[0.12.0] Shift/Control clicking with Logistic trash slots

[Gandalf]

The new trash logistic slots behave inconsistently and impractically when using Shift and Control + mouse click in your inventory. The following issues happen when opening your inventory directly (press ‘e’ by default).

1. Click on an empty space in your inventory while holding ‘Ctrl’. This will fill up your hotbar with any items that fit (including half stacks of dedicated slots) as it did before. However now it will also fill up the logistic trash slots with random items. That essentially makes the Ctrl-click in your inventory useless since you rarely want to get rid of “just anything”.
2. Click on a stack in your inventory to make it move. Some of them will automatically move to the logistics trash slots, some to your hotbar (if possible). After some trial and error I believe the ones that go to your hotbar are things that can be built (by clicking on the ground). While that distinction makes sense it is nowhere explained and feels arbitrary and confusing. A better solution may be to use a different key for sending items to the trash slots.
3. Minor side issue: You can dispose of items that you are also requesting, making robots pick them up and giving them to yourself immediately. I don't know if this is intentional since it doesn't really get in the way, but it's a little weird.

PS: I was actually expecting the trash slots to work differently, similar to how the requester slots work: You only define a number of an item type specifying how many you intend to keep (or 0 if you want to get rid of them all). That way if your inventory is full of trees you can just tell it to “get rid of all the trees!”. It would essentially allow you to balance any item type around a specific number, using both requester and trash slots.

PPS: The hype is real right now so I might have overlooked this one if somebody already posted it.

[Ojelle]

Also: Some items don't want to move to trash slots. (ex inserters)

[Gandalf]

@Ojelle Yeah that's 2. in my list above.

[slpwnd]

Thanks for the report.

@1 -This is a bug and it will be fixed.

@2 - This is actually an intended behavior. The logic is not really described anywhere that might be the problem. How it works is what you have figured out yourself. Items that normally go into the quickbar ("buildable items") still go into the quickbar when "shift clicking" from main inventory. Specialized items (guns, ammo, armor, tools) go to their respective slots on shift click. The rest (mostly materials and intermediate products) go to the logistic trash slots.

@3 - I don't understand exactly what you mean.


Logistic trash fields is still a bit experimental feature=))

The reason behind the un-intuitive controls is that we didn't want to add another special key for this. That is just not an option (there are too many controls already).
Another restriction is the size of the main gui (inventory + logistics + crafting). The logic you mention you have pictured the slots would work is a valid idea. We have considered that one as well. In the end we decided for this implementation.

One possibility open for the future is to actually move out the logistic fields to its own gui. So there would be like "tabs". Inventory + Logistics. And Inventory + Recipes. Then the shift click could be implemented for all the items when in "Inventory + Logistics" tab. Another thing would be to also incorporate the idea you mentioned with upper limit on desired amount of objects of a given type in the inventory (either as separate slots or directly in the logistic slots themselves).

[sillyfly]

I think by 3 it was meant something like this - you request 50 transport belts. You have one stack, then you put it in the logistic trash area. The bots will take the belts from you, but then return them to you because you are requesting them!
If it is a bug, it's a bug in the user behavior

[slpwnd]

I think by 3 it was meant something like this - you request 50 transport belts. You have one stack, then you put it in the logistic trash area. The bots will take the belts from you, but then return them to you because you are requesting them!
If it is a bug, it's a bug in the user behavior

Ok, now I see. That is not a problem then

[orzelek]

Have you considered making inventory tabbed?

It could work very well for logistics slots since they only represent order for items.

[Gandalf]

@1 -This is a bug and it will be fixed.

Cool, thanks

One possibility open for the future is to actually move out the logistic fields to its own gui. So there would be like "tabs". Inventory + Logistics. And Inventory + Recipes. Then the shift click could be implemented for all the items when in "Inventory + Logistics" tab. Another thing would be to also incorporate the idea you mentioned with upper limit on desired amount of objects of a given type in the inventory (either as separate slots or directly in the logistic slots themselves).

Those ideas both sound great. A seperate GUI/Tab makes sense since you don't change the logistics settings all that often. Having both a min and max setting for requested items would probably also feel intuitive and you could pack the additional controls in the indivual request setup dialogues.

Logistic trash fields is still a bit experimental feature=))

I completely understand that, that's why I'm giving feedback. I really like that you guys are actually trying to make the interface practical, which is not something one could say of every game.

[Ojelle]

About the trash slots: The current version (if the shift clicking would work for all items) is nice too, its really easy to quickly remove one stack of iron when you only have two and only want one. On the other hand, when you, for a short amount of time, need 10 stacks, there won't be annoying bots removing everything at once like it would if there was a max stack size.

In short: After playing a while i prefer slots to fill with items above setting a max number. Innitially i prefered the second.

[slpwnd]

Have you considered making inventory tabbed?

It could work very well for logistics slots since they only represent order for items.

Yeah, that would be a possibility. Tabbed main gui - especially if there would (possibly) be more tabs coming in the future=)

[johanwanderer]

PS: I was actually expecting the trash slots to work differently, similar to how the requester slots work: You only define a number of an item type specifying how many you intend to keep (or 0 if you want to get rid of them all). That way if your inventory is full of trees you can just tell it to “get rid of all the trees!”. It would essentially allow you to balance any item type around a specific number, using both requester and trash slots.

PPS: The hype is real right now so I might have overlooked this one if somebody already posted it.

This would make the personal robot-port very useful. As it is now, I have to put an active provider chest next to me when I use the personal robot-port, so I can quickly get rid of stuff that they bring to me while deconstructing things, especially trees and chests.

[Gandalf]

This would make the personal robot-port very useful. As it is now, I have to put an active provider chest next to me when I use the personal robot-port, so I can quickly get rid of stuff that they bring to me while deconstructing things, especially trees and chests.

It really depends on the amount of items/stacks. If they fit into the trash slots (10 slots max, if I remember correctly), then they work exactly like an active provider chest. In a way the only problem is, that they are very limited in size…

@slpwned Just an idea: Could you make the amount of trash slots variable? Basically you only have one slot (or even just an icon) and you can pull/shift click as many items in there as you want. The necessary amount of slots is dynamically added to the UI until the items have disappeared. That way you could still get rid of any number of items.
One problem I can imagine is that this would basically make your inventory infinitely large if you're in an area without bots to take stuff from you. Complicated.

[Ojelle]

Also: A way to toggle logistic slots would be handy. If you want to quickly load or move something manually, you have to drop everything in a steel chest, pick up the items you want to move while dodging all your robots (wich try to resuply you), repeat a few times till everything is loaded and then pick up the original items in the steel chest. Then you need to survive the incomming storm of bots trying to bring all the items you didnt have while loading.

For those few times it happens its ok, just annoying. And resetting all your logistic slots is to much work for those 30 seconds you are loading