Factorio Forums

We currently can pin items to quickbar with "any" quality selected:


And it correctly displays the count of said item regardless of quality:


If we pick up that item, it only shows the count of the current stack:


which isn't a huge issue and might be preferred, since we can see how many items of that quality are left. The problem is that when the current quality items run out, you have to select it from the quickbar again to get the next quality stack:





Same thing happens if you have a vehicle with several different ammo qualities - when the current one runs out, the vehicle will grab more ammo from its inventory (and even the player's own inventory), but it will not grab same ammo of different quality:





This makes using multiple qualities of ammo in combat not really feasible. Clicking the quickbar again is perhaps a small inconvenience, but it can throw you off your rhythm when dealing with hordes of enemies. And having to manually reload vehicle ammo isn't something you want to do while being attacked.

If an item runs out, the game puts the next stack of the same quality in the cursor, so you can continue using the item without having to manually switch to the next stack. I think it would be good if it was also doing the same thing with same item of other qualities.

I noticed this too and I agree it feels off. You might not be aware that the Shift+Alt+Scroll will change the quality when the item is in your cursor, but I still agree it feels off that the "any" quality can be placed in the quickbar but does not provide some kind of auto-next-in-queue function or any special functionality really.

On an almost related note, I would prefer if the Shift+Alt+Scroll would cycle through the available qualities before going to the next. Or that it would go in your cursor as a ghost even if you don't carry that item in your inventory, useful for items you want to place blueprints of without going into Remote View. Or the "any" quality when placed in cursor perhaps only will scroll through available qualities, unless you are in Remote View (duh). Or all these features if deemed compatible.

Honestly quite a few different ideas that aren't very concrete, but I'm basically trying to say that I very much agree "something" should be done with "any" items on the quickbar.

nemofication wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 05, 2024 3:24 am

I noticed this too and I agree it feels off. You might not be aware that the Shift+Alt+Scroll will change the quality when the item is in your cursor, but I still agree it feels off that the "any" quality can be placed in the quickbar but does not provide some kind of auto-next-in-queue function or any special functionality really.

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that shortcut, it will definitely be useful for some other stuff!

It doesn't however help in the use case I provided. When using grenades of different quality, you'd only want to switch to the next one when the current one has run out, and when that happens your cursor has no item you can scroll the quality on. Maybe a mod like Cursor Enhancements can help with that, but it still feels like a not-great solution.

I've added the second case of vehicles using ammo because I think if there is a more general next-stack behaviour, then that might be the better solution than changing it just for the cursor items.