Factorio Forums

entity-ghosts that belong to the enemy force are not visible to the player in the main world, but they are visible (drawn in red) in map view. I believe this changed recently, with the big 0.18.x blueprint update which started drawing ghosts in map view.

It's probably the case that enemy ghosts should not be visible in map view, either. Being able to see enemy ghosts might matter for PvP scenarios, or events like Biter Battles.

I constructed a small map in /editor demonstrating this. Here's a side by side of the player's world view and map view (save file is attached to this post)

I knew this would happen when ghosts got added to map rendering but I don't know which way is 'better'.

I'm not 100% sure why we made ghosts of other forces invisible... but I don't know if *not* showing them on the map now that ghosts do show on the map is the right solution.

Why should I be able to see something on the map that I cannot see with my own eyes?

valneq wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 7:50 pm Why should I be able to see something on the map that I cannot see with my own eyes?

Why not be able to see them in person? I can't think of any good reason other than 'we just don't right now'.

This is my reasoning:

• Generally, ghosts are your internal plans, so when it comes to forces, it kind of makes sense you don't see other players plans
• We want ghost items to interfere with connections, for example, underground ghost pipe is blocking connection to pipe behind it, simply because half built blueprint setup won't connect in unexpected ways. But, since the logic is there, it would be pretty weird, if enemy player could, by building anywhere, add his own ghost to disconnect your pipes, so ghost and non/ghost only connect when they have the same force.
• Since enemy ghosts don't connect the way our own ghosts, it would be only misleading to see them. It is maybe even possible, that I was fixing some bugreport around this in the past.
• Since we shouldn't allow enemy ghosts to be visible, we also shouldn't make the visible on map.

kovarex wrote: ↑Thu Aug 27, 2020 8:17 pm This is my reasoning:

• Generally, ghosts are your internal plans, so when it comes to forces, it kind of makes sense you don't see other players plans
• We want ghost items to interfere with connections, for example, underground ghost pipe is blocking connection to pipe behind it, simply because half built blueprint setup won't connect in unexpected ways. But, since the logic is there, it would be pretty weird, if enemy player could, by building anywhere, add his own ghost to disconnect your pipes, so ghost and non/ghost only connect when they have the same force.
• Since enemy ghosts don't connect the way our own ghosts, it would be only misleading to see them. It is maybe even possible, that I was fixing some bugreport around this in the past.
• Since we shouldn't allow enemy ghosts to be visible, we also shouldn't make the visible on map.

OK, I changed it so enemy ghosts now won't render on the map.