Friday Facts #255 - Construction tools

[nickcombs]

Regarding blueprints: My opinion is that no blueprints should ever mingle with "real" items in a player's inventory. What I mean by this is that a blueprint will always live solely within the blueprints menu. Any blueprint in hand is only then an considered an instance of the real plan. Pressing Q to make it go away always deletes the instance, but the real thing is always in the menu if needed.

This achieves two key things:
1. I always know where my blueprints live (in the blueprints menu, funny that!)
2. I never have to delete extra blueprint copies clogging up my inventory slots.

It may also be helpful to do some auto-sorting in the blueprints menu so that the last modified item is always at the top. Basically, we want to decide on ONE place for these to live and then make that place as convenient as possible to use.

[Zavian]

Regarding blueprints: My opinion is that no blueprints should ever mingle with "real" items in a player's inventory. What I mean by this is that a blueprint will always live solely within the blueprints menu. Any blueprint in hand is only then an considered an instance of the real plan. Pressing Q to make it go away always deletes the instance, but the real thing is always in the menu if needed.

Would mean that when everytime I create a blueprint for a temporary purpose, it would end up in my permanent blueprint library? If so then no thanks, I create too many blueprint that are only going to be used on the map they were created for to want them all ending up in the library. But if there was a game specific blueprint area form which I could push and pull to/from the library, that would be cool.

[bripi]

What annoys me is how they're butchering upgrade planner. Now it will not automatically take from player inventory, according to this. And it looks like you have to have construction bots and personal roboport for it? BOGUS - this was the second greatest feature of UP is that you didn't need bots for it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

[eradicator]

The (arguable) advantage is, that it can no longer upgrade instantly from the player inventory, so it is more balanced and consistent with the other construction tools.

And the (arguable) disadvantage is that it is now completely locked behind robots. This means that the example screenshot of replacing yellow/yellow belts/inserters with blue/red isn't ever going to happen, because you get red belts and fast inserters way before robots. This is especially hurtful in mods that make robot research significantly more expensive while still requiring several upgrade steps (i.e. xanders mod). Maybe a sort of manual mode would be possible where you have to press a button and hover over each marked-for-upgrade entity to manually upgrade it? This wouldn't be as fast as bots, but works without them and removes the need to manually select the correct item for each upgradeable entity. I.e. an "assisted manual upgrade" mode.

This is the second post I've read where people fixate on the items used in the example. Its a demonstration of the capability. Who cares whether or not its a likely situation. Its a proof of concept, and it works. What difference does it make if they show upgrading yellow belts to red or if they show upgrading red belts to blue. Did the tool upgrade the the item? Yes it did.

Second, the "you have to use bots" thing. Klonan's mod is broken OP and bypasses the game mechanics in a big way. It lets you remotely replace an item instantaneously without the use of bots. That's fine if you want that kind of thing in a modded game, but its definitely not realistic in terms of base game balance. As for "push a button and hover over the entity" you already have that capability in the hotbar.

The point is that locking easy upgrades behind a working oil setup moves the feature too far into mid-game. Motivating people to not use red belts until they have bots (because once the feature exists manually upgrading belts will feel more tedious than it does now. Human brains are lazy.). This imho breaks part of the gameplay "flow", and is even worse with mods that delay bot development.

My proposed "upgrade button" (similar to rotate button) is not something the game currently offers in any way. Nor is it "overpowered" in any way.

[Zavian]

You don't need red belts belts until after you have blue science running. Hence you don't need to use upgrades until then. Yeah that is arguably mid-game, but even 1 yellow belt of iron is enough until you get some construction bots built.

[jodokus31]

What annoys me is how they're butchering upgrade planner. Now it will not automatically take from player inventory, according to this. And it looks like you have to have construction bots and personal roboport for it? BOGUS - this was the second greatest feature of UP is that you didn't need bots for it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

With upgrade planner mod, you can just stand in the "mall area" and upgrade everything per map view in any distance, even without longreach. It's nice for AB games, where you have so many different tiers of stuff.
But it feels a bit cheaty for me.
That fact, that items are not picked up and places again using bots, should make the new UP a good balance imho.
For vanilla games it will be a great QoL improvement. esp. for midgame

For overhaul mods, which delays robots, i would go for nanobots (which I do anyway)

Of course, if it would be possible to upgrade instantly in reach area, i wont be mad

[NeilN]

For copy/paste, it would be really good if we had the option to rotate and flip what is being pasted before actually doing the paste. Also, are these changes going to work with existing mods like Nanobots and Long Reach?

[Drusige]

"we had a small Factorio 0.17 LAN party this weekend"

Now, that's a low blow if I ever saw one....

[linearj]

Very much looking forward to 0.17!

As I have mentioned in a reply on a previous FFF, blueprints do indeed need an overhaul, and getting cut/copy/paste into the bargain, well, wow!
My thoughts:

* Decouple blueprints completely from inventory.
* Implement as copy/paste.
* All blueprint repositories are just persistent clipboards.
* You would have three libnraries: current (local to game), personal (your library) and shared (multiplayer).
* Making a persistent blueprint is then: copy from game, open blueprint tab, paste.
* Moving between blueprint "libraries" open source tab, select, copy. Open target tab, paste.
* Books are drag and drop.
* Finally, a separate hot bar can contain pointers to a blueprint or book in any libary (i.e., a link).

[Pascali]

You can just copy a blueprint from anywhere and it´s build. You only have to say build irgon-mine on this place and coal-mine on that place -> all done by robots and blueprints. Lean back and play another game. So all this comfort-things are competitors to your game-play-time. And you don´t have the nice feeling you have done all the work by yourself. At least a option has to be there, where you aren´t able to use blueprints and this autoreplace-stuff. So all players in a multiplayer-game have the same chances.

All players in multiplayer are able to use blueprints. They also are able to view youtube videos about best mine-based tactics and bring their own experience to the game. Chances are already as equal, as they can be.

And if you want the feeling that you have done all the work by yourself... Try just not using blueprints from the net (it actually works - tested it some hundreds of hours myself).

So therefore it would be good, if you can´t. So you can´t run into going into the easy-mode. And for multipalyer it would be good, too, if you would have an option. If anyone wants to watch youtube, he can. But he has to build it himself. For us, wie don´t watched youtube until our first match endet.

[eagleeyeaces]

This is regarding the blueprint tools. Have you considered making the blueprint window a (horizontally) scalable sidebar (player picks side via checkbox, left - uncecked or right - checked) that the player can scroll up and down through? Also, when the user presses Q to "toss" the blueprint, there could be a small, simple, and very quick animation for it to go back into the blueprint sidebar. If the player wanted the blueprint in their inventory, they could simply drag one from the sidebar into their inventory. Due to the new improvements with shared blueprints, if the player wanted to get rid of a blueprint from their inventory, there could either be a trash location for them or if they drop them, they could simply be deleted immediately.

Just some thoughts.

I think the scalable sidebar would be potentially very useful, especially for those playing on higher resolutions.

[Oktokolo]

And if you want the feeling that you have done all the work by yourself... Try just not using blueprints from the net (it actually works - tested it some hundreds of hours myself).

So therefore it would be good, if you can´t.

No. Export and import of blueprint strings is all about choice and making it easier to share designs.
You can invent that 16/16-balancer yourself - or just get one from the net. You can play Factorio going all-in micro by building your base piece by piece, or can go macro by placing whole building blocks. You don't have to use blueprints or blueprints from the net. But if you want to (and a lot of the players do wnat that), you could indeed get a mall blueprint from KatherineOfSky and place it next to your main bus to get construction needs handled without having to invent such a beast yourself.

For us, wie don´t watched youtube until our first match endet.

So did you got your ass handed to you by mine fields or did your opponent really not watch any videos?

[Pascali]

we both haven´t watched vids. Now we have, but we don´t play very aggressive. It´s more, who is quicker. But without blueprints and robots.

[Omnifarious]

Regarding blueprints: My opinion is that no blueprints should ever mingle with "real" items in a player's inventory. What I mean by this is that a blueprint will always live solely within the blueprints menu. Any blueprint in hand is only then an considered an instance of the real plan. Pressing Q to make it go away always deletes the instance, but the real thing is always in the menu if needed.

This achieves two key things:
1. I always know where my blueprints live (in the blueprints menu, funny that!)
2. I never have to delete extra blueprint copies clogging up my inventory slots.

It may also be helpful to do some auto-sorting in the blueprints menu so that the last modified item is always at the top. Basically, we want to decide on ONE place for these to live and then make that place as convenient as possible to use.

I disagree pretty strongly. One of the more interesting mods out there is recursive blueprints. And while that mod isn't for everybody, changing the way blueprints work such that this mod can't function is a non-starter. Having Blueprints be in game items is just too useful and interesting in a number of contexts to throw away completely.

[Omnifarious]

What annoys me is how they're butchering upgrade planner. Now it will not automatically take from player inventory, according to this. And it looks like you have to have construction bots and personal roboport for it? BOGUS - this was the second greatest feature of UP is that you didn't need bots for it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Well, upgrade planner is currently not a part of vanilla, so they aren't butchering it at all. Presumably a mod could restore the functionality you like and you'd be no worse off than you were before.

I, personally, think upgrade planner as it currently stands is a cheat. Heck, I can go into map view and upgrade the belts in a part of the factory it would take me a 5 minute train ride to get to, and it pulls the stuff out of my inventory. How does that even work?! Don't get me wrong, I use upgrade planner because it's very nice. But if the version they talked about existed in-game I likely wouldn't. Even the 'x'ed out deconstruct things that upgrade planner would leave lying around when you didn't have bots would still be pretty useful in figuring out where to manually place belts.

And if they add some form of early-game bots with strong disadvantages (like nanobots maybe), then it would be reasonable for those to work with upgrade planner.

[Pawz]

So someone mentioned here that a more advanced blueprint editor would be nice - have any of you tried the tutorials?

They take you into a 'different world' where you can still build / run around as a character. What if you could 'edit' a blueprint by going into this mode, and it sets you to creative mode and lets you add/remove from the blueprint and save?

It's all stuff that's already in-game...

[Recon777]

If you're working on the blueprint library, one thing I have always found annoying is that if you delete a bp from a bp book within your library, it immediately takes you OUT of that book and back to the root of the library.

While I'm here (because I keep forgetting to ask about this), can we please have the cursor focus on the textbox in all cases where we are preparing to adjust the quantity of a number in its textbox? Many times, the UI comes up and focus is not on anything, so keystrokes go nowhere. With the numerical textbox right there, focus should be on it.

[adam_bise]

Huge thanks for copy paste! This looks very cool

[POPISowyNumer]

Almost forgot.

FIX THEM BELTS FOR GODS SAKE

[steinio]

Almost forgot.

FIX THEM BELTS FOR GODS SAKE

What's your damned problem with belts?