Rail Signals should be selected with the Rails

[ssilk]

TL;DR

When you select a signal for copying or destruction the rail-parts, that “belong” to this signal should also be selected.

1. When you select a rail-signal, the adjacent (two or more) rail pieces are also selected.
2. When you select all adjacent rail pieces, the rail signal is also selected.
3. Pasting blueprints has a mode, to NOT paste rail-signals.

What?

I makes no sense to copy/paste only signals.

And when thinking about it, it would make much more sense to select also the two rail-parts, that are the part of the two blocks, that a signal belongs to. The pieces, that are adjacent to the signal.
That makes sense also vice versa: if you destroy all adjacent rail-pieces with a signal, the signal is also removed. Would spare me some clicks.

So, when your selection includes the signal but not all adjacent rail-pices, nothing is changed. The selection is not magic in that case.

And additionally I would say, we need then an option to paste rails with or without copied signals. Because the signals are now selected, when you select only the rails. So I suggest an option in the blueprint to not paste rail-signals. No need to remove unused rail signals afterwards.

Why?

Coming from viewtopic.php?f=6&t=93648 Auto rotate signals even when placed as ghosts

That showed me, that the copying of signals is something, that always disturbed me somehow.

[BicycleEater]

I like the idea, but the copy-paste working differently for signals would be very confusing, as the player would likely think they had miss-selected, rather than realising why it happened.
I would rather see another in-game tutorial on the subject of signals being placed the wrong way, stating that this can be a problem, so that at least players are aware of the issue.

[blazespinnaker]

Might be a good idea to merge my thread into this one. Don't want to lose the context of the pain.

Also, invalid blueprint handling is another way to go here. eg, miners / pumpjacks / pumps / etc.

i agree with the sentiment above though. documentation goes a long way here. most people will do a bit of reading before they encounter this error (using bots to place signals). two or three line of text in a few key places, and it eliminates about 90% of the pain here.

as noted before, talking a little bit about circular blocks is a good idea as well.

[Koub]

Might be a good idea to merge my thread into this one. Don't want to lose the context of the pain.

Beware : merging threads just mixes posts from both chronologically. As this suggestion thread was created after quite some discussion on your thread, the result will be unreadable, as the suggestion will be lost further down the discussion. I do not advise the merging (despite being me, the merging maniac ).

[blazespinnaker]

merging mania is awesome and probably very much appreciated by factorio dev I imagine. Sorting and organizing all the suggestions is probably a nightmare and a half.

Anyways, my comment from the previous thread -

If you place a signal via robot that you've copied from another place (a common task when shuffling around signals, I use copy otherwise I have to use shift in map mode when placing stuff), the signal doesn't get auto rotated.

I didn't notice this, and it was really driving me crazy as I could not figure out why some signals weren't blinking and others were. This made signaling trains more confusing than it should be.

I imagine other new players would encounter a similar issue because they auto rotate when manually placing them (and, in fact, you can't even rotate them when placing, so they might never think to check like I didn't)

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=93638

At the very least, please mention something on the wiki pages about this. https://wiki.factorio.com/Tutorial:Train_signals

It probably wouldn't hurt to add something about circular rail connections as well that aren't broken up by other signals.

I requested a wiki acct, but it's in pending review

part of the issue might be that I use copy versus pipette in map mode. I spend a lot of time in map mode and that painful sound when I forget to hit shift when placing stuff caused me to use copy pretty much everywhere.

[ssilk]

I spend a lot of time in map mode and that painful sound when I forget to hit shift when placing stuff caused me to use copy pretty much everywhere.

Now for the new year time to change habits?

[eradicator]

When you select a signal for [...] destruction the rail-parts, that “belong” to this signal should also be selected.

I'm sorry but,... did you just say you want to make removing superfluous rail signals with bots impossible?

-1

[ssilk]

Hmm. Good point.
I’ve two ideas:
One.
Forget about the selection. Works differently for copy- and destructor-tool.


Two.
Similar. How about this rule:

4. A “fast filter” for the destructor-tool: a special mode (pressing ctrl?) enables the filter to be chosen directly from one of the selected items.

In this case: select signals and rails, then filter signals only.

[eradicator]

I don't understand why this needs smart/magic behavior. If you want to select a signal you draw a small selection box. If you want to also select the rail you draw a bigger box. What is the problem you're trying to solve?

I makes no sense to copy/paste only signals.

Anyone who followed the no-fluid-mixing drama knows what happens when the game tries to be smart about things that "make no sense": Lots of time and money gets wasted.

[blazespinnaker]

I spend a lot of time in map mode and that painful sound when I forget to hit shift when placing stuff caused me to use copy pretty much everywhere.

Now for the new year time to change habits?

Or, you know, let us change the keyboard controls for the game. I use copy for about 90% of the operations I do, only about 10% is original from my inventory placing. On the 10%, it's rather natural to continue using copy when it works in pretty much every other case and requires fewer keystrokes.

Pipette is generally very useless in map mode. For example, copying assemblers with pipette doesn't include modules.

[ssilk]

@ eradicator : Well, this is one of those ideas, that looked too good. When I suggested it, I thought I had every case been thought about.

I still mean, the separate handling of signals and rails doesn’t make sense in all cases. For example when I lay very long rails, I want to lay also a signal every n rails. Or when I remove a lot of rails I will nearly always remove also all signals.

I need to think about it a bit more.

@ blazespinnaker: well, sorry, but to be honest, that sounds just like an excuse for being lazy. I mean, laziness as player in Factorio is VERY good. That’s what the game is about.
But I cannot understand how pressing CTRL and C, then pressing CTRL and V is simpler than pressing Q and shift-rmb , shift-lmb. A good player is definitely faster with the second method. And more lazy, because it’s less keys on keyboard. With the modules you’re right, but I see that as a special case: there are lots of suggestions open around that subject.
And in the early game you will not have much success with this copy-method. And later on it’s a matter of what do I want to have in the copy/paste buffer and when is it faster to build it myself. In my eyes, it’s just a not so good habit. Habits can be changed.

The other arguments are coped together in viewtopic.php?p=529374#p529374

[eradicator]

I still mean, the separate handling of signals and rails doesn’t make sense in all cases.

I don't disagree with that. I just disagree that everything that "doesn't make sense" needs to be made technically impossible. "Sense" is made by humans. And even humans tend to disagree about what makes sense. Computers just aren't any good at it.