Factorio Forums

What :

My suggestion is to have an option on game-start (like with Peaceful Mode) where the viewport isn't locked to the character, and can be scrolled about quickly via the mouse, like with RTS games, "Tycoon" games, and so on.

Why :

Factorio is a great game, but the biggest annoyance for me by far is that in order for me to plonk something down (say I'm adding more furnaces to a line) I need to have the player-character be physically quite close to the location. This makes the actual act of expanding/refactoring the factory much more tedious than it needs to be.

Now, a mod like the longer-reach / infinite-reach mods solves part of this problem, but you're effectively still bound to the character because the viewport is locked to it and there's only so far you can zoom out while still being able to place things accurately. This makes it very tedious to change one part of your factory, then change another part over on the other side. Lots of running back and forth, while realistic, is a constant chore and really kills a lot of the fun of this game for me.

I couldn't find an existing suggestion for this, so maybe I'm the only one bothered by this? Regardless, I hope this is considered and isn't too hard to implement

Do you know about the sandbox mode?
Start a new game with Play --> Custom scenario --> base/sandbox.
You don't have a character there, you control the camera with WASD and you can build everywhere.

It's also possible to get to that state in a running game using console commands (disables achievements).
This will "leave" the player body and enable sandbox mode (inventory stays with the body, put it in a chest before doing this to access it later): This will "reenter" the body and give you the inventory of the player back (highlight the player with the mouse and enter):

Moved to implemented, god-mode exists since I can think and there are also many mods, that enable switching between that views.

Holy smoke, it's already there! Outstanding, thanks very much for pointing that out!

It'd be nice if there was an option to be able to scroll with the mouse too, but that's not as important. Thanks again

Monochrome wrote: It'd be nice if there was an option to be able to scroll with the mouse too, but that's not as important. Thanks again

That has already been requested some times.