I'm glad you're cleaning up the GUI code. The GUI and keybindings are the hardest part of this game for newcomers, and having additional help and consistency for new players will be great. While you're playing with the GUI, can you give mod authors a way to create additional views when you click on ...

So, make it appear 2D while being 3D and degrade performance drastically for some possible video memory reduction (after texturing, the load on video memory is unlike to be significantly reduced). That doesn't make very much sense.

I don't know the exact numbers for how big the model library was, but assuming that it was even 60MB, the process of rendering those models down to 370MB of textures on the fly is pretty intensive. I've seen high quality models take several minutes to be rendered down to a 2d image after compositing ...

Advantages of using 2D images:

Simplicity.
Allows for more complicated graphics - what if someone wants to make an impossible triangle sprite, for example? Averted if both are allowed.
Reduces loading times and reduces graphical power needed (no need to render 3d models down to 2d sprites on ...

@ Controls

Thanks for the inputs. We will give more natural key bindings a thought, actually for some of the next releases we would like to make it possible to control the game way more with just a mouse (having some additional in game control panel, move by clicking, etc.). The problem is that we ...

I would prefer not diverting the focus of the game to factory defense. RTS-style combat control would be ok, but the compelling, core-game of Factorio is building a factory and defending it. One person against the world of monsters. You lose that when you get RTS control. I find the idea of the ...

The biggest issue with the game right now is that it's very non-intuitive. There's a great wealth of knowledge built up around what keys do what, and what makes sense. Factorio basically ignores all the affordances game design has discovered and does it's own thing. It does it very well, but it's ...

I want to mention, that it is possible to setup most of those key bindings yourself.
And I recommend that, because this is alpha and before we change the defaults, it must be played with it.

I recommend to setup a key-binding, play with it for a while. If it is ok, save the config (it's just a ...

Quickbar: I think it's in one of the tips.
Tutorials should not need to be necessary. If it is in the tutorial or tips, then that's ok though.

Cursor clearing: The right mouse button already has a function - it drops one item, or picks up half a stack, or places/uses an item.
Right, forgot to ...

Factorio is a very compelling game, but it is doing a terrible job in the Keybinding department. Here are some suggestions to help the keybindings not be so frustrating.


Escape - This is currently a high-priority interrupt for the main menu. This is an extremely jarring effect, as the typical ...