Smart rotation for belts and blue prints

[Escadin]

This simply has to have been brought up before but I was wondering what the general response was. Is there any chance we will see something along these lines at any time?

To be specific, what I'm talking about is a new control mechanic for the core game which makes rotating belts easier and allows us to mirror blue prints. Could be done via a special modifier key (default may be shift). While you're holding it belts are automatically rotated to face the direction / axis your mouse or your feet (WASD) are moving.
Same key with a blue print selected could be used to mirror a blue print on the axis which is orthogonal to your movement-input direction. So imagine you have a train station blue print with the loader on it's left side. You hold shift and move your mouse to the right and the blue print automatically changes in such a way that the loader is now on the right hand side of your station.

But I'm sure there are other methods to implement this. I'm not really trying to make a suggestion here either. All I want to know is whether such a thing has been considered by the devs what the working theory on their stance over it is.

[Escadin]

Lot's of people / bots lurking but no ideas, eh? Perhaps it hasn't been brought up before after all...

[Mooncat]

About belts: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-160

Enhancement to the belt building mechanics, so building by dragging makes continuous belt.

Maybe there is hope?

[hoosh]

While this would be convenient there are some mechanics that make this not feasible currently.

Things like not being able to control what side of the belt a inserter drops things on out of a station would lead to balancing issues and having to make a separate version for each direction anyway.

Also refineries and chem plants not having mirrored versions would be problematic when trying to connect to an existing system.

We are in a better place now since stations are the same vertically and horizontally but there is still a ways to go.

Sidenote: there are some mods that have this functionality and have mirrored patterns for the ref/chem plants and might make this easier.

[Escadin]

About belts: https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-160

Enhancement to the belt building mechanics, so building by dragging makes continuous belt.

Maybe there is hope?

I had hoped for something a little less... vague

[Escadin]

While this would be convenient there are some mechanics that make this not feasible currently.

Things like not being able to control what side of the belt a inserter drops things on out of a station would lead to balancing issues and having to make a separate version for each direction anyway.

Also refineries and chem plants not having mirrored versions would be problematic when trying to connect to an existing system.

We are in a better place now since stations are the same vertically and horizontally but there is still a ways to go.

Sidenote: there are some mods that have this functionality and have mirrored patterns for the ref/chem plants and might make this easier.

I understand the belts + inserter issue. I'm wondering maybe this is something they might want to fix along the road anyway, like they did with horizontal / vertical train size except it will probably be simplier. Just make inserters behave symmetrically and always place items on the same side of a parallel belt nomatter the direction the face. No need for new models or rescaling.

I don't really understand the refineries / plants problem though.

[hoosh]

Pardon my paint skills.
Black is pipes
Grey is underground pipes

This is a rough cracking setup. This shows how the pipes on the bottom are mirrored but the chem plants wouldnt be. Since you cant reverse the left-right on the chem plants you are unable to mirror them as all your inputs and outputs get flipped on the other side.

Its not a huge deal but it is problematic if you are trying to maintain a design or standard throughout your base.

[Escadin]

I see. Well this is another problem indeed. Turns out rotating blueprints is not that trivial after all...

[DerGraue]

Like someone before already said: there are some mods that can rotate or mirror blueprints, like

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/killkrog/KBlueprints

or

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/Choumiko/Foreman

[ssilk]

Moved to Suggestions.


See also viewtopic.php?f=80&t=37517 Blueprint-Mirroring, BP-Shifting, -Programming, -Iteration, -Editing, Ornaments and Recursion