Factorio Forums

It would be a really nice feature to be able to put down ghost entities and configure them before they are actually built.

This would include:
+copy/pasting to/from ghost and non ghost entities (eg. copy/paste settings to ghost inserters from other inserters (ghost or not)
+open a ghost of a factory and set the item it will produce
+open ghosts of chests and configure them (eg. requestes for requester chests, chest limits, etc

In theory this shouldn't be difficult to implement (logically). In practice you guys would know better based on your current code.

What I'm thinking is that one clean way to implement this might be:
+make every ghost building be the real building that it represents
+add a flag to every building (true/false) if it's a ghost or not and when placing ghosts set this to be ghost = true and when the building is really "built", then set this flag to false
+if ghost = true, just render the building translucent like the ghosts are now
+if ghost = true, factories won't build anything but you will be able to insert modules and set the recipe
+now you will instantly get all copy/paste and configuration options because built entities already support it and with this simple flag, you will track if the entity is fully operational or not

This would be an amazing feature to have to speed up building. Now you don't have to wait for resources before you configure you factory and you can configure your factory while you are still crafting the buildings, inserters, etc and while the robots are still bringing them.

Also please add the ability to see and select all recipes in factories and inserter filters even if they are not researched yet to make it even more useful just like you can set filters on your toolbelt for unresearched entities.

Now with 0.15 this is very much needed:

I just started a second map and had some blueprints from the first one. They involved lots of combinators. The blueprints were totally useless because i was not able to get the actual combinator settings copied without robots.

similar to copy/paste recipe from one built assembler to another built assembler allow copy/paste to/from ghost machines.

Currently the only way to get a ghost assembler with a preset recipe is by blueprinting an existing assembler of the needed recipe and using that BP to make ghost machines. if I am experimenting with different builds I end up placing down dozens of assemblers, set the recipes, then realize there is a better layout and find it irritating to pick up all those assemblers, which takes time, using up the axe in the process. if I had bots I'd use those instead of my axe, which would solve those 2 issues, but I currently don't have bots.

Place ghost machines, set the recipes with copy paste, see there is a better layout, clear the ghosts with a mouse click to start over is much easier and faster than current system and won't use up axes.

+1 Good idea, the game is certainly needs this feature

+1

I mean sure, why not. More options are good.

But why do you place down "dozens" of assemblers?
You only need to place down 1 and can just blueprint copypaste it or build just 1 repeated segment of the thing you want to build and copy that, which usually consists of 2-4 assemblers.
I can't think of anything that requires you to place dozens of assemblers in unique, pattern defying positions.
Pretty much everything consists of small, repeated patterns.

What?
Shift+right/left clicking settings from/to things before they are built. Because i don't want to wait until they are built for fix errors.

YES. We need this. It'd be better yet if we could just configure them normally, but that's far less likely to happen and I'm not sure even how we'd do it, so I'll hold off from suggesting it.

TL;DR

When we place ghost buildings such as assemblers, we can't set their recipe until they are placed.

What ?

This is pretty simple I think

Allowing us to use the shift-right/left clicking to copy recipes would be very handy!

Why ?

Seems common-sense to me; I honestly thought I read we could do this in the patch notes but I guess I'm imagining things

Copy and paste function works fine for me, it pastes the assemblers with the recipe.

When copy+pasting assembly machines the ghost retains the product setting and displays the icon for it. When manually placing assembly machines, you cannot set the product and have to remember what everything is. This can be very confusing if you leave and come back or are working in multiplayer and trying to build self-documenting ghost setups.

It would be really nice if we could set the product of a ghost machine (and probably other such settings on ghost entities), both to make base planning easier and so that when it is built over (especially if bots are involved) the factory needs no further configuration.

No, I mean if you place a ghost (like when you run out of assemblers with the new ghost option checked, or just shift click a ghost) it won't have a recipe, and you cannot set the recipe until the assembler is placed.

I ask that recipes can be shift clicked over to ghosts, like the green science assemblers in my pic

Just use ctrl+c to copy and paste an assembling machine settings. Things like this is what its there for.

Playing an Angels+Bobs game, I've just blueprinted my saphirite->ironore->ironplate factory and placed it over the stiratite field. Now while nanobots or real bots are placing the buildings, I want to change the recipe on the sorting machines. But I can't, because you can't interact with the settings of a ghost. I know that adding the settings interface to ghosts might be too much to ask for, but if I can get the settings I want into the paste buffer from a real building, I would love to be able to paste it into the ghost buildings.

Isn't this very similar to viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65291?

Yep! Sorry for missing that.

i just had the idea to try and copy the settings of a splitter-ghost onto a splitter that is placed.
i get that i cant really interact with a ghost, copying to a ghost also feels weirdm, copying from ghost to ghost aswell.
but copying from a ghost to a non-ghost, why not?
im unsure of the reasoning if this is intended behaviour, besides "no interaction with ghosts".
sometimes working with ghosts is easier when designing rather than having everything built immediately just to have to remove it if one wants to change a small thing which leads to massive changes.
working with ghosts only would make that quite easy and convenient.

Thanks for the report however that's not a bug. You can't copy settings on ghosts. That's a feature request.

Includes for me also a way to setup recipe, modules, settings etc. of a newly placed ghost... otherwise only half implemented.