Friday Facts #404 - Frustration not found

[KatherineOfSky]

In addition....

The BIGGEST QoL you could make for the Spidertron is allow it to path around lakes!!!! If biters can do it, spidertrons should be allowed to. Surely spiders are smarter than biters...


One thing that I was thinking about as I was playing today was that I would love to be able to copy train leave conditions: either by having a preset that you could specify or possibly a use for the pipette tool?

My frustration at the moment (to go along with the theming of the FFF) is that I want trains to go to their pickup location, and since they are long trains (1-8-1), I have a condition for:
- Wait until FULL
OR
- Wait until 60 seconds have passed.

This requires several clicks... choosing the FULL condition, choosing the Time Passed condition, then manually inputting 60 seconds as well.

Since the trains go to different pickup points, I can't just copy the train schedule. (I'd love to be able to hot swap destinations in Factorio... that would alleviate many problems... but alas, that cannot be done in the current version).

Anyway, changing destinations inline, or being able to define a "template"/preset for destinations, or pipetting the conditions, or any of those would be a great improvement to trains. It is far easier and faster to click an X to remove conditions than it is to manually set them up.


Perhaps there could be several presets that the player could choose: "pickup", or "dropoff", etc.
I find myself setting the same conditions over and over again, but since the dropoff and pickup locations are different, they can't be just copied over.

Dropoff is usually always
"Leave when Empty"

Fluid pickup is always
"Wait until Full"
AND
"5 seconds have passed" (to pickup fuel)

Building train pickup and dropoff is always
"5 seconds inactivity"


Because these are actions repeated hundreds of times, it would be great to be able to have quicker ways to set them / automate them.

[ElderAxe]

Please allow the RTS Tool to also control trains. My personal train, my artillery train, my big artillery train, my builder train, all the trains!

They announced "Remote Drive" for trains on the previous FFF. So no RTS Tool needed for that.
Also selecting a train and sending it to a temporary location already works on 1.1 which solves most of the problem already.

[dasiro]

Could you please stop making Factorio less and less playable?!?!



I can barely play my 1.1 save when I read about all of those improvements!

I hope they'll add these QOL improvements to 1.1 too, as it's not really a new feature

[Danjen]

Not an exciting update, but it's the little things like this that make the game worth playing, just small incremental updates that it needs and feel good
(Also I'm secretly hoping some absolute madman makes an RTS mod now)

[FasterJump]

Awesome stuff! I hope I don't forget these shortcuts when the expansion is released. Hopefully it's not gonna be buried in the patch note!

[kosievdmerwe]

Two quality of life features I would love:
* (Easyish) From playing Seablock, have different size for placeable floors (e.g., waterfill, the different concretes and landfill) and persist the last used size for each in the save file. For instance, for landfill I want to fill large blocks, but for waterfill I want a scalpel.
* (Very Hard) The ability to edit blueprints in a more granular way. What would be cool is if there was a button that would take you into a surface where you're an omniscient observer and the only thing you see is your blueprint. You can then edit it using some kind of creative mode and save your changes.


EDIT: Related to the discussion of ghost items in the hand. I haven't tested it recently, but if you have actual items in your hand and personal construction bots, then they might take all the items leaving you empty handed. If this happens, your hand should instead hold a ghost item instead of holding nothing. That or the bots shouldn't take your stuff.

Either way, I might be remembering the details wrong, but I remember there being a frustrating interaction with trying to help your personal construction bots build.

[FuryoftheStars]

QOLs are nice, but aren't exciting. I just hope that the devs are pushing out all QOL stuff first and once they run out of them they will post content FFFs (rather than the update and expansion being mostly about QOLs)

?? Most of the FFFs have been new content.

-----------------------------------

I hope they'll add these QOL improvements to 1.1 too, as it's not really a new feature

These are most likely features to 2.0 (vs the Expansion), and 2.0 will be a free update, just like any of the other updates, except 2.0 will be mod breaking.

[gGeorg]

regarding RTS tool - add patrol

make it so, when planed route nod is placed on existing nod of the same route, then route close in circle.
Which means endless patrol route is created.

Some snapping of nods together would be wise, so it is easier to hit the same pixel to close the route.

[Koub]

I'l love if I could pipette the items it makes sense to pipette directly from my crafting menu :
1) Pipette in the crafting menu an item I have in my inventory => get a stack of that item in hand (if the item can be manipulated by hand)
2) Pipette in the crafting menu an item I don't have in my inventory => get a ghost of that item in hand (if the item can be placed)

So this would fail for fluids, the ghost in hand would fail for intermediates, ammo, fuel, and the item in hand would work with anything non fluid.

[FuryoftheStars]

I'l love if I could pipette the items it makes sense to pipette directly from my crafting menu :
1) Pipette in the crafting menu an item I have in my inventory => get a stack of that item in hand (if the item can be manipulated by hand)
2) Pipette in the crafting menu an item I don't have in my inventory => get a ghost of that item in hand (if the item can be placed)

So this would fail for fluids, the ghost in hand would fail for intermediates, ammo, fuel, and the item in hand would work with anything non fluid.

Though not pipette, I think it'd be good for it to auto switch to ghost when placing something that you run out of, too (I think that's still mod only, right?).

[Twed]

Could we get Spidertron speed controls?

Why:
I might be in the minority here but I don't like covering a map in drone depot coverage. I prefer to have isolated drone depots that purposefully don't overlap.
The downside to this design is when I am setting up rails between outposts I have to do so in person.
A solution to this would be loading up a Spidertron with the resources and drones needed and pathing them along where I need the rails constructed .. .. if the spidertron didn't grossly outpace any drones it deployed.

[Xteec]

Thank you!!!

[spectria.limina]

Please make the pipette copy entity settings like recipe, even from ghosts! It's really annoying to have to copy paste the recipe separately when pipetting!

[Gemma]

I don't like taking my hand off the mouse so much, so I will probably change the arrow keys to something left handed for blueprint grid controls.

[ModProg]

Would love a way to place blueprints on water, i.e., automatically place landfills for each occupied tile.

[FuryoftheStars]

Would love a way to place blueprints on water, i.e., automatically place landfills for each occupied tile.

You might want to read the past FFFs, too:
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-383

Edit: Couldn't get at the video url from my phone....

video

[coco260]

since you guys are adding Spidertron RTS functions could you add Patrol Functions with it, because I always liked that in SC1 for early warnings or just dynamic defense, and it would be cool to have Spidertrons patrolling the perimeter of your base as opposed to having the Great Wall of Guns

[gGeorg]

"RTS Tool" seems like a weird name. The only reason I see is... new controllable entities?

RTS of cars or tanks ?
Grow a horde of domesticated bitters then RTS them against the wild ones ?

[Lur_id]

Simple question: will there be a pathfinding feature for the Spidertrons, that will bypass the lakes?

My suggestions on RTS topic:
I propose to make a specific interface element for tactical control of units.

Individual settings for each unit. It will looks like logical menu for spidertrons.
1. Patrolling the territory along a looped group of points, similar to "C&C: Red Alert".
2. Problem №1, which arises from point 1: Units need to set up enemy pursuit mode:
2.1. Passive mode, in which the player's units stand still (or follow a certain route) and attack only within attack range.
2.2. Aggressive mode, in which any enemy found within attack range is pursued until it is completely destroyed.
2.3. Protection mode for nearby units. It includes the logic of aggressive mode. If current unit don't attack enemy, and allied unit/post is attacked within its own attack range, then the unit will attack the enemy who provoked the event. It is possible to make a complex system in which the trigger of the "protection mode" is transmitted to neighboring units along the chain. As a result, the entire group of units will react to the attack of the group from the other side of the formation.
3. Returning to the holding point. If the unit was in aggressive mode or in "protection" mode, then, there is a possibility that it can go to the enemy, and stay alone on enemy territory. When setting "Returning to the holding point" is active, at the end of hostilities, unit will be forced to return to the last point, that the player set to it.

Settings for group of units. It specific interface, which opens on shortcut bar.
4. Problem with different speed of movement of units. We can equip Spidertrons with a different number of exoskeletons. Because of this, some spidertrons will arrive at point before others. I suggest making a button like in the game "Kenshi", which called "synchronized running". When the button is activated, the group of units will move at the speed of the slowest participant, so that the whole group will move together. When the button is deactivated, each unit in the group will move at its own maximum speed.
5. The ability to specify the formation for a group:
5.1. Column - a line shape parallel to the direction of movement. Shape: ( | ) when moving up.
5.2. Linear - the shape of a line perpendicular to the direction of movement. Form: ( — ) when moving up.
5.3. Square - in the shape of a square. Form: ( ■ )
5.4. Wedge - Form: ( ˄ ) when moving up.
5.5. Reverse wedge - Form: ( ˅ ) when moving up.

My difficult to implement suggestions:
1.1. The mention of Spidertron was removed from the name of the remote control, which makes it logical to assume that we will have access to control over other types of vehicles. I would suggest creating a new recipe for crafting a car and tank with AI control: 1 car or tank, 2 radars, 50 (or more) processors, and others.
1.2. The problem that follows from point 1: The Car and Tank require fuel to move. There are one simple option to solve this problem: include in the crafting recipe more parts: efficiency modules (2 pcs.), a portable thermonuclear reactor (2 pcs.), electric engines (50 pcs. or more). This will remove fueling requirements from vehicles.
2. Is it possible to make the spidertron have a movement menu similar to a train? For example, i want to automate the movement of resources from the base to my outpost, using spidertrons (which are better protected than a train). In addition to specifying points for movement between the base and the outpost(similar to a train), you need to switch between two logistics groups of requests: 1. logistics requests resources. 2. Logistics gets rid of resources through garbage slots. I also want Spidertron to have waiting conditions, for example for fully loading or unloading resources.

At the end, i would like to thank you for the work you have done. I look forward to Factorio 2.0!

[Unknow0059]

Someone said QOLs aren't exciting. They are the most exciting thing. I really don't think factorio needed rts whatever for spidertrons, but that's where we're at.

"Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense?"

Pipetting assembly machines alongside their recipes, instead of being forced to use copypaste blueprints and then manually placing assemblers yourself. Please.