Allow interaction with UI even when paused

[Kazuar]

So, one of my smaller pet peeves while playing the alpha was how, when we pause the game, UI elements refuse to respond as well. I do not understand the rationale behind this, and it has bugged me a few times when I was trying to plan my next moves.

Hence, I suggest to allow such interactions with the user interface. Examples include:

• - Opening or closing your inventory
  - Opening or closing the 'strategic' mapmode
  - Scrolling around in the 'strategic' mapmode
  - Opening recipe sorting tabs in your inventory

One might even argue to allow for more definite actions to be commited when paused, i.e. actions that would do more than exclusively change what informations are displayed, for example:

• - Queuing up crafting jobs
  - Moving items between inventory, hotbars and the equipment bar

For me, personally, the first category would be completly sufficent; in my humbe opinion, pausing should not allow for "doing things freely", yet at the same time it should allow for some respite in which the player can assess the situation and plan his next moves, like

• "where to put my power plant"
  "how do I lay out my rail network"
  "what assembler ratios do I need for product X"
  "where can I get more iron"
  "from what direction do I tackle those nasty, eighty-something spawners"

What are your thoughts?

[MalContentFL]

I understand what you mean, but when the game is paused, it is paused. You aren't supposed to interact with the game then. You could just pause the game as biters attack, start crafting bullets and capsules, then unpause with things crafting. That unbalances how the game is meant to be played. Everything in it should be done in real-time. You can't just pause in the middle of Starcraft and Call of Duty to plan your next move or choose where to shoot. That's what real-time is all about.

[Kazuar]

I understand what you mean, but when the game is paused, it is paused. You aren't supposed to interact with the game then. You could just pause the game as biters attack, start crafting bullets and capsules, then unpause with things crafting. That unbalances how the game is meant to be played. Everything in it should be done in real-time. You can't just pause in the middle of Starcraft and Call of Duty to plan your next move or choose where to shoot. That's what real-time is all about.

Those are the arguable, definite actions I described - arguable points are arguable, and being able to queue up actions while paused is certainly unbalanced. Again:

[...]in my humbe opinion, pausing should not allow for "doing things freely"[...]

I don't want to do things; personally, I'd be contend to learn things. Things that I could just as well memorize perfectly (whats this recipe using, whats the area look like etc.), that I just don't want to be forced to memorize.

Otherwise, you might just as well deactivate the popup windows in the inventory, remove the chunk/tile grid overlay, and freeze the mouse pointer as well. That'd be consequent, at least (stopped game is stopped completly).

Slightly off-topic: you could totally pause in the middle of starcraft, and move around the map while paused - in multiplayer, no less.

EDIT: If pausing the game to look at data is not intended, I don't understand the need for a seperate pause function, really - entering the game menu by hitting escape would catch all remaining "use cases"*, me thinks.

(* = I hate using this term, since it has a specific meaning in professional lingua, but there's no other translation for what I want to use here)

[Robbedem]

I agree, you should be able to read different things while the game is paused. (recipes, research, item stats,...)
You could also find these things on the wiki, but it would just be easier when you can acces them ingame without it having to run.

[Holy-Fire]

I agree with the OP.

I'll point out that unless I'm imagining things, this actually got worse in 0.10 - now you can't find out the contents of a chest, where you could before.

As a shameless plug, my Zlowdown mod reduces the need to pause to plan in the first place. Or not, I slowed down by a factor of 2.5 and I'm still pausing all the time...

You could just pause the game as biters attack, start crafting bullets and capsules, then unpause with things crafting. That unbalances how the game is meant to be played.

Even if we agree that this example is a bad thing, it's completely negligible. The actual crafting takes more time than the clicking. If pausing to craft a few items saves your life, you're doing something very wrong anyway.

And again: Merely getting all information without action is a huge improvement.

[CreeperDaReeper]

I'm liking this idea. +1

[Manti]

Agreed with OP, several times the game annoys me like that when I just need to look at the recipes.

[Lav]

Two related suggestions.

First, introduce a one-tick-forward button which would advance game time by a single tick. This could be invaluable when debugging complex circuits.

Second, to make debugging possible in pause mode, make pause less restrictive - allow scrolling (especially in map mode) and examination of object stats. Maybe even changes to some objects - circuit connections primarily.

[Ranakastrasz]

If you set game speed to 1/60th what happens?
Or if you set it to zero?
https://wiki.factorio.com/Console#Change_game_speed

[Lav]

Game becomes slower I guess. It's not a solution though - the goal is to freeze game state but still be able to examine it. Slower game speed is still not zero.

[Ranakastrasz]

If you set the game speed to zero, I suspect it will do what you want. If it wont let you, a speed of 0.01 is so close as makes no difference. Less than one tick per secons.

[Lav]

You're welcome to try debugging a complex (and possibly geographically distributed) circuit scheme when it's changing state every second or two.

[Ranakastrasz]

You're welcome to try debugging a complex (and possibly geographically distributed) circuit scheme when it's changing state every second or two.

I realize you don't understand what I am trying to communicate. If setting game speed to zero will pause the game but otherwise leave everything functional, that would do the first part of what you need.

If then you added a GUI button, or hotkey, which told the game to resume, but on the next gametick, pause it again, that would allow the game to advance one tick.

----
That said, it won't go below 0.01 for some reason. Presumably because events, like hitting esc to go to the menu won't then work until the next tick, which can take over a second.

Irritating, but see if it helps.

[nljr]

TL;DR

Some actions should be allowed while the game is paused in single player.

What ?

While the game is paused, a limited set of actions should still be allowed. These would be actions that don't require any time for the avatar to complete, including travel time.

Exception:

• Any action with a timer. That includes mining and crafting, which should not be allowed while paused.
  Any action that requires the physical presence of the avatar. Adjusting the routes of a train can be done from anywhere, but renaming a station requires you to be there and wouldn't be allowed on pause.

Laying out ghosts with Shift-Click is an example that doesn't require you to be nearby. So is organizing, naming and using blueprints.

This is related to Pause game when map is open, but this has many more practical implications. In fact, that might be a prerequisite, since you need a way to choose where to stick those ghosts, and the map might be the right tool.

Why ?

Factorio is not a click-fest requiring speedy reflexes. Factorio is a game about careful organization, thoughtful planning and optimized solutions. Adding orders on pause enhances the cerebral part of the game and opens it up to players (like me) who may be too slow to play properly without it.

[Fourwingsy]

I absolutely agree with this!
I usually pause in map screen. and I want to specify those issues.

- Panning in map screen: I can navigate map in paused state(with repeating zooming in on right side of map and zooming out with left side of map), but it must be available with asdw keys.
- Creating Label
- Toggle Layers

[Lav]

Adjusting the routes of a train can be done from anywhere, but renaming a station requires you to be there and wouldn't be allowed on pause.

You can perfectly rename a station from afar actually.

Apart from that, my sincere +1.

[JohnyDL]

While I kind of like it I'm sure there are practical reasons (like blueprints take 1 tick to place) why this wouldn't be possible and along with a speed increase or decrease but on which the Devs have refused I feel they won't be inclined to add this.

Things to consider:

Normally your planning and blueprint and train scheduling and naming take time, time in which biters evolve might attack etc by allowing this to some degree you're making the biters trivial and it could even be used as a fighting strategy, pause game place new wall blueprint around base wait for bots pause game repeat. Any break throughs can be stopped in their tracks while you set up internal defences.

Normally the things you mention take time so should achievements based on time be disabled when you use the paused play trick or should the timer keep on running?

That said I'd find this feature super useful build megabase with 60FPS on pause walk away and let build over night with bots with low UPS when it won't bother me that the screen is jerky.

[Engimage]

I do also feel that pause is too restrictive in Factorio. I can definitely say that in all other building games you can do stuff while pausing the game. At least observe around, check entities etc. I am not sure if speedrun achievements will suffer much if you could check out stuff on pause. In vanilla you have to walk your way to destination to change anything anyways so its not big of a deal. However it would add so much convenience to the game.

[dog80]

+1 for navigating the map (with keys) while game is paused - could be usefull for large multiplayer maps, when people join or the server saves the game. (On slow servers this may take some time - so you can use the time for looking what needs to be done etc.) - It's just unlogical that you can navigate the map abusing the zoom feature but are unable to use the arrow keys/drag map with mouse...

[damehex]

Been playing for several years now. Keep coming back to it. An all-time favorite game!

I only looked at a couple pages of search, so I'm sorry if this is an oft-repeated request (or if the feature exists & I've never found it):

I'd love to have a Pause mode that keeps the UI alive.

When I pause with SHIFT-SPACE, nothing in the UI remains active. I'd like to pause and still mouse over things, and maybe use some of the other parts of the interface:
>see what individual bots are carrying and how much battery life they've got
>check on train paths
>go over production and energy graphs in detail
>head over to trouble spots on the map to devise an action plan

I understand that the gameplay would be a bit different if we could pause and look all over the place to make plans, so maybe that's not a suggestion everyone would agree with. But in the case of bots, once they're sped up a lot, the ability to mouse over them for info gets completely destroyed. It ever gets very hard to tell what kind of item they're holding, in a big cloud of fast bots. Would be nice to have a Pause that lets me access the mouse-over info pane, even if it's just for whatever's on the screen around the player.