Improvements to the Dropper aka Pipette tool (Q)
Posted: Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:12 pm
Background: As of Factorio 0.15, you can mouse over an item and press "Q" to select that item for placement from your inventory. It's like the dropper or pipette tool used in paint programs for selecting colors, but for Factorio buildings. (This feature was originally provided by a mod, and is now in the base game.)
Problem: You can't use Q to select an item that's not in your inventory. If you don't have the item, pressing Q does nothing.
Feature Request #1: The Dropper tool (Q) should allow you to select items not in your inventory. When you do this, the Dropper should place blueprints instead. When you press Q, if you don't have the selected item, then the mouse cursor should enter a mode where it's as if you were placing down a single-item blueprint of the selected item.
This would be a really convenient base-building quality of life (QoL) improvement: it would enable players to order their construction robots to build and extend base facilities without having to carry those items personally. Players would be free to carry many fewer items in their inventory while doing construction within a robotport network.
Feature Request #2: When a player has just placed the last item from their inventory, the game should switch automatically to placing blueprints of that item. Perhaps this should always happen, or perhaps it should happen only when using the Dropper tool. This is a QoL improvement because it avoids disrupting the player's "flow" while designing their factory. Otherwise, running out of an item becomes an interruption, which requires the player to replenish that item, or pick up one of the items they just placed in order to put down blueprints of it.
Feature #3: Allow the Dropper to select a blueprint of multiple buildings using click-and-drag. Similar to capturing a regular blueprint, the idea is to extend the Dropper tool (Q) to support clicking-and-dragging a selection rectangle around a collection of buildings. After completing the selection, a temporary blueprint of that area is loaded into the cursor. I'm calling this Dropper Instant Blueprints.
This is a QoL change that makes it simple for players to select an area of their base and copy it or move it. Dropper Instant Blueprints makes it worthwhile to use blueprints even for "one-off" activities like moving a facility in your base from one place to another. For example, if I've realized that I built my early-game science labs in the wrong place, then I can quickly select them all, place down their blueprint somewhere else, and deconstruct the original. There are lots of times when I'd like to use blueprints for one-time activities like this, where it doesn't feel worthwhile to create a permanent blueprint, because I'll probably never use it again. Keeping these sorts of blueprints in a book feels pointless, and creating and then immediately destroying a blueprint feels kludgy and annoying. (And how do you destroy a blueprint again?)
Dropper Instant Blueprints avoid that friction and make it easier to use blueprints, especially at small scales or for one-off needs -- for example, you might quickly select a 2x2 rectangle of mining drills when tiling them over an ore patch; or you might select 1x2 or 2x2 big power poles at maximum distance to lay down a nice grid.
Even for permanent recurring structures, instant blueprints will improve upon the experience of blueprint books in many situations. For example, imagine that you need to extend your 2-, 4- or 8-wide belt bus. With Dropper instant blueprints, you can select a section of your bus and just "paint" along a line to extend it. It will select the correct belt type and width automatically. Or, imagine that you need to move a belt balancer from one place to another: just select it with the Dropper, create a copy, and deconstruct the original. These kinds of routine construction tasks will be faster and easier using the Dropper, since you can trivially copy any design that you see, instead of having to hunt for the correct blueprint within your blueprint book, to select the correct belt type (yellow/red/blue), correct bus width (2-, 4-, 8- ), or correct belt balancer (NxM). Comprehensive blueprint books will still be helpful, but players won't have to consult them or search through them nearly as often.
All in all, I see this "Dropper instant blueprint" feature being useful in a wide variety of situations. If implemented, I suspect that it may become the most common way that players use blueprints.
Feature #4: Change the Dropper to be a distinct cursor mode. Supporting Feature #3 will require some change to the Dropper to support both single- and multi-item selection. Rather than having the Dropper instantly select a building upon pressing Q, I propose exposing the Dropper as a distinct cursor mode. When you press Q, the mouse cursor should change to a dropper icon (like how paint programs work). Then, with the dropper icon, the player can either directly click on a single building to clone it (as in Feature #1), or can click-and-drag to select an area (as in Feature #3).
To make it easier for players to discover the Dropper, perhaps it should be given a dedicated place in the UI, like in the toolbar. There could be a small dropper icon in the toolbar that, when the player clicks it, switches their cursor into this mode. Along with the other features described above, this will facilitate players discovering the dropper, as well as players discovering blueprints.
Feature #5: Allow the player to create actual blueprints of selections made using the Dropper. When the player has selected a single building or group of buildings using the Dropper, provide a key that the player can press to quick-create a blueprint from the selection. Perhaps the "B" key could have this behavior when in the Dropper is active. Pressing this button would directly take you to the window where you assign a title to a blueprint, and if the player clicks the checkmark, then a permanent blueprint of their selection is added to their inventory..
This feature gives players a shortcut way to create blueprints that's well-integrated with the Dropper experience for cloning parts of the base. Regular use of the Dropper is like creating temporary blueprints that are destroyed as soon as the cursor selection changes; so it makes sense to provide a way to create permanent blueprints too. Players can quickly select an area, place several blueprint copies of it, and then finally decide, "Hmmm, maybe this is useful. I should keep a permanent blueprint of it", and press B to do that.
Problem: You can't use Q to select an item that's not in your inventory. If you don't have the item, pressing Q does nothing.
Feature Request #1: The Dropper tool (Q) should allow you to select items not in your inventory. When you do this, the Dropper should place blueprints instead. When you press Q, if you don't have the selected item, then the mouse cursor should enter a mode where it's as if you were placing down a single-item blueprint of the selected item.
This would be a really convenient base-building quality of life (QoL) improvement: it would enable players to order their construction robots to build and extend base facilities without having to carry those items personally. Players would be free to carry many fewer items in their inventory while doing construction within a robotport network.
Feature Request #2: When a player has just placed the last item from their inventory, the game should switch automatically to placing blueprints of that item. Perhaps this should always happen, or perhaps it should happen only when using the Dropper tool. This is a QoL improvement because it avoids disrupting the player's "flow" while designing their factory. Otherwise, running out of an item becomes an interruption, which requires the player to replenish that item, or pick up one of the items they just placed in order to put down blueprints of it.
Feature #3: Allow the Dropper to select a blueprint of multiple buildings using click-and-drag. Similar to capturing a regular blueprint, the idea is to extend the Dropper tool (Q) to support clicking-and-dragging a selection rectangle around a collection of buildings. After completing the selection, a temporary blueprint of that area is loaded into the cursor. I'm calling this Dropper Instant Blueprints.
This is a QoL change that makes it simple for players to select an area of their base and copy it or move it. Dropper Instant Blueprints makes it worthwhile to use blueprints even for "one-off" activities like moving a facility in your base from one place to another. For example, if I've realized that I built my early-game science labs in the wrong place, then I can quickly select them all, place down their blueprint somewhere else, and deconstruct the original. There are lots of times when I'd like to use blueprints for one-time activities like this, where it doesn't feel worthwhile to create a permanent blueprint, because I'll probably never use it again. Keeping these sorts of blueprints in a book feels pointless, and creating and then immediately destroying a blueprint feels kludgy and annoying. (And how do you destroy a blueprint again?)
Dropper Instant Blueprints avoid that friction and make it easier to use blueprints, especially at small scales or for one-off needs -- for example, you might quickly select a 2x2 rectangle of mining drills when tiling them over an ore patch; or you might select 1x2 or 2x2 big power poles at maximum distance to lay down a nice grid.
Even for permanent recurring structures, instant blueprints will improve upon the experience of blueprint books in many situations. For example, imagine that you need to extend your 2-, 4- or 8-wide belt bus. With Dropper instant blueprints, you can select a section of your bus and just "paint" along a line to extend it. It will select the correct belt type and width automatically. Or, imagine that you need to move a belt balancer from one place to another: just select it with the Dropper, create a copy, and deconstruct the original. These kinds of routine construction tasks will be faster and easier using the Dropper, since you can trivially copy any design that you see, instead of having to hunt for the correct blueprint within your blueprint book, to select the correct belt type (yellow/red/blue), correct bus width (2-, 4-, 8- ), or correct belt balancer (NxM). Comprehensive blueprint books will still be helpful, but players won't have to consult them or search through them nearly as often.
All in all, I see this "Dropper instant blueprint" feature being useful in a wide variety of situations. If implemented, I suspect that it may become the most common way that players use blueprints.
Feature #4: Change the Dropper to be a distinct cursor mode. Supporting Feature #3 will require some change to the Dropper to support both single- and multi-item selection. Rather than having the Dropper instantly select a building upon pressing Q, I propose exposing the Dropper as a distinct cursor mode. When you press Q, the mouse cursor should change to a dropper icon (like how paint programs work). Then, with the dropper icon, the player can either directly click on a single building to clone it (as in Feature #1), or can click-and-drag to select an area (as in Feature #3).
To make it easier for players to discover the Dropper, perhaps it should be given a dedicated place in the UI, like in the toolbar. There could be a small dropper icon in the toolbar that, when the player clicks it, switches their cursor into this mode. Along with the other features described above, this will facilitate players discovering the dropper, as well as players discovering blueprints.
Feature #5: Allow the player to create actual blueprints of selections made using the Dropper. When the player has selected a single building or group of buildings using the Dropper, provide a key that the player can press to quick-create a blueprint from the selection. Perhaps the "B" key could have this behavior when in the Dropper is active. Pressing this button would directly take you to the window where you assign a title to a blueprint, and if the player clicks the checkmark, then a permanent blueprint of their selection is added to their inventory..
This feature gives players a shortcut way to create blueprints that's well-integrated with the Dropper experience for cloning parts of the base. Regular use of the Dropper is like creating temporary blueprints that are destroyed as soon as the cursor selection changes; so it makes sense to provide a way to create permanent blueprints too. Players can quickly select an area, place several blueprint copies of it, and then finally decide, "Hmmm, maybe this is useful. I should keep a permanent blueprint of it", and press B to do that.
