Factorio Forums

The new FFF research changes about the research queue and trigger techs seems like it would have been the perfect opportunity to mention if they had finally addressed this problem. With things like late game research productivity, extended game content, and new research requirements it sounds like a playthrough is expected to involve more time looking at the tech tree than the current base game, so this will only be more noticeable. I was hoping maybe this would be one of the many quality of life issues they've already fixed for 1.2/2.0 and we just haven't found out yet, but it sounds like not. It's not too late though.

Anachrony wrote: ↑

Fri Sep 15, 2023 6:16 pm

The new FFF research changes about the research queue and trigger techs seems like it would have been the perfect opportunity to mention if they had finally addressed this problem. With things like late game research productivity, extended game content, and new research requirements it sounds like a playthrough is expected to involve more time looking at the tech tree than the current base game, so this will only be more noticeable. I was hoping maybe this would be one of the many quality of life issues they've already fixed for 1.2/2.0 and we just haven't found out yet, but it sounds like not. It's not too late though.

Perhaps, though I do prefer the game being paused while in the research window seems it's so big and covers everything, like the notifications/warnings. As I always play with biters on, I don't want the game to keep running when I'm perusing the research tree and unable to see what's going on (or the biters evolve/expand with my, essentially, standing still doing nothing). I feel like, for me, my previous comment on this still stands:

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑

Wed Dec 01, 2021 4:45 pm

Honestly, and maybe technically this would be a separate suggestion that already exists (I haven't looked, yet), but I'd be fine with the game not auto-pausing with research open if we were still allowed to do stuff (open and interact with various guis and blueprint planning, etc) while the game was paused.

Agreed, it is still sad, that single player forcefully pauses the game.
I'm also for this.

And yet another vote for this.

Because we shouldn't need to use multiplayer mode for something this basic.

I am against this. I want to play in a relaxed manner and it helps me to pause the game when I'm in the tech tree and think about what I want to research next.
If the suggestion should be implemented, please make it optional so that everyone can decide whether the game should continue or be paused.

picklock wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 17, 2023 6:05 pm

I am against this. I want to play in a relaxed manner and it helps me to pause the game when I'm in the tech tree and think about what I want to research next.
If the suggestion should be implemented, please make it optional so that everyone can decide whether the game should continue or be paused.

Shift+Space and relax all you want. No need to rely on pausing the game while browsing research. Also, some (most) don't want to pause.

picklock wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 17, 2023 6:05 pm

I want to play in a relaxed manner and it helps me to pause the game when I'm in the tech tree and think about what I want to research next.

The consensus is to give people a way to get what they want. You don't have to be against this feature just because you don't personally plan on taking advantage of it. One suggestion was an interface option, though considering that they plan on getting rid of the non-research queue option, they may prefer to consolidate on a unified behavior rather than adding new options.

The more general solution would be to simply make pausing and unpausing a thing that you can do in this game. Currently you can pause only by going to the menu screen, but then you can't be looking at any other screens like research. A better interface would be if there were just a keybind to toggle pausing the game action, independent of whatever screen you're looking at. So you can pause and look at research. Others may choose not to pause, depending on what makes sense in their situation. The research screen isn't actually unique. There are many other informational GUIs that can dominate your screen and attention that you may want to pause for in an aggressive biter situation. This pausing behavior should not be inextricably linked to only that one screen. We should be able to pause while looking at whatever we want, for whatever reason, or not pause while looking at whatever we want. It doesn't need to be part of research specifically.

Anachrony wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 15, 2023 1:13 am

The more general solution would be to simply make pausing and unpausing a thing that you can do in this game. Currently you can pause only by going to the menu screen, but then you can't be looking at any other screens like research. A better interface would be if there were just a keybind to toggle pausing the game action, independent of whatever screen you're looking at.

There is a keybind for pausing, you don't need to open the menu screen. However, it's not much better, as you still can't open and interact with anything. The most you can do is open/close the map view and scroll in and out. Everything else is locked out. I do still feel it'd be best if they changed that behavior.

I didn't realize, but yeah, it's not applicable here (yet) if it doesn't let you actually open and close GUIs and interact with the tech screen (e.g. scroll and queue research). Improving that seems like the path forward.

While it is a tiny annoyance, I really do not mind it. The upsides of the pause outweigh its downsides. It also has to be put into the context of me being a veteran player, whereas it has to remain accessible to someone new to the game. (It is also worth considering that speedrunners have to specifically work around this feature, meaning it does get in the way.)

At most this should be a toggleable option, although I will say, in that regard it is not a bad idea. Simple to implement, convenient.

Time for the yearly bump

aka13 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 10, 2024 4:30 pm

Time for the yearly bump

Then I guess it's time for the yearly counter comment of being against this unless it's an option. I like and want the game to pause when I open the research window.

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 10, 2024 6:12 pm

aka13 wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 10, 2024 4:30 pm

Time for the yearly bump

Then I guess it's time for the yearly counter comment of being against this unless it's an option. I like and want the game to pause when I open the research window.

Yeah, the option-bump is fine by me

malventano wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 19, 2022 6:46 am

ssilk wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 16, 2022 1:51 am

It’s not so, that the devs have nothing todo. And their internal list is surely sorted by game-play-value multiplied with the reversed implementation effort. Something like this.

If it was sorted as you state, then a fix that had high game-play-value and a minimal 1/implementation-effort would be at the top of that list.

If you read the (recent) FFFs then you know that such side issues get fixed when the game devs themself get annoyed by them.

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 15, 2023 4:18 am

There is a keybind for pausing, you don't need to open the menu screen. However, it's not much better, as you still can't open and interact with anything. The most you can do is open/close the map view and scroll in and out. Everything else is locked out. I do still feel it'd be best if they changed that behavior.

As I understand, pausing is directly stopping all (in-game) updates. UI changes are part of those updates. Any attempt to make you capable of opening/closing inventories would probably be a hassle to do in a desync safe way, especially if there are mods that listen to those events.

PennyJim wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 27, 2024 8:29 pm

FuryoftheStars wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 15, 2023 4:18 am

There is a keybind for pausing, you don't need to open the menu screen. However, it's not much better, as you still can't open and interact with anything. The most you can do is open/close the map view and scroll in and out. Everything else is locked out. I do still feel it'd be best if they changed that behavior.

As I understand, pausing is directly stopping all (in-game) updates. UI changes are part of those updates. Any attempt to make you capable of opening/closing inventories would probably be a hassle to do in a desync safe way, especially if there are mods that listen to those events.

There are some things, like simply moving the map view around, that would not affect this in any way.