Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

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Ringkeeper
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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Ringkeeper »

looking through all comments, i didn't see the question....

Do we get extra Inventory slots after the removal of the old quickbar ? At the moment the toolbelt acts as additional inventory. The removal would be a "nerf" to the inventory space.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Koub »

Ringkeeper wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 7:05 am
looking through all comments, i didn't see the question....

Do we get extra Inventory slots after the removal of the old quickbar ? At the moment the toolbelt acts as additional inventory. The removal would be a "nerf" to the inventory space.
It's written in the FFF :
The main inventory size was increased by 20 stacks to compensate for the inventory slots that now became shortcuts.
Koub - Please consider English is not my native language.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Ringkeeper »

ahhh... well.. too early in the morning :( *gets another coffee* .

Thanks :)

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Pi-C »

5thHorseman wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:45 am
Pi-C wrote: ↑
Sun Jan 20, 2019 11:51 pm
danielbrauer wrote: ↑
Sun Jan 20, 2019 10:07 pm
I've always found it frustrating that ghosts don't help construction before you get robots.
But they do! You just have to place the entities, which may very well be tedious, I admit -- but you don't have to manually set the recipes, wire connections, and combinator settings.
At least, until you accidentally place a power pole or inserter one square off and erase the assembler ghost.
You can always remove the power pole or inserter and put down the blueprint again on top of the old one. Yes, it can be tedious work, especially for larger blueprints, but the claim that
ghosts don't help construction before you get robots
has to be taken cum grano salis. :-)
A good mod deserves a good changelog. Here's a tutorial (WIP) about Factorio's way too strict changelog syntax!

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by 5thHorseman »

Pi-C wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 9:06 am
5thHorseman wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 1:45 am
At least, until you accidentally place a power pole or inserter one square off and erase the assembler ghost.
You can always remove the power pole or inserter and put down the blueprint again on top of the old one. Yes, it can be tedious work, especially for larger blueprints, but the claim that
ghosts don't help construction before you get robots
has to be taken cum grano salis. :-)
Well in my defense I'm not the one who said they didn't help. But I will go so far as to say I don't bother without some mod helping me. I've tried them all* and some are more cheaty than others, but they're all better than clicking on each square to match the blueprint you laid down.

*cum grano salis.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Pi-C »

5thHorseman wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 2:33 pm
Pi-C wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 9:06 am
Yes, it can be tedious work, especially for larger blueprints, but the claim that
ghosts don't help construction before you get robots
has to be taken cum grano salis. :-)
Well in my defense I'm not the one who said they didn't help.
I was aware of that, and I'm sorry that I've made my post ambiguous by omitting the attribution of the quote.
5thHorseman wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 2:33 pm
But I will go so far as to say I don't bother without some mod helping me. I've tried them all* and some are more cheaty than others, but they're all better than clicking on each square to match the blueprint you laid down.
There's nothing to argue against that, I guess. Factorio is still a game and playing it should be fun most of all. For my part, I don't exactly enjoy repetitive manual construction work in early game, but I do like that warm, fuzzy feeling of accomplishment once I get the first construction bots flying. Then again, I'm also the kind of guy who'll wait until his birthday before opening a parcel even if said parcel had arrived a week early -- it just feels so much more rewarding to resist the temptation …

About the original issue:
danielbrauer wrote: ↑
Sun Jan 20, 2019 10:07 pm
Nightinggale wrote: ↑
Sat Jan 19, 2019 5:10 pm
What we need to make ghosts useful early on is a "place entity on ghost" mouse cursor. Instead of selecting the inserters, assembers, belts etc, just pick a certain cursor and if you click on a ghost, it will take the item from your inventory. This makes ghosts and blueprints useful early on while at the same time construction bots in a personal roboport will still be a significant upgrade. Think of it as a shortcut to press the right hotkey for the toolbar each time you place something.
Do ghosts afford any direct player interaction at the moment? If not, perhaps just clicking a ghost within construction range should place the corresponding building, if you have it.
It seems to make sense, but I don't know yet whether I'll like it. I'd have to try it out, I guess. How about making automatic placement of inventory items an option? I wouldn't care about whether it is turned on or off by default, but having this option would allow all players to play the game the way they prefer.
5thHorseman wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 2:33 pm
*cum grano salis.
:-)
A good mod deserves a good changelog. Here's a tutorial (WIP) about Factorio's way too strict changelog syntax!

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by MrBobbyBob »

If the ghosts aren't transparent enough I can see myself easily mistaking one for something that has already been placed.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Heinzi »

What's the reason for disabling the quickbar ghost by default? Is it that players who don't know about ghosts accidentally build them and wonder why the building doesn't produce anything?

Proposal: When stack size is empty, have it turn to a ghost, but only allow placing with the established ghost-placing workflow (iirc this was shift+click). Normal click gives some acoustic feedback that the item can't be placed because the stack is empty.

Players who don't know about ghosts will understand this since "greying out" things that aren't possible to do is a common UX element and a ghost is basically a greyed out item. Players who know about ghosts will very naturally switch to continue placing ghosts with shift+click if that's what they intended.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by viny123 »

It's gone
Last edited by viny123 on Wed Feb 27, 2019 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by bobucles »

What's the reason for disabling the quickbar ghost by default? Is it that players who don't know about ghosts accidentally build them and wonder why the building doesn't produce anything?
Obviously so the game doesn't throw all the game mechanics at new players. After the first rocket launch that argument becomes moot so it'd make sense as a menu option.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by indjev99 »

L0laapk3 wrote: ↑
Fri Jan 18, 2019 1:29 pm
As for the ghost cursor stuff, I don't really like having it disabled by default.
You already know theres gonna be 100 million people who will never realise that its an option.

I think it would be a good idea to turn it on automatically when you unlock construction robots, and give a quick popup to explain it. (And optionally a setting: enable ghost cursor before construction robots or something along those lines).
I agree

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Zavian »

Heinzi wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 10:05 pm
Proposal: When stack size is empty, have it turn to a ghost, but only allow placing with the established ghost-placing workflow (iirc this was shift+click). Normal click gives some acoustic feedback that the item can't be placed because the stack is empty.

Players who don't know about ghosts will understand this since "greying out" things that aren't possible to do is a common UX element and a ghost is basically a greyed out item. Players who know about ghosts will very naturally switch to continue placing ghosts with shift+click if that's what they intended.
+1

That proposal makes a lot of sense.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Nightinggale »

Heinzi wrote: ↑
Mon Jan 21, 2019 10:05 pm
Proposal: When stack size is empty, have it turn to a ghost, but only allow placing with the established ghost-placing workflow (iirc this was shift+click). Normal click gives some acoustic feedback that the item can't be placed because the stack is empty.

Players who don't know about ghosts will understand this since "greying out" things that aren't possible to do is a common UX element and a ghost is basically a greyed out item. Players who know about ghosts will very naturally switch to continue placing ghosts with shift+click if that's what they intended.
Sounds about right until you realize how underused shift+click is because people aren't aware that it's there or have simply forgotten about it. People tend to forget what is not easily accessible and not displayed in the GUI.

Besides mouse only is better than mouse+keyboard for a frequently used functionality. Essentially using the shift key for this will hurt experienced players in order to maybe make it easier for new players. I think it would be better to make sure new players are aware of what ghosts are.

I say make it place ghosts with the mouse click and possibly make a "ghost placement sound" to make it easier to tell when you failed to actually place something. Add a tutorial for placing ghosts and adding the entities to the ghosts and once the player has done that, continue that tutorial with blueprints. Rather than hiding this from new players, the game should tell new players about this feature, though it should be carefully planned when to run this tutorial as in how much experience the player should have before it is displayed.

Perhaps there should be a game option to tell if mouse click can place ghosts (shift click should always work). Default is off from the start, but it turns on by reaching the end of the ghost/blueprint tutorial. This way the new player will not end up with ghosts before being told what ghosts are all about.
Nightinggale wrote: ↑
Sat Jan 19, 2019 5:10 pm
What we need to make ghosts useful early on is a "place entity on ghost" mouse cursor. Instead of selecting the inserters, assembers, belts etc, just pick a certain cursor and if you click on a ghost, it will take the item from your inventory. This makes ghosts and blueprints useful early on while at the same time construction bots in a personal roboport will still be a significant upgrade. Think of it as a shortcut to press the right hotkey for the toolbar each time you place something.
I still view this as a critical feature. Blueprints works great for repeated patterns like chains of furnaces. However before construction bots, blueprints are more or less useless and a lot of time is spend on repetitive tasks blueprints would solve easily. It kind of feels like some sort of grinding and adding grinding is usually not a great game design. Experienced players look forward to bots (not great) while inexperienced players will not know about bots and assume this kind of grinding gets worse the further they get into the game, which is even worse.

In a way you could say there is a risk Factorio could end up like a great TV series where the story takes off in episode 3 or 4, but a number of viewers drops it after having watched 1-2 episodes where nothing happened, not knowing of the greatness, which comes later. Factorio is all about automation meaning the kind of players to find Factorio awesome is the kind of players who doesn't like the repetitive manual work and instead would prefer blueprints. The early bots mod is severely overpowered meaning to get into the spirit of Factorio and making it more fun for everybody, useful blueprints from the start of the game seems to be needed while making sure bots will still be a major upgrade.

In short being able to build on blueprints like now, but skipping the need to switch the item in the quickbar/inventory seems to be the way to go to get a nice balance between easy/quick usage of the GUI and not being too overpowered for early game.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by psychomuffin »

I just came here to say that, as always, you guys rock for making awesome updates! I have never seem any other game developer listen so well to the community, then find a way to integrate all those community ideas successfully into the game. You guys just keep making this game better!

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Henry Loenwind »

Am I the only one who prefers having a toolbelt over a quick bar?

Aside from a handful of common items, what I have in my toolbelt changes all the time. It's not as if I'm walking around like a robot placing the same stuff over and over again. I craft a machine and place it, add the common support (belt, inserter, power pole), then I craft another machine and place that, add the common support (belt, inserter, power pole), and so on. Having to search for that newly crafted machine in the inventory after the crafting is done is just another annoying step. Especially with auto-sorting enabled (and honestly, with all those materials you need to schlepp around, I wouldn't disable it).

So my suggestion would be: Add the quick bar, don't replace the tool belt with it.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by 5thHorseman »

Henry Loenwind wrote: ↑
Wed Jan 23, 2019 1:01 am
Am I the only one who prefers having a toolbelt over a quick bar?
You very well may be :)
Henry Loenwind wrote: ↑
Wed Jan 23, 2019 1:01 am
So my suggestion would be: Add the quick bar, don't replace the tool belt with it.
This will hopefully be addressed with a "recently crafted" queue or slot of some sort, that others have requested earlier in the thread. It's possible that you'll like that better than the tool belt. As it works right now, if your belt fills up the new items are buried in your inventory which would never happen with a "recently crafted" spot/queue.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Bauer »

Henry Loenwind wrote: ↑
Wed Jan 23, 2019 1:01 am
Am I the only one who prefers having a toolbelt over a quick bar?

Aside from a handful of common items, what I have in my toolbelt changes all the time. It's not as if I'm walking around like a robot placing the same stuff over and over again. I craft a machine and place it, add the common support (belt, inserter, power pole), then I craft another machine and place that, add the common support (belt, inserter, power pole), and so on. Having to search for that newly crafted machine in the inventory after the crafting is done is just another annoying step. Especially with auto-sorting enabled (and honestly, with all those materials you need to schlepp around, I wouldn't disable it).

So my suggestion would be: Add the quick bar, don't replace the tool belt with it.
How do you keep the tool belt partially empty? So that newly crafted items go there and not into the inventory.
I follow your procedure for the first 60-90 minutes in the game until I reach oil processing. Then (the latest) my tool belt littered with all kind of stuff, which annoys me greatly.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by Henry Loenwind »

Bauer wrote: ↑
Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:27 am
How do you keep the tool belt partially empty? So that newly crafted items go there and not into the inventory.
I follow your procedure for the first 60-90 minutes in the game until I reach oil processing. Then (the latest) my tool belt littered with all kind of stuff, which annoys me greatly.
By not hand-crafting stuff I don't want to place down. The only things that pop up there annoyingly are robot-delivered crafting components that are also placable when I run out of them.

PS: Also, there's one thing I forgot...:

Quickbars work for people whose toolboxes look like this:
Image

If yours looks like this:
Image
then you're screwed because you'll spend more time sorting it than enjoying the game...

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by 5thHorseman »

Henry Loenwind wrote: ↑
Wed Jan 23, 2019 9:36 am
Quickbars work for people whose toolboxes look like this:
If yours looks like this:
then you're screwed because you'll spend more time sorting it than enjoying the game...
If only there was some mechanism by which you could turn the latter into the former. Like, say, something that would be quick. Maybe a bar across the screen.

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Re: Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

Post by SparkizX »

I read about the blueprint and got to say one thing, let us delete blueprints from our inventory.

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