory thresholds.

For example, a negative tree signal can instruct the network to cut trees only while the network contains less than the specified amount of wood.

This makes it possible to maintain a resource stock level without continuously clearing every available target.

Runtime settings

The mod includes runtime settings for:

Automatic Nano Emitter operation
Whether the Nano Emitter must be the selected weapon
Nanobot scanning frequency
Queue processing speed
Maximum work radius
Tile construction
Item-request fulfilment
Logistic-network restrictions
Equipment automation
Player AFK handling
Roboport Interface scan speed
The percentage of construction robots kept free

Very aggressive scan and queue settings may increase script activity in large multiplayer games.

Factorio 2.1 continuation changes

The Factorio 2.1 continuation includes:

New internal mod name: Nanobots2-continued
Migrated from the temporary stdlib2-continued fork to the maintained kry_stdlib
Updated Factorio 2.1 ghost revival handling
Updated upgrade-planner handling
Quality-aware construction and inventory movement
Updated item-request proxy handling
Updated constant-combinator sections and filters
Safer delayed action queues
Improved handling of deleted or invalid entities
Improved multiplayer polling
Updated shortcut prototypes
Updated Space Age compatibility
Updated packaging and automated GitHub releases
Automated testing against the required Standard Library release
Updated documentation and metadata

Testing

The continuation is tested using:

Lua syntax validation
Factorio-compatible package validation
Factorio 2.1 headless loading
Base-game save creation
Space Age save creation
Automatic testing with kry_stdlib
Manual gameplay testing

Reporting problems

Please report reproducible continuation problems at:

https://github.com/goakiller900/Nanobots2/issues

Please include:

Factorio version
Nanobots version
kry_stdlib version
Enabled mods
Whether Space Age is enabled
The complete error message
factorio-current.log when available
Steps required to reproduce the problem

Source code

https://github.com/goakiller900/Nanobots2

Many thanks to

Articulating for his help and ideas.
TokMor for extensive bug testing.
M16 for breaking things.
Kryzeth for maintaining kry_stdlib and consolidating the Factorio 2.1 Standard Library fixes.
Wube and the Factorio development team.
KatherineOfSky, Arumba, Momentary Flux, and all other YouTubers who showcased Nanobots.
Xterminator for his Nanobots spotlight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sh_oIgUMfV4
And you, as an everyday user of Nanobots.

In memory of KatherineOfSky, whose videos, enthusiasm and contribution to the Factorio community will not be forgotten.

Credits

Original mod, gameplay concept and implementation by Nexela.

This Factorio 2.1 continuation is maintained by Goakiller900.