Do not pause game when looking at research in single player

[BlueTemplar]

Are you kidding !?
Your starting ore patches are not infinite, and biters won't stand around while you are looking at research !

I would *always* pause the game when looking at research.
I'm even using a modified Vlad's Auto Time to set the game speed to 10% when not doing anything...

[Lav]

Are you kidding !?
Your starting ore patches are not infinite, and biters won't stand around while you are looking at research !

There's a lot of leeway for interpretation of "new players would benefit most". It could easily mean "teach those suckers a valuable lesson about wasting time which is for their own good really".

[eradicator]

/me casts greater resurrection on $this_thread

+10
Add an option to remove singleplayer auto-pause, so everything behaves like in multiplayer.

Reason:
I'd love to be able to study the research tree without my inner voice nagging me "You're not producing anything!". This is especially true for large mods that have lots of reserach to look at, and not so much to do in the beginng phase when you're waiting for stuff to be produced.

[Hannu]

Are you kidding !?
Your starting ore patches are not infinite, and biters won't stand around while you are looking at research !

There's a lot of leeway for interpretation of "new players would benefit most". It could easily mean "teach those suckers a valuable lesson about wasting time which is for their own good really".

I did not mean that. But I remember when I played my first game, I was not sure about ratios and was very careful to expand my production enough aggressively. Therefore I had to make many times other things and let game just run at background and produce things. If I remember correctly I had eventually 2 red belts of incoming iron (including iron used for steel production) when I launched my first rocket. I had never problems with too fast action. It is difficult to understand those who want intentionally pause or slow the game.

[Katharsas]

This would be very useful for AB, Seablock, PyMods, etc...
Does anybody know if this can be changes by mods?

[eradicator]

This would be very useful for AB, Seablock, PyMods, etc...
Does anybody know if this can be changes by mods?

I don't see any way to mod that, or i'd have done it already.

[steinio]

You can host a multiplayer and play for yourself. This will enable non blocking research window.

[Locane]

I am shocked that this isn't in the game by now.

[MiniHerc]

+1. An option for this would be greatly appreciated.

[zippyit]

In a single player game, the consistency of when an alert box comes up the game pauses. Which is correct. The current option to keep playing after a research is also a good one.

But, To pull up the research window requires a player interaction, by default " T ", and just like pushing " esc " pulls up the game menu screen also pauses the game.

I think the game is correct to do this.

The solution would be to switch pause off after research is completed and then the option to have a research queue always switched on, (and not after game ends), would be the correct answer.

The pause benefits those that are still learning the game.

Conclusion is perhaps a nice to have feature but not a necessary one whilst the game is still in development.

[conn11]

-1
If I‘m looking at research and especially setting up a queue I want peace.
As for opt in, though quite nice, I suspect ist beeing a rather low priority.
For looking the tech tree up, there are good external websites example (although currently outdated)

[factoriouzr]

I want my factory to keep making things while I look at research. Making this a game option would be the correct solution.

[ssilk]

I think this should be seen in greater context. Pausing the game in single player is currently possible in three ways:
- by pressing esc (menu appears)
- by pressing shift-space (but in map mode it’s hard to recognize the difference between paused game and frozen game and it is irritating because you may forget it)
- by going into research window.

My opinion:
Before this can be fixed we need a common interface, that pops up (non-overlapping) when in pause-mode. Then fixing this issue is simple: Just press play after you entered the research window.

[Anachrony]

I would love for this to be an option. The main reason that I think it might make sense to pause it is if you're playing with biters and are on a screen where it's harder to tell if they're attacking. But a lot of the time we may be playing in peaceful mode or with biters disabled, and it just feels punitive to stop our production when we view the tech tree. It encourages people to race through looking at the tech tree to get back to production. Maybe it's not a big deal in vanilla since they could just check the wiki instead, but in an overhaul mod there are often a lot of new techs for them to go through in the tech tree screen, and it's a disincentive for them to familiarize themselves with the research options. The only other reason that I can think people would want their game paused is if they're going for a speed run, but it seems like those people could just learn to pause the game manually first and not have the game do it for them.

Right now this is possible to achieve by setting up a multiplayer server and then joining it as the only player. But this is a pretty wonky setup if not pausing research is the only reason to do it that way. Please consider an option.

For looking the tech tree up, there are good external websites example (although currently outdated)

Not very helpful for people who aren't playing vanilla. This game has excellent mod support, it's an important part of the game. Playing a complex new overhaul is exactly when experienced players would want plenty of time to review the tech tree, there are unlikely to be third party resources outside the game like are for vanilla. The game also supports playing with weakened or no biters, and the argument for pausing the tech tree is much weaker under those circumstances. Yes, it should be opt in, rather than across the board, but it would be very nice for many of us.

[NotRexButCaesar]

+1
Please just make it an interface option ‘pause when research screen open.’

[netmand]

It's a bit weird that this is even a thing. I'm against it, but can be ok with it if it becomes an option and defaults to the original behavior. Arguably making this sort of option accessible to modding might make sense in the spirit of modding the game if not already there.

Pausing the game during tech tree examination/selection normalizes player understanding of the tree. There is no way to respond to the game while in the tech tree so I for one don't know why one would want the game to keep running when the tech tree is displayed.

[eradicator]

It's a bit weird that this is even a thing. I'm against it, but can be ok with it if it becomes an option and defaults to the original behavior. Arguably making this sort of option accessible to modding might make sense in the spirit of modding the game if not already there.

Pausing the game during tech tree examination/selection normalizes player understanding of the tree. There is no way to respond to the game while in the tech tree so I for one don't know why one would want the game to keep running when the tech tree is displayed.

Because pausing the game wastes my time that the factory could spend on producing things. There's no benefit to stopping the entire factory. Especially with new/modded content I would like to take my time deciding how to fill the queue and checking out what recipes are coming up and where they are. This would be the perfect thing to do in quiet phases where there's nothing urgent to do. But with the forced pause I feel pressurized to get out of the tech screen as fast as possible to get the factory running again - the exact opposite of "normalizing the player understanding of the tree".

I for one don't know why one would ever want to stop the entire factory while playing.

[netmand]

Because pausing the game wastes my time that the factory could spend on producing things. There's no benefit to stopping the entire factory. Especially with new/modded content I would like to take my time deciding how to fill the queue and checking out what recipes are coming up and where they are. This would be the perfect thing to do in quiet phases where there's nothing urgent to do. But with the forced pause I feel pressurized to get out of the tech screen as fast as possible to get the factory running again - the exact opposite of "normalizing the player understanding of the tree".

I for one don't know why one would ever want to stop the entire factory while playing.

...because you are "losing" valuable time producing things when the factory is not running, yes? I get your point.

For me, pausing the game while viewing the tech tree affords me time to mull over my choices without any fear of sudden biter attacks that could happen, or inadvertently letting something run out of control because that part of the factory needs more adjustments. It does not pain me to not gain the handful of items I would have produced because the game was paused during my tech tree choices.

[Anachrony]

For me, pausing the game while viewing the tech tree affords me time to mull over my choices without any fear of sudden biter attacks that could happen, or inadvertently letting something run out of control because that part of the factory needs more adjustments.

There are options for controlling biters. Not everyone plays with them all the time, and at a certain point they'll be safely under control anyway.

How out of control could your factory get? Do you never leave it to set up a mining outpost? The worst case tends to be either the factory stops producing because it's bottlenecked somewhere, in which case it's no worse than the tech tree making it come to a complete halt every time, or that the factory is overproducing the wrong thing, which starves resources from everything else, but is no worse than pausing the game starving everything of resources. If you have a knack for finding new and creative ways to somehow make your factory actively destructive when left to its own devices, then an option to leave your factory unpaused may not be for you.

[Koub]

I for one don't know why one would ever want to stop the entire factory while playing.

I find difficult not to be outrun by time based biter evolution (on standard settings) to the extent that I have a second installation of Factorio just to take my time designing factory parts without the time ticking against me. For most people, biters are just a x% resource sink, not even worth being mentioned. For people like me (understand : "who suck at developping quickly and defending efficiently"), they're a serious threat until quite far in the game.

I totally want the game paused while I'm in the research menu, and if one day there was an ingame blueprint editor, I hope the game will also pause while fiddling in it.