Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Add a "Mine Ore" keybinding that is distinct from "Mine".

What ?

Allow ore mining to be a distinct keybinding from mining all other entities/trees/rocks. It can default to "Right mouse button" the same as "Mine" so no change in default behavior, but it would let players rebind "Mine Ore" to some other key (e.g., "Shift + Right mouse button").

Why ?

Very often I want to remove trees/rocks on top of ore patches or I want to pick up entities that I've placed on top of ore patches (miners, inserters, belts, powerpoles, etc.), but if I misclick just slightly then I end up trying to mine ore. This is particularly frustrating for inserters and power poles, which have a relatively small hitbox. I suspect ore mining is only ever valuable for players in the very early game (if ever) before they've automated anything, so if a separate keybinding exists, experienced players could rebind. This feature would reduce frustration when clearing ore patches before bots are available (or if bots are out of roboport range).

Tried to keep your mouse pressed after mining a tree? It will mine only trees then. I walk around with pressed mouse and clean up the forest.

ssilk wrote: ↑

Sun Aug 02, 2020 10:45 pm

Tried to keep your mouse pressed after mining a tree? It will mine only trees then. I walk around with pressed mouse and clean up the forest.

Yes, that works, but only if you manage to target an entity first and remember to keep right mouse held down as you walk around.