Factorio Forums

First off, greetings Factorio Forum!

Secondly, I would like to put forth my [only] problem with Factorio:
I hate "pixel hunting" in the World Map for resource deposits.

I say hate because it detracts heavily from the almost constant fun of playing Factorio, which to me is investigating (exploration), planning, building and problem solving and so on.
I think that it detracts from the game when playing challenging maps where resources are sparse, because it just becomes a chore that you have to do before you can go off and have fun. Finding the resources you need in a fully radar'd map can often take several minutes of scouring the map for pixels that are of the right colour.

My case may be exaggerated, partly because I was never amazing with discerning colours, so I may be alone in wanting a solution for this, but maybe the forum can sympathise with someone who has worse colour vision than the average.

Onto the research & solution!:
I made a search of the forums for this sort of thing and I admit it wasn't extensive. Two posts caught my eye:

Ore fields just the tip of the iceberg? ( Map Markers have already been mentioned by this post )

CreeperDaReeper wrote:What if F-Mod's underground mining was actually the main way we are supposed to obtain the majority of the resources we need?
What if the ore fields we find scattered across the map weren't a main source, but markers for areas rich in that resource?
What if the amount of resources in an area worked the same was as the amount of oil in an oil well?

If the above were true, assume that you could mine any resource from any location, however the output would drop over time to be minimal. The only way to overcome this would be to either continue to expand outward to find more and more resource-rich areas, or build large mining facilities dedicated to a single resource each.

Scarcity Of Iron ( This concept would show up far flung resources beyond the explored map making the resources easier to spot in the World Map meaning you don't need to COMPLETELY cover the map in Radars AND pixel hunt for the scarce resources )

ssilk wrote:It happened to me this week, that I started a map with defaults and now after 3-4 hours I feel, that the iron ore will go out. I begun driving around very, very far to find iron ore, and I'm sure to find it at any time, but currently haven't. Only much small fields, not worth exploding and near biters. Altogether I estimate the small fields to only 20000 ore. That's too less.

I would wish something, which finds such fields. Some "resource field radar" or so.

It doesn't unlock the map!

If turned on it begins to put "points" in the map which can be resource fields with some probability (depends on distance, size of field and time of running the radar - needs really, really much power, you need handling that!). When probability reaches a limit (50%?) it also unlocks the type of resource, if more than 80, it shows with rising probability the size, and if it becomes 100% it unlocks the area of the resource field (? Problems if there are only parts of the map unlocked?). Should cover a gigantic radius (5000 tiles or more?). Maybe a filter, to search only for iron etc. which makes search faster.

So if you built it and switch it on and the radar finds a point in the map, far away, then it must be a very big resource (or in some of the next versions a wreckage or something like that).

It would also help to have the existing fields marked in that way, because you will see how big the remaining field is.

Suggestion:
To show resources in the map in a way that even a player who cannot discern colours can see at a glance where to get the resources that they need

Different possible ways of displaying resources in the World Map:
1. Overlays - present in many Sim games - basically filter the world map so that only resources are shown. A separate overlay for each resource
2. Pin Markers - present in the latter Civ games - icon bubbles can appear over deposits that depict what the resource is and how much of it there is present
3. Selectable Fields - sorry I cannot list an example - the nearest resource field to the mouse cursor will be highlighted and an icon could display over the deposit to show what type it is. Moving the mouse cursor closer to another resource field will un-highlight the previous resource field and highlight the new closer resource field.


So that's my idea, it's more of a tweak to the UI than anything else, it may even exist already as a Mod for all I know!

I look forward to feedback on the suggestion or even just the presentation!

I know what you mean, I have the problem mostly with iron vs stone (and it gets far far worse when you start including mods that add more ore types) and even worse with oil vs biters. I think I would prefer your first suggestion, ie filtering of the map. Ideally a way to switch every type of display on or off individually. Some research ideally would also unlock some kind of resource sensor that will show a direction on the edge of minimap or main map for resources that are outside of the visual range.

Cool, I'm glad it's not just me with this problem!
I hadn't thought about additional ore types from mods, as I haven't tried them yet
I can see the filtering option working best too and probably needs the least dev work out of the 3 options, just concerned it wont lend itself to displaying the additional ores from mods as well as option 2 and 3 might. Purely speculation of course

I think it would be best to just present a list of all known resources with checkboxes in front to toggle them on or off (kinda like auto-filter in Excel ). The number of different ores should (within limits) not matter much.

I too think the world map could use an overhaul. Stone and iron have too similar a hue. Copper and enemies are can also be hard to distinguish especially when zoomed out. Individual biters should look different than their nests, and deserts reduce the contrast between objects making these problems more noticeable. And since stone deposits are usually quite small (Oftentimes being just 1-3 squares) I find that particularly hard to find them. I have to zoom right in in addition to hunching over my screen and stare intently as though I'm doing I crossword puzzle. Not to mentions, objects like trees are almost impossible to see. I am awful at crossword puzzles btw . The solutions offered so far would certainly work so I give my thumbs up to the discussion going on so far!



However when you say you aren't amazing with discerning colours I am assuming that means you have some form of colour blindness/deficiency. While I'm not colourblind myself I can imagine just looking at the game that it isn't very colourblind friendly in general. I've read that roughly 8% of males of European descent have a colour deficiency, and I imagine that is 99% of the Factorio audience right there so making the game more friendly towards this group should definitely be somewhere on the priority list for the dev team. The most recent SimCity game has several colour filters for people with different types of colourblindness so maybe looking implementing something similar should be an option?

I have to zoom right in in addition to hunching over my screen and stare intently as though I'm doing I crossword puzzle.

This is what I am talking about

I am assuming that means you have some form of colour blindness/deficiency

It's nothing like a missing cone or anything, I just notice other people can pick up on colours better than I can.
Seems I'm not the only one struggling with Iron/Stone though!

I agree that map should be reworked in many aspects.
First - I want to close it with escape or e, like chests and machines.
Second - yes, resource overlay highlighting would be supergreat. God knows how many times I missed smallish, yet helpful, iron deposits.
Third - current zoom levels are way too steep. And it would be nice to pan map with mouse.

Xecutor wrote:I agree that map should be reworked in many aspects.
First - I want to close it with escape or e, like chests and machines.

That would complicate everything, if the map view is integrated into the game, when you zoom out it changes into map,zoom in is the normal view. So what is missing is just to be able to do things in the map view. I'm sure, this will be expanded quite a lot.

ssilk wrote:

Xecutor wrote:I agree that map should be reworked in many aspects.
First - I want to close it with escape or e, like chests and machines.

That would complicate everything, if the map view is integrated into the game, when you zoom out it changes into map,zoom in is the normal view. So what is missing is just to be able to do things in the map view. I'm sure, this will be expanded quite a lot.

Zoom out to switch to map is quite ambiguous feature, so if it to be implemented, then personally I prefer it to be optional.

I don't see, what's ambiguous. If over some zoom-level, blend in the map at the same zoom level and blend out the normal view. That's it.

The problem is, what to do with control, building, scrolling, running... but that is just the details. The function itself is obviously nearly ready yet.

Xecutor wrote:

ssilk wrote:

Xecutor wrote:I agree that map should be reworked in many aspects.
First - I want to close it with escape or e, like chests and machines.

That would complicate everything, if the map view is integrated into the game, when you zoom out it changes into map,zoom in is the normal view. So what is missing is just to be able to do things in the map view. I'm sure, this will be expanded quite a lot.

Zoom out to switch to map is quite ambiguous feature, so if it to be implemented, then personally I prefer it to be optional.

I agree that, if implemented, it should be an option. As I mentioned here, it would be very frustrating to keep accidentally switching to map mode when I'm just trying to zoom out to max. I'm already frustrated enough about the stupid research window popping up when research is complete; I don't need something else to piss me off. I REALLY HATE THE DAMN POPUP WINDOW!

Ah. Yes.

Now it becomes really off topic: You can find many comments about that Window . But in fact it is so, that when the real multiplayer is introduced with v0.12, they need to really change this. So please keep calm!