Filtered deconstruction

[erikem]

It would be nice if deconstruction planner would have optional filter where player can specify items. If at least a single filter is specified this deconstruction planner will target only filter items for deconstructions.

For example I want to remove all regular and ground pipes in a large area and preserve thr rest of the buildings.
Currently: I would have to manually mark all pipes for deconstruction in small portions avoiding everything else. It can take quite some time if setup is complex.
Desired: With filtered deconstruction planner I would add "pipe" and "ground pipe" to filters of deconstruction planner and would select teh entire area. My robots would know then that only pipes have to be deconstructed.

[ssilk]

For me the question: why do you ever want that? Isn't it not just faster to deconstruct the single pipes or whatever by hand (there can't be so much) instead of select a very big area, then use a special action to go into this filter mode, then select filter 1, and then filter 2? Isn't that a bit cumbersome?

[erikem]

I've just finished such deconstructions few times and it took me quite some time by hand.

Few inputs here:

• My base is 100% covered by roboport orange area + big electric poles to support them, which means I have quite a lot of them here and there
• I want deconstruction to be safe on maximum zoom out
• I propose several filters to be possible to set for such deconstruction planner so I can do single deconstruction instead of several repeated ones

My cases are:

• Big pipes network to be removed (several screens of maximum zoom out) with lots of straight pipes, pipes to ground and storage tanks without dismantling roboports, big electric poles and transport belts
• Deforest a huge area while my buildings are somewhere there inside
• Dismantle depleted mining operation by removing belts, drills, medium poles while preserving roboports and big poles
• Dismantling any kind of factory setup without hitting transporattion (belts and pipes) and bg poles (they link current opeartion to teh main base) while killing the rest including medium poles

I've done a lot of deconstruction like that few days ago and I ether had to remove lotsa stuff manulaly or zoom in to pin-point delete unwanted stuff. In both cases I wished I could tell my robots to delete all goddamn pipes and leave the rest there as is.

[Bleda]

I was thinking about the same when I cut down a forest the other day

+1

[erikem]

Just now I've ahd an example I decided that old setup of 100 chests + 100 inserters (placed one after anotehr in a row) + ~20 poles was not optimal and needed to delete all inserters. Preserve the rest for later usage but delete the inserters. It was no fun at all.

[Khyron]

+1 this could be great.

Especially if there was an option to only deconstruct things within current roboport range. I hate seeing trees outside roboport range with the red x... I feel compelled to go cut them down by hand >_<