Friday Facts #255 - Construction tools

[Klonan]

https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-255

[Gergely]

Oooh! This Friday Facts is literally FFF-FF! Brilliant!

(Get it?)

Great additions by the way! This copy/paste function will come in handy especially in PvP.

[ChildishGiant]

This is amazing! I'm so glad that the construction planner is being added as a vanilla functionality and I'm also really happy that the research queue isn't dead. When could we expect these features to be added to stable?

[Therax]

I love everything in this FFF except the very last one:

so when the player presses Q, it will invoke a small selection popup next to the mouse, so the player can explicitly select what to do:

This seems like added friction, requiring an added mouse click for what can be a very frequent operation, cleaning a blueprint from the cursor. Requiring a cursor move can also be disruptive if a player is trying to build multiple blueprints that are intended to be aligned with each other, e.g. books of rail building blocks.

Will there or could there be an option available in settings to set the default behavior? (open library, open inventory, destroy, ask each time)

[Brambor]

The news always makes me want to play the game with the changes, so every Friday is like a teaser for the next Factorio release.

I agree with every change mentioned here mainly including the rethought since last FFF. That is, the research queue, and Q while holding blueprint.

Cannot wait to use 0.17 vanilla upgrade planner as well as all the Ctrl+C Ctrl+V !!

[DanGio]

:')

[Bilka]

so when the player presses Q, it will invoke a small selection popup next to the mouse, so the player can explicitly select what to do:

This seems like added friction, requiring an added mouse click for what can be a very frequent operation, cleaning a blueprint from the cursor. Requiring a cursor move can also be disruptive if a player is trying to build multiple blueprints that are intended to be aligned with each other, e.g. books of rail building blocks.

Will there or could there be an option available in settings to set the default behavior? (open library, open inventory, destroy, ask each time)

Big big big +1 from me here, as a speedrunner the extra options just sound annoying. It's also very inconsistent with the rest of the game which just has a keybind for every action you'd want, or a GUI, not both.

[g1franc]

This is awesome: Upgrade planner is less chetty but much more powerful.

Allowing to upgrade (and hope downgrade also) is a must have missing form the mod.

CRTL+ functions are also welcome for power users

[HammerPiano]

Best FFF!
I love the new copy-cut-paste, so many uses.
Upgrade planner in game looks fantastic.
The undo is so cool!
Thank you for putting the research Queue as an option.

[Tom Fryers]

This seems like added friction, requiring an added mouse click for what can be a very frequent operation, cleaning a blueprint from the cursor. Requiring a cursor move can also be disruptive if a player is trying to build multiple blueprints that are intended to be aligned with each other, e.g. books of rail building blocks.

Since we have the copy paste now, the need to make a one-time temporary blueprint should be non-existent , so it shouldn't add any extra annoyance in this use-case.

Don't worry, this only applies if the blueprint hasn't been assigned a location, otherwise it will just close it.

[cbhj1]

if you look closely at the upgrade gif, you'll see that it auto downgraded a belt that was already red back to yellow

[ratchetfreak]

When pressing Q with a new blueprint the blueprint should become the ctrl+v blueprint in the clipboard.

Also in the clipboard menu definitely have an option to turn it into a proper blueprint.

This would integrate copy-paste with the blueprint library a lot more

workflow will become: ctrl+v and select the area to blueprint, then if temporary use ctrl+v to past wherever, if you want a more permanent copy then go to the blueprint library and click the make from clipboard button to make it a blueprint (then naming and icons),

[torham]

Oooh! This Friday Facts is literally FFF-FF! Brilliant!

Good eye! I would also add its Friendly Friday Factorio Facts - FF, since we have good news about the research queue and new awesome copy paste tools.

So it could be FFFF-FF

[AndrewIRL]

One of the best FFF I've seen, agree with every decision and feature. Ctrl C,V,Z - brilliant.

[torham]

When pressing Q with a new blueprint the blueprint should become the ctrl+v blueprint in the clipboard.

Also in the clipboard menu definitely have an option to turn it into a proper blueprint.

This would integrate copy-paste with the blueprint library a lot more

workflow will become: ctrl+v and select the area to blueprint, then if temporary use ctrl+v to past wherever, if you want a more permanent copy then go to the blueprint library and click the make from clipboard button to make it a blueprint (then naming and icons),

This is an excellent idea!

[Doomquill]

Thank you thank you thank you for not killing research queue.

I agree with the concern that adding an extra click after hitting Q while holding a blueprint is going to be annoying, but I'm wondering if maybe it won't because people will more often use copy past functionality than blueprints. I know most of what I do is Delete old blueprint>shift select new section of things>put them somewhere>press Q. Which the copy paste functionality makes unnecessary. So maybe it won't be as bad as it initially sounds.

Can't wait for native upgrade planner functionality!

Yay research queue!!

[KatherineOfSky]

Nice new additions!

Does the Upgrade Planner functionality mark tiles for upgrade within a network? For example, if you want to upgrade your entire main bus, and you run out of belts on your character: will it also draw from storage within the logistics network? (And ask bots in the roboports to complete the upgrade?)

I SEVERELY object to the proposed Q/blueprint let go solution. In an average 30 minute chunk, I might use blueprints 50 or more times -- that would be a heck of a lot of clicking some option box! PLEASE NO! Personally, I prefer that Q automatically drop the held BP into the inventory automatically, (and often on my hotbar). I reuse the same BP multiple times for small things, and often have a handful of BPs that I want to keep on me. (Thus, the Copy & Paste holding only 1 BP is not always ideal. The History *might* solve this, but TBH I find it very easy to just click the icon from my inventory).

If you want players to have options, please make a tickbox in the Options menu. I would rather have the BP dropped ALL the time into my inventory, and then clear it out every once in a while than have to use 50 clicks/decision making points/open inventory & drop in instances per every 30 minutes. That would be absolutely horrendous.

(Also, I am not exaggerating about 100 times per hour -- often, I will use the BP to copy little things here and there, erase, copy, erase, change, multiply, etc.)


I have to say I got very excited when I saw the robots in the FFF deconstructing basic items like stone smelters and yellow belts -- I was very much hoping you were announcing early game robots! (Would LOVE these! <3 )

[super_aardvark]

LOVE the copy/paste and blueprint changes. Any chance you can solve this problem next?: I'm about to cut/past a large chunk. I don't have free inventory for all of it, or it's too big a job for my personal roboport (or I don't have one), so bots from my base come, and cart all the stuff 50 chunks away to a storage chest, then haul it back when I paste. Next time, I wise up: I plop down a storage chest to give the bots a place to stash everything... but there's a medium electric pole in a storage chest 50 chunks away, so all the medium electric poles get taken over there instead of to the nice empty chest right here.

Regarding the drop-the-blueprint behavior with the menu, there should be an advanced option to set the action when pressing Q to avoid the menu (or leave the option alone to have the menu pop up).

[Zavian]

I love everything in this FFF except the very last one:

so when the player presses Q, it will invoke a small selection popup next to the mouse, so the player can explicitly select what to do:

This seems like added friction, requiring an added mouse click for what can be a very frequent operation, cleaning a blueprint from the cursor. Requiring a cursor move can also be disruptive if a player is trying to build multiple blueprints that are intended to be aligned with each other, e.g. books of rail building blocks.

Will there or could there be an option available in settings to set the default behavior? (open library, open inventory, destroy, ask each time)

I have to agree. I don't want to have to deal with a pop-up every time I press Q on a new blueprint. (I also don't want it added to my library automatically. I want to keep the library for stuff I want in many games, and don't want to add every new blueprint to it automatically. That would just lead to 100s of blueprints, and a mess that would make it difficult to find the one I'm looking for). So for me I would want to set every new blueprint to be dropped into my inventory, unless I choose to move it to my library.

[AutomationIsFun]

I absolutely love all the news. Ctrl+Z happened with me a lot when i press it and then remember there is no such thing in game. Copy-paste thing is obviousely super usefull and i ab happy the research queue is coming back. Awesome awesome.