Friday Facts #213 - The little things 2

[super_aardvark]

Another change to requester chests that would be nice: when you set a new item to be requested, don't immediately set the amount to a full stack. If I have a single requester feeding multiple assemblers, I need to set the items manually. But even if I only want the chest to request 10 blue circuits, as soon as I add the request, here comes a horde of bots with 200 blue circuits for the chest.

As for the multiple-assemblers-to-one-chest problem, how about another key modifier to add multiple entities to the 'copy' that will be pasted? E.g. ctrl-shift-rightclick on 3 assemblers, then shift-click on a chest to add the requests for all of their inputs (with appropriate ratios based on speed, which is a fantastic addition). Not sure what the behavior would be if you try to copy three assemblers to a single assembler... maybe cycle through them one by one? Maybe just use the last one, maybe just use the last thing you single-copied (shift-rightclick) and ignore the multi-copy you made.

[QGamer]

I think one of the game options should be to allow the player change the number of seconds' worth of material the copy/paste will request.
For example, someone might be satisfied with only 10 seconds of materials, or someone way want up to 60.

[Koub]

Another change to requester chests that would be nice: when you set a new item to be requested, don't immediately set the amount to a full stack. If I have a single requester feeding multiple assemblers, I need to set the items manually. But even if I only want the chest to request 10 blue circuits, as soon as I add the request, here comes a horde of bots with 200 blue circuits for the chest.

This, my friend, is one thing I've been asking and hoping since the devs set the default request to a full stack. If you were to be heard, I don't know if I would be pissed or grateful . Probably both ^^.
I've been hoping this bad design would be reverted to default 1 item for over 2 years and a half, so don't hope too much

[Zavian]

How many seconds you want is almost certainly context dependent. If you are building a bot based smelter, then the requestors near the ore unloading station probably don't need to request as much ore as the requestors further away. If you really care about optimising, then you might use different request sizes for different requestor chests. In such cases no global setting is really going to help, you just need to set your requests manually (or via circuits). Or you could just use one request size that is 'good enough'. 30 seconds sounds like a reasonable default. You can always manually change the request size for cases where you want more or less.

[DanGio]

I like the new logistic paste preset ! (as it is ! )

[Higarian]

I think one of the game options should be to allow the player change the number of seconds' worth of material the copy/paste will request.
For example, someone might be satisfied with only 10 seconds of materials, or someone way want up to 60.

I think that instead of the "copy/paste" ability is not that good, it helps but dosen't open many rooms for automation.

Instead they should let us put the factory in the logistic network. They could give us a nice X variable that tell us how mutch time the factory takes to produce the item and the list of requested itens. With that we could do de math with logistics the way we want to. And will get you the "factorio" felling when you make your logic just right the way you want to

[Keks]

regarding requester chest amounts:
I would prefer Nexelas solution to the problem:
pasting to a requester chest adds the required materials to the already existing requests multiplied by a factor you choose yourself in the mod options.

especially with the new buffer chest I see absolutely no reason to have that many dead materials.

[Ranakastrasz]

30 seconds is great, but I think it needs to round up to the nearest full recipe. No point storing 4.99 recipes worth, because you might as well be storing 4. Better to round that up to 5 instead.

[eradicator]

+1 to "ability to ADD requests to already existing ones"
Especially in "shopping malls" which are explicitly mentioned it is very common to have one requester chest supply multiple assemblers. While the current system is better, you still need to manually set the second/third/fourth request. How about adding (yet anoter :P) modifier key that allows "paste without clear" of requests? This would probably also have applications outside of malls and assembler2request.

Something like: "Control + Shift + Left mouse button"

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@Koub:

Another change to requester chests that would be nice: when you set a new item to be requested, don't immediately set the amount to a full stack. If I have a single requester feeding multiple assemblers, I need to set the items manually. But even if I only want the chest to request 10 blue circuits, as soon as I add the request, here comes a horde of bots with 200 blue circuits for the chest.

This, my friend, is one thing I've been asking and hoping since the devs set the default request to a full stack. If you were to be heard, I don't know if I would be pissed or grateful :mrgreen:. Probably both ^^.
I've been hoping this bad design would be reverted to default 1 item for over 2 years and a half, so don't hope too much :roll:

I'm...not sure how to tell you this. But.... Main menu > Options > Other -> "Set logistic request count to 1 instead of stack size".....

[looney]

A different suggestion for copy/paste; Use logistic wiring to implement this feature instead.

Add an option for assemblers to output their recipe as a signal, with an optional slider to multiply that signal by X seconds. Drag the slider all the way left, and only one of each item will be requested.

This way the player can add one wire to achieve the same result, while also allowing more flexibility to request items for multiple nearby assemblers, or to add their own combiner logic for even more control.

Plus it would sometimes be handy to have the option to send the assemblers current inputs or outputs to a nearby inserter.

[Jap2.0]

@Koub:

Another change to requester chests that would be nice: when you set a new item to be requested, don't immediately set the amount to a full stack. If I have a single requester feeding multiple assemblers, I need to set the items manually. But even if I only want the chest to request 10 blue circuits, as soon as I add the request, here comes a horde of bots with 200 blue circuits for the chest.

This, my friend, is one thing I've been asking and hoping since the devs set the default request to a full stack. If you were to be heard, I don't know if I would be pissed or grateful . Probably both ^^.
I've been hoping this bad design would be reverted to default 1 item for over 2 years and a half, so don't hope too much

I'm...not sure how to tell you this. But.... Main menu > Options > Other -> "Set logistic request count to 1 instead of stack size".....

That's what I was thinking too, but that might only work for the player's logistics requests. I'm not sure.

[kpreid]

Here is a different angle on the requester chest multiplier problem, which avoids giving even more complicated rules or options for pasting in particular:

Allow multiple item requests to be selected at once (or just a checkbox for "all"); then the slider/box, instead of setting the item count for one item, multiplies all of the selected items' counts by the entered value (which can be less than 1 if the counts are all divisible by a common factor).

This can even be used when the requests weren't pasted in, to scale up or down the buffer in an existing chest.

[Xagros]

It is too inconvenient to modify the map using the map editor.
Especially if the mods are included, there are problems in updating the information when the mods are changed. (For example, a recipe that requires research can be done without research.) I would like the map editor to have the option to reset the mods information in the blueprint.dat file to update it. And I also need the ability to change the map size I initially specified.

[Lav]

A question though. Do the requester chests really need the ability to calculate demand of connected entities? I would rather see an "auto-adjust" checkbox for them, which would make the requester increase it's demand by 25% each time it runs empty. This may cause some hiccups at the start, but ensures the chest will automatically adjust to any set of demands, no matter how complex.

So even if a requester chest is feeding 11 assemblies (2 directly and another 9 via a belt), it would still be able to easily adapt.

[Koub]

I'm...not sure how to tell you this. But.... Main menu > Options > Other -> "Set logistic request count to 1 instead of stack size".....

[Adil]

I'm bothered that there is no indication of the connection between the assembler and the chest that is doing math about it.
Maybe this logic should be in the circuit system? Say, assembler can output the amounts it needs for 30 seconds as signals, and then you wire those signals to requester chest, or any other resource transportation system you build.

[Jesperhk]

I love using robots, building a giant base with alot of robots, but there is one thing i kinda miss, is a way to control my robots, make areas for robots, put them into groups, like a robot central.
I have the idear from Rollercoaster tycoon, good old game, where you have these workers, you tell them to work in different areas so their not walking around the whole theme park, why dont we have that in factorio?, hate the park where i have 400 robots in my outpost, and they fly around randomly, i dont have control of them.

Would that be possible to add at some point?

[xoft]

Some people posted about needing to fit two or more recipes worth of requests in a requester chest. There's an easy solution, that even combines this with "more time". Have a shortcut that doesn't replace the currently requested items, but simply adds the ones being copied. This way:
- Copying a second recipe using this shortcut would add the items for the second recipe (items that are the same for both recipes will have a correct count of the sum for the two recipes)
- Copying a recipe "over itself" using this shortcut would add the ingredients requested again, thus going from 30 seconds to 60 seconds (and using it for the third time would go to 90 seconds, etc.)

Shift + Ctrl + Lclk would be a preferable combination for this shortcut, but anything would be workable.

[Maxi3000]

Hello, this is always a great work!
But I think you should make the trees and rocks, which will be deconstructed, a little bit transparent so you can better see the machines that you will place

[aober93]

nice, im a big advovate of the "little things" as well. Too bad about all the good games that have annoying issues.