Robots are the moment Factorio stops feeling like a factory and starts feeling like an empire. Belts move items in straight, deterministic lines; robots fly over walls, lakes, and spaghetti to build, repair, deconstruct, and shuttle goods wherever the network needs them. If you have ever watched a blueprint snap into existence as a swarm of construction bots descends on a patch of dirt, you already understand why the logistic network is the single biggest quality-of-life leap in the game. This guide covers the entire robot ecosystem in depth: roboports and their two zones, construction versus logistic robots, all five logistic chest types, recharging behavior, and the 1.1-vs-2.0/Space Age differences that trip up players following older tutorials.
Everything below is built on the current Factorio 2.0 base game and the paid Space Age expansion, both of which launched on October 21, 2024. The 2.0 line is the current stable release, and where a mechanic changed from the old 1.1 era we flag it explicitly so you do not waste hours copying a ratio that no longer applies. If you are running a multiplayer base, robots are also the reason a well-set-up server practically maintains itself; you can spin one up fast with our dedicated Factorio server hosting and let the bots keep the lights on while your friends are offline.
Roboports: the heart of the network
Nothing in the robot system works without a roboport. The roboport is the structure that houses robots, charges them, and projects the two zones that define where and how the network operates. Place a single roboport and you will see two coloured overlays appear on the ground when you hover construction or logistic items.
- Orange logistic-network zone: This defines the reach of the logistic network and, crucially, how roboports link together. When the orange zones of two roboports touch, they merge into one single logistic network. This is the rule that lets you grow one continuous bot-served base by simply tiling roboports close enough that their orange squares overlap or abut.
- Green construction zone: This is the larger area where construction robots are allowed to operate — building blueprints, deconstructing, upgrading, and repairing. The green zone extends past the orange zone, so construction coverage reaches slightly beyond the strict logistic boundary.
The practical takeaway: if you want one giant network where a requester chest on the east side can be filled by a provider chest on the west side, every roboport between them must form a continuous chain of touching orange zones. Break that chain — leave a gap so two orange zones do not meet — and you have created two separate networks that cannot share items or robots. Many “my robots won’t deliver” headaches are simply a roboport placed one tile too far away.
Construction robots vs logistic robots
Two robot types share the network, and they do completely different jobs. Understanding the division of labour is the key to debugging why something is or is not happening.
Construction robots
The official wiki describes construction robots as machines that “build, deconstruct and upgrade entities on command” and “repair broken or replace destroyed entities.” In other words, they handle every structural change to your base:
- Build blueprints: Stamp a blueprint on the ground and construction bots fetch the components and assemble it, ghost by ghost.
- Execute the deconstruction planner: Mark entities for removal and bots dismantle them, returning the items to the network or your inventory.
- Run upgrade planners: Tell bots to swap yellow belts for red, or basic inserters for fast ones, and they perform the upgrade in place.
- Auto-repair: When a building takes damage and repair packs are stocked in the network, construction bots fly out, repair it, and return — passive maintenance with zero input from you.
One important behavior: construction robots pull components from the nearest chest to the build site, regardless of chest type. They are not picky about whether the iron plates come from a passive provider, a storage chest, or a buffer — they take whatever is closest. This is why blueprint construction can stall if the only chest holding girders is on the far side of the base; place materials near where the building happens.
Logistic robots
Logistic robots have one job: move items between logistic chests. They are the flying alternative to belts. Their default carry capacity is 1 item, which sounds tiny — and it is, until you research worker-robot cargo, which raises capacity per level so a single bot ferries larger stacks per trip. The wiki frankly describes logistic bots as a power-hungry alternative to belts: they are wonderfully flexible and routing-free, but a large bot network draws serious electricity because every flight and every recharge costs energy. For high-throughput main-bus smelting and mall output, belts are still cheaper; for mall item distribution, ammo top-ups, and “request 50 of these wherever I am” tasks, bots win on convenience.
If you want a deeper division-of-labour discussion — when to feed something by belt versus when to let bots handle it — pair this guide with our comprehensive guide to smelting in Factorio, since smelting output is the classic case where belts beat bots on raw throughput.
The five logistic chest types
Chests are how items enter and leave the logistic network. There are exactly five types, and each one tells robots a different thing about the items inside it. Memorising what each chest says to the network is the single most valuable robot skill in the game.
| Chest type | What it tells the network | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Passive Provider | “Places stored items at the network’s disposal” — supplied only when something requests them. | Output of an assembler / mall; items sit until needed. |
| Active Provider | “Pushes stored items into the network” — actively emptied, highest-priority source. | Forcing overflow out, e.g. unloading a train wagon you want cleared immediately. |
| Storage | “Stores items currently not requested. Can be filtered to only store one type.” | Overflow and trash destination; deconstructed items land here. |
| Requester | “Filled by logistic robots until the configured amount is reached” — can request multiple item types. | Feeding an assembler’s ingredients; topping up an outpost. |
| Buffer | “Functions as both a requester chest and a passive provider chest” — a hybrid. | Forward supply depots that both pull stock in and hand it back out on request. |
Provider chests: passive vs active
Both providers make their contents available, but the difference is urgency. A passive provider offers its items only when the network has an active request for them — perfect for the output of a mall where you do not want bots constantly hauling unless something downstream asks. An active provider, by contrast, pushes everything out as fast as bots can carry it, and it is treated as the highest-priority source. Use active providers sparingly: a careless active provider full of stone can swamp your storage chests as bots frantically empty it. The classic correct use is dumping the contents of something you genuinely want cleared, like a buffer wagon at an unloading station.
Storage chests: the overflow and filter chest
Storage chests are where the network parks things “currently not requested.” They are the default landing zone for overflow, for items pulled out by the deconstruction planner, and for personal trash hauled away from your inventory. A storage chest can be filtered to accept only one item type, which is the trick to keeping your logistics tidy: set one storage chest to “iron plate only” and overflow iron has a clean home instead of scattering across every empty storage slot. For the full mechanics of clearing junk out of a base — including the difference between hauling items away and truly destroying them — see our guide to deleting items in Factorio.
Requester chests
Requester chests are filled by logistic robots until the count you configure is reached, and a single requester can ask for multiple different item types at once. This is how you feed an assembler that needs, say, iron gears, copper plates, and electronic circuits — set three requests on one chest and bots keep all three topped up. Requesters are also the backbone of remote outposts: a requester chest set to “1,000 walls, 200 repair packs, 5,000 ammo” will keep a defensive perimeter stocked automatically as long as it sits in the same network.
Buffer chests: the hybrid
The buffer chest is the trickiest of the five because it does two things at once: it functions as both a requester chest and a passive provider chest. It requests items in to keep itself stocked, then offers those same items back to the network on demand. The intended use is a forward supply depot — for example, a buffer near your wall line that requests construction materials from your main base, then hands them to local construction bots for repairs without forcing long flights back to central storage. Buffer chests existed back in 1.1 (they were added in version 0.16), so they are not a new 2.0 feature, though the in-game naming and UI were cleaned up in 2.0.
Blueprints, deconstruction, and upgrades
Construction robots turn three different planners into automated labour. Blueprints place ghost entities that bots fill in. The deconstruction planner is the inverse: click-drag over an area to mark entities with a red X, and construction robots remove them, depositing contents into network chests or your inventory. A detail that catches people out — items are removed before their container. If you deconstruct a chest holding 500 iron plates, bots pull the 500 plates out first, then remove the empty chest. Trees and rocks marked in the area are mined and their resources stored too.
The deconstruction planner also supports two precision modes. Whitelist mode means the planner acts “only upon items added to the filter slots” — useful for, say, removing only the trees from a forest while leaving your belts intact. Blacklist mode marks “everything except the filtered entities/tiles” — handy for clearing a whole area but protecting a specific structure. Combined with the upgrade planner (which tells bots to swap entities for higher tiers in place), these tools let you redesign a running base without touching a single entity by hand.
Auto-repair: keeping the base alive
One of the most underrated robot jobs is automatic repair, and it is essential on any server facing regular biter attacks. The rules are simple:
- Manual repair means holding a repair pack and left-clicking a placed building. Repair packs only work on buildings already placed — you cannot repair items sitting in your inventory.
- Automatic repair happens when a damaged building is inside a roboport-connected network and repair packs are stocked in that network (in provider or storage chests). Construction robots fly out, repair the damage, and return — entirely passive.
- Repair amount: each repair pack restores 600 health in total, consumed at a rate of 2 health per unit of tool durability (a normal pack has 300 durability → 600 HP repaired across multiple uses).
In 2.0 the quality system scales repair-pack durability dramatically: a normal pack is 300 durability, while Uncommon is 600, Rare 900, Epic 1,200, and Legendary 1,800 — meaning a single legendary repair pack can restore up to 3,600 HP. Quality is a 2.0/Space Age mechanic that did not exist in 1.1. To set up a self-healing wall line correctly, read our dedicated how to repair structures in Factorio walkthrough, then make sure repair packs are always stocked where your perimeter roboports can reach them — because robots are also your first line of defense alongside handling biters.
Recharging: why robots return to roboports
Robots fly on internal batteries, and that energy drains as they work. When a robot runs low it returns to the nearest roboport to recharge, then resumes its task. Each roboport has a limited number of charging pads, so a network with too few roboports for its robot population will show a tell-tale traffic jam of bots queuing to charge — they hover near the roboport instead of working. The fix is more roboports (more charging slots and more coverage) rather than simply more robots.
Robot speed scales with the worker-robot speed research line, so investing in those techs makes your whole fleet faster and effectively reduces how long each round trip takes. The exact base movement speed in metres per second and battery capacity in joules are not values we will quote precisely here, but qualitatively: bots fly in straight lines ignoring terrain, drain battery proportional to distance and load, and return to roboports to recharge. Because every flight and recharge consumes grid power, a large bot network is a real electrical load — plan your power plant accordingly, whether that is solar, steam, or nuclear (see our power management guide).
A minimal working bot network
If you have never built one, here is the smallest network that actually does useful work. The goal is an assembler that is fed and emptied entirely by robots:
1x Roboport -> hosts bots, projects orange + green zones, recharges
4x Construction robots -> build/deconstruct/repair
4x Logistic robots -> move items between chests
1x Passive provider -> holds the assembler's OUTPUT (offered on request)
1x Requester chest -> holds the assembler's INPUTS (bots keep it topped up)
1x Storage chest -> catches overflow / deconstructed items / trash
Rule of thumb: keep every chest inside ONE continuous orange zone.
Touching orange zones = one network. A gap = two networks that
cannot share items or bots.Drop logistic robots and construction robots directly into the roboport, set the requester to pull the ingredients you want, and point an inserter from the passive provider into the rest of your base. From there, scaling is just tiling more roboports so their orange zones touch and adding bots until the work keeps up.
1.1 vs 2.0 / Space Age: what changed for robots
The good news for robot players is that the core logistic system is essentially unchanged from 1.1. All five chest types — passive provider, active provider, storage, requester, and buffer — exist in 2.0 and behave the way they always did. Buffer chests were not added in 2.0; they have been around since 0.16. What 2.0 changed is mostly polish: the in-game chests were renamed to the plain “Passive provider / Requester” labels and the logistics UI was improved. The quality system is the genuinely new mechanic that touches robots indirectly — higher-quality repair packs last far longer, as shown above.
One change worth flagging because it bites players following old guides — it is unrelated to bots but affects how you power a bot-heavy base. The 2.0 fluid rework changed the steam offshore-pump ratio. In 1.1 the standard was 1 offshore pump : 20 boilers : 40 steam engines (≈40 MW). In 2.0 the offshore pump outputs 1,200 water/s and water-to-steam is 10:1, so the optimal ratio is now 1 offshore pump : 200 boilers : 400 steam engines (≈360 MW). The boiler-to-engine ratio of 1:2 is unchanged, but if a guide tells you one pump feeds only 20 boilers, that guide is 1.1-only. For everything else power-related, our Factorio server documentation covers running and tuning your dedicated server.
Space Age also introduces new planets where robot logistics still apply, but their surrounding systems differ — solar ratios that work on Nauvis (the famous 25 panels : 21 accumulators, ≈0.84 accumulators per panel) do not transfer to other planets because day length and solar multipliers differ. The robot rules, however, travel with you everywhere.
Frequently asked questions
Do touching roboports really merge into one network?
Yes. When the orange logistic-network zones of two roboports touch, they merge into a single logistic network that shares both robots and chest contents. The green construction zone extends further out than the orange zone, so construction coverage reaches slightly beyond the strict logistic boundary. If you want one continuous network across a large base, keep an unbroken chain of touching orange zones.
What is the difference between a passive provider and an active provider chest?
A passive provider places its items at the network’s disposal but only supplies them when something requests them. An active provider actively pushes its items into the network and is treated as the highest-priority source, so bots empty it as fast as they can. Use passive providers for normal mall output and active providers only when you genuinely want a chest cleared immediately.
How much can a logistic robot carry?
By default a logistic robot carries 1 item per trip. The worker-robot cargo research increases this capacity per level, letting each bot ferry larger amounts and reducing the number of flights needed for the same throughput. Worker-robot speed research separately makes the fleet fly faster.
How does automatic repair work?
Construction robots automatically repair damaged buildings as long as those buildings are inside a roboport-connected network and repair packs are stocked in the network (in provider or storage chests). Each repair pack restores 600 health total at normal quality; higher quality tiers in 2.0 last far longer, up to 3,600 HP for a legendary pack. Repair packs only work on already-placed buildings, not items in your inventory.
Why are my robots not delivering items?
The most common cause is two separate networks: if the orange zones do not touch, a requester in one network cannot pull from a provider in another. Other causes include no logistic robots in the network, no charging capacity (too few roboports for the bot count, causing recharge queues), or the requested item not existing in any provider, storage, or buffer chest. Check that all relevant chests sit inside one continuous orange zone.
Did the chest types change in Factorio 2.0?
No. All five chest types — passive provider, active provider, storage, requester, and buffer — exist in 2.0 and behave the same as in 1.1. Buffer chests were added back in version 0.16, not 2.0. The 2.0 update renamed the chests to plainer in-game labels and improved the logistics UI, but the underlying behavior is identical.
Putting it all together
Robots reward planning over reaction. Lay roboports so their orange zones form one continuous network, stock storage chests so overflow has a home and repair packs are always available, use requesters to feed and buffers to forward-supply, and reserve active providers for the rare case where you truly want something emptied now. Keep enough roboports that bots are not queuing to charge, invest in worker-robot speed and cargo research, and remember that a busy bot network is a real electrical load. Do that and your factory will build, repair, and resupply itself while you focus on the next bottleneck — or on launching the rocket. If you want friends building alongside you with the bots running around the clock, a dedicated server keeps the network alive even when you log off.
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