Choose What's Included in "Alt" vs. Always On

[morsk]

TL;DR

factorio-alt-toggle.png (8.2 KiB) Viewed 1843 times

What ?

I want it to be like the debug options (F4, F5) where we choose what we want always on, vs. what's toggled on.

Why ?

Seeing recipes on machines helps make machines look different. I never don't want to see the recipes. Maybe a dev taking screenshots for promotional art does, but who else does, ever?

But I usually don't want to see the modules. Since my first newbie game, 3 years ago, I've felt it was a tragedy that modules start covering the machines. Today, it's even worse, because Chemical Plants have the cool glass part that gets covered.

The current system doesn't really feel like a toggle that lets me choose "less" vs. "more", but more like "taking a promotional screenshot" vs. "how you want to play". But I do have two different levels of detail I want to see.

[5thHorseman]

Love this idea. I'd instantly turn non-alt mode into "alt-mode lite" and alt-mode into everything on.

[valneq]

+1
I'd love to turn alt-mode off permanantly. The overlays just obsucre the view on the gorgeous HR graphics.

However, playing without recipes visualized on assembling machines and as well as contents of chests, the game is really difficult.
I don't want recipes on chemplants, nor refineries. I usually feel those are kind of obvious. Plus chemplants have tints for their recipes.

Speaking of which: Were we not supposed to get redesigned assembling machines? If the redesign allows for an identification of both the recipes and the modules used, maybe this suggestion could help me reduce alt-mode to chests only.

[Serenity]

Great suggestion

And yeah, even more granularity would be good too. With chem plants being color coded now (liquid and smoke) they don't need to show the recipes while assemblers do. Also you just have a lot more assemblers than chem plants.
Furnaces don't really need the icons either once you stop filling them per hand.

[Impatient]

+1
Oh that is a very smart suggestion. I would turn on everything in ALT-mode, including modules in beacons and fluid type overlay. And maybe still have some infos in the other mode. For most of the time, I am interested in the condensed information on the factory, not so much in nice graphics.

Also, options are always a good thing, as tastes and needs differ, this thread being a good example.

Side note: The word "Always" as mode name, doesn't make sense and in the worst case could lead to misunderstandings, as per your suggestion, what is shown there can be deactivated in ALT-mode. "Normal" or "Non-ALT" would be appropriate imo.

[foamy]

Yes please. I'd love a 'recipes and chest contents only' version of altmode.

(The FF notwithstanding I'd also appreciate it if modules could be integrated into the standard graphics for every entity that supports them and keep them in alt mode for when you're extensively zoomed. The ideal would be to, without having to hit any particular button, know exactly what your factory is making and how it is set up to do so.)

[ssilk]

This has a third dimension, if we would distinct between normal view, minimal-view and map-view.

Options ideas
- the current map-things (roboport coverage, pollution, electric network...)
- more stuff like show robots, on map, show rail signals... (currently in debug view)
- new stuff like showing lamps on map...

[morsk]

Re-upping this because the "Quality" in the coming expansion adds yet another thing we might want to toggle in/out of. Alt mode could be a useful toggle between 2 ways we like to look at the game.