[Rseding91][0.17.52] [Minor] Deconstruction Planner: DP will not remove rails under trains, even when filtered on rails.

[TheBloke]

Platform tested on: macOS 10.14.5 (Mojave)
Version tested: 0.17.52

Deconstruction planner will not remove rails under train, even if explicitly filtered for rails:

When a deconstruction planner is run over trains on rails, only the trains will be removed; any rails under a loco or wagon are not removed.

Presumably this is intentional, to avoid the need to have a filtered DP to remove trains without also removing track. Although this is inconsistent with Editor mode, where both trains and track are removed (to be exact: straight rails are removed in Editor, curved are not, which I believe is a bug.)

However, this is also the case when a Deconstruction Planner is used which is filtered to target rails, curved rails, locomotives, wagons. In this case it feels odd; I have a DP that is specifically filtering for rails, so it seems wrong that some rails are not removed.

I would suggest that when an explicitly filtered DP is used that is filtered on both trains and rails, and both trains and bare rails are selected, then all rails should be removed along with the trains.

In other words, the DP could behave similarly to how it treats tiles. A default DP will only include tiles if they are the only thing selected. Extending this concept to trains: if a DP area selects only a train, then the underlying rails are not included. But if a filtered planner is used that includes rails, and the area is expanded to select rails that do not have a train on them, then all the rails are included. This could even apply to all DPs, even without rails being filtered.

And/or, the removal of rails along with trains could be optionally enabled: either globally in Settings->Interface, or else as a new configurable in the DP itself.

Example: DP filtered to rails, curved rails, locos and cargo wagon, highlighting an area that includes trains and bare rails:


Result:


The tooltip and DP markers correctly informs the player that not all rails will be removed. Nonetheless it's still a counter-intuitive result, with some rails removed and others not, despite the filters requesting all rails to be removed.

[Rseding91]

That is unfortunately how rails work: they can't be removed until the train on them is removed. That wasn't a problem before because trains couldn't be deconstructed but now here we are with 0.17 allowing them to be deconstructed.

I'm not sure if there's any nice answer to this.

[Zanostra]

I would like to suggest to treat rails and trains somewhat the same way as a assembler with modules in it.
If you build them, first a robot goes there to place the assembler, then another one to insert the modules.
If you select trains and rails with no filter, all gets a red cross, but the robots who are trying to deconstruct the rails will hover until another takes away the train first.
Like when blue printing something over cliffs.
If you have selected only rails, and there was a train on it, the robots wait forever.
Because it's the players job to be sure there's no train on the rails when he deconstructs rails only.

[TheBloke]

Thanks so much for fixing this so fast!

[mutemute]

Not sure if this will get seen here, but here goes anyway. Playing in creative mode with no bots, this is still a bit wonky.

Before this fix, it took two sweeps with a deconstruction planner. One to clear the trains, and a second to clear the rails left over. Now, the first sweep marks the rails for deconstruction but does not remove them. Sweeping over them with the deconstruction planner again does not remove them because they are already marked. Not a huge deal, but I thought I would throw it out there.

Thank you for all the work you guys do!

[TheBloke]

Not sure if this will get seen here, but here goes anyway. Playing in creative mode with no bots, this is still a bit wonky.

Before this fix, it took two sweeps with a deconstruction planner. One to clear the trains, and a second to clear the rails left over. Now, the first sweep marks the rails for deconstruction but does not remove them. Sweeping over them with the deconstruction planner again does not remove them because they are already marked. Not a huge deal, but I thought I would throw it out there.

Thank you for all the work you guys do!

It works great now in /editor mode - removing both rails and trains at the same time in an instant sweep.

I've never played Sandbox because I've preferred to start a normal game, and swap in and out of /editor when I want to do instant blueprinting, DPing, etc. And it provides a Clone menu (to instantly duplicate everything, including terrain features), and also a Time menu which can move the game forward in steps, eg 1 or 60 ticks at a time.

But you could just drop into /editor mode in a Sandbox scenario as well? In that mode a DP will instantly remove both trains and rails in one go, no DP markers.

[mutemute]

It works great now in /editor mode - removing both rails and trains at the same time in an instant sweep.

I've never played Sandbox because I've preferred to start a normal game, and swap in and out of /editor when I want to do instant blueprinting, DPing, etc. And it provides a Clone menu (to instantly duplicate everything, including terrain features), and also a Time menu which can move the game forward in steps, eg 1 or 60 ticks at a time.

But you could just drop into /editor mode in a Sandbox scenario as well? In that mode a DP will instantly remove both trains and rails in one go, no DP markers.

I... didn't know /editor was a thing . I have always just used a creative mode map to work on designs when needed. I will give it a shot!

[TheBloke]

I... didn't know /editor was a thing . I have always just used a creative mode map to work on designs when needed. I will give it a shot!

It was added in 0.17. Or rather, the Console command /editor was added in 0.17 as an in-game version of the Map/Scenario Editor, that you previously could only get from the main menu. But now you can get it any time, in any map, and go in and out of it as desired.

As well as making it available in all games, it got a bunch of great new features - in particular the ability to use blueprints/deconstruction planners/upgrade planners (which by default activate instantly), plus the Clone and Time menus I mentioned earlier. Plus lots of other features more related to map editing.

I've been using it a lot in recent weeks in 0.17 for testing out designs, as you say. The fact that you can just drop in and out of it any time, in any save, is really nice. You can quickly make use of all the stuff you've already built as part of your normal game, and don't have to quit and go back to the main menu all the time.

So yeah, I highly recommend it. For those of us doing lots of design testing, I'd rate it as yet another of the major improvements of 0.17.