Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

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Quadoo
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by Quadoo »

A couple remarks:

- Why do blue prints need to be items? We just crashed with a spaceship, I'm sure we have something like a smartphone. So blueprints can be files that are kept in an actual 'library' which can be accessed with this smartphone. Tech could be implemented to research "datanetworks" to make blueprints sharable in multiplayer-games. (see the 'chest' idea pleegwat mentioned. The 'chest' would be a computer only accessible by clicking on it at first, maybe you can make a 'data-cable' with which you can hook up your phone and exchange data, but after research the 4g (or maybe 25g in the game) network comes online again and smartphones can hook up to it wireless throughout the map (or maybe antenna's should be placed))

- Please make a tree structure. Or at least make it so that it is a bit harder to shuffle around blueprints in a book (or the book order itself for that matter). I sometimes want to quickly select a blueprint (not using the mouse-wheel) by opening the book and clicking on the blueprint. But half of the times I accidentally move the blueprint... (I know, I am misusing the functionality, but still). Maybe left click should only highlight the blueprint making a 'move' button available. After clicking on 'move' it can work as it does now.

- Blueprints should be available at the beginning. New players can use tutorials.

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5thHorseman
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by 5thHorseman »

Gecko wrote:
Twinsen wrote:The blueprint library button will be disabled until bots are researched[...]
What the Fuck?! For some there is a 'Could you reconsider please?' or 'Are you sure this is good?' For me there is a very strong 'HELL, NO!'.
My response seemed a bit tamer than yours:
5thHorseman wrote: Could we have a clarification on this?
But only because I quoted the whole sentence, not the (scary indeed) first half of it:
The blueprint library button will be disabled until bots are researched or until any item is added to the library for the first time.
Until they tell us what the mechanism is to add an item to the library for the first time, I think we should assume they don't hate us and want us all to cry. I also know the first mod I'll install if they do lock it to bots.

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by mexmer »

5thHorseman wrote:
Gecko wrote:
Twinsen wrote:The blueprint library button will be disabled until bots are researched[...]
What the Fuck?! For some there is a 'Could you reconsider please?' or 'Are you sure this is good?' For me there is a very strong 'HELL, NO!'.
My response seemed a bit tamer than yours:
5thHorseman wrote: Could we have a clarification on this?
But only because I quoted the whole sentence, not the (scary indeed) first half of it:
The blueprint library button will be disabled until bots are researched or until any item is added to the library for the first time.
Until they tell us what the mechanism is to add an item to the library for the first time, I think we should assume they don't hate us and want us all to cry. I also know the first mod I'll install if they do lock it to bots.
problem is, how the game tells you researched bots already.
yes it's tracked in achievements, but from time to time achievement reset, there is separate achievements for modded and nonmodded game, when you install second copy on new computer, guess what? you have no achievements, and so on.
even if it's "one time only"" unlock, it's unnecessary and tedious ... it's like saying, everyone needs go trough tutorial to be able to use steam engines....

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by <NO_NAME> »

Since you have started to work on the mod portal, what about e-mail notifications for discussion page?
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by blavek »

A few comments
The functionality of automatic blueprint library sharing in multiplayer is removed. The "shared blueprints" panel is removed. Blueprints and blueprint books in multiplayer will be shared by manually trading the items or by linking them in the chat. Blueprints or books linked in the chat can be clicked to pick up a copy that can be used as a normal item.
Please don't remove this. Transferring blueprints as items is very tedious. plus you have no way of knowing what is in a blue print without putting it into your inventory and right clicking to view it. The library allows me a way to inspect w/o having to go through much trouble.
The blueprint editing interface (the UI that opens when you right-click a blueprint) will have 2 new buttons:
Reassign: assign new contents to this blueprint. This is helpful when you want to update a blueprint and leave it in the same place in the player inventory, blueprint library or action bar.
+
The blueprint editor GUI should allow you to zoom and pan around to better inspect it. You can add buildings while holding an item or ghost item from the action bar; for convenience a small interface will give you the possibility to place any ghost item in the cursor. This is intended for quick corrections. Things like connecting cables or changing entity settings will not be possible; for bigger changes use the Reassign button.
Why are these ideas separate functions. I want to be able to edit blue prints as if I where building in the game world. What does Reassign do differently that shouldn't be done by essentially giving me a playground to build in, within a blue print can't or wouldn't do. Also when "building" in a blue print no items should be limited based on research. I might want to design a blue print for future use.
Maybe add a signifier in the library or on the blue print showing that it contains items not yet researched. This can and probably should extend to mods. If the BP has a mod item in it that I currently don't have installed. This also suggests a potential automatic sorting option for the blue print library based on research required to use them. As well there should be other automatic sorting options like alphabetical, number of parts? something else which could be sorted on.
Duplicate: create a new blueprint with a different unique identifier, but the same contents, and place it in the player cursor. This can be useful when players want to take a copy of a blueprint from the library to edit, experiment with or remove buildings from, without changing the original blueprint.
I think possibly a better option than duplicate or in addition to duplicate would be BP versioning. Especially if I can look through previous versions. This would require a button in the BP edit tool to bump a version or as a part of the duplicate tool an option could be to increase a version number. But you could "store" all versions of a blue print in one spot in the library. Additionally Versioning could allow a user to create the same blueprint at various tech levels negating the need for "Upgrade Planner Functionality" on a blueprint. And with the previous research based sorting the BP could automatically use the most high tech version of the blue print. This too should be player selectable or could be achieved Via a modifier hot Key like control or, that BP could allow for Shift + scrolling to travel through the different versions. Possibly you implement a versioning and a varriation system. A version is a change to a blueprint and the user would mark a BP as a new version and a variation on the blue print which is an identical BP layout but uses a different variety of parts. Currently in my library I have 3 whole books for yellow, red and blue splitters. With a variation option that becomes a single book.
The blueprint library button will be disabled until bots are researched or until any item is added to the library for the first time. This means less GUIs for new players to get lost in, also less of an invitation to use the controversial string importing at the beginning for the game.
The assumption here is that if I have something in the library from a different game it will be available. What if I play on a new or different computer? What if my wife is playing on my computer and she has never seen a bp before? An automatic solution for this new player experience item probably isn't the best option. Instead, why not make Blueprint library visibility a toggleable option so advanced players that might want to go in and build some blue prints before they research bots can or more importantly players how want to use a blue print to drop ghosts for them to build on top of can still do that. For new players or those who haven't opted into having BP functionality being there all the time introduce it when ghosts are explained to them. Further if you are hiding this from new players and they happen to jump into a multiplayer game with bots researched they will now all of a sudden get a bunch of new GUI elements they have never see or had explained to them before. I understand that you cannot prepare for all cases but I think this is a problem to consider and, I feel that it should be solved in a way which doesn't remove functionality to veteran players.
Shortcuts to Blueprinting Tools can be created ...
This is kind of a mess overall specifically
If the Blueprinting Tool is removed (or destroyed) from the library, and a different game is loaded that had a shortcut to that Blueprinting Tool, the shortcut will become greyed out forever, and it can only be cleared. This is to give feedback that there used to be a Blueprinting Tool there.
Instead of allowing me as a player to possibly ruin my other saves allow me to remove/delete it from a current game but if it is still in use in another game keep it in tact. Keep a global library which is a collection of all blue prints and then a local modified one. If I want to remove a blue print from the global library force me to accept a "this could harm other saves" button. Then when you are building the local library in a save compare to the global to make sure that the blueprints I have saved still exist in the global library. If they do great, If not don't add them to the local game save. Similarly the Global library should update whenever a BP is made in my save. The current suggested solution I think will cause more of a headache.

Finally I do agree with other posters, that a Tree View with a Preview Window would be greater than a grid with 4 icons and Schrodinger blueprint inside. A tree view can also support multiple versions of a BP probably even better than a grid can. Also, you can have toggleable options for what's been researched or alpha or some other number of options for sorting and visibility. There have been many other great suggestions in the this thread as well like the ability to search blueprints that should also be looked at but I feel my post has gone on enough. Keep up the good work and please continue to iterate on this Blueprint library problem. I feel you are much closer to a great solution but this isn't quite there yet. I am also in favor of a "blueprint inventory" a way to have my blueprints accessible for my most common ones but not have them take up inventory space. Maybe a separate action bar like many MMORPG's have. If you are worried about hotkeying use modifers ctrl shift alt in the 7 different ways they can be applied as well as allowing player to assign their own hotkeys. There are 101 keys on a typical keyboard * 7 modification options as well as many players having gaming devices with more keys. There are plenty of hot keys to go around for more action bars.
The blueprint editor GUI should allow you to zoom and pan around to better inspect it. You can add buildings while holding an item or ghost item from the action bar; for convenience a small interface will give you the possibility to place any ghost item in the cursor
I'd like to take a second and highlight this as an amazing idea and one I personally have been looking for since 0.12.x. I still though don't understand why or how this is different from reassign. Quick updates and complex updates can be done with a single system that is flexible enough to allow you to build a blue print. The copy from whats built should remain but this would be a nice addition. It would be especially nice, if I could use other blue prints to place my ghosts in the blue print I am creating. And this may be a bit of a stretch but it would also be cool if there was an interface where I could build a blueprint w/o actually loading a save and starting the game. And maybe, in something similar to the mod portal a BP portal where people can post their blue prints and they could be automajically added to my library like mods are... Maybe even some kind of an app or a webpage so I can make blueprints while I am at work or some family function I have been dragged to, or on the toilet...

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by meganothing »

<NO_NAME> wrote:I don't know what to think about the reassign option because its function isn't described.
This reassing button is just a button where you replace an already existing BP with a new BP you just created. (At least this is the way I understand it). So instead of saving the new BP to some place in the library you save it to an already occupied place where it replaces an old BP. And it keeps references to it (in the action bar for example) intact.

This is not an edit function!

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by T.Shirt »

With blue prints, I still want/need blue print names that have more than 8 - 10 visible characters. I thought the world grew up past the constrictions of MS-DOS like crap years ago. The grid icon layout forces this behavior. Blueprints are usually arranged in books by in a way that they all have nearly the same icons so the only way to differentiate is the name or to open every blueprint. A List view option would be good.

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by meganothing »

mexmer wrote: problem is, how the game tells you researched bots already.
yes it's tracked in achievements, but from time to time achievement reset, there is separate achievements for modded and nonmodded game, when you install second copy on new computer, guess what? you have no achievements, and so on.
even if it's "one time only"" unlock, it's unnecessary and tedious ... it's like saying, everyone needs go trough tutorial to be able to use steam engines....
I don't think it is an achievement unlock. It has to happen in every game. But either it happens automatically if you research bots. Or you deliberately do it at any time by "adding to the library for the first time". I think this might be possible with the ctrl-c COPY action.

@Twinsen: Is it possible to make a blueprint out of a ctrl-c created quick copy? Your document doesn't say anything about it but it would be very strange if such a functionality would be missing.
Last edited by meganothing on Sun Jul 08, 2018 3:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by blavek »

meganothing wrote:
mexmer wrote: problem is, how the game tells you researched bots already.
yes it's tracked in achievements, but from time to time achievement reset, there is separate achievements for modded and nonmodded game, when you install second copy on new computer, guess what? you have no achievements, and so on.
even if it's "one time only"" unlock, it's unnecessary and tedious ... it's like saying, everyone needs go trough tutorial to be able to use steam engines....
I don't think it is a time only/achievement unlock. It has to happen in every game. But either it happens automatically if you research bots. Or you deliberately do it at any time by "adding to the library for the first time". I think this might be possible with the ctrl-c COPY action.

@Twinsen: Is it possible to make a blueprint out of a ctrl-c created quick copy? Your document doesn't say anything about it but it would be very strange if such a functionality would be missing.
My interpretation is that if you have played a game before and added a blue print to the library then in future games the BPL will be available. It would only affect your first game.

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by NIronwolf »

I couldn't stand the hand drawn mockup I had on my longer post. Here's a better one.

Also, I'd like to suggest while you're making changes to the BP system that you can manually change the insert point of a blueprint. For instance, say that 5x5 array is 25 of the Solar Array w/ Roboport. Without using some mod to be able to zoom out farther you can't see the edges. But if I could mark one of the corners as the insert point (where the BP tacks on the mouse cursor) I could see the important edge and align it from there. This should be editable without having to remake the BP also.
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by WIZ4 »

NIronwolf wrote:I couldn't stand the hand drawn mockup I had on my longer post. Here's a better one.

Also, I'd like to suggest while you're making changes to the BP system that you can manually change the insert point of a blueprint. For instance, say that 5x5 array is 25 of the Solar Array w/ Roboport. Without using some mod to be able to zoom out farther you can't see the edges. But if I could mark one of the corners as the insert point (where the BP tacks on the mouse cursor) I could see the important edge and align it from there. This should be editable without having to remake the BP also.
It's great!
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by <NO_NAME> »

blavek wrote:
expand
I agree with pretty much all of this.
NIronwolf wrote:I couldn't stand the hand drawn mockup I had on my longer post. Here's a better one.

Also, I'd like to suggest while you're making changes to the BP system that you can manually change the insert point of a blueprint. For instance, say that 5x5 array is 25 of the Solar Array w/ Roboport. Without using some mod to be able to zoom out farther you can't see the edges. But if I could mark one of the corners as the insert point (where the BP tacks on the mouse cursor) I could see the important edge and align it from there. This should be editable without having to remake the BP also.
This picture is so beautiful!
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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by T-A-R »

Very well, much like the idea from last week by TaxiService. In that version lines are added in the hiarchy which work for me very well. Need to mention that he is pointing out an inventory mockup, while u have an inventory mockup. The buttons you use on the right side of the content are clever.

I really will have to get used to the new interface, but seeing more and more mockups from both devs and users i think i will really gonna like it.

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by Oktokolo »

NIronwolf wrote:I couldn't stand the hand drawn mockup I had on my longer post. Here's a better one.
Way too much an area is filled with bright colors. But otherwise it looks good.
But the Lines are too high. 15 prints per scroll page are not enough.

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by Zanthra »

Please do keep automatic blueprint library sharing, it's a wonderful thing, and definately worth keeping and maintaining. I have seen very little argument against it for players that don't want people to be able to look at their blueprints, and if that's the case, a gameplay option to opt out of blueprint sharing would be fine (whether it applies to single blueprints or all blueprints).

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by NIronwolf »

Oktokolo wrote:Way too much an area is filled with bright colors. But otherwise it looks good.
But the Lines are too high. 15 prints per scroll page are not enough.
Honestly after actually making it I think it's to much too. Maybe have the highlight only under the right or left ends. Or perhaps omit it all together if the BP/Book/DC icons are on the right end. I was going for easy to tell what type it is in a list, but overshot.

I was trying to balance icon size. I think the window should just be taller.

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by Arcania85 »

A big NO for the forced disable blue print functionality.
even without bots i still ghost some simple stuff early game and manually place it for the sake of not rethinking every component.

At least give an option to re-enable it directly from the start or link it to an achievment.


Something else: the shift scroll functionality of the blueprint book was tedious when you had multiple pages, is it possible to simply change the current blue print selection by clicking on it?
its way more inituative.
(wanna select a blueprint from a book? click on it)

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by Optera »

Disabling mod portal discussions is perhaps the smallest yet most useful addition to the mod portal.
Even with an Announcement post on top that I don't check these discussions ppl would keep posting there and get angry for being ignored.

Next could be to allow us properly moderating discussions with locking, deleting, merging, splitting.
Simplest way would be to link the discussion tab to an automatically generated forum thread. Would also require a setting so we can change the path to a subforum for bigger mods.

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by dgw »

Optera wrote:Disabling mod portal discussions is perhaps the smallest yet most useful addition to the mod portal.
Even with an Announcement post on top that I don't check these discussions ppl would keep posting there and get angry for being ignored.

Next could be to allow us properly moderating discussions with locking, deleting, merging, splitting.
Simplest way would be to link the discussion tab to an automatically generated forum thread. Would also require a setting so we can change the path to a subforum for bigger mods.
Honestly, I think the best long-term direction for the mod portal's discussions feature would be just integrating it with the phpBB forums somehow. It would probably be overkill to give every mod its own subforum, but there has to be a better way than the current Completely Separate Silo With No Notifications…

For now, though, it's plenty to just disable discussions and add a header message pointing to the GitHub issue tracker, forum thread, or whatever place the mod author(s) actually monitor for support. (And being able to add collaborators and transfer mod ownership is just great, been waiting for that!)

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Re: Friday Facts #250 - Dead end conclusion

Post by bobingabout »

I dig the collaborator thing. not so much the deprecated, but I'm sure it will be useful.

I haven't even really used the blueprint library as it is, so... no feedback on that.
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