Do the ticks/item number counts a few items with long trips and many items with short trips? If so, items in a bot mall can hide items that are travelling long distances.

Is it possible to add an optional threshold, so bots travelling short distances aren't counted? I'm willing to pay (some) UPS cost while the analysis window is open. (If it only runs when the window is open, some sort of "observation not complete" flag would be useful, so we give it time to get a good sample.)

Even without this feature, it's an amazing mod. The ignore list is a stroke of brilliance.

That's a good question; I wasn't sure if anyone was using the ticks/item (or the ignore list, for that matter), so I like the question. Thank you! And yes, right now it counts everything. It also uses number of items transported as a denominator, so the stat can be a bit misleading if you transport a less than full stacks too.

I'll have to think about how to exclude bots that travel short distances in a way that isn't confusing or very wrong. The problem is complicated: I count ticks, but only sample occasionally for performance reasons, and don't distinguish between a delivery that takes a long time because the bot is charging underway and one that goes a long way. I also use the delivery counters for multiple things, so discarding some of them might affect other things. Stay tuned, I'll revert when I have done some experimenting - if I can get the actual delivery distance cheaply too, that might be in interesting number to surface, and use as the basis for a filter.

Is it possible to add an optional threshold, so bots travelling short distances aren't counted? I'm willing to pay (some) UPS cost while the analysis window is open. (If it only runs when the window is open, some sort of "observation not complete" flag would be useful, so we give it time to get a good sample.)

I've been noodling a bit on this and I think a relatively cheap addition might be nice: Show a list of the items that are transported the furthest (longest haul). For each of these, allow you to see on the map the pickup and dropoff location (and an arrow) for the top 5 longest ones. Maybe even a way to ignore some of those with an ignore list that tags a destination+item as ok, in a new ignore list. (The one wrinkle is that the sampling approach means that I sometimes can't tell what the pickup point is, in which case I can approximate it with the location where I first saw the bot carrying it)

That would be more useful than the ticks/item list I think; maybe that could even be dropped!

Any thoughts?

Simply total items in the air might work, sampled every few seconds. That would catch high-distance + high volume, which is the biggest concern. An item-ignore list would be useful, for high volume things that are needed a bit here, a bit there, so not worth training.

Not counting bots within an adjustable distance of target would solve the mall problem. I'm playing Nullius, so the mall is very large.

Medium distance but high volume is more of a problem than the occasional long-distance flight.

Looking at number of deliveries, even not worrying about distance, has already caught a few over-enthusiastic requesters that were just supposed to drain construction debris, and "bot it in for now and switch to trains once volume increases."

I am finalising a new version that I think addresses many of your needs, and addresses a few other things that are in related areas.

In essence, I start counting distance, and replace ticks/item with more useful data: 1) a Distance Carried row, which shows total bot-distance for your top items, allowing you to see which items consume most of your bots' attention, and 2) a Longest Distance row, which shows the items that are carried the furthest. It can visualise the top 5 routes to make it easy to see if something is a problem. And for Longest Distance, you can ignore destinations for a given item, or an item type entirely.

"Total items in the air" is basically what the Deliveries line shows today.

Not counting bots within an adjustable distance of target would solve the mall problem. I'm playing Nullius, so the mall is very large.

Not counting bots is a tricky thing to do, particularly with a sampled approach that needs to scale :)

My testing shows that mall and other short distance traffic disappears in the new display rows, because longer distances that are used at volume dominate, but I'm happy to take feedback and suggestions once you've tried it of course.

Looking at number of deliveries, even not worrying about distance, has already caught a few over-enthusiastic requesters that were just supposed to drain construction debris, and "bot it in for now and switch to trains once volume increases."

That sounds good. I've added a new Suggestion to flag this kind of thing automatically, though you can of course ignore and tweak those. The suggestion triggers if bots repeatedly deliver a particular item to a certain destination that is far away, and much further away than the median delivery distance.

Sounds good! I don't mind low volume and long distance. Bots are great for that. It's the high volume and anything but short that are the concern, plus loops.

I finally noticed the option to ignore buffer chests for undersupply. I replaced a lot of "collect construction debris" with those, but wasn't patient enough to see if it actually worked.

The editable ignore list is a great feature. I'm using it a lot. Same with hotlinking to Factory Search.

I've just uploaded v1.3.0 (and v1.2.0 for Factorio 2.0), which has this and several other small improvements and fixes. If you get a chance to try it, let me know what you find!

The editable ignore list is a great feature. I'm using it a lot. Same with hotlinking to Factory Search.

I'm glad you like those! I use them all the time, and couldn't do without them either :)

Nice! I like the extra info of distance and number of trips.

Nice! I like the extra info of distance and number of trips.

Great! Did you get a chance to try the Longest Trips display too? I found some surprises when I tried it :)

I haven't seen anything worrisome yet, but mostly ignore longest trip. A tiny quantity over a long distance doesn't worry me. It's not worth putting tiny quantities on rails. Medium quantity medium distance is worth rails.

I haven't seen anything worrisome yet, but mostly ignore longest trip. A tiny quantity over a long distance doesn't worry me. It's not worth putting tiny quantities on rails. Medium quantity medium distance is worth rails.

Indeed. You can just add those small long distance ones to the ignore list.

Nice! I like the extra explanation of the longest trip and ease of, "Click, see line, both ends within the mall. All is well." Well thought-out!

My first reaction to an ignore list for destinations was worry, but since it's easy enough to reset everything, it's safe to play with. It's nice to say, "That trip was fine, what's next on the list?" then an hour later (after possibly bringing another thing into the bot mall, but forgetting to remove the provider chests from the production line), reset the list and look again.

Scared me! I paused the game (very nice feature -- I wish Cybersyn's Train Manager screen had that), got distracted, saved, came back, and couldn't move.

Scared me! I paused the game (very nice feature -- I wish Cybersyn's Train Manager screen had that), got distracted, saved, came back, and couldn't move.

Eek! Hopefully pressing the Play button worked to resume things :)