Friday Facts #338 - The (real) Character GUI

[RobertTerwilliger]

We will (...) try to get everything at a consistent level of quality for 1.0.

That sounds fair, until you remember... well forgive me for heresy... Rimworld "1.0+" GUI! Well, it is consistent indeed. It is awfully terrible all over : )
Once again, it's NOT about Factorio at any means, but I just HAD TO write this - that tiny piece of text revived horrible memories of what my wife called "playing Excel")))

[posila]

Having it be delayed after 1.0 isn't optimal. But it surely does not make 1.0 "overwhelmingly disappointing". I am sure, players can wait a little longer until it is well polished. No pressure.

I am trying to hype people up for disappointment so that when 1.0 is released, they can be pleasantly suprised they are not disappointed as much as they thought they would be. (But for real, Spidertron is not coming in 1.0 nor before)

[luc]

(But for real, Spidertron is not coming in 1.0 nor before)

Has this been decided officially by Wube or is this just an expectation for now?

[irbork]

After you set up lots of logistic slots and realize that you forgot something, is there a way to insert some additional slots in-between the one that are set, or maybe drag those slots like inventory items?

edit: Auto sort of logistic slots to match crafting layout would work as well.

[irbork]

.... (But for real, Spidertron is not coming in 1.0 nor before)

[Uristqwerty]

So are you saying that one month after 1.0 there will be paid DLC packs for Spidertron, Spidertron Armor, Free-With-Preorder Gold Spidertron skin Factorio Collector's Edition with Spidertron Statue, Spidertron Season Pass, and Spidertron Loot Crates? Oh, and a limited-time-then-gone-forever event where players can earn Shadow-Flame Spidertron, if they're willing to play a total of about 40 hours of content within a 5-weekday window! To say nothing of porting Spidertron to mobile, every major game console, and alexa over the course of the year that follows. (Did I miss any of the AAA game industry monetization tropes? No, don't tell me, the thread doesn't need even more off-topic clutter.)

[Omnifarious]

I often autotrash all wood, coal, and the various ores. I hardly ever request it. It might be nice to not have a limit on the slots you can have 0 requests for.

Also, one of my big rewards for researching utility science is increasing the number of request slots. I'm worried this will make utility science less desirable.

Otherwise, these look like fantastic changes. Thank you!

[boskid]

I often autotrash all wood, coal, and the various ores. I hardly ever request it. It might be nice to not have a limit on the slots you can have 0 requests for.

There is no limit on auto trash. You may setup auto trash for any amount of different items. Limit is in trash slots itself. Auto trash is a function that automaticaly moves items from inventory to trash slots if they are above configured limits.

[gGeorg]

Why there is separate Thrash only area on logisitic tab?

For logistic slot, You can set number of request items 0, and number of max to 0 then you just created the auto-thrash slot. its ok.


Perhaps you can make UI even more clean, combine thrash with logistic.
Perhaps add a thrash bin icon next to +/- button. So when you drop an item from inventory on the thrash icon it add "logistc slot" with red color values. e.g. moves items to the logists area.
Maby add sorting so thrash will be sorted as last.
Such dynamic thrash UI would me more clean than dedicated reserved area.

"Thrash" are the kind-of-inventory slots from which logistic bots take items away.
You can add items there manually, or they'll get automatically moved there automatically if they exceed the maximum/"auto-thrash" number set in the logistic grid.
It's the same thing that exists in the game now.

Sure, I know how it works. What I say is, : It looks redundant to reserve area of UI only for thrash. Becouse (regular) trash is just a special case of auto-trash. Therfore it would looks more fluent, to combine regular thrash into logistcs.

[BattleFluffy]

I think the new gui looks really good and logically laid out. It solves a lot of the annoying problems with the existing system, like robots bringing a 2nd copy of all your logistic request items when you die. It makes trash slots more accessible and understandable how they relate to your request slots.

I have 2 suggestions.

If we click a blank slot to assign a new logistic request (as opposed to editing an existing request), I think it should jump straight to the item selection menu. This saves an unnecessary click.

Once the item is selected, or if we are editing an existing request, please can the text cursor automatically "focus" the number entry box with the current value already selected/highlighted? That will make it faster to type the number because we don't have to click in the box with the mouse cursor first.

[DanGio]

Why there is separate Thrash only area on logisitic tab?

For logistic slot, You can set number of request items 0, and number of max to 0 then you just created the auto-thrash slot. its ok.


Perhaps you can make UI even more clean, combine thrash with logistic.
Perhaps add a thrash bin icon next to +/- button. So when you drop an item from inventory on the thrash icon it add "logistc slot" with red color values. e.g. moves items to the logists area.
Maby add sorting so thrash will be sorted as last.
Such dynamic thrash UI would me more clean than dedicated reserved area.

"Thrash" are the kind-of-inventory slots from which logistic bots take items away.
You can add items there manually, or they'll get automatically moved there automatically if they exceed the maximum/"auto-thrash" number set in the logistic grid.
It's the same thing that exists in the game now.

Sure, I know how it works. What I say is, : It looks redundant to reserve area of UI only for thrash. Becouse (regular) trash is just a special case of auto-trash. Therfore it would looks more fluent, to combine regular thrash into logistcs.

IMO it's important that we keep the possibility to manually drop something into trash slots, without setting up a request/autotrash slot : after 10 times putting stone manually into trash, it feels good to learn and setup autotrash. On the other hand, ending up with 2 tanks in inventory once or twice in a playthrough doesn't justify to allocate it an autotrash slot.

[irbork]

I think the new gui looks really good and logically laid out. It solves a lot of the annoying problems with the existing system, like robots bringing a 2nd copy of all your logistic request items when you die. It makes trash slots more accessible and understandable how they relate to your request slots.

It may work but you will have to switch of your logistic requests after death or have enough space in the inventory and trash to carry all requests and corpse inventory until you will return to your base for bots to clear the trash out.

It is good idea to have death.event automatically turn off character logistics since in most cases you will need an armor, a weapon, maybe a vehicle and fuel to get your body safely, and those items are rarely covered even in the most elaborate logistic request lists.

[DanGio]

I think the new gui looks really good and logically laid out. It solves a lot of the annoying problems with the existing system, like robots bringing a 2nd copy of all your logistic request items when you die. It makes trash slots more accessible and understandable how they relate to your request slots.

It may work but you will have to switch of your logistic requests after death or have enough space in the inventory and trash to carry all requests and corpse inventory until you will return to your base for bots to clear the trash out.

It is good idea to have death.event automatically turn off character logistics since in most cases you will need an armor, a weapon, maybe a vehicle and fuel to get your body safely, and those items are rarely covered even in the most elaborate logistic request lists.

Personal logistic switch looks promising. Will it be turned off automatically if I die? I hate to spawn at my mall and bots brings me everything.

Automatically off

[gGeorg]

Why there is separate Thrash only area on logisitic tab?

For logistic slot, You can set number of request items 0, and number of max to 0 then you just created the auto-thrash slot. its ok.


Perhaps you can make UI even more clean, combine thrash with logistic.
Perhaps add a thrash bin icon next to +/- button. So when you drop an item from inventory on the thrash icon it add "logistc slot" with red color values. e.g. moves items to the logists area.
Maby add sorting so thrash will be sorted as last.
Such dynamic thrash UI would me more clean than dedicated reserved area.

"Thrash" are the kind-of-inventory slots from which logistic bots take items away.
You can add items there manually, or they'll get automatically moved there automatically if they exceed the maximum/"auto-thrash" number set in the logistic grid.
It's the same thing that exists in the game now.

Sure, I know how it works. What I say is, : It looks redundant to reserve area of UI only for thrash. Becouse (regular) trash is just a special case of auto-trash. Therfore it would looks more fluent, to combine regular thrash into logistcs.

IMO it's important that we keep the possibility to manually drop something into trash slots, without setting up a request/autotrash slot : after 10 times putting stone manually into trash, it feels good to learn and setup autotrash. On the other hand, ending up with 2 tanks in inventory once or twice in a playthrough doesn't justify to allocate it an autotrash slot.

Agree. That is why I proposed, drop item from inv on top of an TrashBin icon (the new UI element) which does (the setting) it for you.

[bobucles]

Dying turns logistics off

Noice.

Logi system now does minimum and maximum

Double noice.

[V453000]

(But for real, Spidertron is not coming in 1.0 nor before)

Has this been decided officially by Wube or is this just an expectation for now?

- We don't know what exactly would be the use for the spidertron. The original idea was it would be a late game vehicle, with almost unrestricted movement. That would be it for a simple solution, adding an equipment grid would be the cheap option to add. However, as a late game thing it should be able to move very quickly, otherwise it would be inferior to just stacking exoskeleton equipment in your power armor. One of the significant issues we've already noticed with the first prototype shown in FFF#120 was that the legs start looking really stupid at higher speeds. The spider would need some ability to jump/blink or something I guess. With all that, I feel like exoskeletons in power armor and/or using trains to move around in the late game would be better in all ways. I can imagine the spidertron being really convenient in being able to walk over pipes or walls. In walls people usually build gates, and how often do you actually walk over pipes that would motivate you to enter a vehicle for it. Maybe the player would actually become the spidertron by some SpiderLeg equipment to avoid having to enter a vehicle, but that would again look stupid when moving fast. It was a cool technical experiment and became a meme, but frankly, I don't see the use as of now, and I know that when we see something as being awesome useful, we just do it immediately with top priority.
- there is nobody working on the spidertron code-wise, and the branch from FFF#120 has not been maintained since
- there is nobody working on the spidertron graphics-wise
- both programmers and gfx are busy enough with 1.0 as it is
- even if somebody has time before 1.0, I believe there more places worth putting time into (for programmers more GUIs, for gfx more entity graphics improvements, more iteration on high resolution icons, or updating some technology icons)
- However, never say never (permanently true statement)

[ptx0]

Logistics and auto trash are now merged into 1 panel. Using a double slider you can set an interval. If you have less than the first value, robots will bring more, if you have more than the second value, extra items will be auto-trashed and taken away by the robots.

Thank you.
Finally all the comfort from Auto Trash and Trash Sync out of the box and integrated nicely into the gui.

but auto trash mod allows you to set a network as a 'home' network where auto trash only works there.

[Durabys]

No recipe found for "spidertr", does this mean the search function doesn't do wildcards or partial words?

I know you got the Spidertrons hidden away back there

No, that's just Twinsen thinking he's memeing, but actually setting us up for overwhelmingly disappointing 1.0 release.

I would rather you fixed liquids and pipes mechanics than make Spidertron. Better to fix internal mechanics than adding new unbalanced content just before the release.

[ptx0]

I would rather you fixed liquids and pipes mechanics than make Spidertron. Better to fix internal mechanics than adding new unbalanced content just before the release.

what's left to fix?

[Durabys]

I would rather you fixed liquids and pipes mechanics than make Spidertron. Better to fix internal mechanics than adding new unbalanced content just before the release.

what's left to fix?

Basically only that to my knowledge. Nuclear reactors, large oil setups and anything related to pipes is borked, if you make megabases or larger. The UPS starts going down inexplicably.