Trees more obvious on map

[Ohz]

I was really looking for similar post but couldnt find it. I'm sure I'm not the first one !

tl;dr : change color of trees on maps to make forest brighter, and paths more obvious

Since I believe majority of people try to play with trains and outposts at least once, they have to drive and explore quite a lot.
Making your way through lakes is a thing, but forest is also definitely an important environment wall/difficulty.
And that's GOOD. I love that, don't change anything, I love that you have 2 ways: through forest, or dealing with bitters that take the only cleared paths.
That oblige you to pass by certain ways, sometimes quite longer. If you want to pass through, for a train road, there is already nice possibilities like grenades, you can get them very easily and early in game, or poison capsule.

Tags: Forest Forests Tree Trees Map Color Colors

[Ohz]

Nobody's agree?

[dee-]

I'd like some kind of generalization of this: a way to highlight (blinking or acid green) specific map features on the overview map, be it trees, rocks, that missing coal field that was supposed to be around here, iron ore fields or your AM3s. Sometimes it's difficult to see or find things on the map, especially when they have similar color or overlap.

I suppose the map tiles are generated when the player is near them and then cached, so modifying them would mean the map has to be refreshed and redrawn but that's something for the devs to figure out Maybe there's a smart solution to this...

[ssilk]

I agree to dee- and would enhance this with one more point: Let's make this feature researchable and/or config-option.

Reason: I like the colors as they are. They are some kind of "art", which makes the screen-shots not stupid colored, like in other games. They look "realistic" and I really enjoy it. You can print it out in really big and it doesn't hurt the eyes too much. Same for big screens, think of playing it on a 80" monitor. But sometimes you wish to have more contrast or false colors to enhance objects stronger.

[Metonymia]

Currently, trees are not visible on the minimap, which makes navigation less straightforward. Also, when a forest is cleared away, the color on the minimap doesn't change. It'd be useful if the map did show this difference.

[Yacc]

i also was annoyed by the fact that the trees are way too hard to see on the minimap, so i tried to change the color of the trees, but couldnt find any parameters for that. so i changed the color of the grass on the minimap, which actually worked. but still the trees are hard to see.
(btw the map refreshes when you place something or when you chop a tree)

i change these lines in
*\Factorio 0.11.21\data\base\prototypes\tile\tiles.lua
at the grass sections of the file to change the color of the grass tiles on the map.

Code: Select all

map_color={r=71, g=81, b=17}

is it possible to insert that line for the trees or something? im not very experienced with this stuff.

[ThaPear]

i also was annoyed by the fact that the trees are way too hard to see on the minimap, so i tried to change the color of the trees, but couldnt find any parameters for that. so i changed the color of the grass on the minimap, which actually worked. but still the trees are hard to see.
(btw the map refreshes when you place something or when you chop a tree)

i change these lines in
*\Factorio 0.11.21\data\base\prototypes\tile\tiles.lua
at the grass sections of the file to change the color of the grass tiles on the map.

Code: Select all

map_color={r=71, g=81, b=17}

is it possible to insert that line for the trees or something? im not very experienced with this stuff.

Nope, that won't work. However, in 0.12 it should be possible to alter the map color of any entity.

[Yacc]

ah sounds good! thanks

[quadrox]

Oh please, this one bugs me a lot - I want to be able to see trees on the minimap as well!

[ssilk]

Hm. This one has been improved a bit since 2015 still difficult.

But the point is: I think Factorio needs really some kind of monitor-calibration utility in the game, cause it uses colors and light in extreme ways.

[person3triple0]

I agree to dee- and would enhance this with one more point: Let's make this feature researchable and/or config-option.

Going off ssilk's idea, and another idea someone had about satellites:
There could be a research option to make a mapping satellite, and after researching it new buttons will appear on the bigmap that allow you to make trees more/less visible, disable buildings/power lines, etc.

Another idea (since that's VERY lategame) would be to have some kind of a scout drone (which would need a helipad/runway) that would scan areas within radar range (or even, say 2 chunks out) and THAT tech will allow you to toggle the trees/building/power lines buttons. It would only work, however, where the drone scanned, similar to how Google Maps' satellites can't constantly watch an area. (I think that's already implemented what with biter bases only changing while being scanned by a radar.)