Invert Landfill

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged several threads on the same topic.
Also moved back the resulting thread to Suggestions from "Not implemented", as there is some hope that this could be a thing some day (since the landfill tile has its own type).

[leadraven]

Cancel with ctrl+z - yes, definitely.
Invert with mining - no, not a basic landfill. We need separate, more advanced and expensive type of landfill (some deck) that can be mined to restore water.
Something like this : https://mods.factorio.com/mod/platforms.

[Gergely]

Oh god... after all these merges I am so lost at this topic.

[Koub]

Oh god... after all these merges I am so lost at this topic.

Yeah sorry, should have been done on the fly, and not let the topics multiply. All ideas remain readable, and gathered in the same thread. I think the tradeoff if good.

[Tekillaa]

I was in deep hesitation to make that post about undo landfill, it seems normal to me because of just a miss click, or miss placement, i got to load a previous save (actually land fill during nuke plant construction for example). +1 about the undo, so not creating water, just able to remove a landfill previously done.

Thank you for the post

[Darinth]

I'm good both with A: landfill being undoable, or B: creating 'platform' tiles that have functionality similar to landfill but are removable. Either way, I really really want some way to cover up water and make use of the space and later on to be able to remove said covering and make use of the water.

[dood]

It wouldn't hurt to have the ability to remove landfill.
Just the one you placed.

[leadraven]

I believe the problem is that per-tile data is very heavy. Currently for each tile 2 layers are stored : terrain and flooring. Revertible landfill needs third layer to be stored.

[dood]

I believe the problem is that per-tile data is very heavy. Currently for each tile 2 layers are stored : terrain and flooring. Revertible landfill needs third layer to be stored.

Doesn't it already have that data somewhere?
If I landfill something and mouseover with landfill, the tile overlay is green, tiles I didn't landfill are red.

[leadraven]

I believe the problem is that per-tile data is very heavy. Currently for each tile 2 layers are stored : terrain and flooring. Revertible landfill needs third layer to be stored.

Doesn't it already have that data somewhere?
If I landfill something and mouseover with landfill, the tile overlay is green, tiles I didn't landfill are red.

Because landfill is separate type of terrain, with the same texture as grass. But it is terrain, not flooring, and replaces water. Information about original terrain type gets lost.

[boran_blok]

wasn't that original terrain type by definition water?

[leadraven]

wasn't that original terrain type by definition water?

Water, Deep water, Shallow water, Green water, .... You can't just hardcode that landfill is reverted to water, it must be a universal algorithm of terrain type modification. I'd say each tile must contain stack, but I don't know how much data is in question. Such change might greatly increase memory usage.

[Darinth]

wasn't that original terrain type by definition water?

Water, Deep water, Shallow water, Green water, .... You can't just hardcode that landfill is reverted to water, it must be a universal algorithm of terrain type modification. I'd say each tile must contain stack, but I don't know how much data is in question. Such change might greatly increase memory usage.

How does the platforms mod do it? I have to guess they're using flooring? Yes, the mod has problems, but it seems like that should be resolvable. Using 'flooring' over water and enough game intelligence to check the flooring and allow walking over water if it has flooring seems like it should function.

[leadraven]

wasn't that original terrain type by definition water?

Water, Deep water, Shallow water, Green water, .... You can't just hardcode that landfill is reverted to water, it must be a universal algorithm of terrain type modification. I'd say each tile must contain stack, but I don't know how much data is in question. Such change might greatly increase memory usage.

How does the platforms mod do it? I have to guess they're using flooring? Yes, the mod has problems, but it seems like that should be resolvable. Using 'flooring' over water and enough game intelligence to check the flooring and allow walking over water if it has flooring seems like it should function.

Currently major problem of this mod is that platform itself, being flooring, can be replaced with another flooring, and after that behaviour gets broken. Ideally, flooring must be placed on top of platform.

[Darinth]

Currently major problem of this mod is that platform itself, being flooring, can be replaced with another flooring, and after that behaviour gets broken. Ideally, flooring must be placed on top of platform.

Or prevent the placement of flooring or program the game to recognize that any flooring going over water, by it's very nature, had to have been a platform to start off with. Means no additional data needs stored, just some extra game logic.

[theoctopi]

If I can place landfill it seems I ought to be able to dig it out again: landfill is the only structure in the game that is "place only".

Note that I'm not asking for the ability to otherwise reshape the map.

However, when building large nuclear power plants on a lake, the whole enterprise can be ruined by accidentally placing landfill in the wrong place. This is deeply frustrating and leads to an unsatisfying save-place-regret-reload loop.

[Ranakastrasz]

Agreed. Alien Biomes mod notably replaces landfill with a specific tile type, but I have no idea if you can make such a tile removable.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older topic with same suggestion.
Meanwhile,
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/platforms
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/breakable-landfill

[Darinth]

So... playing with the platforms mod recently I realized something rather obvious. The ability to place and then remove landfill is actually rather game breaking. It allow for the creation of a lot of structures that are impervious to biters, and several others that are nearly so. You can easily create personal islands or open landbridges to inaccessible islands to build on and then remove those land bridges to make impenetrable fortresses, or reduce the available bridge area to only be the size of train tracks. It opens up a lot of build options that are probably not good for the base game. While I love the platforms mod, I'm not certain it's a good idea for base factorio.