Set Recipes On Assemblers Even When Recipe Is Not Researched Yet

[factoriouzr]

Set the recipes on assemblers even if the recipe is not researched yet. It's really bad to have to keep re-setting a blueprint over the top of the built version every time a research is done. This should be set the first time you put down the blueprint and each factory should turn on as their relevant research is unlocked.

What makes not having this feature even worse is that if you change anything on your built buildings that came from the blueprint, such as setting different requester chest or inserter filters, limits etc, when you have to place the blueprint over the top of the existing buildings when you unlock more research, you lose all your altered settings that you made on the placed buildings. You also can't take this as a new blueprint or update the existing one because then you lose the changes in that blueprint for the technologies not yet researched.

It's so much easier and more intuitive to have the quality of life fix that factories always have their recipes set.

[Rseding91]

Thanks for the report however this is working as intended: you can't set a recipe without having it researched. To set a recipe means to use it and to use any recipe means it should be researched otherwise it bypasses the entire research system.

The issue is: you're building your base from a blueprint instead of just playing the game and building the base as you unlock things.

[factoriouzr]

I'm building some buildings from a blueprint, and that should not be prevented. Just because you like to play the game a certain way, doesn't mean everyone does. In fact, many other commented on previous threads wanting this same feature.

Factorio staff have bought this up before in forcing players to play the game a certain way, then eventually implemented some of the features anyway and they used the same arguments you are using that the players are doing it wrong.

This of it this way. This is a game about automation, yet you are preventing people from using blueprints to automate in the way they want.

This is not an MMO, there are no leader boards so let people play it the way they want, especially with a quality of life feature such as this.

I've played this game from start to finish thousands of times, If I want to use blueprints to build part of my factory, I should be able to do that.

The game is supposed to be fun. This is how you get people interested and to keep coming back to your game, and to buy your next game. This arbitrary restriction is not fun. In addition this is an inconsistency in your design.

It's a simple solution, just set the recipe on the factory even when it's not researched and just change your check on the factory so that it doesn't build the item until the research is done.

The way I see it, this is an issue with your design. Inserters remember their filters even if the research isn't done, factories have a bug where they don't remember.

[Mike5000]

Thanks for the report however this is working as intended: you can't set a recipe without having it researched. To set a recipe means to use it and to use any recipe means it should be researched otherwise it bypasses the entire research system.

One possibility would be to limit unresearched recipes to ghosts. A ghost could not be built until the recipe is unlocked.

The issue is: you're building your base from a blueprint instead of just playing the game and building the base as you unlock things.

This makes sense if you only ever play through once. But we play through many times.

All my blueprints are my own except some (not all) of my balancers. Over time I improve my blueprints as new ideas occur to me. Let's consider three cases:

1. Train Stations
   No problem. I already have all the technologies for whichever kind of station blueprint I use.
2. Chemical Plant
   Minor problem. I have to go back once to program the crackers once I have advanced oil processing. Usually I remember which recipe to use in each cracker.
3. Mall
   Major problem. I have to go back innumerable times to program assemblers as new technologies are unlocked. Roughly half the time I don't remember which recipe to use in each assembler and have to try to figure things out by squinting at the blueprint.

Why don't I just slap the same blueprint down on top of itself instead of programming each chemical plant and assembler individually? Because over time I improve my blueprints as new ideas occur to me. By the time I need to program the last assembler I've probably already made a handful of changes to the blueprinted area.

So please reconsider. It would be extremely useful to be able to set recipes before they are researched.

[factoriouzr]

Can you please reconsider this and implement this feature

[Rseding91]

Can you please reconsider this and implement this feature

No.

[factoriouzr]

Can you please reconsider this and implement this feature

No.

Why are you being like this? This doesn't hurt anybody and helps players. You can make it an option that can be turned on (off by default) like many other options that you have now.

[Serenity]

Major problem. I have to go back innumerable times to program assemblers as new technologies are unlocked. Roughly half the time I don't remember which recipe to use in each assembler and have to try to figure things out by squinting at the blueprint.

I have a screenshot of my mall to check for that. Really not a good solution

Why don't I just slap the same blueprint down on top of itself instead of programming each chemical plant and assembler individually?

Also for my mall I use constant combinators to set the amount they should produce. If I stamp over it again it resets the combinators to the values in the blueprint. So I have to remember to delete the combinators before placing it down again.

[factoriouzr]

This is an inconsistency and issue in the game. It would be great to have it fixed. It's inconsistent with how everything else works with blueprints and research.

[BenSeidel]

Also for my mall I use constant combinators to set the amount they should produce. If I stamp over it again it resets the combinators to the values in the blueprint. So I have to remember to delete the combinators before placing it down again.

When you go to stamp the blueprint again open it up and remove the constant combinators. This can be done by right-clicking the blueprint then right-clicking the icon of the constant combinator in the list of item counts at the top of the blueprint editor window.

You can also stamp the blueprint down from the map once you have zoomed in enough, so you don't even have to be near it.

[Rseding91]

This is an inconsistency and issue in the game. It would be great to have it fixed. It's inconsistent with how everything else works with blueprints and research.

Even if that was true (which it isn't - you can't set a recipe on am assembling machine until you research it) something being inconsistent is irrelevant. You can not set recipes on assembling machines without researching the recipe and that's that.

[factoriouzr]

This is an inconsistency and issue in the game. It would be great to have it fixed. It's inconsistent with how everything else works with blueprints and research.

Even if that was true (which it isn't - you can't set a recipe on am assembling machine until you research it) something being inconsistent is irrelevant. You can not set recipes on assembling machines without researching the recipe and that's that.

That view tries to completely disregard all the valid criticism of the current system. It's an arbitrary limitation imposed by the developers, and it is inconsistent with other entities (eg. you can set filters on inserters without the items being researched, you can set request filters on player and chest before it's researched etc.) and most importantly it makes the game less fun for no reason at all.

[factoriouzr]

This is an inconsistency and issue in the game. It would be great to have it fixed. It's inconsistent with how everything else works with blueprints and research.

Even if that was true (which it isn't - you can't set a recipe on am assembling machine until you research it) something being inconsistent is irrelevant. You can not set recipes on assembling machines without researching the recipe and that's that.

That view tries to completely disregard all the valid criticism of the current system. It's an arbitrary limitation imposed by the developers, and it is inconsistent with other entities and most importantly it makes the game less fun for no reason at all.

[Koub]

Look, the devs have said no, and gave us some hints on why it's a no :
The way the game is currently designed is that a recipe can only be set if it has been researched. Making the game work otherwise is feasible, but would need some refactoring, plus some additional control code to ensure you won't be able to actually craft until the research is not done. And finally, there would probably be some need of graphical twist to make the player understand that despite being able to set a recipe, it actually can't be crafted because not discovered yet.

Overall, the devs guesstimate that it would be too much work for such a feature.

It's probably in the same category as other features even more people would want (like the recently dropped RTL language support, electric trains, realistic electric grid will power loss, and many more), but for which the devs think that the result is not worth the effort.

[factoriouzr]

Look, the devs have said no, and gave us some hints on why it's a no :
The way the game is currently designed is that a recipe can only be set if it has been researched. Making the game work otherwise is feasible, but would need some refactoring, plus some additional control code to ensure you won't be able to actually craft until the research is not done. And finally, there would probably be some need of graphical twist to make the player understand that despite being able to set a recipe, it actually can't be crafted because not discovered yet.

Overall, the devs guesstimate that it would be too much work for such a feature.

It's probably in the same category as other features even more people would want (like the recently dropped RTL language support, electric trains, realistic electric grid will power loss, and many more), but for which the devs think that the result is not worth the effort.

Is the refactoring hard to do? Is it really too much work? Has anybody actually thought about it? It seems like everything needed is already there, though correct me if I'm wrong. I'm not trying to offend anyone or be rude, I just want to express my ideas and make the game better. Things to consider:

-filters on inserters, clicking a blank space in the toolbar already brings up an unfiltered list of all items so this can be used in the factory to show an unfiltered list
-filtering by appropriate recipes per factory type is already in the game, so nothing to do here
-isn't making the factory not produce if the research is unavailable something like a few lines of code: "factoryCurrentRecipe.isResearched() {<build>} else {<show disabled icon on factory>}"?
-for the "graphical twist to make the player understand that ... it can't be crafted", this is already done. If you make a blueprint with a mod, then disable that mod, the blueprint will show a red circle with a slash or something like that over the factory, so this is already done and can be used for this purpose

I really want to make the game better. The usefulness of a feature should be more important then the effort involved in implementing it. If it improves the game, it should at least be seriously considered. Obviously if the effort in implementing it is astronomical, that should also be considered. It seems like way more effort by the devs have gone into some features which are arguably less important then this one, so why is there such opposition to implementing this one?

Again, I'm not trying to offend, just make the game better and express my thoughts on a game I love and would like to see it be the best it can be.

[Rseding91]

We're not adding a "is recipe enabled" check to every assembling machine every tick just on the off chance someone tries to use a recipe they haven't researched. That's a stupid waste of CPU time when the current implementation just does not allow you to set a recipe until it has been researched.

[factoriouzr]

We're not adding a "is recipe enabled" check to every assembling machine every tick just on the off chance someone tries to use a recipe they haven't researched. That's a stupid waste of CPU time when the current implementation just does not allow you to set a recipe until it has been researched.

That's a quick suggestion as an example. You can implement that with a listener framework and do it many different ways that don't waste any cpu cycles every tick. You are likely already doing something similar for inserters. Inserters that don't have anything to operate on (eg. items on belts or in factories) go dormant (I remember reading something about this in a Friday facts I believe). I could give other suggestions, but your constant dismissive and frankly rude attitude suggests that you would just ignore them anyway and not even bother to seriously consider the suggestions. This is not a good look for a company to give it's player base.

Many player have supported you for years in getting this game off the ground, with suggestions, testing, providing feedback, getting their friends to buy the game, buying multiple copies themselves, etc.

We are clearly passionate about this game. I'm expressing a suggestions for improvement to the game that others also clearly want (even if you choose to ignore all the evidence).

Also, this is not "just on the off chance someone tries to use a recipe they haven't researched", there have been other people posting about this, in fact to this very thread saying that they would use it.

[steinio]

Please lock this topic.

Op is not capable of taking a no and so this discussion will lead to nowhere.