Factorio Forums

[Belongs into not a bug section, still important]

In the last FFF the devs announced that dragged belt placement would be direction locked now (set by an UI option).

This is actually very unintuitive, and so I would propose that the switch would be a keyboard button with an UI option on the default.

Example button: Ctrl

Behaviour description:

UI-Switch set to Default: Unlocked
Behavior: Belt-spraying while dragging, while pressing Ctrl and dragging belts the direction is locked.

UI-Switch set to Default: Locked
Behavior: Direction for belts while dragging is locked, while pressing Ctrl and dragging it sprays belts.


PS:
Wether to not make Ctrl a one-press switch (which solution would then require no UI option at all as it would be redundant) instead of having to continue to hold down during placement would require gameplay testing (even though I think the exact behaviour I described previously is the best version), but either version is superior to a clunky UI switch you would have to go into the menu for to switch on and off each time. There are situations where one option is clearly prefered over the other. Examples: Long bus, but wide output of a mining array to a station.

I can see it being more annoying than helpful while extending the main bus.
Making it toggleable with key bind sounds good to me

Great idea, I thought about too

In general I like the idea of locked placement direction very much, but in some situations it would be nice to go back to the "old" free placement behavior without lock -> so a keyboard toggle would be very nice and helpful

Personally I find that the number of times locked belt direction is a benefit far outweighs the tiny number of times it's a hindrance.

Kyralessa wrote: ↑Fri Dec 11, 2020 9:36 am Personally I find that the number of times locked belt direction is a benefit far outweighs the tiny number of times it's a hindrance.

I agree and for me this is the pro reasoning to the toggle key

I would perhaps turn it around. Hold control to build straight. And have it work with almost everything. Power poles, factories, inserters. Might be hard for the game to determine which way, maybe just allow four directions until the second item is placed.

But not rails, I think. Rails are good. Unless you are just placing them down one by one and not currently using the arrow thing.

I would suggest to use "shift" instead of "control", as this is the standard for drawing straight lines in office applications such as PowerPoint.
This would result in: hold "shift" to draw straight, free drawing otherwise.

TL;DR

Add keybind option to allow toggling on/off of

What ?

The new straight belt setting is useful most of the time, but when working on parallel belts, such as busses, you frequently find yourself wanting to build perpendicular to the belt direction of transport (eg to extend all belts by one tile more).

In this case, it would be nice to have the option of binding a key to enable/disable the straight-build option for belts.

Why ?

It's annoying to be forced to either click once per-belt that I want to lay down, or go into settings and turn off straight building if I know I'm going to be setting down a lot of belts perpendicular to their direction of transport.

moved to nearly identical thread — ssilk

My opinion: I don’t want to switch the different build modes via (modifier)key only. I want to have an interface for that, because I would mix also the build modes for blueprints, ground, etc.

just copy a single piece of belt and paste it, it doesn't follow the locking requirement.

ptx0 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 28, 2020 5:49 am just copy a single piece of belt and paste it, it doesn't follow the locking requirement.

Context? This has too much room for interpretation.

ssilk wrote: ↑Mon Dec 28, 2020 8:47 am

ptx0 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 28, 2020 5:49 am just copy a single piece of belt and paste it, it doesn't follow the locking requirement.

Context? This has too much room for interpretation.

try it in the game.

first, take a real piece of belt, and place it in arbitrary design. it goes in a straight line.

then, take a ghost belt from the quickbar, try the same thing. same result - it goes in straight line.

then, copy a piece of belt - even a ghost, and then start clicking the same way. you can put belt anywhere, not just straight line. i really like this workaround.

Ah. Yes. Of course.
Not working good without bots.

Btw, I like this feature, it makes placing belts so much more reliable...