Show belt history

[Mauslag PIngman]

One thing this game needs is labels or pop ups that show what goes on the belt. Belts can carry anything but they're usually intended for certain things. If you have a really long belt and it runs out of supplies it can be tricky to figure out what goes on it. Lets say late in the game I run across an empty belt. I mouse over it and it shows me that it used to carry iron ore or that it goes to the furnaces and its been empty for a long time. Now I know I can use the belt to smelt ores. It would also be useful to show what commonly has gone on each side of the belt for obvious reasons. If I want to put something else on the belt I can and the image that pops up changes the more of that new thing passes by.

[aober93]

Thats a common issue i have with blueprints that have input belts. What goes on which belt etc. I go around it by putting filter inserters with the item selected at the input side of the blueprint. I remove them when i connect them to the bus. For that reason ,a simple flag would be sufficient. This would help your problem too.

When connected i dont need it tho, i follow the belt to the source, they're usually not that long.

[ssilk]

Whooo, I don't know if that is really useful and needed.

Me for example reuses belts. I've a copper mine that runs out and the I use the remains for iron. Useless history information.
Other players use belts for multipurpose factories, they have 10 or 20 different items on the belts.

What I would find much more useful is a signpost that I can place besides the belts.
You will find a lot of signpost suggestions...
And what you really need is some kind of half-automatic placing of such signposts. Example: Place post near belt. Click edit text, click on the be belt, text is created "belt: left copper ore, right coal"...

[<NO_NAME>]

What I would find much more useful is a signpost that I can place besides the belts.
You will find a lot of signpost suggestions...
And what you really need is some kind of half-automatic placing of such signposts. Example: Place post near belt. Click edit text, click on the be belt, text is created "belt: left copper ore, right coal"...

I want this right now!
This would be useful not only for belts but also for inserters and even train stations.

[ssilk]

I want this right now!

You are not alone:
This is about planning, game information and layering, so:

viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4682#p35582 Planing, Cloning, Ghosting, Blueprinting and further... --> Planning
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=18153 Information-Layers (for map and/or normal view)
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=19987 More Game Information (Statistics, Monitoring, Graphs)

I recommend also this two mods:
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/icedevml/Signposts
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/binbinhfr/GroundPrinter

[Rseding91]

This is never going to happen. That would bloat the save file with a ton of useless information and slow the game down having to track all of the items on belts.