Minimal deconstruction time for everything

[Harkonnen604]

I think there is no profit for gameplay when removing some wall or storage tank takes several seconds. The only reason I don't propose zero-time deconstruction is to prevent accident right-clicks. This becomes more obvious when deconstruction planner is available. You start preferring to remove everything using dec. planner just to avoid those weird delays.

Lifehack on walls - replace them with gates, and then farm! gates are collected much faster than walls. It's always a pain to remove temporary walls surrounding early-game turrets (esp. when you have to repair them first so your inventory is not clobbered with different-damage items). And it's a pain to extend walls further, mining old wall takes a lot of time. or use gates hack.

Overall point - what are cons if everything would be dismantled at the speed of dismantling a single conveyor belt piece?

[British_Petroleum]

you can make better picks later on in the game which deconstruct & mine faster. It is a nice reward of progress.

[Harkonnen604]

Line of walls is still a pain. Even with steel axe.

[ssilk]

In my opinion it's part of the game to think about removing items before you place them!

If you construct in a way, that takes minutes to deconstruct it, then:
- just don't construct it or
- just don't deconstruct it or
- construct it, where you don't need to deconstruct it.


My strategy is, that I place walls only, where they are not in my way, or if they are in my way can wait to deconstruct, until I have construction bots. Cause construction bots can mine stuff in no time.

[Harkonnen604]

It's frequent situation when you place shorter long wall before you place really long wall. Both before deconstruction bots appear. Or when you dismantle local gun turrets surrounded by double damaged walls just because your defense line has moved forward.

[ssilk]

In Germany we say "You must die one death".

Cause if this is implemented the next comes and says "Oh, the construction times are so short that I continuously removing stuff, that I don't want to remove. Please increase mining-time". Or something similar.

For me this is a balancing question, not a suggestion! Cause you need to change this slowly.

[Moosfet]

Given that there is no construction time, why is there a deconstruction time?

I'd be happy if the deconstruction time just disappeared. It's quite strange that I can build a wall as fast as I can run, but then when I want to tear it down, it's a slow process. In real life, demolition is easier than construction.

I think the only thing that makes it tolerable is that deconstruction isn't a frequent activity. Just imagine if there were a construction time: Everyone would be screaming for its removal as it would waste a lot of play time since the game is all about construction, and people play games to do stuff, not to suffer senseless time penalties. ...and I think any argument that can be made that there should be a deconstruction time can also be used to argue that there should be a construction time. So I'd have to say that it's more of an annoyance than a useful game mechanic.

The mining time could apply only to mining minerals out of the ground (just like how the machines can only mine at a certain rate) and cutting down trees, whereas picking things up could be as instantaneous as placing them.

As for accidentally removing stuff due to the deconstruction time being too short, I don't think that's a real issue. After all, the construction time is zero, yet I don't think anyone has any issues with accidental left-clicks.

[Harkonnen604]

As for totally removing deconstruction time - I'd keep it. Sudden left clicks are easy to undo with right clicks. But sudden right click may destroy an assembly machine inside weird setup (you need to recover recipe). Or an inserter, one of 6 surrounding assembly machine, so you have to recover if it was short or long inserter and which direction it was pointing. You may also dismantle fluid tank full of liquid. Such clicks are rare, but they are worse than biters - you don't have even a ghost left. That unexpected yellow bar saves me once in 10 hours from doing something stupid

My suggestion about minimizing deconstruction time altogether is just a generalization. The real actual pain is walls deconstruction. and rarely fluid tanks deconstruction. This is especially more ridiculous with walls for you may run replacing them with gates (zero delay) and then dismantle those gates (removed at fast rate). Another pain with walls deconstruction is long repair cycles before dismantling. For that reason I suggested automating self-repairs for mid-game in another thread. It all would not be an issue if construction bots appear earlier. These proposals are suggestions that represent some temporary solutions to fill the gap before construction bots appear, for it takes too long.

[bobucles]

I don't get the question. The player already has 3 tiers of deconstruction power. The starting axe is okay for cleaning up the odd misplaced thing, and the steel axe is a bit better at it. Once you get construction bots, the deconstruction planner lets you pick up an ENTIRE BASE in mere moments.

The player can already sweep up huge chunks of factory, albeit at a fairly high tech. Plan your bases more carefully and get the tech if you really need it, OP.

[Klonan]

The real actual pain is walls deconstruction. and rarely fluid tanks deconstruction. This is especially more ridiculous with walls for you may run replacing them with gates (zero delay) and then dismantle those gates (removed at fast rate). Another pain with walls deconstruction is long repair cycles before dismantling.

Wall mining time has been halved in 0.13, so i will consider this suggestion 'implemented'

[Moosfet]

Well, I'd have no issue with it being harder to deconstruct a fluid tank that contains a liquid, given that the liquid is lost. I think it would even make sense if it weren't possible to remove the tank until it is empty. (Like how you can't remove a chest until it is empty.) So first you'd have to get a pump and move the liquid to another tank, then you can remove the tank. (Just like you'd do anyway, given that the fluids are valuable.)

As for factory recipes and inserters... They're not hard enough to replace that I think it makes sense to have a game annoyance in the form of a delay just to serve as a work-around for the fact that there isn't an undo feature. (...and I also don't think an undo feature would be valuable enough to justify the development effort.) You say yourself that it's a once-in-10-hours problem. So why be bothered all the time to avoid being bothered once every 10 hours? Even pulling up conveyor belts is slow enough to be annoying.

WRT repair times before deconstruction: I think that could be better solved by making damaged items stackable. I realize they're not because they're not all exactly the same, but I don't think anyone really cares to be able to see the unique level of damage on each item in their inventory. Just a stack of undamaged items and a stack of damaged items would be a sufficient distinction. So just throw another 50 bytes at each inventory slot. If the player builds with that stack of damaged items, just put them out in random order. (I can think of a decent reason to prefer both most-to-least damaged and least-to-most damaged, and random order seems like a good compromise.) Then your problem of slow repair times could be solved with an assembly machine recipe for item repair, which would apply repair packs to any damaged items put into it. So you'd just pull up the old wall (with zero deconstruction time), put down a new wall, and toss the old wall into a box and do something else while a machine repairs it.

[Harkonnen604]

Wall mining time has been halved in 0.13, so i will consider this suggestion 'implemented'

Yeah, that solves the major pain. Thank you

2Moosfet: Well, I agree. I also like your idea of blocking fluid tank deconstruction until it's empty, but it's usually a problem because the usual case is having 16 tanks placed together to store some heavy oil which are no longer necessary in quantity of 16 because with advanced oil research you cracked it all to light oil (and solid fuel) and you have no gap to put a pump. But the overall idea is very nice - you want to do something that will take time, you put a pump, return back 30 minutes later and feel a big relief that pump did its job It's just a question of how to separate that tank from the others nearby.