tonberrytoby wrote:How about making and autopickup toggle. Picking up large fields of stuff like after an inventory explosion is quite annoying when you have to hold down the F key all the time.
I would like to have a cleaner: some kind of robot which runs around and collects everything in an given area into the players inventory and returns, when nothing is left.
About that mouse movement. Like in MMOs or nethack.
I tried to introduce the game to my Father yesterday. He likes games like OTTD or Anno. But he refuses to have his fingers laying on the keyboard. So he can't play any game that relies on WASD action.
I also would prefer to manage my factory while leaning back.
I really like to be a character in the game, which can be harmed. This has charm.
But I also don't like how to move around, because of technical reasons.
A) Ergonomical reasons. I already talked about, that I've problems with feeling the keys on the keyboard (because I had an accident where I lost the feeling in one of my fingers). I also don't like to sit all the time in the chair and have the fingers on the keyboard. As tonberrytoby I want to lean back sometimes. This especially true, because it is such a long lasting game. You need to have the ability to have different positions, sit differently, look differently. This is only possible when you can use the mouse.
B) The keyboard itself might be also a problem. Not all keyboard support this many keys pressed at once (and not all hands could handle pressing that much, but this is again a point for A)
C) The focus. Either I want to move around (with the character) or I want to built. Factorio tries to make both into one step. This is some kind of "unnatural", because normal people cannot focus on two things at once, they need to learn it first. I mean, it's part of any game to get it handled. It's a good feeling, when you see, that you can kill masses of creepers yourself. But I think this should not be part of the game, when you just built.
Examples: for A) How should I press "F", when I want to move right? I need to shift all fingers and then I've to shift them back. And I cannot think of a better key-combination to do that.
for B) I've an Microsoft Wireless keyboard, and with this, the game-mission is really unplayable for me (I got stuck in level 5). I hate it.
I lost about 9 lives before I gave up and got my game-keyboard from the cellar. With this it tooks about 3 more lives, but I managed it.
for C) Try to built a very long belt and try to look at the belt and the char at once. Not possible.
I thought about alternatives. I really liked the way, how Rollercoaster Tycoon worked. All parts of this game could be played only with the mouse. On the other hand, the track-editor could be managed only by keyboard. So, when you have been looking around, you could lean back, just scroll, zoom in, zoom out... but when you go into details you have been able to make everthing with the keyboard.
For Factorio this means, that I can move the character by mouse. I click in a direction and the char moves into this direction, no routing. When I stop clicking, the char stops. When you are attacked, you can press SHIFT. Then the char moves backwards. So you are able to shot and run away at once. Maybe I thought not for all details.
The construction-mode: When I want to built a belt for example, I select the belt, build the first step and now I can use the keyboard. W means forward one step. If there is no belt there, it is built. S means backward. The current belt is removed. A means turn left, D turn right. In this mode, the char tries to keep in the building-area automatically so you cannot come into hassle with taking care of both, the char AND the belt. I'm sure, a belt could be built much faster than now like that.
