Opening entities and placing wires from map

[jarcionek]

Idea

Allow for the following actions from the map:
- opening and modifying entities such as chests, combinators, assembly machines, lights connected to circuit network and anything else that is openable
- placing/removing wires (both normal and circuit network) remotely (this might require construction bots)

Why?

I have put over 350h in the single map. I have a factory that takes a few minutes to go from one end to another so I do majority of things remotely using multiple roboport networks. I have multiple mining outposts that automatically call for a supply train when short on resources. Sometimes I need to modify what items the outpost wants, how many robots are in the network or to reset emergency nuclear reactor that has turned on because biters destroyed my power cables.

I am designing solutions which allow me to do this by placing extra constant combinators (see "hazard" areas on second screenshot). A bit of a nuisance as I need to build two combinators where I currently am, configure them, then put them into the blueprint and finally place that blueprint in the remote location. Sometimes I have some designs which are not that customisable, so I need to copy part of the design, change the settings, place them into the blueprint, use deconstruction planner in the remote location to remove the entities that I have modified and finally place the blueprint.

Overall, it's a big waste of time and I think it should be easier to do things, which are doable any way.

[Optera]

Changing combinators directly seems like a logical step.

Train stops allow you to change their parameters from map view directly.
Combinators need a roundabout way of deconstructing them and constructing them from a blueprint with new parameters.

Any entity can be ghost built from map view so why not allow ghosting wires too?

[AntiBlueQuirk]

This is probably asking for trouble, since the implementation would not be easy, but what if we make it so that changes to remote objects require a bot to implement? So, you open the entity, make the change, but it doesn't take effect immediately. Instead it's queued as a construction order, a bot comes along, pokes the machine, and suddenly the changes take effect.

Or how about this, which would be easier to implement: When you open an object remotely, it shows a warning icon in the corner of the UI: "Controls locked, waiting for bot..." You still can't change anything, but the building orders a bot. When the bot arrives, it just floats there in the building animation. As long as it's there, you have free reign to manipulate the UI. When you close the UI (or the bot runs out of power), the bot leaves and the UI relocks.

This would imply that you can only manipulate objects that are in logistics range, which sort of makes sense.

Btw, I think this topic has been brought up before: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=48625

[jarcionek]

This would imply that you can only manipulate objects that are in logistics range, which sort of makes sense.

This would be inconsistent with current ability of changing train stations remotely. However, placing ghost wires or removing them - I would say robots should be required (and relevant wires in the logistic network). Btw, robots only use energy when moving. Anyway, I think that waiting for the robot to manipulate the UI is just unnecessary delay.

From the other thread:

It works this way by design. You're meant to go there if you want to do more than blueprint/deconstruct.

The same reason you can't open/change machines at any distance in the normal view.

I would suggest to turn it into technologies what I have suggested in 0.15.12 release thread already before:

Do you think it's overpowered? So let's turn it into technologies:

• one for enabling the `world view` on the map and decreasing the zoom level at which you can still see the world on the map
• one for reducing the noise level on the map - let's make the noise annoying at the beginning, just like it was in 0.15.0 (or maybe even more annoying than that)
• one for maximum distance from the player where the map can still switch to `world view` - this one can be infinite research, although I would make the cost linear, not exponential