Friday Facts #212 - The GUI update (Part 1)

[xeln4g4]

This new GUI really look wonderful! Looking forward to have it ingame!

[TheRaph]

I've got a sugestion to solve the problem with highly requested demand of having the option to add more than one train to a scheduling list and the goal to be clearly understandable for newbes.

I have use MS-Paint to reorder some things in mockups ...

Here my idea (may not perfect but gets rid of some things already mentioned in this thread)

train-shed2.png (400.87 KiB) Viewed 8032 times

Her you can see that the complete Scheduling thing is removed from train-menu ... to add a schedule one can click the dropdown-list and select an existing one or you click "create new" ... in this case the newly created schedule will attached to the train automaticly - so the newbes may get this.

If one (new or existing) schedule is selected the "create new" butten will change to "edit". (so you have to unselect schedules to create a new one.)

Under the headline you can see the entire train and how full each waggon is. If the player (fig.) ist standing right next to the locomotive he can put the fuel directly into it, in the other case it should be grayed out.

Is far as I see the most player here dont like extending ears as menu so I've change the shape of the window too.

train-shed3.png (386.77 KiB) Viewed 8032 times

If you click new or edit in first window, this second one apears.
Somone in this treat like to have wide fields so he can have long station names - I take this in account and put the station-fields so, that they use up the whole width.
A click on "Wait conditons"-button will open a small sub window with conditons.
To have an better understanding in which orde ANDs and ORs will be interpreted I addes 3 layers of logical operation. This painted in picture means "((15s passed AND cargo > 100) OR (160s passed))".
The place behind the "wait conditons" could be used to show the conditions in short terms or so.

On the left side I picted a solution for the demanded select next station by condition.
In "station selection window" there should be a option "by wire network" and "by inventory"
the you can enter some states to check the connected wire or inventory of the train ...
In this picture you see for example: If "speed module 2" is more than 100 in network goto Base, if "speed module 2" is less than 100 in Network than goto "outpost No1" ... the third state will never happen, because 0 is less than 100.

I have read someone like to read wire networks frome the destination station - I don't like that, because it is against game mechanic and against reality . In my mind is has to be checked on the last used station (in this example "Station #2"). If you like to no the wire-networke-state of the destination station you have to build a looong cable from the destination to the last station

I hope my english is not too bad to understand, but I've no english spellcheker at this PC at the moment.

Edit: I realy like this game ... and the work you've done

[aRatNamedSammy]

WOW already impatient to try this new GUI...
something nice could be added i think.. when planning train route, a possibility to choose an other way to move to next station, like we can do with real GPS, and want to avoid a particular area.
i ask this, cause with maps loaded with rails, some places become "traffic jam" kind of , smelters area as exemple , so i want my train who reload the outpost avoid that zone.
or i prefer ore trains to take that specific 4 way line, and others take the smaller 2 way , i dont care for the few more seconds they will take to do that detour...
just my 2 cents
.. and im already impatient for 0.17
great work Wube

[keentom]

Ok, after reading the FF it became obvious to me that we need a pin-function for every GUI-window. Like in Banished.
Maybe at some point for whatever reason I always want to have one specific assembler visible. Or one train or whatever. Would that be possible or could this be modded in?

[vanatteveldt]

Ok, after reading the FF it became obvious to me that we need a pin-function for every GUI-window. Like in Banished.
Maybe at some point for whatever reason I always want to have one specific assembler visible. Or one train or whatever. Would that be possible or could this be modded in?

I think this should be a researchable and buildable item: "CCTV". You can place a CCTV camera wherever you want a live stream, and you can open a window to any specific CCTV stream.

[adiac]

I relation to the Map-GUI: Please make it so you can move the Map with the right (or middle) mouse button while having an item selected. You either have to deselect the item or use WASD (which is a little bit too sensitive) for that at the moment.

[chris13524]

Ok, after reading the FF it became obvious to me that we need a pin-function for every GUI-window. Like in Banished.
Maybe at some point for whatever reason I always want to have one specific assembler visible. Or one train or whatever. Would that be possible or could this be modded in?

I think this should be a researchable and buildable item: "CCTV". You can place a CCTV camera wherever you want a live stream, and you can open a window to any specific CCTV stream.

You can sort of do that with the zoom-to-map thing, but can't pin it.

[Bizz Keryear]

This weeks Friday Facts gave me a raging boner.
Though there are a few things that I'd like to have when it comes to trains.
I always wanted a "GO THERE" option. Which would on one hand work like the normal schedule. You specify a target, ... maybe with the new options, even without a stop ... and then say it to go there. ... and it goes there ... but no conditions are given, and once arrived it will be deleted.
That way you can go anywhere on your tracks by train and not run into other trains ... even if it is really crowded.

I also use to move trains like this around while I am setting up new parts of the track (since at the destination a lot of things are to be build ... and just stamping down a blueprint or two just doesn't work since every area is just a little different)

Right now I make schedules with impossible conditions ... like go there till cargo is full and cargo is empty. Which makes the train stop at a station as long as I need it to ...


And now something complete different:
_________________________________________________________

Full post with images

Like [Marcus] 猛虎爆進拳 proposed on Steam, I support his motion to add an Alternate Skin option for the GUI..for those of us who love the Fallout-y look of the game:

Original:


Idea:

[...]

Like [Marcus] 猛虎爆進拳 proposed on Steam, I support his motion to add an Alternate Skin option for the GUI..for those of us who love the Fallout-y look of the game:
[...]
RUST SKIN FTW!

I think the skins will be modable ... Also I though you wanted a Fallout style, not a RUST style ... ;p

_______________________________________

Speaking of modable skins.
I am hoping that resource packs and "real" mods will be separated. So that you can change the look of the game, but (if you don't touch the mechanics) the achievements are still working.

That way you can change the backdrop of the UI, or how the machines look (everything else would be the same though) ,... or actually how anything LOOKS without the game considering a "mod" being installed.

[bman212121]

I definitely like the changes coming to the train network. I'm sure you guys will be able to figure out a way to make it much easier for the end user, so we can build train networks much faster.

There were a few comments on how the search function might work for finding stations. Someone suggested ordering the list by the closest stations. I do like that suggestion, but I'm already thinking that a couple of toggles might be nice.

Let's say you have 2 lines right next to each other that never touch, your list of available stations might have every other station grayed out because it is unavailable. It would be nice to simply hide unavailable stations so you can focus on just the current line you are working on. But someone definitely mentioned debugging a line where maybe one is unavailable because you made a mistake, then it would be nice to see stations by distance from the current station, so you can quickly figure out the station you want is not connected, and connect it. For actually building a route, it would be awesome that each time you add a station, the list updates and shows the next closest station that's connected, and would also show other stations in close proximity if the unavailable station toggle was on. If you knew you had a solid route though, I'd turn off unavailable stations, and once you set the first station, the list would then show the 2nd one in the most logical order being the closest one on the connected track, you'd click that and the list updates again to the next closest on the connected track, on and on again. You could probably build a full route in a few seconds if all of the ground work was done properly.

TL;DR A toggle for unavailable stations would be great so you only see what stations are possible options in your list. Having them sorted by distance is likely more helpful than alphabetically.

[oldskippy]

Good news about the changes. Please remember to keep in mind the 15-20% of the population that has some form of colorblindness. To fix that you need CONTRAST!!! not color. The simple view is if it doesn't work in black and white, then it has a problem. Colors are great just not all at the same greyscale value.

Example currently the red and green electronics are very close in contrast, a little darker red and a little lighter green would make it soooo much more fun to play.

Good GUI's involve a lot of factors, contrast and color are just as important as form and function. And its even good for those who are not color blind or think that they aren't.

thanks for making a great game!

[Omarflyjoemacky]

I really like the transparency. Some do, some don't. Many games have a slider for transparency adjustment... so that would satisfy both sides.

Can't believe the amount of comments on the text contrast though. Calm down everyone, they are still working on it.

[Escadin]

I have always wondered what Factorio might look like with a more creative UI design. What I mean is all window frames are sterile gray bars while in most other games they use textures for frames which transport the game's theme and aesthetetics.
For factorio this would probably mean an indication of iron (or copper) pipes, wires and gears. Or steel beams perhaps.

Nethertheless, I cannot claim the lack of such textures has bothered me in the past. It's just that I wouldn't blame anyone who finds this sort of sterile solid gray boring or basic.

As far as functionality goes, however, I love every detail you suggested and I hope you find and integrate even more of these precious goodies. I even have a suggestion for one:
Add an edit button to blueprints which allows us to draw the blueprint again from scratch except name and icons are kept.

I cannot count how many times I hade to type the same name and go through different tabs in order to select the same icons over and over again because I found a little flaw or potential for improvement in the blueprint I was developing. It seems like updating a blueprint is the most common interaction with them after placing but somehow this hasn't been accounted for at all. Wish the game would take some of the repetitive and unnecessary work of my hands and support me in updating blueprints more efficiently and faster without so much tedium.

[Dorus]

Awesome love it.

Would you guys be able to make the GUI show how much fuel will be consumed if the train drives the whole schedule once, and how long one schedule would take to complete ignoring the waiting conditions?
Or make it show how long the train would take to drive between the stations ignoring the intervention by other trains of course.
Would like that for production optimisations and timing.

[Pure Ownage]

You show the conditions for all stops for the train at the same time.

I think it would be cool if each stop had it's own list so you can add many wait until conditions.

[Jap2.0]

Awesome love it.

Would you guys be able to make the GUI show how much fuel will be consumed if the train drives the whole schedule once, and how long one schedule would take to complete ignoring the waiting conditions?
Or make it show how long the train would take to drive between the stations ignoring the intervention by other trains of course.
Would like that for production optimisations and timing.

The thing is, it could only show you that for the optimal course. Paths aren't always the same, so if you did put that in there some people would take it as "it will always be this way" even if it won't. You could say "Optimal time:", but the optimal result is often uncommen, especially in busy train networks.

[ikarikeiji]

I've got a sugestion to solve the problem with highly requested demand of having the option to add more than one train to a scheduling list and the goal to be clearly understandable for newbes.

I have use MS-Paint to reorder some things in mockups ...

I felt like I was the only one reading the thread who was bugged by the oddly shaped windows, and the overly embossed borders everywhere, and much preferred the older design, but we all know comments that amount to "Don't change it, your new design sucks" never go down well.

TheRaph has shown us how the window shape can be much more pleasant, and added a really nice "train overview" GUI, showing the fuel of all locos, and a simple way to do schedules. That's the kind of improvement we need! Please devs, please do this.

[jackthesmack]

Like [Marcus] 猛虎爆進拳 proposed on Steam, I support his motion to add an Alternate Skin option for the GUI..for those of us who love the Fallout-y look of the game:

Original:

Idea:

RUST SKIN FTW!

What if you start out with a rust skin, and as you progress technologically you get an iron skin, then a steel skin, then a plastic skin?

[Tolrin]

I just want to echo some sentiments that others have mentioned already: I have some concerns with the schedule layout proposed.

The new schedule layout is very bulky. It looks great when there's 1-2 train stops with 1-2 conditions each, but in a more complicated factory some of my trains have more than half a dozen stops each with many sometimes complicated wait conditions. This would cause an extremely long scroll to look through all the stops in a list, and in some cases even all the conditions for a single stop would not be visible on one screen making it difficult to parse them quickly. Now, these things are not necessarily something you need to look at very frequently, so perhaps my concerns are not a huge problem, but although more aesthetically pleasing than the current UI, I believe it would be a step back in functionality.

Also, again something others have touched on, while you are adding train features the single biggest feature I'd like to have for trains is the ability to copy a list of conditions from one stop on a schedule to another. The biggest time sink in setting up a new train is adding dozens of conditions to 2-3 train stops, only to realize later that one condition is miss-signed somewhere.

[TheRaph]

Text

I felt like I was the only one reading the thread who was bugged by the oddly shaped windows, and the overly embossed borders everywhere, and much preferred the older design, but we all know comments that amount to "Don't change it, your new design sucks" never go down well.

TheRaph has shown us how the window shape can be much more pleasant, and added a really nice "train overview" GUI, showing the fuel of all locos, and a simple way to do schedules. That's the kind of improvement we need! Please devs, please do this.

Thanks

I forgot some buttons, so I redo my last picture:

Picture

train-shed3ext.png (390.64 KiB) Viewed 7740 times

[Hannu]

Could you give an option (simple checkbox) to force path shown in map? In my opinion possibility to get rid of stupid pathing would give much more than all graphics changes.