Desynced Guide to Automation
I noticed a lot of people seem to be having difficulty with the automation aspect of this game via the behavior programming provided. My aim with this guide is to provide some basic to extremely advanced setups for early-game and even late game factories.
Early Game Automation
Scout & Collect Squad
Probably one of the most important parts of your factory, having an automated scout to both search the area and collect dropped resources will make things much easier to find new resource nodes and exploring the map. However, there are dangers around, so figuring out how to do this safely is important. In comes my first contribution, the Scout & Collect Squad.
This uses the 3 scout units you have from the very beginning of the game as one fully functional unit to search & collect the area, defend against basic threats, as well as supplying & storing their own power. You can replace the two supporting units with dash bots if you desire, but you will be lacking space for an additional internal component used for the Portable Shield Generator, so they will be less protected against any potential threats.
First off, the Scout Leader unit seen here is the absolute core to this whole squad operating. You will need both the Behaviours and Power Transference technologies researched, but once you do this is usable fairly early in your play-through.
Now as for the behaviour control programming, I’ve kept it as simple as possible.
First, it checks if it has taken damage. If not, then it will check the immediate area for any dropped items. If there are not any, it will then “scout” the area. This is a move command provided by the game itself, and helps you search the map automatically. If at any time it does find a dropped item in the world that is not in a blight area, it will then check if it has enough space to hold the item. If not, it will then return to the destination recorded in the “Signal” register of the unit.
Now, to set the “Signal” register of the unit, you will need to click and drag the slot shown here onto the destination of where you want the scout to drop off resources. In this case, I have marked my Command Centre as the drop-off point. The reason why I haven’t set the “Store” or “Goto” registers is because it causes the bot to constantly bounce back and forth, which is not ideal. This way, the drop-off target is stored in the bot’s memory, and we can then access that information at any time.
Now, notice I have small storage and a portable shield generator equipped. If you do not have either of these things, feel free to replace the shield with a repair kit, and replace the small storage with a small turret for extra firepower. And with that, you have your scout leader! If you wanted to run it as is, feel free, but be aware that it will not have any means of powering itself, as well as any means of defending itself if you do not have a turret equipped. This is where the other two bots come in~!