Ghost-Construction-Mode-Change/Deconstruction-Mode-Change/What Robots Build the Blueprint?/Planning

[ssilk]

TL;DR: Each ghost-building (which includes blueprint construction) or to be deconstructed entity has also one of some modes (see below), that control, what bots will deliver the needed item.

Why?
I'm comming from posting.php?mode=reply&f=6&t=31231#pr197381 When deconstructing a chest, logistic bots remove it's items
where we discussed around gaps in the implementation of personal roboport and that it is unfinished yet.

For example: If you deconstruct some full chest, your personal robots will easily fill your inventory to a point, where you are not able to do anything. You even cannot change the item in hand. That blows up some of my blood vessels, when I come into that situation.

More than that. It made me ragequit the game several times after the personal roboports have been introduced. That's why I'm not using it at all.

In other words: As it is now it is sometimes extremely annoying, when you deconstruct a bigger construction or a chest and the personal bots will overfill your inventory in a way, that nothing could be done anymore.

Suggestion
Either you have some kind of simple automatic. Like now: "Prefer the personal bots for construction, but if there are none left, use the stationed bots of the logistic network."

Such generality is not useful if you want to deconstruct something. See above.

So we need an alternative solution and that could be only something, where the player decides how the next ghost-construction action (which includes also placing a blueprints) will trigger the robots.

That ghost-constructions modes might be implemented as some toggle (key-press), which switches between:
- Only stationed bots
- Prefer stationed bots, use personal bots only, if (items or bots) not available
- Prefer personal bots, use stationed bots only, if (items or bots) not available (BTW: This is the current mode!)
- Only personal bots.

And another toggle:
- Personal bots will try to deconstruct into logistic network, if not too far away.

So each ghost needs to know then, in which of the modes it was created (or marked for deconstruction). There must be some kind of visual feedback, so that the player can see, in which mode it is placed (No idea, how that could be looking).
You need of course also a tool, to change that mode afterwards. Good reasons are, that they mixed up the mode or miscalculated the items and now need to change the priorities or see below about planning.

Planning Mode?

Think to a 5th mode:
- Planning. (Never construct this.)

This is the planning mode. You can construct any entity, but it will be built as ghost in a mode, that never will request a construction bot.

[ssilk]

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4682 Planning (Signs, Cloning, Ghosts, Blueprinting and more...)

[chris13524]

I would say, make deconstructions always use your personal roboport, then, when holding shift, it would use only the network's robots, not your own. This could be the same for blueprints. Maybe another modifier would need to be used (ctrl) so that ghosts could still be built and build from the network.

This planning mode is an interesting idea. The first thing that I think of is when you press a key (or maybe a button), it dims the rest of the map, and you can "place" any entity as many times as you like (also you can get entities from the crafting thing). So while the rest of the map is still moving (and you can see it), it is dimmed. So when you place an entity, it looks like a real one (not ghost). There would be three buttons on screen, build with personal robots, build with network robots, and cancel. If you chose to build, it would place ghosts accordingly. If you discard, well, you discard.

Potentially you could exit the mode, while still saving your progress?

Maybe this mode removes from multiplayer because players can build together, maybe they could build in the same planning mode? A way to implement it could be that during planning mode, you are physically building the entity, but it has a flag so it doesn't do anything (like a ghost). They would only be visible while you are in planning mode, and in planning mode, you are only building these types of entities.

[person3triple0]

I would say, make deconstructions always use your personal roboport, then, when holding shift, it would use only the network's robots, not your own. This could be the same for blueprints. Maybe another modifier would need to be used (ctrl) so that ghosts could still be built and build from the network.

I think that's a good way of doing it.
Currently, shift is used to force place a blueprint.
Maybe pressing the spacebar could switch modes, and an icon would appear next to the modular armor and/or the blueprint you're holding, designating which mode you're in.
I have a feeling implementing the code will be harder than adding an icon.