Factorio Forums

I frequently get that annoying yellow marking that "some objects are missing construction bots but it happens in regular situation when there are more jobs than bots. On the other hand I don't get this warning when part of blueprint is dropped outside of roboport green area when this warning would be strongly appreciated. So far I consider behavior of this warning as this either a bug or misleading.

This is not a bug nor misleading. The robot network can only look for the stuff INSIDE of it's area. This is a very simple rule, which should be clear, since that is the basic function of the roboports.

Anything else would mean, that the game has to scan the whole map for every tick.

Fixing is not needed: Just don't place blueprints out of logistic area. And if: Build a roboport which covers the missing part and/or repeat the blueprint.

First, current text "some objects are missing construction bots" does not provide any useful information for you can see if that happened via number of available construction bots by hovering over spaceport. If it's zero - there are more ghosts than objects, but that's ok. This is not something that may require immediate player attention, just to wait. Second, why I called it misleading, objects are not missing construction bots, they are just not the first in the queue So this warning tells nothing serious and makes entire map flashing yellow. As compared to "some objects are missing items" which is very useful because you could forget to automate some production.

As for my proposed warning (blueprint outside green area) - I'll keep it for another thread for there are cases when it may irritate as well, e.g. when you place ghosts to build via personal roboport.

What you describe here is different to your first post.
This is very irritating.

My posts look different because warning text is actually misleading. When I first saw that warning I thought that some of my ghosts are outside of green area or I forgot to put bots in roboport. My first post was centered around meaning of that phrase, and I spoke about mechanics that does not match the wording. My second post was about actual mechanics of that warning explaining why such warning is useless.

So perhaps it's a good technique to first understand the game fully (or by minimum the aspect you want to improve) before making a suggestion, to change something.
Cause otherwise you are suggesting a change for something, that needs to be like it is. And you wasted a lot of time: Yours, mine and all the others, that read it. (*)

You made 22 suggestions since June 09, where about the half is quite questionable and about a half of that due to this lack of game-knowledge.

I really recommend some more playing. And you can write as many suggestions as you want, but maybe you use the "Save draft" feature instead of "Save", if you are in doubt. If you come back in some weeks and the saved suggestion is still valid, then it is good enough for publishing it.
(**)

(*) Sorry, it sound quite rude, but it is just the essence from my own experience. After 10 hours playing I thought I'm the chief, I know how this needs to work. But after 50 you really change your mind, and after 100 you laugh over your first suggestions.

(**) Which doesn't mean, that I will forbid posting good suggestions. Some of the best suggestions are from players, which did only this one suggestion after playing half a day.

I had like 120 hours of pure gameplay in Factorio, during last 2 months, only then I joined the forum. This is the reason you see so many suggestions from me - that's just everything accumulated in my head that happened over and over again while building those 7 factories from the scratch. When I am not at the board, I am alt-tab'bed in Factorio with my next megabase, and when I face some issue that happened to me like 10 times already, I post a suggestion here.

Some of my suggestions may be wrong (mostly about train routing), but when such thing happens, please point me at some EXACT case that my suggestion breaks instead of vague "it will cure your pain but will ruin life of other players". An exact live-life example is always desired for me to feel myself stupid because the moments I feel myself stupid are the moments I grow, and my game model updates. I am sorry, but without exact counter-examples it more looks like a forum opponent is simply afraid to change something in what he is not fluent enough himself, and simply doesn't want to touch things that appears to be working. I don't want such attitude with fellow-players, so please give me exact counter-example cases when I am indeed a lack-of-game-knowledge-guy with some proposal There is no other way I can get that knowledge, even after watching hours of youtube factorio letsplays.

For hot example, I am eager to see a case that breaks if filtered wagon items are forbidden to go to unfiltered slots, or case that breaks if middle-clicked toolbelt slots always get stacked for 50 from the inventory. Just these two things are so obvious to me that it is hard to accept my lack of game knowledge when I get opposed even on such trivial suggestions without real counter-examples.

As for 50% you mentioned - I mostly see that there are no answers/comments at all. That tells me we probably have different playstyles. I always start a new factory from the scratch, and get it to the rocket or a megabase able to launch rockets at constant rate. One bonus of such approach - I never get messy savegame folder for I am totally devoted to current factory. I think many people here load some mid-game save with some basic setup, probably roboports and start experimenting from that point. For that reason they miss a lot of annoyances that I get along the way getting there, and my proposals do not get supported because people skip that phase of the game entirely - they just don't play that part of game. They feel it's too boring and when I suggest how to make it less boring (fast tree harvesting, planned construction, semi-automated repairs) no one says a word or even opposes from a late-game point-of-view.

Some people may think that things are implemented the way they are because devs tried every possible case and playtested a lot before putting into a game. Sure they did. the first time they implemented something, but remember that devs simply don't have time for thorough playthroughs because it takes 20 hours for a single game, and many things become obvious and absolutely necessary only with that longplay playstyle. As an interesting example - devs did thorough playtesting not so long ago for 0.13 - and see what? my "questionable" suggestion about minimal deconstruction time got implemented, at least for walls, just because one of devs got annoyed farming long wall. Now the unpleasant question - for how long community suffered dismantling those walls thinking it was by design? how many people before me asked to decrease wall farming time, and got rejected because it felt it's by design and not by an accident?

TL;DR
There are things that are perceived as bugs or inconveniences only when you follow thorough playstyle - from mining coal manually to launching a rocket. If you playstyle is different like forking at mid-game save or playing mods, we are just playing different games.

Just remember that it's very fast for you to write suggestions, but it can take time to reply to them with the level of "exactness" you think you deserve (and seem to even demand) in reply. I've played like 700 hours in the last four months and I still don't feel confident enough to *know what must* be changed (so far my only change suggestion was in the form of a question of possibility), and I'm still a newb compared to many of the people around here. I don't feel that I am so knowledgeable that if I proclaim something, it can only be dismissed by hours of research :/

Ok, I will try it another way - first posting my suggestions in "gameplay help" board to ask if people have use for some feature I find irritating in my playstyle (e.g. warning discussed in this thread), or if people have some existing solution to features I propose as gameplay addition (e.g. multilane belt balancer/forker). In no way I want to be rude or demanding with forum members, especially with ssilk who is probably the biggest Factorio Knowledge Base the world ever known just by running this forum. he's actually part of dev team for filtering proposals that finally reach devs, sorta QA lead because game has no dedicated fulltime playtesters other than us players, so we are all enrolled in some form. well, whatever.. when such talks start as in this thread (I actually expected that would happen), they always gets some emotion. sorry for that

TL;DR
I will filter my further suggestion through "gameplay help" board, so when a suggestion appears here, it will have a link to the corresponding thread with pros and cons already discussed.

Harkonnen604 wrote:I don't want such attitude with fellow-players, so please give me exact counter-example cases when I am indeed a lack-of-game-knowledge-guy with some proposal There is no other way I can get that knowledge, even after watching hours of youtube factorio letsplays.

Well, my fail. It's because it is sometimes much more complicated to explain the reason of fail of something, than to write a suggestion. And even my time is limited.

That tells me we probably have different playstyles.

From what I remember you like to play sandbox and play around as good. Factorio is not designed for this.

Maybe it should. But I don't see that as a useful tendency.

I always start a new factory from the scratch, and get it to the rocket or a megabase able to launch rockets at constant rate
... I think my proposals do not get supported because people skip that phase of the game entirely - they just don't play that part of game.

Oh, other valid reasons:
- That has been already discussed a lot, but the result is still not implemented.
- They don't understand what you mean.
- They don't like it.
- They like it.
- Others found a solution to that issue out of the game, some kind of clever workaround. And the workaround looks like an idea for a subgame.
- There is not only this one solution, it could be made quite different. (That's when I write "I've added it to collection XXX")
- There are higher goals, that needs to be implemented first, before fixing, but that will make fixing this much easier/not needed.
- There's a mod for this. And often used mods are much better "suggestions".
- ...

As an interesting example - devs did thorough playtesting not so long ago for 0.13 - and see what? my "questionable" suggestion about minimal deconstruction time got implemented, at least for walls, just because one of devs got annoyed farming long wall. Now the unpleasant question - for how long community suffered dismantling those walls thinking it was by design? how many people before me asked to decrease wall farming time, and got rejected because it felt it's by design and not by an accident?

Hm. Long. Very long. I remember a thread in 2013 and 2014 about the long time it takes to remove belts and walls. It's quite difficult to search such posts, cause it depends on the used verbs, if I find it.

I guess that the devs implemented it now (I don't know in which, but we will see), is, because they have lists of todos and - as here - some devs is just in the mood to change that, cause he is currently on it and the fix is easy. You could ask: Why not much sooner? Well, it is not so easy to make that kind of decision. There needs to be some kind of agreement, which (I think) can be achieved best while playtesting.

If you playstyle is different like forking at mid-game save or playing mods, we are just playing different games.

And if not?

Remember again: This game is developed since 2012/13. Four years of game-development is a long time. A very, very long time. Look at what directions they go at each point. Look what was implemented and what was not. Look how they work.

So, what I try as moderator is to let you see this way.