LEDs on assemblers, radar upgrade, satellites scanning

[jokoon]

• A colored LED to quickly visualize which assembler/chemical plan are actively doing something. This can be really helpful to diagnose bottlenecks.
• An research upgrade to the radar range, even if the distance bonus is very small or part of the infinite research. Not sure if it's technically possible since the engine use a tile/grid system, but it would be greatly appreciated. If it's not possible, maybe a new bigger, energy hungry, expensive radar?
• Using the satellite as a radar, either geostationary or orbital, like a radar that monitors a larger area.
• Turning on/off the personal roboport, I think this will be available in the upcoming 0.17 UI update, but I'm bot sure.
• In multiplayer, it would be great to have a team leader allocating zones where other players are allowed to build factories. This would make large factorio multiplayer parties easier to play, since it would prevent trolling

[darkfrei]

• A colored LED to quickly visualize which assembler/chemical plan are actively doing something. This can be really helpful to diagnose bottlenecks.
  ...

Did you try this?
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Bottleneck

[Serenity]

There are mods for advanced radars that cover 4 times as much ground and consume 4 times as much power. That would work nicely in vanilla

[darkfrei]

There are mods for advanced radars that cover 4 times as much ground and consume 4 times as much power. That would work nicely in vanilla

Or mod with satellite map revealing https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FogRemover there doesn't need power, but need to send one satellite for every area.

[arthon34]

TL;DR

Add little red/yellow/green light indicators to the assembler graphic, depending on whether they have no resources to produce, their output is full, or they are working full-time.

What ?

At some point, light indicators were added for the electric mining drill.

Miner graphic.png (796.85 KiB) Viewed 2747 times

These lights display:

red (no more resources to mine)
yellow (output is full)
green (working as intended)
black (no power)

I think the assembling machine can make use of these indicators in almost exactly the same way:

red (no more resources to produce recipe)
yellow (output is full)
green (working as intended)
black (no power)

Why ?

Currently, the only way to tell whether an assembler is working or not is to look at whether the cogs and pistons on top of the machine are turning and moving. When close by, this is certainly possible to see relatively clearly.

Assembler close.png (350.99 KiB) Viewed 2747 times

However, when even moderately zoomed out, the effect lessens to whether a few gray pixels in the top left are glistening or not (static image below, but it makes the point clear), and even then, there is no way to at a glance tell the difference between a resource-starved assembler and one with a full output.

Assembler far.png (363.33 KiB) Viewed 2747 times

Simply by adding lights, it should be a lot clearer (Be advised; the red lights depicted are a work of fiction. No factories were made less efficient in the making of this imagery.):

Assembler far paint mockup.png (363.24 KiB) Viewed 2747 times

The bottleneck mod already does this currenty, for those who have no problem modding their games. https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Bottleneck
However, the base game should benefit a lot from this instant visual clarity.

[Deadlock989]

Mods can do this right now. But as far as I know the Bottleneck mod still relies on extremely heavy scripting as before 1.0 or maybe mid-0.18 there was no other way of doing this. However you can now have "status-coloured" working visualisation elements for drills and crafting machine entities without any scripting at all.

But for vanilla every crafting machine (assemblers, furnaces, centrifuges, chemical plants, etc.) would need to be redesigned by the artists and the sprite definitions would need to be overhauled by the programmers to accommodate this idea to the standard expected for everything else in the base game.

[foodfactorio]

hi deadlock,
i think i saw this picture posted by you somewhere..

can i check which mod its from please as it looks cool
download/file.php?id=64735
thanks

[ssilk]

@foodfactorio please use PM for such questions.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older thread with same suggestion.