Dispatch engine
How the swarm decides who clears what — scoring, claiming, direction, and self-healing.
13 articles
- How swarm dispatch works There are no routes. Each tractor continuously claims its best next property, live, from the first flake.
- Atomic claiming: two tractors never clear the same lot A database-level claim guarantees exactly one machine owns each property — no double-work, no collisions.
- Start-spread: the fleet fans out from the yard On the opening move, tractors prefer properties away from where peers already went — so the fleet spreads instead of piling up.
- Density cohesion: sweep the block before you leave it The swarm finishes a dense cluster before wandering off — no ping-ponging across town.
- Anti-steal: don't grab a property a peer is already sweeping The swarm won't send a tractor to a lot right beside a machine already working that block.
- Direction control: outside-in, inside-out, or nearest-first Choose how the swarm works a zone, anchored to your depot — the strategy you'd give a crew, applied to the whole fleet.
- Real road travel times, not straight-line guesses Scoring uses actual driving distance from OpenRouteService — around rivers, highways, and one-ways, not crow-flies.
- Self-healing: claims that recover on their own If a tractor goes silent, its work automatically flows back to the swarm — no dispatcher re-carving routes over the radio.
- Plow-ridge recheck: sending someone back after the city re-buries an entrance
- How scoring works: position, travel, and direction Every claim decision is one live score blending where a property sits, how far it is to drive, and your chosen direction.
- FAQ: Can I override the swarm and assign a property myself? Yes — a dispatcher can reserve any pending property for a specific tractor, and the swarm works around it.
- FAQ: What happens if a tractor loses signal or goes offline? Position keeps buffering locally; the swarm holds the claim briefly, then self-heals if the silence lasts.
- Give each vehicle a fixed start direction Want the same vehicle on the same side of town every storm? Set a compass bearing per vehicle — and per service plan — on a dial, an optional alternative to the automatic fan-out.