Factorio Paper Cuts

[Zavian]

I think it ALSO makes sense that Ctrl-C saves names. If I'm copying a row in a stacker to increase its capacity then I want it to have the same name as the other rows. It probably differs from person to person on how they want it to work. I wouldn't mind it being a setting.

Sure there are times it is convenient, but if it didn't save station names, that would never cause any major problem, just the need to rename some stations manually. (In your example shift right click, shift left click makes that easy).

But consider the times when preserving station names causes problems.

Example 1

I am building a new iron mining outpost. I have built the rail line, and placed the station, placed the miners and their belts. I have named the station Iron 2. Now I just need to finish the loading station. I decide to just copy the loading setup from a nearby copper mine rather than find the right loading station in my rail blueprints. So I open the map view and use control-C to copy the loading setup, including the station (for easy alignment). I paste the loading setup over the new station and start connecting the belts. 30 seconds later I'm going "Wtf, why is there a train here? I haven't added any trains to this iron mine yet?" Turns out I forgot that the copying the loading setup over new station mean that the station is now named Copper 2. If I hadn't caught it, I would have started smelting iron in the copper smelter. That would have meant contaminated belts.

Example 2

I want to add two new stations to my base.

PaperCuts.pre.jpg (1.16 MiB) Viewed 3396 times

PaperCuts.pre.map.jpg (402.82 KiB) Viewed 3396 times

I use control-C to copy and paste. In order to copy the stackers (and for consistent spacing), I include a couple of extra stations.

PaperCuts.copy.jpg (821.63 KiB) Viewed 3396 times

Five minutes later.

PaperCuts.post.jpg (981.2 KiB) Viewed 3396 times

"Wtf happened? Look at all those contaminated belts". Red circuits on the copper belts. Green circuits on the steel belts. Steel on the green circuits belts. Copper trains in the red circuit stacker (Luckily science stalled before they started unloading onto the red circuit belts).

Why did it happen? Look at the map view.

PaperCuts.post.map.jpg (522.88 KiB) Viewed 3396 times

See those renamed stations? Well that is painful. Renaming the stations will be easy, but fixing the contaminated belts will be a major nuisance. But I will also need to fix the steel and copper train schedules.

PaperCuts.post.sched.jpg (58.92 KiB) Viewed 3396 times

When the Science - Steel In station was renamed, its trains had their schedules changed to match the new name, since at that time there was no other Science - Steel In station on the map. Same for the Science - Copper In station. (Incidentally while I understand why the train schedules changed, to an inexperienced player, that is going to look like a bug. They are going to think "There is no way that should happen").

Note that even if I noticed the renamed Steel/Copper stations immediately after the copy + paste, and cut the belts (or the rail lines) before I get any contamination, I would still have missed the messed up train schedules until I noticed steel/copper trains arriving in the circuit stations/stackers.

I have actually done both of these mistakes on this map. (Although the science base one was whilst I was laying out the stations whilst building that science setup, and so I didn't have much contamination to clean up).

TL;DR

In situations where preserving station names isn't the desired behaviour the potential pain outweighs the convenience value from the situations where it is useful. (At least for the control-C/copy case. For control-X, which is often used to move something, preserving the station name makes more sense).

[Zavian]

Ctrl-c doesn't give you the option by default. You have to hold down shift to actually create a blueprint to see any options.

Correct. You can also create blueprints with the dedicated Alt+B (create blueprint hotkey) instead using the cut/copy functionality to create blueprints.

When you use Control-C or Control-V, you actually get a blueprint in your cursor. It vanishes if you clear your cursor, but if you want to keep it, you can place it in your inventory or blueprint library.

[netmand]

[...]
no assemble crafting speed is 1, which is annoying when doing mental calculation.
[...]

handcrafting is 1.

[5thHorseman]

[...]
no assemble crafting speed is 1, which is annoying when doing mental calculation.
[...]

handcrafting is 1.

Amusingly, handcrafting is also the only time you'd never have reason to calculate timings in your head.

[Illiou]

[...]
no assemble crafting speed is 1, which is annoying when doing mental calculation.
[...]

handcrafting is 1.

Amusingly, handcrafting is also the only time you'd never have reason to calculate timings in your head.

You forgot speedruns

[5thHorseman]

[...]
no assemble crafting speed is 1, which is annoying when doing mental calculation.
[...]

handcrafting is 1.

Amusingly, handcrafting is also the only time you'd never have reason to calculate timings in your head.

You forgot speedruns

I can't imagine both expecting a speed run to go well, and relying on calculating hand crafting times in my head while on a clock.

Of course, I can't really imagine myself doing well in a speed run in any case.

[Illiou]

Amusingly, handcrafting is also the only time you'd never have reason to calculate timings in your head.

You forgot speedruns

I can't imagine both expecting a speed run to go well, and relying on calculating hand crafting times in my head while on a clock.

Of course, I can't really imagine myself doing well in a speed run in any case.

Well, I was more referring to calculations before the speedrun. Although technically they wouldn't need to be done mentally. I was more thinking of the fact that speedruns would be the only scenario where you'd have reason to calculate handcrafting times at all.

[evopwr]

Far worse than the deconstruction planners having curved and straight rails, it also has twenty tree variants, and four rock variants. I usually keep a deconstruction planner that does the "destroy all trees and rocks" thing, but also cliffs. But I can't just add cliffs, I need to add all twenty trees and four rocks and then add cliffs.

Triple agree!!

[BenSeidel]

Your name shows up in the mini-map when "show player names" is selected.

[jamiechi1]

My big issue is with the GUI's not remembering anything. For example: I want to change a key mapping for a mod. I minimize the sections to only show the mod keybindings, change something, and the next time I try to change something the sections are all expanded again.

Also, when trying to make a keybinding such as 'CTRL-R', you have to press the R key just before you press the 'CTRL' key to get the keybinding to work properly. Otherwise you get just 'CTRL' which is just wrong. Shift, Alt, and CTRL should never be used by themselves.