Various managers like powerplant manager

[Mauslag PIngman]

I like single player. I've got sprawling bases, multiple powerplants and I don't know if one has run out of coal until I drive over. I don't know if a distant mining operation has run out of raw material to mine. Managers could alert me to these conditions. Most games have this sort of thing. Also, let me know when I have a huge pile of circuit boards piling up or wire so that I can get things distributed and keep things running.

[ssilk]

I think "managers" should not belong into the game, cause you are alone on a planet.

Ok, you can say "that managers are just very clever computer circuits". Right. But then - and that is how the things currently work - the manager is an entity, that you need to craft and need to place somewhere to make it work.

But then - and this is my proposal - you can also create your own circuits.

So I think the much better way would be to have one ore more blueprints, to print you some "manager"; a circuit network with combinators, sensors etc., that creates a signal, when some state is reached. With other enhancements you can display that state to your console or do some alarming, whatever, that are other big suggestions, see Frequently suggested...

[Mauslag PIngman]

If you are thinking that I can craft my own circuit to form my own manager... is that even possible and if it is, is it likely that someone like myself would know how to do it? My guess is that some top members in the Factorio community, probably less than 10 could do this. That means a lot of people would be left out and customers don't like to feel left out.

I think they should guide us in creating managers and manager features.

As the game is it is very easy for me to stay in one small area. It would just be too tedious to make my way around the whole map checking on things. That's why I need the manager, the ability to do some things remotely and perhaps the ability to teleport with significant quantities of materials.

Galactic Civilizations 2 has some amazing managers. You can see all your planets. You can arrange them in order of population, income, manufacturing ability and many other categories. You can see all this in a few seconds. It also has governors and a governor manager so you can tell things that are completed to go to some certain planet and for perhaps all ships of one kind to now go to a different destination.

[ssilk]

Well, if you mean to have some Sim-City or Galctic Civilisation manger to be in the vanilla: No. It would break anything what Factorio is (only in my eyes of course).

If you mean to have some kind of "training levels" and you want to have some hint "You're doing this wrong", well, that is a good idea.

And how to implement some kind of "manager" right now:
Let's assume the example with the power. There are some things, that can go wrong:
- No or not enough fuel (coal)
- Not enough boilers (low temp, low efficency)
- No (not enough) water
- And further on some kind of watch, if the produced energy is enough to fulfill the consumption.
(not complete of course, cause that depends on your setup)

For the first (no fuel): This is easy. Count how many coal are on the incoming belt. If under a certain point: Alarm.
The second is yet not possible to find, cause that needs to have temperature sensors. But there are mods that enable that already. With that in mind it's also quite easy: Temp lower than 95º: Alarm
The third is also easy: Place a tank at the end of the steam engines. If the tank got filled up to some minimum (100 units or so), all ok, if not: Alarm.
The 4th is also not possible yet, there needs to be some kind of sensor, that knows all the data of your current network (electric network info). But if available (perhaps with 0.13 or is there already a mod?) it just needs to compare production power with consumption power and if below a certain point: Alarm.

You see: It's not so difficult to built a "manager" yourself. The advantage: There is practically no limit how complex it gets (for example: Alarm only if the temp is lower 95º for more than a minute, alarm always, if lower than 80º).

And a final point: A "manager" - as described for that games above - would just fail to understand the complexity of your setup and would either send wrong alarms or none.

[Mauslag PIngman]

I transport everything on the same low speed belts because trains, to me, are not worth the trouble yet because I am still working on producing more efficiently things like circuits. (Dig the Czeklish backwards talk) The result is that the belt has iron plates, copper, coal and maybe gears and circuit boards on them and even other things. I put smart inserters along the way to pick them off and send them onto another belt but sometimes a few get through and this can quickly clog up my coal lines. So my manager needs to do more than count coal. Maybe I should just have a video camera view of all my different boiler sites. If I could bring them all up at once I could quickly scan them. If I could build camera towers I could place them and get views in multiple small windows like in roller coaster tycoon. All views open with one and close with one click and are labeled with names of places so I'll know where to go to fix things. The belts are long though and the problem may have started far away from where it is causing trouble.

Also, sometimes I take things down that I shouldn't take down. Maybe my coal line is running full of coal for a couple of days so I take down the smart inserters and then I do something further along that belt and suddenly my belt is contaminated again. Maybe I should be able to make some inserters more permanent but even that would not be perfect. I need to have a sorting station or depot blueprint so I can set up a sorting station quickly. Too bad I don't have a big, almost infinite, blueprint folder that takes up no inventory space as others have suggested. It would be filled with labeled and categorized blueprints of all kinds of facilities and I'd quickly be able to access any of them no matter where I was and set them up as needed. I could fill my blueprint folder in little tutorial missions like mission 1, this belt is full of all kinds of junk. Design a facility that sorts everything into different belts or something and make a blueprint of this cool gizmo and put it in the blueprint folder you made in the previous tutorial mission that is not in the game.

I am forever in need of something that is far away. It never fails. I am always out of range of the logistical robots that don't bring me much of anything anyway and I need stuff. By the time I go to get the stuff I needed, I forgot some of the list and I realize I needed other stuff from the place I just left. Experience would help with this but so would being able to make a list very quickly. Also, I'd like to dump my inventory items but I'm afraid I won't remember where they are. Usually I can find them but it takes a lot of time and its distracting so I forget other things. It would be nice if I could attach a long range robot rocket to each of my inventory items so that it could bring them to me quickly if I do need them no matter where I am on the map. Press x and a list appears of all items with check boxes next to them and I check off all stuff I want to pick up in the next place and save it and stick it in a folder by the name of the place I would use it.

Why would I cannibalize my own smart inserters? Because they are an ingredient needed in vast quantity for research and other purposes. And my damn on board fabrication device automatically steals anything in my inventory to be made into other stuff so things are always disappearing. It would be cool to have several on person fabrication things going on at the same time. This is another thing I should be able to craft.
Why don't I use trains? Because even laying track is a pain. The curved track is so expensive and fussy to lay down. It is beyond belief how complicated it is to join a couple of pieces of track. Its like they think, well this person has nothing to do. Lets give him this intensely fiddly task of joining two pieces of curved track together and make it into an experience he will never forget. The signals are a mystery and there is no train tutorial.
No tutorial on the different type of advanced chests. Obviously in large groups they could be made into a warehouse and made accessible with logistical robots and other systems but I am not comfortable with them yet.

Maybe the player should start with a functioning train system. It could be more expensive with resources but he wouldn't have to design it. The train would run back and forth picking up things and dropping off and it would automatically know to pick things up here and bring them there and then later I could design my own train.

[ssilk]

[...having a videocamer-view...]

Ah, now I begin to understand, what you really mean (the language barrier is sometimes really disturbing): Not a "manager", but "managing your factory easier".
Like with some kind of monitoring camera.

Am I right?

Well, there is a mod:
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=13523 Command Control - Remote view/manage
Eventually this is also fine, but I think it take to long to research it:
viewtopic.php?f=97&t=19883 Satellite Uplink Station

And the devs already mentioned that they think something like such monitoring is needed.

...explaining what problems you have with sorting out stuff...

This get's now off-topic.
So much to say: Relying on smart inserters to sort out any item is a fail. Let there be just one small power lack (only 80% power is enough) and the smart inserters will slow down to a point, where they are not reliable anymore. If you would not always walk around but instead look around where you stand and watch, you would see that.
If you need to sort reliable, you need to do it so, that every item is handed over, you cannot keep the items on your main belt. That strategy is painful, if you dig too much stone for example. The stone will clog up your belts and then nothing works anymore.
But I tell you something: Later on you will find, that this kind of sorting is very ineffective. But I won't explain more, it's much more fun to find that out yourself.

I am forever in need of something that is far away. It never fails. I am always out of range of the logistical robots that don't bring me much of anything anyway and I need stuff.
... more lamenting about beginner issues dropped ...

That are all gameplay issue - I mean you are wrong here in Suggestions and you should ask in the Gameplay Help board, how to solve your problem, they will help you for sure if you keep friendly.