Factorio Forums

I deemed this behaviour to be jarring enough for a bug report :

(Same thing if pressing Tab or M.)

I would expect that instead of dropping you back to normal view, all 3 (?) of clicking on minimap, pressing Tab, or pressing M, should instead zoom you out if zoomed in (and vice-versa ?)

Note that dropping you back to normal view is already, and intuitively, achieved by pressing Escape.

I got exactly same problem. When I click on minimap in Remove View window, instead of repositioning view to clicked location (sounds logical, right?) the game just closes Remove View and returns to my character, even if he is at quite distant location on another planet.

If this is not a bug, explanation, why it works this way could be nice.

Because window move looks most logical and intuitive.
Doing nothing is next option.
But current action is not logical at all.

Clicking the minimap currently means 'Toggle the map', same as pressing M or Tab

For now I will move this to not a bug, but will keep it in mind a UX improvement
(Changing minimap behavior is quite delicate, as lots of people have different expectations of what it shows and what it should do)

Yeah, I can see how it would be quite tricky...

Also, quite related :

Note that dropping you back to normal view is already, and intuitively, achieved by pressing Escape.

This is actually part of the problem :
there seems to be an overlap between two functions that maybe ought to be different :
- Escape closes the top window
- Escape is also used to toggle the game menu

I'm starting, as the number of surfaces is multiplied, to get annoyed that to access the game menu (to change some settings, like muting sounds, or just to save the game), you are forced to close all windows, including remote view : this is bad because you might spend quite some time basically playing in remote view, and quitting it kicks you out of that context (into a different one, where your character is).

This is especially bad for (at least manual) saves, as context is something that you would want to keep - to not get confused and lost about what you were doing for instance. I assume that sending saves to another person (like for bug reports), it would also be much clearer to not first have to tell «and then remote look to surface X», but rather the save dropping them right where you intended.
(I see that autosaves don't show remote view either, at least in the preview - IMHO they should.)

This might be why other games use a different key than Escape for the game menu (?), F10 seems to be fairly common.

Also, I'm somewhat surprised to see that Factorio doesn't have keyboard shortcuts for a quick save, or at least directly for the save/load menu ?