Support for Color Blinds / Better Visibility ...

[ssilk]

This topic is about support for
- color blinds (Achromatopsia, ACHM, color deficiency, colour blind, colour deficiency, colorblind, colourblind),
- for any people with poor eyesight (elder/aging people, visually impaired people...); people, that can't see anything without glasses,
- better visibility in general and for special entities/items,
- (and a bit of taste)

Color Blindness

First of all, Factorio makes heavy usage of colors and that is also really needed and there is (in my opinion) no good way to go around that.

Second: Most color blinds are man. And also most players of Factorio are men. Bad luck?

Third: there are different types of color blindness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatopsia
http://www.youreyeguide.co.uk/achromato ... types.html
https://franciscouzo.github.io/ishihara/ (a color blind test pic generator)
That needs to be known, cause this means, that there is no simple solution. It depends on the type of color blindness. Eventually good to know: there are some apps, that can simulate different types of CB - that can be used to see, what's needed.

Happily Factorio is really open to mod it into that direction. It is easy to give every entity a different color, changing colors of the map, changing the colors of the pollution, changing nearly any color, changing graphics and so on.

It should be not so a big problem to automate that process - depending on the type of colorblindness.

So all it needs is modding Factorio more or less, depending on the type of color blindness you have. I see that as some kind of target.
And to make it more special: it makes eventually sense to make some converter, that can - depending on the type of color blindness - change all colors (in game and in pictures/textures). More contrast, more bluish, less dark, it must be "just" implemented into this converter.

More Contrast and Fast Zoom (for elderly and visually impaired people)

Generally this is the same issue as for color blinds. If the above suggested method to change colors is possible, more contrast is then just some kind of configuration/taste.

But there is an added issue: You need to be able to have very big fonts, or zoom into the game (and each window) very deep and move that view very fast.

This last point is currently not completely possible: As a player you need to walk to move the zoomed view.

For that it would be helpful or needed to be able to use the mouse (or whatever) as a moving magnifying glass/a moving zoomed in view.
That fast moving mouse feature can be seen in other games like Rollercoaster Tycoon (press right mouse and move mouse) or OpenTTD and many other games. The smooth scroll of the zoomed view is a great feature for that people and there is no reason than missing keys on mouse or so not to implement this.

Another idea is to replace the game-graphics with somethings, that is better visible. There are also the FactoCAD mod, but sadly it's outdated. See down for link.

Better Visibility

There are some suggestions about this, lately it was mentioned that Factorio is very dark (compared to most other games), or that the biters cannot be seen well, also about bad visibility of the pollution (That is also just a picture, that can be changed, see "higher contrast pollution colour on map").

That issues are (only in my eyes of course) a mixture between true, taste, art and (more or less) wanted game-play.
They need to be discussed in detail. But in the end the decision is - as always - at the devs.

Other issues in that category is the missing support for anti-aliasing. The support in the video-config in game multisampling (anti-alias) has been dropped in v0.12.3. The config can still be changed by hand to support multisampling.
See
https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-98
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1350 alternative pollution color
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=14396&hilit=multisampling+config Minor transport belt graphic issue
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14613&p=98820&hilit ... ing#p98820 Version 0.12.3
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=18806 Missing belt lines from mini-map
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=9514&p=98131&hilit ... fig#p98131 Lines on Minimap when scaling UI
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20912&hilit=multisampling+config Texture Subsampling
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=24613 Color-blind friendly liquids
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26952 Steam achivements for colorblind
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28431 Pollution Cloud Outline
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43120 Colors for daltonic?
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=44126 Map - Train Visibility Enahancements
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=69220 Use more color masks like the locomotive



Better Visibility when Zoomed Out

There are some suggestions about zooming for better visbility, especially one seems to be quite useful: Blending from normal view into map view.
TODO: Search for that threads in suggestions.


Suggestions

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1350 alternative pollution color
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3360 Level of Detail and higher resolution textures please
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5339 Factorio is not color vision deficiency friendly
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5936 Would it be possible to change the colour of pollution?
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7175 Adjusting the Darkness of Night
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9001 Green Night vision Problem and suggestion
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18170 More detailed graphics
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20315 Console contrast improvement (it's hard to read right now)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21583 High colour contrast mode
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22165 Map resource display filter
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22252 HD textures
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22662 add a directional arrow on the screen when placing a belt
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22455 Copper wire almost invisible to aging gamers
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=25185 Night Gamma/Brightness Setting for visually impaired people
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=26445 The light should be REAL problem
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=31649 Grey background for chat
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=33901 Server Chat Color
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=46938 can you make it possible to disable Red warning when taking
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47559 Higher Contrast Pollution Cloud
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47749 increase visibility of ghost buildings over grass
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=48952 Pollution Border



This is an own subject (about visual feedback of entities):
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3674 Showing up/see/visualize modules in assemblies... [already implemented]
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6187 change fluid color for easier recognition
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6253 Better Display of Resources in the World Map
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=7225 higher contrast pollution colour on map
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=9618 Trees more obvious on map
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18366 Clearer visual indicators of activity
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=22451 Make biters more visible
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28545 Customize your map (M/minimap, not map generation)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=29653 Improve coal visibility on map
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38931 Option to label ores on the map


Related lists

viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4682 Planing (Cloning, Ghosting, Blueprinting and further...
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=18153 Information-Layers (for map and/or normal view)
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=25229 Use of Monitors (Dualscreen..., more than 60 FPS ...)


Related

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-64

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1089 Some thoughts about light in general
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1870 Bot visibility toggle
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1261 Handling different electric networks
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2553 Graphics size 2x ?
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3814 Expanding The Function Of Lights
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4231 Easy texture packs support
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5319&hilit=visibility Glyph's big list of feedback... [About turning powerlines on/off]
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5541 Arrange speed by color spectrum
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6088 Openstreetmap for factorio [information-layers for the map to be turned on/off]
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7546 Default color palette
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=13120 Brightness setting. [In this thread they used shell-scribts to brighten up all graphics in the game!]
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18851 Multiplicative instead of additive (colored) lighting [Quite interesting!]
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21703 New Enemies idea:Deadly but appeared only in darkplace.
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=21882 "Pitch Black" nights
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28116 Presets for train colors


MODs

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1350 alternative pollution color
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=3634 Colorblind issues
viewtopic.php?f=144&t=13142 WaiTex 1.0.0: A HD Texture Pack
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=15022 Circut network for the colorblind
viewtopic.php?f=92&t=22652 Colorblind Ores

And many other mods in
viewforum.php?f=144 Non-Game-Changing

MODs <= 0.11

These mods should work with 0.12 and above (or only very small changes)!

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=1184 higcontrast
viewtopic.php?f=86&t=3757 Colorblind Roboport Radius Overlay
viewtopic.php?f=32&t=5038 FactoCAD
viewtopic.php?f=33&t=7225 higher contrast pollution colour on map

FactorioCad mod is interesting (Kovarex calls it awesome), here is a pic:

viewtopic.php?f=80&t=22760 Support for Color Blinds / Better Visibility ...

[Deadly-Bagel]

Wow, good to see some demand for supporting colour deficiency! Normally I'm the only one carrying this torch lol.

I seem to have a rare form of colour deficiency (only ever found two references, one guy describing it in a wiki discussion and someone's diagnosis of Deuteronomic Trichromacy) that results in me basically seeing in three-and-a-half colours, green, blue, orange, and certain reds. It makes playing certain games... tedious to say the least.

Personally I don't find pollution to be that big a deal. Toggle detailed view and compare the obfuscation is what I've been doing so far but I didn't know about the F4 trick until now, will check that out. My biggest gripe at this stage which doesn't seem to be mentioned is train signals.

Speaking from a new player perspective, trains and especially train signals are a bit of a task to get your head around. Now imagine you often can't see a signal at all let alone what colour it is.

Train Signals 1

FactorioCB2.png (541.01 KiB) Viewed 14328 times

Train Signals 2

FactorioCB1.png (639.06 KiB) Viewed 14328 times

These have been put through a GIMP colour filter I've been toying with, at the moment it requires me to manually tweak it for different images (pure white is still coming out blue) and it's tricky comparing something I can't see plus I'm essentially viewing the finished image through the filter twice but I think I'm getting there. You can see the green signals - but are they green? Everything is green and all blends together. Hmm. When a signal goes red you almost can't see it at all (I hope). Can't find an image of the middle signal (not sure if orange or yellow) to put through the filter but you can get it's green too.

Yes you can use the position of the light to work it out but when working with different directions and intersections, trying to see a green light on a green background it turns a mental processing time of a few seconds into minutes. Road authorities mix blue in with the green traffic light so even with red/green issues it's still easy to see, at least this means if you can't see a signal it's probably red. Personally I would have the option of changing the red light to blue.

Another topic mentioned is how hard biters are to see, again at this stage I haven't had too much of a problem but something to help everyone would perhaps be a little "Help" icon, similar to "No power" over any structures that have sustained damage in the last five seconds or something. This means the biters don't need to be changed from their natural camouflage.

If I had more time I would look into making a comprehensive colourblind mod, as it stands I barely get to even play the game at the moment lol.

[NightShadow]

Hi there, the more I play Factorio, the more I realise that I can not see/differentiate.

Roboport logistic/construction ranges

Blue/Purple research potions

Fast/Filter inserter

Regular/Stack inserter

How bad the pollution is on the map

Difference of the colours of ore in the map

Researched vs Available researches in the tech-tree UI

Whether or not the power poles are "connected" (the wire color blends in with the ground)

Help us Wube Wan Kenwube

I'll probably add more things as I discover them in the future.

[zx64]

Reshade has a "Daltonize" filter with settings for Protanopia, Deuteranopia and Tritanopia.
It's a game-agnostic colour adjust filter so it might not be of sufficient benefit to Factorio but it's easy enough to try to see if it's helpful to you.

Preview of the different filters

[Terkhen]

Thank you for the detailed post and explanation! I am colourblind too so I would love to have some kind of solution. Until I get the achievements I want I don't want to use any mods, though. So, as LazyLoneLion already suggested in one of the linked threads, I would really like to have a way to both get achievements and to be able to discern what I'm doing.

[Deadly-Bagel]

The NVIDIA Control Panel has options for tweaking colours, doesn't seem to impact performance or anything. I've used it previously, need to have another look however as I still struggle to even see red cables.

[jzr]

Thanks for this summary. I'm deuteranomalous, the most common form of mild color deficiency, so I mostly see things all right, but it took me 50 hours of gameplay to notice that trees are shown on the minimap. To me, that dark green and dark brown are almost indistinquishable unless I look very very carefully. Low levels of pollution are also very hard to see. It would be nice if Factorio had color settings out of the box, but I can understand devs have higher priority problems right now.

[WimeSTone]

One more thing, and I guess it goes into this thread, there must be an option to reduce or even disable "blinking" effects. When planting big blueprints far away from power source, all those flashing yellow triangles become my nightmare.
Fast solutions that come to my mind are:

• -show those kinds of signs permanently and make them transparent on mouse hover (to see what is beneath);
  -or make them shift through alpha channel instead of blinking (breathe).

[Deadly-Bagel]

Definitely a fade or breathe effect, gentle movement catches your attention without being an eyesore.

[Osul]

Well, yes, Factorio is highly moddable.
And I used exactly one little mod which simply changed the colors of the wires from red/green to yellow/blue.

The problem is, after a lot of hours near the end of my factory, I discovered the Achievements. Only to find the little remark "The game is modded, so the Achievements are {not for real}".

Maybe you could make settings in the graphic section, where one can select his own colors for all of the color critical items. Mainly wires, cables and Roboport area.
This way the (real) Achievements are reachable even for color impared people.

[PEBKAC]

Visually (slightly) disabled person here! I mostly have trouble with ghost parts that are not (yet) constructed by the robots. They're very hard for me to pick out between all the 'real' parts... Could a ghostly shimmer or other visual cue be added to show Ghost parts?

[ifnotthe2nd]

As a colorbind I would like to see:
An outline of the current pollution cloud. I basically only try to use it to see which nests its affecting anyway.
Unique images for each raw resources (iron, copper, coal, stone) and have these overlaid on the map over the different ore patches.
I would also suggest you add a pattern or texture to each color of an entity. For example you could make the first assemblers look kinda rusted, blotchy or pieced together, this would be a more simple recolor or reskining, not a full redo of the model. I would then keep the mid tier as is and make the 3rd tier clean and shinny. So us color challenged could look more for the texture differences then the colors, that betray me 2 outta three times. Or for another example, you could give the different inserters differnt patterns, like make the fast ones have stripes and the filter ones have dots or lights. Just a thought.

[Red]

Just found this post and wanted to add my personal issues: I have a real hard time to differentiate the colours of:

• Active provider chest / Requester chest
• Storage chest / Buffer chest

A simple solution (which I think would be really cool) would be to have specific "top" for each of these chests; this would add a bit of variety to the graphics too.

The only other I have trouble with is the Normal inserter and Stack inserter, but since they have a different "grapple", they're easy to identify.

[JohnQSmith]

When hovering over a constant combinator/assembler/chemical plant/anything else that shows an alt graphic, have the popup text display the name of what the generated item will be.

Continuing from above, when hovering over something and there's a list of items, allow me to hold shift/alt/control to pause the popup and let me hover over the ingredients for some additional text.

[DerkvanL]

I would love to see some accessibility options for the colorblind.

I allready posted this on Reddit, but got the tip to post it on these forums.

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comme ... k_cabling/

ontopic GDC2019 talk on colorblind and gaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbFs9ghIIEI
Some of the issues I experience personally: https://imgur.com/gallery/b04xLXD

[Amarula]

+1

[PrgSkidmark]

+1 playing Switch version on 4k LG CX OLED, so tv is good, but I have a very very hard time trying to figure out what science pack is what. Being Red/Green color blind they look pretty identical.