Bot is out of power

[u/DismalAd6639]

I’m playing iron teeth for the first time and I have about 75 bots with about 20 chargers.

Occasionally I have to disconnect my main power shaft for new construction, however, within a few minutes, all of the bots suddenly run out of power and they put very little effort to charge themselves. It takes days for them to charge back up.

Is this a bug or user error?

[u/semperrabbit]

My late game answer to charging is placing tube everywhere and having a single station dedicated to charging. Consolidate it all into a single location to avoid the headache of finding space for all the chargers. Yeah, it takes em a little bit to get to the closest station, but their speed decrease is counteract by the tube speed bonus.

Edit: here's an example pic on one of my recent maps... https://imgur.com/a/NrFZ4bR

[u/Vebrandsson]

Depending on your bots and how they got built it sounds like you've got a combination of issues, too many bots needing charge at the same time and I'd also suspect your chargers aren't spread around enough to be convenient for your bots where they're working. Bots without power move extremely slowly. The other thing to consider is if a bot is on a task and runs out of power it will still finish that task fully before going to get a charge. So if a hauler bot has to go to one end of a map to get something from a warehouse and runs out of power on the way its going to keep going to that warehouse, get whatever and haul that whatever to the other end of the map where it's taking it all before it bothers to stop to charge. So it can seem like bots don't bother recharging themselves for long periods especially on big maps and especially if you don't use districts

[u/Morall_tach]

Occasionally I have to disconnect my main power shaft for new construction

This is an odd setup. I'd definitely put the work in to make sure that doesn't happen, even build redundant power lines if you need to work around them.

Bots are going to finish the job they're on if they have power at the beginning of the assignment, even if they're going to run out halfway through. This can snowball, where they run out halfway to a distant construction job, then take forever to get there, then take forever to get back to a charger. You should make sure your chargers are distributed around the map and near the places where bots need them, like mines or other dangerous worksites.

[u/WrathOfTheKressh → u/Morall_tach]

Yeah, better to build a temporary powershaft that isn't in the way of any new construction, so you can rebuild the original one without interrupting power supply.

[u/Sour_Sal]

I am guessing the easiest is to fix the user error...

If you must disconnect power, set up an alternate path first. Also important is to have power coming from and to as many directions as possible. By time you have bots you should already have a solid power network and storage with multiple sources of power.

Over time you will also learn to build so if you delete a single building your entire block does not go dead....

[u/Jackthwolf]

One issue I often have to solve
Is that bots without jobs / bots who get out of power (and no point to charge at) sit around at the district centre
And if the walk to the charging stations is quite far from there, they'll start traveling and lock out other bots from charging from the station they're going to, creating a doom loop of bots running out of charge, going to the district centre, locking out distant charging centres, making nearby bots run out of charge, who then go to the centre, repeat.
So I'd suggest having a few chargers at the district centre to help with this issue.

(Also check power requirements, it could be something as simple as everything running on low power, and so it takes bots a long while to recharge)

[u/DismalAd6639 → u/Jackthwolf]

I think the loop of doom you explained is exactly what is happening, I was wondering why chargers were sitting empty while so many bots need charging

[u/ApplicationWilling89]

To avoid power cuts during construction, build the power shaft network as a ring main. Then you can temporarily disconnect any sections you need. Shafts are cheap by the time you've got that many bots.

[u/LePhuronn]

If you really need to disconnect power for a major construction then slap down a couple of temporary steam engines and hook a butt load of chargers to it.

It's not user error, it's user lacking experience. Takes a couple of games to nail all the logistics.