Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

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ThorsDragon
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by ThorsDragon »

I like it! A couple of things: 1- please allow deconstruction planners in the books, I like that option and would prefer my deconstruction planner be in there, instead of in inventory or the library --> basically having quick access to it. :) 2- I would like to be able to place an empty blueprint in the book, and be able to scroll to it, so that I can be ready to create a blueprint easily. :D

AlienZoo23
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by AlienZoo23 »

Some initial comments:

What does "Reassign" mean *exactly*? Does it mean what I think of as "Redraw"? - i.e. I click "Reassign" and it lets me select a bunch of stuff like drawing a new blueprint, but it keeps the icons and title of the blueprint intact? That's what I hope it means and if that is the case then it is the *only* change I care about, as long as the other changes don't mess up anything. Oh and comments on blueprints would also be invaluable.

I see nothing about deconstructors. Can we please at least have to ability to put them into books? Presently, I tend to have about 4 or 5 deconstructors clogging inventory slots - one for trees and rocks, one for everything, one for mines, one for wall sections (turrets etc) and one for stations. It would also be nice to be able to give them titles, and maybe change their icons. I presume they share a lot of structure and code with blueprints so it seems like this wouldn't be too hard.

AlienZoo23
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by AlienZoo23 »

Second thoughts.

If I understand correctly, then with a grid view it becomes impossible to insert a blueprint or book at a specific point. If it is like a chest then when I place an item at a specific point, the item currently at that point appears in my hand. Is that really what you intend? Right now, my library is full of books in alphabetical order, which requires zero effort on my part, and my individual books are hand sorted by inserting bluprints in the correct spot for me at the point I create and add them to a book, which is minimal effort. That works OK and switching to some randomly different scheme that has had zero real-world testing has no appeal to me at all.

A tree-like view where folders replace books does sound good, but without working through real-world examples with some mockups I can't be sure what problems it might have.

Library and books need a search feature. Searching on titles is the minimum, searching on contents (as an option) better. Restricting my view only to blueprints that contain, say, an electric furnace, or green circuits AND beacons etc. etc.

I'm not sure I'm clear whether every blueprint/book in my inventory is ONLY a link to the library. If that is the case then it sounds very bad to me. The library is saved completely independetly of games themselves and I have no in-game access to manipulate library saves (and there's only one, maybe with a backup accessible only from the file system). So sure, when my library is saved I can access it immediatly from another save. But also, if I mess up the library I cannot load a previous save and recover from my mistake. I see no mention of this in your proposal.

Personally, I make regular backups of my blueprint library from the filesystem, and use version numbers as part of the titles of blueprints and books so that I can recover from some drastic mistake where I delete the wrong thing and cannot recover by reloading a save. Hopefully I can create some similar scheme for whatever new system you produce, but how much better if the system you designed had the failsafes built in from the start. (A simple versioning/revision control system can be built with just "diff" and "patch").

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