More visibility with Electric Miners

[KatherineOfSky]

I've played some with the new electric miners. They are very pretty, and I commend the graphics artist. However, the new design gives almost no visibility.

In a horizontal line, the belt is horribly obscured, making it hard to see which miners are functional and which are not. There's a lot of visual noise, which was not present with the old miner design.

In a vertical alignment, the view of the belt is a bit better, but the shadows make seeing the belt not-quite-clear.

As far as the actual deposit... it is extremely difficult to tell when ore has run out unless you are mousing over the entity (which on a big field is so much work). (Looking for the animation doesn't help: stopped drills might be stopped because of a full belt).


As a side note: a vertical drill doesn't really make sense either since the ore is literally bubbling to the surface of the planet, it should be a strip mine, not digging lower.

Anyway, I think the new graphic is lovely, but it obscures soooooo much information from the player: I suggest changing the design to something that is:
- much shorter,
- does not cast long shadows,
. where you can see the ore CLEARLY in either horizontal or vertical layouts,
- does not obscure the ore graphics underneath.

Thank you for your consideration.

[mmmPI]

As far as the actual deposit... it is extremely difficult to tell when ore has run out unless you are mousing over the entity (which on a big field is so much work). (Looking for the animation doesn't help: stopped drills might be stopped because of a full belt).

I think there is a (very) tiny "lamp" on the corner of each miner that can change color, green when the miner is running , yellow when it stops because of item-overload, and red when it stops because there are no more ores to mine, similar to what the bottleneck mod is providing for every machine.

I am unsure of the color code associated with the differents states though but i'm positive miner with red lamp can be removed.

There is also the possibility to wire the miners with red or green wires , and "read" the quantity left using circuit network.

It's not very practical to use if you just want to get rid of 3 or 4 miners that are empty on a big patch but allows you to make nice vizualisation with array of lamps that progressively turns off as the patch is depleting.

[KatherineOfSky]

It's not very practical to use if you just want to get rid of 3 or 4 miners that are empty on a big patch but allows you to make nice vizualisation with array of lamps that progressively turns off as the patch is depleting.

I have this vision in my head of a huge ore patch, and replica shape to the right of it made out of lamps... each representing a miner, and slowly going from green to red as the ore around the edges disappears.... hahaha

Not very practical indeed.... and probably impossible considering the length limitations of wire.

I'm talking about trimming miners from the edges of a patch: a nice thing to do in early/mid game when resources might be limited and you can recover some of your drills.

[mmmPI]

I have this vision in my head of a huge ore patch, and replica shape to the right of it made out of lamps... each representing a miner, and slowly going from green to red as the ore around the edges disappears.... hahaha

that's horribly impractical !! ahah

i meant you can "read" on 1 miner the quantity this particular miner has under it, OR you can read the total amount of ore in the patch this particular miner is mining from; it's a box to tick.
then you can place an array of 10 lamp connected to just 1 miner in the middle, and each of them turn off when 90% 80% 70% is left, like a small battery-meter that tells you at a glance the state of depletion for that patch.

( i got disconnected from a server the day i found out this feature was added because the map was covered with mixed ore by a mod and the miner took a very looong time to sum it all up )


for the early-mid game , trimming miners from the edges, i understand better the new miner model include tiny individual lamps that turn red when you can remove them , maybe too tiny

[Koub]

As far as the actual deposit... it is extremely difficult to tell when ore has run out unless you are mousing over the entity (which on a big field is so much work). (Looking for the animation doesn't help: stopped drills might be stopped because of a full belt).

Have you considered using the activity light on the corner of the mining drill ?

the four states of mining drill

Yellow is for "output clogged"
Green is for "mining is OK"
Red is for "no more minerals"
Off is "I got no power"

[EnerJi]

Maybe at minimum the size and brightness of the indicator light could be increased? It's not easy to see.

[KatherineOfSky]

Have you considered using the activity light on the corner of the mining drill ?
Yellow is for "output clogged"
Green is for "mining is OK"
Red is for "no more minerals"
Off is "I got no power"

As much as I was staring mining drills today... I didn't even see it.

The more pressing problem though, is the visibility of ore on the belts.

[Koub]

The more pressing problem though, is the visibility of ore on the belts.

The question is : "is it still necessary if you know and see the status lights ?".
Esthetically, a lignt can't replace the sight of a full belt. Functionally, are the lights enough to remove the need to see the belts ?

[KatherineOfSky]

I just learned something about myself today... apparently I check fullness of belts one tick in from map mode, e.g. the first "detailed" view, zooming in from the abstract. At that level, the lights are almost invisible and the belts are quite difficult to discern whether they are full or partially full. (I also play at 1440p, so items are smaller).

With the old miners, I could tell at the merest glance. With the new miners, you have to really really look and zoom in quite a bit.

In general, the lights are not that visible. Personally, I prefer not to look at the miners themselves, I would rather see how full the belt is, since that is the measure of every other production in the game.

[NotRexButCaesar]

I personally disagree. I never remove miners until the whole patch is depleted or extremely low (unable to supply a train quickly), and don’t find it hard to see the indicator light anyway. I don’t exactly see why it would matter that the belt was obscured, and haven’t ever noticed myself having trouble locating it.

As for the idea that miners shouldn’t be digging down, you must not understand mining. Ore is literally just dirt with some metal in it. You need to remove the dirt completely to get usable ore. I see the Little Rock’s on the surface as just indicators; the real ore is underground. This is true even in a strip mine. If the devs wanted to implement a mined out look when the pre is gone, I think this might eliminate some confusion.

[retlom]

i didnt even see the light on your Screenshots LoL took me about 5mins to see one "im colour weak to red and green". Holy hell they are small and a Yellow / Green / Red lamp on a Yellow/Orange Steelbar very unfortunate placement. Good thing i use Bottleneck mod for ages

[valneq]

Here is another observation: The status lights are much more visible at night. So nighttime for me is "trim the ore patches on its edges" time now

[Koub]

viewtopic.php?p=505158#p505158
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-359

[KatherineOfSky]

Much appreciated! Thank you!

[varundevan]

+1

please improve visibility in some way or the other

[Jap2.0]

+1

please improve visibility in some way or the other

Did you read the end of the thread?

[varundevan]

+1

please improve visibility in some way or the other

Did you read the end of the thread?

nope , just did , but my opinion is that it would be better if the new miner gave visual data similar to the old ones ..

the update from the old miners
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-350

[5thHorseman]

my opinion is that it would be better if the new miner gave visual data similar to the old ones ..

What data? And which old ones? The old-old ones gave less data, and the new-old ones gave the same amount.

[varundevan]

my opinion is that it would be better if the new miner gave visual data similar to the old ones ..

What data? And which old ones? The old-old ones gave less data, and the new-old ones gave the same amount.

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-350

[5thHorseman]

my opinion is that it would be better if the new miner gave visual data similar to the old ones ..

What data? And which old ones? The old-old ones gave less data, and the new-old ones gave the same amount.

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-350

That did not answer my question.