Construction robot

Construction robots are logistic network robots specialized for construction, repair, and deconstruction tasks. They fetch building materials from logistic chests, place and build ghost entities and blueprints, repair damaged structures using repair packs, and remove entities marked for deconstruction. Construction robots operate from roboports and are part of the player's logistic network rather than independent units.

Construction robots perform several distinct tasks. They repair damaged entities by consuming repair packs carried in their inventory. When an entity has been destroyed, construction robots replace it if the required item is available in a provider or storage chest within the same logistic network. Entities flagged by the deconstruction planner are picked up and transported into storage chests; if a requester or buffer chest has an active unfulfilled request for the item being deconstructed, construction robots will prioritize delivering the item directly into that chest. Environmental objects such as trees and fish can be deconstructed; cliffs can also be removed if cliff explosives are available either in a provider or storage chest in the network or in the player’s personal inventory.

Construction robots build entities placed as ghosts or produced from blueprints by fetching ingredients from the nearest logistic chest that contains the items. Unlike logistic (transport) robots, construction robots do not prioritize chests by type when choosing where to pick up items. They will not take items out of requester chests to fulfill construction orders, so requester chests effectively reserve requested items from being used for building by construction robots.

Each construction robot has a limited internal inventory and can carry up to four items at once, a capacity determined by the researched worker robot cargo size. They may hold multiple stacks to build several aspects of a structure, and a single robot can be provisioning materials for up to four tiles, though it constructs only one entity at a time. Construction robot movement speed and cargo capacity are affected by logistic and worker robot technologies; increasing robot speed reduces time to complete tasks but raises energy consumption for each robot.

Construction robots have no combat abilities and will not flee when attacked. They are vulnerable to enemy units and environmental damage: ground melee units can destroy them despite their flying appearance, and incendiary sources such as flamethrower fire damage them as well. Because they commonly operate at the leading edge of base expansion and repair, they are frequently exposed to hostile fire and destruction.

• Construction robots rely on a connected roboport network and available materials in provider/storage chests to function.
• They will prioritize filling requester/buffer chests for deconstructed items when such requests exist.
• Robots do not take items from requester chests to satisfy construction; supply must come from provider or storage chests (or player inventory).
• Research increases cargo size and speed; speed increases energy usage for each robot.