Factorio Forums

I'm not sure if this should be a bug or a suggestion, but the researched technologies are basically impossible to tell apart from the unresearched techs for those of us that are colorblind.

Please make a change to the cards more than just a color difference.

For example you could move the science packs from the bottom to the top after completing a research (or the other way around, not sure which one is done here).

image: https://imgur.com/INGPIf8

This is from a reddit thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... ence_here/

Said thread also has a good picture of a website that shows what protanopia colourblind people see: https://i.imgur.com/GozRt4S.png

Seriously? Windows 10 has colorblind mode. Graphic drivers has this option too. I don't get it why you ask for color blindness in games and use your OS in normal color mode? all the vids on youtube, all the applications... why is it running in normal color mode? WHY! ENLIGHTEN ME!.

I think you're missing the point. OP wants a non-colour-based difference between techs that are researched and not. Factorio has to add that. No OS can do that for you, as all it sees is pixels rendered on a surface.

+1 to OP's suggestion. Not colour blind myself but I do understand the problem here.

There are a few places where palette swaps would be better off replaced with more unique icons. Currently we have seven potions which are straight palette swaps of each other. Observe how another game (Terraria) uses a combination of color and unique shapes to distinguish their potions: Factorio doesn't have so many potions, so it's much easier.
An example of new potion icons might be:
- Red: It takes the least ingredients, so a thin one would make sense
- Green: It takes a bit more ingredients, so a slightly larger one like a small triangle beaker
- Military: An obvious shape like a grenade or magazine or even an arty shell shape
- Blue: Chemistry science might go for an oil drop shape
- Production: A jumbo one? A plus or blocky or one that resembles a furnace/belt? I dunno.
- High Tech: A light bulb is distinctive
- Space: A star or moon.

I'm not really concerned about colorblind safety outside of the research tab because you regularly interact with stuff like science packs and they are in a reliable place every time you look. Additionally the amount of changes necessary to actually fix things everywhere would detract from the game and is somewhat pointless due to the amount of modding being done in the community adding new items that may or may not be themselves safe or safe with other mods.

The research UI has various detractors to usability already due to the large quantity of information being presented. These cards move around based on the order you have researched and are thus in different places every time you open the screen. By having them be the same color, players are forced to spend significantly more time here or give up and research things they otherwise wouldn't bother with just to get them out of the way instead of climbing the tech tree in a planned manner.


The win10 colorblind mode does help somewhat but this screen could still use improvement.

Not sure how well it will work for you and others, but in the non-beta drivers, nvidia's Freestyle game filter is now available for a lot of games, including factorio.
Freestyle info
Supported games list

Related thread with developer response:

viewtopic.php?t=43120 Colors for daltonic?

Jon8RFC wrote: ↑

Wed Aug 28, 2019 11:08 am

Not sure how well it will work for you and others, but in the non-beta drivers, nvidia's Freestyle game filter is now available for a lot of games, including factorio.
Freestyle info
Supported games list

This includes some filters for color vision deficiencies, too. Beyond that, https://reshade.me/ is out there, and can apply fairly arbitrary filtering to things to adjust colors. Not that I'm saying these are the "right" answer compared to in-game support, just that I am really sympathetic to the problem, and they may be a useful workaround for both Factorio, and for other games, where there isn't anything native.

Anyway, all that said, y'all may also want to see the very poorly named https://mods.factorio.com/mod/palettecleanser for an implementation of color modification for Deuteranopia, planned to extend to Protanopia, and "...possibly other..." color issues. Though, to be fair to the author, I'm not sure I can think of a better name for the mod than they chose.

Again, I'm not trying to say a mod should replace the idea of doing this in the core game, but rather, that this may be a useful way to be able to play comfortably until such a time as the core support comes along.

It is simply insufficient to colour filter. There has to be some visual representation of the differences. A letter. A dot. A dash. Anything but colour filtering. 12% of the population is colourblind. What are you even thinking, Factorio devs. "Only people with my abilities matter."

bluebaronca wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:04 am

12% of the population is colourblind.

You're lying. It's more in the 4-ish %

bluebaronca wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:04 am

What are you even thinking, Factorio devs. "Only people with my abilities matter."

Not more and not less than the vast majority of the other devs. And I'm not sure this "you owe us" attitude is very constructive when you want people to take extra care of your - unfortunate I admit it - minority.

Koub wrote: ↑

Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:05 am

You're lying. It's more in the 4-ish %

Calling it a lye is a bit harsh. Maybe it was just a mistake.

Anyway, I really like this mod, even though I am not colourblind. https://mods.factorio.com/mod/cb-science
It‘s probably to late for 1.0 but I would like it implemented in Vanilla.