Ideas for Reworking Sweepy

[PowerPowerPower]

With the release of BBP its the perfect time to rework Sweepy, but in its current state its functionally useless. It can’t deliver to buildings, it’s pretty limited in what it can pick up and it’s very slow at picking up what it can, it can only move along a flat surface, and anything that actually gets to its dock is still dependent on a dupe, auto sweeper, or Flydo to actually go anywhere, all of which could’ve just picked up from the ground themselves.

 

There are some obvious things that would make Sweepy instantly more usable. Output ports on the dock, any amount of vertical mobility, filters on what it should sweep, the ability to pick up eggs. These would all help Sweepy to be competitive against, or at least work in tandem with, an auto sweeper or Flydo when it comes to picking up debris. It would also benefit immensely from some minor delivery capabilities, even if its not on the same scale as Flydo because of its limited mobility and dependence on the dock.

 

Leaning into Sweepy’s use inside living areas could be nice, maybe a slight bonus for being on a tile that a sweepy recently swept? Especially something like a carpeted tile where there’s already a bonus for standing on it.
The dock is also kinda massive, Making the dock a little smaller would let it fit nicely into a lot more places.
Sweepy not being able to go through doors can also get annoying, it’s a common suggestion but it would still be nice to be able to let sweepies and flydos open doors, or even give them a little doggy-door that they can pass through.

 

Lastly, it would be cool to have skins for Sweepy and its dock, like one to make it look like the proto-sweepy on the robotics research desk, and one to make it look more like flydo. I know it’s not a gameplay feature but it would still be nice to see sweepy get any kind of love in game.

[cyberwarlord]

Repurpose into a plant harvesting bot.

[PowerPowerPower]

Oh, also - items in sweepy’s dock should be optionally tagged for sweeping, allowing them to be brought to sweep only storage bins. There’s genuinely a missing niche for a way to automatically mark for sweeping