Friday Facts #183 - Aiming for the release date

[factoriouzr]

Early game blueprint suggestion, while we're on the subject: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=43531

You can't just park a train on passive provider tracks and construct an outpost for eg.

Not in the base game's vehicles [yet], but: you can use vehicle equipment grids to turn cargo wagons into mobile construction systems!

Right now you are limited to how far out you can zoom in the main game

You can continue to drag selection cursors while running, meaning blueprints can be far larger than the screen will show.

Thanks for the tips. I was aware about dragging while running, but this is still tedious, and it's really hard to position a blueprint bigger then your screen.

[BlackKnight]

Some thoughts after reading the conversation between factoriouzr and Harkonnen.

I haven't played many games, just really long ones but I can see where not having the full benefits of blueprint early-ish game would get tiresome really quickly. If blueprints (from the sound of it) are going to be integrated earlier on now, then its expected gamers will be importing any size of blueprint from outside the game. Thus, placing large blueprints early game has to be possible.

Inventory Space
Its true, having a lot of space in ones inventory I feel is essential for smooth gameplay -- I always carry around so much I've had to use a mod to extend its size (which also expands the logistic/trash slots <-very helpful). And as factoriouzr said, picking up random items like trees/stone is also a big reason - it fills quickly. It depends how each person plays the game though.

One obvious thing I want to comment on first, if the player is not supposed to carry so much, don't make the inventory space so large compared to other transport types wagons etc. which has always bugged me since its completely illogical. Either the player has a much larger inventory space than everything else or a much smaller one -- expand the space in mobile containers (especially wagons).
*A much larger inventory on the player could be explained by some advanced compression tech that the player can't reproduce on their own container objects, if you went that route.

A related idea to decrease the number of items one carries would be to have a 'Build Mode' and 'Blueprint Mode' toggleable on the current build interface (just like the request/trash tabs). Once toggled, you could replace the build interface with a blueprint background - all the same currently building items would remain though. This way you could select an item to place a ghost for *even if you never had a physical copy of it* -- which is currently a big reason in the current game to carry a lot of 'extras' I find. You have to have a copy of a lot of stuff you only need for creating ghosts. Now once the ghost is placed, bots would fill the request (either in your main base or an outpost which bots could be sent on trains to place. (As an aside, train roboports should really be allowed in vanilla by the way--I find this is now a vital feature (possible via modding) of automation for me ingame {autorepair trains}).
Blueprint Mode could Also change how your inventory displays at the same time somehow. Possibly highlighting blueprints/blueprint books and or hiding/greying all other inventory items when the mode is toggled.
..I really like the idea anyway

It would also be great to openly know how long a ghost will take to expire - maybe a mouseover it?

Blueprint size.
The only downside to creating(especially)/placing blueprints from map view is the colour of items in map view make it really hard to know what to select and not to. Of course this is the only option possible other than "cheating" by using the console to zoom out further. Maybe the new map solutions could allow for normal view-zooming further out if within radar range? The future as I've stated before is orbital controlled construction (laying/creating blueprints) and this possibly new orbital construction by bots from space as suggested by Harkonnen.

New Roboport range extension - late game.
Just a quick thought based on personal experience - on the subject of placing really large blueprints, it would be great to have a new coverage extender that was multiple screens in size. Then placing large items would be more easily possible via bots supplies by roboports within bases instead of having to run around filling all the requests yourself.

[armand12]

I vote that map based building should be restricted not necessarily by research, but by infrastructure.

First tier, place blueprints/ghosts inside the active area of a radar you are in, and possible all other contiguous radar areas

Second tier, satellite allows player to place blueprints/ghosts at all radar active areas, provided within one themselves

Third tier, satellite becomes a massive radar with an active area of a few tens of chunks on a side, that is moveable but preferably only with further rocket launches to upgrade and refuel the satellite, or launch new ones. Initial position is directly over silo

By active area I refer to the visible chunks under radar, scanned chunks that are map only don't count.

[factoriouzr]

Some thoughts after reading the conversation between factoriouzr and Harkonnen.

I haven't played many games, just really long ones but I can see where not having the full benefits of blueprint early-ish game would get tiresome really quickly. If blueprints (from the sound of it) are going to be integrated earlier on now, then its expected gamers will be importing any size of blueprint from outside the game. Thus, placing large blueprints early game has to be possible.

Inventory Space
Its true, having a lot of space in ones inventory I feel is essential for smooth gameplay -- I always carry around so much I've had to use a mod to extend its size (which also expands the logistic/trash slots <-very helpful). And as factoriouzr said, picking up random items like trees/stone is also a big reason - it fills quickly. It depends how each person plays the game though.

One obvious thing I want to comment on first, if the player is not supposed to carry so much, don't make the inventory space so large compared to other transport types wagons etc. which has always bugged me since its completely illogical. Either the player has a much larger inventory space than everything else or a much smaller one -- expand the space in mobile containers (especially wagons).
*A much larger inventory on the player could be explained by some advanced compression tech that the player can't reproduce on their own container objects, if you went that route.

A related idea to decrease the number of items one carries would be to have a 'Build Mode' and 'Blueprint Mode' toggleable on the current build interface (just like the request/trash tabs). Once toggled, you could replace the build interface with a blueprint background - all the same currently building items would remain though. This way you could select an item to place a ghost for *even if you never had a physical copy of it* -- which is currently a big reason in the current game to carry a lot of 'extras' I find. You have to have a copy of a lot of stuff you only need for creating ghosts. Now once the ghost is placed, bots would fill the request (either in your main base or an outpost which bots could be sent on trains to place. (As an aside, train roboports should really be allowed in vanilla by the way--I find this is now a vital feature (possible via modding) of automation for me ingame {autorepair trains}).
Blueprint Mode could Also change how your inventory displays at the same time somehow. Possibly highlighting blueprints/blueprint books and or hiding/greying all other inventory items when the mode is toggled.
..I really like the idea anyway

It would also be great to openly know how long a ghost will take to expire - maybe a mouseover it?

Blueprint size.
The only downside to creating(especially)/placing blueprints from map view is the colour of items in map view make it really hard to know what to select and not to. Of course this is the only option possible other than "cheating" by using the console to zoom out further. Maybe the new map solutions could allow for normal view-zooming further out if within radar range? The future as I've stated before is orbital controlled construction (laying/creating blueprints) and this possibly new orbital construction by bots from space as suggested by Harkonnen.

New Roboport range extension - late game.
Just a quick thought based on personal experience - on the subject of placing really large blueprints, it would be great to have a new coverage extender that was multiple screens in size. Then placing large items would be more easily possible via bots supplies by roboports within bases instead of having to run around filling all the requests yourself.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I'm glad there are others that agree with my opinions and are willing to share their thoughts.

I also agree with you that the trains should be able to function as mobile base repair and deployment platforms. This could be done with something like logistics requester or logistics provider rails under the trains which tell them how to function when parked on that stretch of track. I think this would be a simple and fully effective solution. I have seen a mod do this long time ago, though I never used it as when I found it it was for an older version of Factorio and it was never updated that I could find at the time.

Right now it's so tedious to set up outposts even with personal roboports. You make the blueprint, then you have to make sure to pick up everything you need in your inventory, which you might not even have enough space for, then go and deploy a roboport and robots and power manually, then put down a passive provider chest or storage chest, stick everything the robots need in there, then place the blueprint. This is very tedious.

What I do is drive a train manually to my new outpost location, place the blueprint down, then manually lay the tracks to go into the outpost (which isn't built). Then manually pick up roboports and chets, rails, robots etc from the train and keep running back and forth between the train and the outpost to get the robots to build it. Then when it's done, I set up the stops for the trains which is also very tedious, annoying and boring. I have stopped using trains all together because of the boring, repetitive and tedious nature of outpost setup and train management. I find this very unfortunate because I love playing with trains aside from these issues, which unfortunately are the only real reason to use trains.

Doing this manual outpost setup is extremely tedious (though much better then doing it without robots) and isn't fun. Not to mention setting up train schedules after that for 10 or so trains is a pain. I made a suggestion that would solve this perfectly (in my opinion) before. It's basically grouping multiple train stops into a train station and adding labels to stops and trains. Then you just tell your ore or supply train to go to a station and it will pick the correct stop based on if the train's label matches the stop's label. A good game is about maximizing fun and minimizing tedious boring tasks.

Also, ghosts don't expire anymore at all (which is a great change). The only ghosts that expire are ones that get placed automatically when something is destroyed. It would still be useful to know the time exactly for the destroyed ghosts though. Sorry if that's what you meant and you already knew this.

Hopefully with the new map colours it will be easier to take large blueprints from map view. If not you can place markers like walls or lights or something in a particular shape to know what to select. Though I do think an option to see it fully rendered would be nice, but that would also be hard to see after a certain zoom level, that's why I didn't suggest it in my original post, but having a checkbox option and the player can determine based on the situation would be great.

A range extender is a great idea. What about making it a research item that extends the range of roboports. We already have research for bot speed and carry capacity.

What about another research for robot fuel so they don't have to refuel as often?

What about all the above research for personal roboports as well?

[Harkonnen]

factoriouzr
About many spaces in inventory - agreed. But on the other hand if it's just due to trash slots and and if you be able to place ghosts by choosing building in crafting menu instead of inventory - would you still need so many things to carry?

About 20x20 - area will be smaller because range around player where you can build is smaller. That might be usable in "sandbox mode" where you quickly fly above without player, but that will make construction bots useful only for repairs.

As for nerfing down blueprint size - I didn't mean that. Just what I am personally afraid of - with early big blueprints people will blueprint there entire base ahead of time, and for the rest 20 hours will be merely running back and forth between chests with newly produced stuff and ghosts to place it all - factory organic growth will not be organic anymore, it will be predetermined way ahead. Well, that is nerfed to some point due to research and forests.

[Engimage]

As for nerfing down blueprint size - I didn't mean that. Just what I am personally afraid of - with early big blueprints people will blueprint there entire base ahead of time, and for the rest 20 hours will be merely running back and forth between chests with newly produced stuff and ghosts to place it all - factory organic growth will not be organic anymore, it will be predetermined way ahead. Well, that is nerfed to some point due to research and forests.

I totally agree with you about nerfing BP size at the start. But it should definitely be possible to extend it via research as end game is not about "organic growth".

[factoriouzr]

factoriouzr
About many spaces in inventory - agreed. But on the other hand if it's just due to trash slots and and if you be able to place ghosts by choosing building in crafting menu instead of inventory - would you still need so many things to carry?

About 20x20 - area will be smaller because range around player where you can build is smaller. That might be usable in "sandbox mode" where you quickly fly above without player, but that will make construction bots useful only for repairs.

As for nerfing down blueprint size - I didn't mean that. Just what I am personally afraid of - with early big blueprints people will blueprint there entire base ahead of time, and for the rest 20 hours will be merely running back and forth between chests with newly produced stuff and ghosts to place it all - factory organic growth will not be organic anymore, it will be predetermined way ahead. Well, that is nerfed to some point due to research and forests.

Hi Harkonnen,

Are you saying you can choose buildings to build from the crafting menu without actually crafting them and without having to have them in your inventory? If so that's a nice feature and one I never heard you guys are working on. I have wanted a global list of blueprints for a long time. Can you implement that? I don't think crafting blueprints is a good gameplay mechanic. We should have a categorized list of all blueprints we created, ones we want to share multiplayer are in a separate tab. All this should be in a separate blueprints window that we can place somewhere on screen and keep it open. The window should remember it's position and size when closed (hopefully you guys implement this along with window resizing). Then the idea is, I just click a blueprint from my list of blueprints from the window and place it down, then remove the blueprint from my cursor/cancel. There is no need for the intermediate step of crafting a blueprint and then copying blueprints (with the new feature for blueprint preservation) from the blueprint library. Just use it directly. I have posted a suggestion about this a long time ago, but nobody replied. Anyway getting back to your point, while this is a good feature if it's what I think it is, it doesn't eliminate the need for more trash slots because there is a lot of junk you pick up in the world. For eg. Lets say you only carry one inserter and you are happy with that. What about when you go and deconstruct something with a personal roboport equipped. Then you collect, lets say 4 types of inserters (3 you want to auto trash because you only carry one type), laser turrets, walls, belts of 3 different speeds, underground belts of 3 different speeds, splitters of 3 different speeds, so that's 9 items right there just from belts in the base game. You only want to keep 50 say of the best belt, underground and splitter, so you still need to use up 9 trash slots just to get rid of the junk. 3 of the trash slots set to 50, the rest to 0. Now think that you can deconstruct anything anywhere in your factory or outposts. Some of these things you built early game, so you can have literally any entity in the entire game that might show up in your inventory. Granted some are rare, so maybe you don't "need" to put it in an auto trash slot, but it would be helpful if you could. However even with trying to limit auto trash usage, there are tons of often encountered items you want in auto trash. Now this by itself, just base game, no mods, leads to needing lots of auto trash slots. Now consider most factorio veterans play with many mods, and many mods add new items. We want to auto trash many of those too. So in summary, yes, we still need a lot of auto trash slots. I hope you can see my points. I think the best solution is to make a scrollable list of logistics slots and logistics trash slots (or just one list when their functionality is combined as I suggested before) part of the infinite research and allow it to be upgradeable 5 at a time forever. Then players can choose how many they want.

The 20x20 area was just a number I threw out there. It doesn't have to be bigger then the player reach, but the point I was trying to make is that it should be a large area to paint, not 1x1 or 3x3, something bigger so it's easy to work with.

As for blueprinting the entire factory, I think that's fine. I agree it won't be organic growth, but I suspect it will get boring fast. I thought of that too with early blueprints, and I am going to try it just for fun. I mean why not. I don't see myself using it all the time though, but I do want to experience automatically constructing the entire factory that I already constructed 100 times before. I think the stuff is still locked behind research so the factories won't start producing right away, and besides, If i want to play this way and blueprint my entire factory, I should be able to. It's the ultimate automation. Also in relation to this, please add the ability to place down ghosts of any building, even ones that are not researched and allow setting any recipe on a factory even when it wasn't researched yet.

[Harkonnen]

factoriouzr
That's what I meant - you need many slots mostly to autotrash, but not to carry that much stuff. For example solution could be like that:
- add checkbox to autotrash everything that is not in logistic requests and that was not crafted manually
- allow to build any ghost via crafting menu, so you don't need to carry those items (also allow to place mining drill ghosts on empty ground)
- encourage building outposts via supply train, so you will use personal roboport just to setup initial train station with initial roboport for that train to arrive and bring the rest (kinda what I talked about orbital bots, but using player instead of those bots while they are not yet available).

As for having blueprints outside of inventory - well, it eventually evolves towards there with blueprint books and libraries, so I believe that's how that interface will eventually end.

As for ghosting unresearched stuff - I am personally against it. That could be a game-start option or some lua console command for those who really want it, but it should not be available "by default".

It is good when every player may try their own gamestyle (up to blueprinting entire factory from the start), it just that game's "default" gamestyle should not feel boring or munchkin or anything like that because many players will simply not try other ways of playing, and will guess that game is about such a style, so such pitfalls may exist but they should not be reachable by default routes through game experience. There is always balance between challenges that game should put on a player and challenges that players put on themselves. When this balance biases towards player self-discipline too much (e.g. I mine everything by hand to launch a rocket), it starts feeling that player plays with himself, but not with the game. So such things should be available through mods perhaps, but definitely not in vanilla. Same stands for things that make the game too easy.

My personal joy of factorio (and actually any other building game) is having plan in your head and implementing that plan on the screen over time, so there always must be things that you anticipate for (like - aaaah, I finally got robots), and that joy eventually comes true (that's btw why I respect early/mid-game a lot). When you have that part blueprinted too early, that joy may easily contract into first 30 minutes of gameplay while you place those blueprints with the rest spent on boring waiting for it to finish really being placed and thinking why those damn inserters and assembly mk1 are so slow. For my taste blueprints are about massive copy-paste, but not so much about massive planning (massive planning is what recent map markers are for).

[AndrewIRL]

As for ghosting unresearched stuff - I am personally against it. That could be a game-start option or some lua console command for those who really want it, but it should not be available "by default".

I am against it too, the game needs to start small with few options so as not to confuse the new player. It should be a journey of discovery, not one of knowing everything that exists in the game because you see it in a blueprint ghost you downloaded.

[Deadly-Bagel]

On the other hand, if they download a ghost there's not a lot you can do about them just copying designs - and that's defeating the object of the game in general. I agree you shouldn't make it easy, but there's no sense in hitting everyone just to get to the people out to ruin their own games.

That being said the blueprint library doesn't really need to be available straight away. The first anyone would legitimately want to use it I think is for trains because pretty much everyone has a preferred layout they use and it's always a pain trying to remember your intersection.

The other possibility is you might need to "buy" blueprints. Something like 10% of the cost of the contained entities. Insignificant for a junction or Assembler setup, but blueprinting your entire base with 1,000 Assemblers, 600 Electric Furnaces, 1,500 Fast Inserters, etc is going to be significantly more expensive. Just the psychology of having to spend on the blueprints should discourage spamming all the blueprints right at the start too, so that you only pull down what you feel you need and especially newer players are more likely to keep starting from scratch until they're more comfortable with the game.

[factoriouzr]

factoriouzr
That's what I meant - you need many slots mostly to autotrash, but not to carry that much stuff. For example solution could be like that:
- add checkbox to autotrash everything that is not in logistic requests and that was not crafted manually
- allow to build any ghost via crafting menu, so you don't need to carry those items (also allow to place mining drill ghosts on empty ground)
- encourage building outposts via supply train, so you will use personal roboport just to setup initial train station with initial roboport for that train to arrive and bring the rest (kinda what I talked about orbital bots, but using player instead of those bots while they are not yet available).

As for having blueprints outside of inventory - well, it eventually evolves towards there with blueprint books and libraries, so I believe that's how that interface will eventually end.

As for ghosting unresearched stuff - I am personally against it. That could be a game-start option or some lua console command for those who really want it, but it should not be available "by default".

It is good when every player may try their own gamestyle (up to blueprinting entire factory from the start), it just that game's "default" gamestyle should not feel boring or munchkin or anything like that because many players will simply not try other ways of playing, and will guess that game is about such a style, so such pitfalls may exist but they should not be reachable by default routes through game experience. There is always balance between challenges that game should put on a player and challenges that players put on themselves. When this balance biases towards player self-discipline too much (e.g. I mine everything by hand to launch a rocket), it starts feeling that player plays with himself, but not with the game. So such things should be available through mods perhaps, but definitely not in vanilla. Same stands for things that make the game too easy.

My personal joy of factorio (and actually any other building game) is having plan in your head and implementing that plan on the screen over time, so there always must be things that you anticipate for (like - aaaah, I finally got robots), and that joy eventually comes true (that's btw why I respect early/mid-game a lot). When you have that part blueprinted too early, that joy may easily contract into first 30 minutes of gameplay while you place those blueprints with the rest spent on boring waiting for it to finish really being placed and thinking why those damn inserters and assembly mk1 are so slow. For my taste blueprints are about massive copy-paste, but not so much about massive planning (massive planning is what recent map markers are for).

Hi Harkonnen,

I think we share a lot of the same viewpoints on these topics.

Having a checkbox for autotrashing everything not in logistics request is not a solution to this problem. That feature it built into a mod that I usually play with called auto trash. I don't use it there either, but I do use it for simply dropping an item on it I don't want, and it auto trashes it. Plus it gives me more auto trash slots that I need. The reason such a checkbox won't work though, is lets say you just researched the first level of logistics requester slots, then if you check this box, all items you aren't requesting or manually crafted will be trashed. This won't work because I don't hand craft much in this game. As soon as I have factories for something I walk over to the factory and pick up the amount I need. With this checkbox, everything I pick up would just be auto trashed immediately. I think the only reasonable and good solution to this is to allow unlimited auto trash slots. Keep in mind many of us play with mods so depending on what mods and how many, you will need more logistics requester and auto trash slots.

"encourage building outposts via supply train". Finally, someone on the factorio staff agrees with this. I have suggested this a very long time ago and nobody on the staff seemed to be interested in it. Right now it's tedious to set up outposts because you need one passive provider for each item you bring in, and one requester (or similar) on the source side. Then you are limited to how many inserters you can fit on one wagon for the number of unique items you can bring in per wagon because of this. The result is you then need a train that is at least 4 wagons long to bring in everything you want in your outpost, plus one wagon to take out trash and things deconstructed. Not only that but this design isn't expandible because you limit the size of the outpost to something you think is reasonable, then put a wall and turrets around it. Then if you want to bring in more goods and you need another cargo wagon, you have to redesign your entire outpost. Plus you can't use double headed supply trains for outposts unless it's limited to one wagon because if the train goes the opposite way, then the wagons will line up with the wrong filter inserters at the outpost and it won't work. I think a better and easier train outpost supply should be implemented. I think having rails that turn the train and cargo wagons stopped on it to passive providers, active providers, or requesters would be perfect. Then you can add a special chest to request only from the train and nothing else, so that each outpost can store a small stockpile of turrets, etc, until the next supply train arrives. Something like a "train requester/passive provider" which only requests from trains and then is a passive provider as well.

I'm glad you see the blueprints going towards being completely outside the inventory. When blueprint books first came out, I made a post that I wish they were made in the way I described. In fact I think I suggested this idea before blueprint books came out. Needless to say, blueprint books were a let down. They still have limited use such as saving inventory space, and if the book is small, scrolling through the blueprints, but it was not what I was expecting.

Please add ghosting unresearched stuff. I think what you say about it being off by default makes sense for new players, but please make it a checkbox in options or on game start. I would really love this feature. For eg. I plan ahead all the time while building my factory and Often set up the factories for things currently researching or about to be researched. Right now, I can set up the layout, belts, put the factories, I can even configure filter inserters to limit the good, but I can't set the recipe on the factory. This has really annoyed me for a long time. I like to plan ahead and I love setting up the filter inserter filters, and it bugs me that I can't finish setting up the factory until the research is done because I can't set the recipe on the factory. I thus have to remember to come back to a bunch of factories later while I'm in the middle of designing another part of my factory because the research just finished and I need something that I 95% already set up.

As for blueprinting the entire factory. I see your points. I'm not against that, but please make it a configurable option at the very least that's off by default. I don't want to have to download a mod, just to have arbitrarily large blueprints. This stuff should be in vanilla, but maybe off by default for new players. Please also add an option to save new game settings (especially if more options will be added on game creation).

I think there should be a way to auto-upgrade stuff in the base game. As a minimum the upgrade planner mod should be in the base game. In addition it would be nice to say, if logistics storage is at the capacity I set for each item, say blue inserter, then upgrade one random yellow inserter to a blue one. I find it really tedious and boring to design my entire factory with yellow inserters because I don't have better ones yet, then when I get blue ones, I have to go back and upgrade most of my inserters because I need them faster. Then later on this problem happens with the stack inserters as well. This part of the gameplay makes me not want to build much if anything until I have certain key things researched. If you implemented this upgrade mechanism, this whole issue would go away. I would only upgrade critical inserters and when I got to the robot phase, I would just let my robots upgrade everything else automatically.

I also love designing my factory and finding the best way to produce a good that meets my requirements. I like to plan ahead and leave space for things where I think they will be needed etc. I just don't like designing the same thing 100 times. For some stuff, I found my perfect design and don't want to redesign it every game so allow more freedom for players and pick reasonable defaults, but give us the options to simply check a box and have it work the way we want.

[factoriouzr]

As for ghosting unresearched stuff - I am personally against it. That could be a game-start option or some lua console command for those who really want it, but it should not be available "by default".

I am against it too, the game needs to start small with few options so as not to confuse the new player. It should be a journey of discovery, not one of knowing everything that exists in the game because you see it in a blueprint ghost you downloaded.

I think we should have the option. People can always look online and find everything in a game, and can always look up an online design. This restriction won't prevent anything, just annoy people who want the feature.

[factoriouzr]

On the other hand, if they download a ghost there's not a lot you can do about them just copying designs - and that's defeating the object of the game in general. I agree you shouldn't make it easy, but there's no sense in hitting everyone just to get to the people out to ruin their own games.

That being said the blueprint library doesn't really need to be available straight away. The first anyone would legitimately want to use it I think is for trains because pretty much everyone has a preferred layout they use and it's always a pain trying to remember your intersection.

The other possibility is you might need to "buy" blueprints. Something like 10% of the cost of the contained entities. Insignificant for a junction or Assembler setup, but blueprinting your entire base with 1,000 Assemblers, 600 Electric Furnaces, 1,500 Fast Inserters, etc is going to be significantly more expensive. Just the psychology of having to spend on the blueprints should discourage spamming all the blueprints right at the start too, so that you only pull down what you feel you need and especially newer players are more likely to keep starting from scratch until they're more comfortable with the game.

I agree with downloading ghost always a possibility.

I disagree that it's only needed when you get to trains. I don't like setting up the same furnace lines over and over, and that's right at the beginning of the game and a bit later too with electric furnaces.

I don't like the idea of buying blueprints. How you need a currency? This game is about manufacturing everything yourself. If you now require more things to make blueprints, that would also not be a good idea in my opinion. If someone wants to blueprint everything, let them. They can look up a design for their entire factory anyway and copy it if they want. Let people play how they want .

[IronCartographer]

On the other hand, if they download a ghost there's not a lot you can do about them just copying designs - and that's defeating the object of the game in general. I agree you shouldn't make it easy, but there's no sense in hitting everyone just to get to the people out to ruin their own games.

That being said the blueprint library doesn't really need to be available straight away. The first anyone would legitimately want to use it I think is for trains because pretty much everyone has a preferred layout they use and it's always a pain trying to remember your intersection.

The other possibility is you might need to "buy" blueprints. Something like 10% of the cost of the contained entities. Insignificant for a junction or Assembler setup, but blueprinting your entire base with 1,000 Assemblers, 600 Electric Furnaces, 1,500 Fast Inserters, etc is going to be significantly more expensive. Just the psychology of having to spend on the blueprints should discourage spamming all the blueprints right at the start too, so that you only pull down what you feel you need and especially newer players are more likely to keep starting from scratch until they're more comfortable with the game.

I agree with downloading ghost always a possibility.

I disagree that it's only needed when you get to trains. I don't like setting up the same furnace lines over and over, and that's right at the beginning of the game and a bit later too with electric furnaces.

I don't like the idea of buying blueprints. How you need a currency? This game is about manufacturing everything yourself. If you now require more things to make blueprints, that would also not be a good idea in my opinion. If someone wants to blueprint everything, let them. They can look up a design for their entire factory anyway and copy it if they want. Let people play how they want .

Full agreement here. Steam power, smelting, bootstrap science--these are all immediate things for which experienced players have memorized designs and the joy comes not from building them but deciding where to place them relative to each other and the new world. It would take some radical diversification to the progression mechanics for that to change: More options for resource acquisition or something. Different game modes. I digress.

Some limitations make for better gameplay through the puzzles they introduce. However, limiting blueprint capabilities would simply force players to focus on the low-level, when it could instead empower them to think and build even bigger than ever before!

Random thought: Instead of providing pre-built structures, the campaigns could replace the pre-built factories and the helpful tricks they currently demonstrate (belt behavior, constructor chaining, the proper-ratio green circuit build from the last mission, ...) with provided/discovered blueprints. Players would receive the same advice but have the freedom to place things as they see fit.

[Damaskox]

The incoming map colors are nice. Turret ranges on the minimap I also approve on.

But about the zoom from map to the world I am not sure, do I either approve or disapprove. But what comes to the radar showing "real world", it could be put behind a research, either red only, or red+green.

Ahh, advanced settings! I like the difficulties coming in!

[Harkonnen]

Another idea of solving early copy-paste problem without introducing early blueprints could be "one-shot" blueprints - i.e. you draw a rectangle around entities limited to like 7x7 or 10x10 tiles - it creates a blueprint and puts it right into your hand, then you may paste it just like normal blueprint (probably edit a little if some stray power pole got in). But instead of placing ghosts this "one-shot" blueprint places fully built items, and can be left-clicked only if you stand close enough to click-location and have all necessary items in your inventory. You can place it several times, but once you hit Q - that temporary blueprint is gone forever and not stored in the inventory.

[Zeblote]

Another idea of solving early copy-paste problem without introducing early blueprints could be "one-shot" blueprints - i.e. you draw a rectangle around entities limited to like 7x7 or 10x10 tiles - it creates a blueprint and puts it right into your hand, then you may paste it just like normal blueprint (probably edit a little if some stray power pole got in). But instead of placing ghosts this "one-shot" blueprint places fully built items, and can be left-clicked only if you stand close enough to click-location and have all necessary items in your inventory. You can place it several times, but once you hit Q - that temporary blueprint is gone forever and not stored in the inventory.

That would be extremely useful - add it right away!

[Zavian]

About many spaces in inventory - agreed. But on the other hand if it's just due to trash slots and and if you be able to place ghosts by choosing building in crafting menu instead of inventory - would you still need so many things to carry?

At times I build a lot of stuff out of my personal roboport, often whilst outside the logistics network of the main base. (Not just mining outposts. I've built a smelter array outside the main base that needed about 1000 electric furnaces, with productivity modules and speed beacons, and a science array that produced 1000 blue + 1000 purple science packs/minute using the 0.15 science recipes). If I make changes to a section of a factory that is still using yellow belts, then I try to use yellow belts to match what is already there. (Assuming that the yellow belts are fast enough that they don't need upgrading). I also tend to be too impatient to want to wait for the base's construction bots to bring something from possibly multiple chunks away, when I probably already have some in my inventory, so often I deliberately avoid adding any construction bots to my main base, to force my personal bots to build everything. So for a mid-late game period where most of the factory is belt based, but some stuff is bot based, and we have a rail network, I tend to want all the following stuff in my personal logistics request slots.

Stuff to hand craft things I don't request but want to be able to build, often when I'm out of the base's logistics coverage. Iron, copper, steel, green + red circuits, gears, wood (to fuel my pocket locomotive/newly built trains).
Yellow + red + blue belt, all three classes of underground belt, all three classes of splitter. (If the base is using all three belt types).
Small power poles, medium power poles, large power poles.
Yellow inserters, fast inserters, long-handed inserters, stack inserters.
Steel chests, requestor chests, passive provider chests, roboports, construction bots (to replace any that get killed in combat).
Rails, signals, chain signals, engines or locomotives
Mining drills, blue and/or yellow assemblers (not everything needs the additional speed of a yellow assembler, so sometimes I want both).
Walls, laser turrets, repair packs, ammunition for my personal weapons. ( I'm mainly a turret creep guy, otherwise you could also add combat robotics here as well).

Stuff I want at least occasionally, but don't need often enough to warrant always having in my limited inventory/logistics request slots includes: chem plants + refineries + pumpjacks + pipes + underground pipes, pumps, tanks, barrels. beacons + electric furnaces + speed modules + productivity modules. substations. radars + gates. lights. train stops + locomotives + cargo wagons. red + green wire, combinators, power switches, accumulators (for building power switch logic based off of accumulator level, without needing to string a wire to the nearest solar field) . filter inserters. active provider chests, storage chests, wooden chests. logistic bots (if we are building bot based outposts they will be in the first list and on the outpost train, but I won't always have the train with me). Note that with the basic requests in the first line, I can handcraft many of these 'missing items', even in the field, and out of roboport coverage. Most of them are only 0.5 seconds each if I already have all the ingredients, which is no problem if I only want a couple. (Also note that all of the above are vanilla items. Add mods, and the list tends to grow).

Count the above. I make that 38 items, in the 'I always want to have some of these on me' category. Even if I remove yellow and red belt, and yellow inserters that is still 31 items. So I can it some more, and cut passive provider and requestor chests (they are only 0.5 seconds each to handcraft, if I already have red circuits + steel chests). That gets me one free slot for the 'I sometimes want to request these' things. I am constantly juggling logistics requests because I don't have enough request slots to request everything I want to be carrying. So I often end up hand crafting something that I would prefer to request from the logistics system, because it is faster and less clicks to hand-craft, than to clear a slot and request something, then wait for the robots to deliver it before I can place it. Being able to select something from the handcraft menu for ghost placement would be very useful, but if you do implement that then please let me also point at an existing item or ghost, and select that item for ghost placement, without even needing to open my inventory. But even with that as an option, I would probably still want to carry most of the first list, because I might want to build something whilst out in the field at a base somewhere that is not connected to the main base's logistic network. (And even when within the main bases network it will still be quicker to build something out of my personal inventory, than to wait for the bots to bring it from a couple of chunks away.

Other ideas to improve ghost placement include allowing me to continue placing ghosts even after my bots have removed the last of those items from my inventory. (Perhaps by changing the code so that as long as I continue to hold down shift, the game doesn't clear my cursor, even though my bots have already placed all of that item that I had in my inventory). Also please allow me to tell my bots to fast replace something using ghost placement. (I would be fine if the game implemented that as a deconstruct and then normal ghost placement order. That would still be a UI improvement over needing to drop whatever item I wanted to place, grab and use and then drop the deconstruction planner, then grab and place the item I wanted to place originally).

- encourage building outposts via supply train, so you will use personal roboport just to setup initial train station with initial roboport for that train to arrive and bring the rest (kinda what I talked about orbital bots, but using player instead of those bots while they are not yet available).

Personally I think I would prefer to continue using my personal roboport to construct the entire outpost (grabbing more stuff from an outpost train when needed). Less to setup, less teardown once construction is finished. Typically my outposts also don't need a resupply train or a pax stop either, so this would be another stop to build and setup. I don't want to leave unnecessary roboports/chests/bots there after construction is finished, nor do I want to leave excess construction material lying around either. So I would want to pack it all up afterwards. Even if I had a trash train setup that could recycle the construction material for me (and even assuming I had a blueprint where the unload station for construction shared the same stop as the trash train), the necessity to manually name the train stop , and then find the trash train, and manually add the new stop to it's route is more hassle than just turning the inserters around and using them to load the excess stuff back in the outpost train. Plus on a multiplayer server everybody needs to be on the same page for things like trash trains at every outpost to be a good idea. If they aren't you are normally better off keeping things as simple as practical. Also note that even if I was using a self building setup, and had the ability to ghost place stuff that wasn't in my inventory, I would still want to be carrying drills etc. It is always going to be quicker to make changes from my personal inventory (possibly via my personal construction bots), than to wait for construction bots to arrive from multiple chunks away.

What would help is a late game roboport + logistics cargo wagons. The roboport wagon could carry it's own logistics bots, and when stopped at a station, and (possibly also needing to be close enough to a pole to connect to power, or for the train stop to connect to power) it could function as a mobile roboport. In conjunction with provider wagons it could resupply player logistics requests. (Alternatively it could also have it's own construction robots and they could build the outpost without me needing to setup and tear down any chests/roboports). A more advanced wagon could function as a combined requestor/provider hybrid. It could have logistics request slots, and when stopped within a normal logistics network, it could request any needed items to refill itself. That would make it faster to change the requests and just send it back to base if I suddenly wanted to add pipes + pumps + tanks + pumpjacks so I could build an oil outpost. If there are concerns about the bots doing things at the wrong time, you could require that it be stopped at special logistics/requester/provider train stops. (This sounds like a different implementation of the provider/requestor rails idea above). Late game requestor wagons could also help reduce entity count at outposts by removing the need for stack inserters to load trains.

(Another UI improvement idea. Copy+paste from train stop to locomotive could add the train stop to the locomotive's route, I'm not sure what the wait condition should be. No condition might be ok. The player will probably still need to specify the right condition, so not adding something they need to delete might be the best solution.)

Regarding autotrash. I would like for it to be smarter. If I have rails set to request to 100, and autotrash for rails set at 200, then i raise the request to 400, the bots bring the extra rails, which immediately get autotrashed. Maybe the right solution is to change autotrash so that it interprets 'autotrash rails at 200' as autotrash rails when I have 200 more rails than I am requesting. That way a change in request size wouldn't need a change in the autotrash setting. (Also it would be nice if it the game would automatically move items out of trash, to fulfil my logistics requests, without needing logistics bots to do it. That way if I grab enough rails from a train that some are autotrashed, then build rails, I don't need to open my inventory to move those trashed rails back into my normal inventory slots before I can place them. Alternatively let my construction bots build items using the rails in the trash slots).

@Harkonnen
The one shot blue-prints idea sounds interesting. That sort of copy paste functionality could be useful even late game for anything that you aren't grabbing wholesale from your blue-print library. (I use regular blueprints for that type of temporary copy. Hopefully this could provide a more streamlined UI. Possibly late game that interface optionally could place ghosts, so that the base's construction bots can build stuff if you don't have enough in your inventory. Ghost placement could also allow your bots to place stuff using this interface, even if it isn't within your normal reach distance).

Ideally I would like to be able to copy and paste an area at least large enough for a green circuit line. eg copper belt, inserters, 3 x copper wire assemblers, inserters, 2 x green circuit assemblers, inserters, iron belt, output belt is 12 x 9. That is without even considering the mirror image on the other side. If it was 9 x 9 I could at least copy and paste the inserters + assemblers, run the belts down manually, then copy the mirror imaged side separately. (If the other side shared the same iron belt and output belt, then I think both sides total 22 wide, so an 11x11 area would also work). A basic stone furnace line is 11 wide (both sides at once). A line for smelting iron ore to steel is 18 wide (both sides, or about 9 wide for one side).

However maybe the better option is to not reinvent the wheel. You could add a new option to start with 'advanced equipment' at map generation. If checked you start with a basic suit of armor (possibly without any armor rating) with a personal roboport + some sort of power source, 10 bots, a few blank blueprints, and a deconstruction planner. (Optionally you could also add more iron/drills/furnaces, etc). You can't make more blueprints yet, nor can you access your blueprint library (though I'm sure mods will add that ability). That way everything is using the same interface from the start, and there isn't another bit of UI for a new player to learn.

You could also adapt your one-shot blueprint idea above by making normal blue-prints auto place from a player's inventory, if you are have the items, and are close enough. Then the player could start with one or a few blank blueprints. If needed/desired you could limit the size and placement range of blue-prints, until the player researches a particular technology. (I'm sure mods will be available to bypass this limit for players who don't like it). If the cost of clearing a blue-print is considered a problem, you could make clearing blue-prints free, but copying to/from your blue-print library could take a few green circuits. Alternatively creating large blue-prints could require a few green circuits, increasing in cost as the blue-print's size gets larger. So small blue-prints that are available early-game would be free).

[Engimage]

Another idea of solving early copy-paste problem without introducing early blueprints could be "one-shot" blueprints - i.e. you draw a rectangle around entities limited to like 7x7 or 10x10 tiles - it creates a blueprint and puts it right into your hand, then you may paste it just like normal blueprint (probably edit a little if some stray power pole got in). But instead of placing ghosts this "one-shot" blueprint places fully built items, and can be left-clicked only if you stand close enough to click-location and have all necessary items in your inventory. You can place it several times, but once you hit Q - that temporary blueprint is gone forever and not stored in the inventory.

I do not think that one-shot is a good idea. The whole idea of blueprinting, as well as copy-pasting, is a serialization of stuff. Early game this would be useful, for example, to extend smelting line. For that one a template of 2 furnaces + inserters + poles would fit into 10x10 area. However you need to replicate it say 10 times.

I think there is no need to make it one-shot (consumable). I think there is a sense to not save it at all. You may just select your rectangle, filter it as always, then instead of actually creating a blueprint you would just activate placing featue and place it as many times as you need, until you cancel it. The item might or might not be consumed in the process but still you got to be able to paste it multiple times in a row. So it would serve only as a copy-paste tool and nothing like a blueprint storage.

However such an idea would prevent early game usage of a blueprint library (if its good or bad) but the feature would be useful anyways. The only problem I see here is the building range limitation as currently player would not be able to reach 10x10 area that easily. I would say you should let a player place it if any one part of the blueprint is within player's reach.

So you gotta make a decision if you want to let a player just copy-paste stuff early game or let him use his blueprint library with certain limitations.

[bulldog98]

Another idea of solving early copy-paste problem without introducing early blueprints could be "one-shot" blueprints - i.e. you draw a rectangle around entities limited to like 7x7 or 10x10 tiles - it creates a blueprint and puts it right into your hand, then you may paste it just like normal blueprint (probably edit a little if some stray power pole got in). But instead of placing ghosts this "one-shot" blueprint places fully built items, and can be left-clicked only if you stand close enough to click-location and have all necessary items in your inventory. You can place it several times, but once you hit Q - that temporary blueprint is gone forever and not stored in the inventory.

This sounds like a really good solution and I really like this idea.