Friday Facts #180 - Map interaction

[kovarex]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-180

[illmaren]

When is now the release of 0.15?
i mean we are waiting and waiting....

[Rhamphoryncus]

Nice stuff! How about a way to highlight or search for specific ores? It comes up most often with mods but I've seen vanilla players have trouble spotting things too.

[eradicator]

Nice! Work!

If i had to pick one of the features from the "what's next" list i'd pick being able to select train stations from the map. The current station selection window when setting up schedules is so tiny and shows only 5 stations at a time. With dozens of stations that quickly becomes exhausting and i usually have to look at the map anyway to double-check the station names.

[lordjoda]

I'm nut sure if this can be implemented easily but, since you can already zoom out quite a bit, it might be possible to seamlessly go from "normal" view to "map" view, wich would at a specific distance start turning objects into the map symbols. A example for this would be supreme commander. As a "bonus" the overlays (which are very helpfull) would then also be visible in normal mode if desired...

[maniak1349]

All my dreams about map are coming true! Especially this one for personal trains

Integrate the interaction into the train to allow semi-automatic one-time train order that wouldn't be limited to train stations.

Also seconding the ore highlighting and if you will be at it maybe add an ability to hide all ores from map temporarily or to select what is rendered first - ore patches or player buildings? Sometimes you forced to build stuff other than mining drills on the resource patches and after that it's quite hard to see a buildings layout on the map.

[GeEom]

Hi kovarex, great update!

I was thinking about ambiguity stemming from patch overlap with your new mouseover feature. Could hovering over a resource patch outline that patch? Are patch edges determined by flood fill or by the edges of the patch instance (info the player doesn't directly have)?

I really love the game, the visible passion behind its development, and the look of the recent fffs. Keep up the amazing work!

GeEom

[DOSorDIE]

Every week it will be harder to wait for 0.15 ...
So many new things and we want play with it.

I hope it come soon!

[sillyfly]

Awesome!

Can we please get an ability to draw rail lines on the map, which puts down ghost rail? Pretty please?
This could make vanilla have almost-FARL levels of long-distance rail building!

Regardless, all of these features look amazing!

[bobingabout]

Ah, Tuesday night I was unable to connect to our mumble server, where my friend was able to. Perhaps it's a related incident.

[ili]

Like!

[redlabel]

The improved map will be nice. Particularly trees. It is a bit of a drag and hard on the eyes trying to quickly figure out the path with the least trees. Perhaps make trees darker or with higher contrast respect to its surroundings.

Another interesting idea (don't know if possible atm) would be to be able sometimes to run around with the large map view engaged. Right now if you open the map your character does not move but the map view does. Perhaps make it that movement keys actually move your character and not the map? And you still have the mouse to move map.. So this would be a super zoomed out way to move around the map..

[Deadly-Bagel]

It also helps colorblind people as they couldn't distinguish the ore types by color so well.

I did helping? =D

This is a huge step forward, especially for colour deficient players in modded games. Well except for red power lines on a green background, blue would be better but probably not something I'd be using anyway. To be honest I've pretty much had my fill of the game but all this stuff is making me keen for a few more rounds! The logistic view on the map will be particularly helpful for my logistic-only run. Maybe by the time I'm done with that Bob will have finished his 0.15 updates and I can have a crack at that too.

Another interesting idea (don't know if possible atm) would be to be able sometimes to run around with the large map view engaged.

I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to do this and facepalmed when it just moved the map. I have never used WASD to move the map intentionally, I don't see any reason this shouldn't be default behaviour.

[mrzorn]

I would like to suggest a Map View Mode where you can see the separated signal blocks of a train network with the corresponding colour indicating its status.

[Lacksi]

I would like to see a radar button. this isn't necessary during daytime, but during nighttime it would be useful, as I like to build small, Independent outposts, that switch off during the night.

maybe this view could even show you where you need to place radars to get full coverage. this would be a feature id love to see!

[CrazyZealot]

looks really neat
is there a chance of the pollution being rendered in a different way? Friend of mine is partly colourblind and he has a hard time seeing pollution on the map

[DanGio]

Fantastic. I'd love to get those :
- Be able to zoom from the map view directly to the world.
- Option of Higher resolution of map.
With a smooth transition between map view... wow.

[pieterhulsen]

Nice stuff! How about a way to highlight or search for specific ores? It comes up most often with mods but I've seen vanilla players have trouble spotting things too.

yes seconded! That would be great!

I love the map changes proposed in the FF!
Keep up the good work and see you in 0.15!

[sabriath]

Suggestions

1. Have Red/Green wiring overlay.
2. Create a "node" object that can be Red/Green wired and named (seen on map), when you mouse over in the map, you can get a glimpse of information that is passing through the node.
3. Have a "heat" map based on how much electricity objects are using.
4. Have a button that will flash all vehicles, maybe even have an arrow of some sort to really get the point across that your car wasn't destroyed, and you simply misplaced it among all the other buildings and trains in the railyard.

[keyboardhack]

Nice stuff! How about a way to highlight or search for specific ores? It comes up most often with mods but I've seen vanilla players have trouble spotting things too.

In addition to this, maybe a search bar in the map window where you can search for specific entities to highlight them.