Friday Facts #362 - Menu simulation, Spidertron, Ghost building, Confirm button

[V453000]

Does rotate work on ghost enteties?

Yesss

[Enderdraak]

I like it, does this mean you can now build a wall of rails to prevent a spidertron from going somewhere?

Spideyboi can still step between the rails:

Also when all those rails are curved?

I don't know what kind of intersections you will be making but I think it will be okay

Nice, but I was more thinking along the lines of PVP anti automatic spidertron defeneses

[Braxus]

Incredible, I start playing the game with my son and he complain a lot about missing function in gost build.
And now you solve it, thank a lot.

[Lubricus]

Would you also fix 3rd of my long term pain. Add Description for a combinator. Due to complexity of some creations, it is great to prevent re-invent wheel feel and allow write notes what is what, what it is doing/idea/guide. Basiicaly same descrition box as blueeprint has.

Yea it's hard to understand old circuits or even worse others circuits. There is no way to have "descriptive variable names" nor "comments". I somehow rather want notes on groups of combinators? Something like Electronic boxes that is one entity where you could build several combinators, circuits in and we could write a note in it.
I am also missing something like tuples with combinators. I don't have any idea on how it could be done.

[gGeorg]

Would you also fix 3rd of my long term pain. Add Description for a combinator. Due to complexity of some creations, it is great to prevent re-invent wheel feel and allow write notes what is what, what it is doing/idea/guide. Basiicaly same descrition box as blueeprint has.

Yea it's hard to understand old circuits or even worse others circuits. There is no way to have "descriptive variable names" nor "comments". I somehow rather want notes on groups of combinators? Something like Electronic boxes that is one entity where you could build several combinators, circuits in and we could write a note in it.
I am also missing something like tuples with combinators. I don't have any idea on how it could be done.

There is a mode which would give a hint. It is a box inside a box.
Place a building size of an assembler, then enter it. Then you have inside a space of 20x20 tiles which fits on one screen. Interface allows you only place combinators. Perhaps your character also can be removed, so its kind a game inside a game. So you create a circuit, then step off the building. Then you made a custom circuit. Then set a descrition of this building/custom circuit. So you might create a modules like memory cell, pulse generator, add a descrition, then use it, stamp it. Or make a whole train station logic inside one custom circuit. I dont know, how often this improvement will be used. Combinators are hard to get into. So perhaps 2% percent of comunity would use it? Personaly I would.

[Optera]

Spidertron logistic requests

One of the main uses for spidertron is to let them build using the personal roboports, but the lack of an automated resupply method made the process less flawless than intended. This applies also to using them for combat, as restocking ammunition, repair packs and such, had to be done manually.

Does that mean all vehicles, including cargo wagons, could be made to use logistics?
Or is it just a hardcoded special case for spidertron?

Here comes the nice cherry on top. Once we have this logic in place, making blueprints preserve the wire connections could be implemented almost for free, so the game now supports it, and problems like this could finally go away after years and years of repeated suggestions to make this happen.

And here I thought this ancient request would never be fulfilled. Thanks, now we no longer have to carefully build every pole to connection distance +1 for blueprints with different power networks to work.

[Klonan]

Spidertron logistic requests

One of the main uses for spidertron is to let them build using the personal roboports, but the lack of an automated resupply method made the process less flawless than intended. This applies also to using them for combat, as restocking ammunition, repair packs and such, had to be done manually.

Does that mean all vehicles, including cargo wagons, could be made to use logistics?
Or is it just a hardcoded special case for spidertron?

Just for spidey, but it wasn't so hard, so in the future we might consider adding it to vehicles, but generally only if we plan to use it in the base game

[Molay]

Simply AMAZING! I admire your dedication to UI and QOL, it really sets you apart from most companies. You don't just make an incredible game, but you also make it control incredibly well!

I'm really looking forward to all the improvements in 1.1, max train setting most of all. Is there an estimate for release yet? Still a 2020 release?

[Optera]

Spidertron logistic requests

One of the main uses for spidertron is to let them build using the personal roboports, but the lack of an automated resupply method made the process less flawless than intended. This applies also to using them for combat, as restocking ammunition, repair packs and such, had to be done manually.

Does that mean all vehicles, including cargo wagons, could be made to use logistics?
Or is it just a hardcoded special case for spidertron?

Just for spidey, but it wasn't so hard, so in the future we might consider adding it to vehicles, but generally only if we plan to use it in the base game

Please consider it.
I feel a warm and fuzzy inside thinking of the possibility of logistic wagons being un-loaded without a lua script having to add hidden chests and inventory syncing.
Oh, and yes, auto refueling tanks and cars would be nice too.

[DanGio]

Excellent ! Can't wait for the release.

[Abarel]

When you chat and have 4 Lines of tools the "first" chat line is behind the UI and unreadable (when its longer) until i make a new chatmassage.

This can happen even with just 2 rows, depending on the UI scale you are using:

chat_over.jpg (62.54 KiB) Viewed 9431 times

[teemu]

To make it clear that behind the menu is not your factory, every scene has the logos in the exact same position, and the screen has a vignette-like shader on the edges.

Maybe you could also apply a small blur filter to make it better fade into the background. But then the logo would probably also be blurred...

I like the concept, it looks awesome and very immersive.

[Qon]

Would you also fix 3rd of my long term pain. Add Description for a combinator. Due to complexity of some creations, it is great to prevent re-invent wheel feel and allow write notes what is what, what it is doing/idea/guide. Basiicaly same descrition box as blueeprint has.

Yea it's hard to understand old circuits or even worse others circuits. There is no way to have "descriptive variable names" nor "comments". I somehow rather want notes on groups of combinators? Something like Electronic boxes that is one entity where you could build several combinators, circuits in and we could write a note in it.

There's a mod for that:
Signal Signs by Qon
It makes (vanilla) text comments with constant combinator blueprints made from text input, using the alt mode and letter signals. There's some limitations on characters that can be used (A-Z, 0-9, space and dot) and it takes some space. But the signs are pure vanilla, the mod just generates them in an easy way.

[Tesse11ation]

Man, I am SO stoked for 1.1. One thing you guys were right about is that this is just the update that polishes off 1.0. I've already worked out my station logic to be optimized for the new 1.1 train behavior as outlined in FFF #361. All we need now is a release date!

I'm proud of you Wube, Factorio has come a long way, and with every update it's just been pushed closer and closer to perfection.

Also...

Nice, but I was more thinking along the lines of PVP anti automatic spidertron defeneses

This is absolutely epic.

[AdamK]

Whta is 1.1 ETA?

[Draxinusom]

Whta is 1.1 ETA?

It's either before or after Cyberpunk 2077

[IronCartographer]

Spidertron now supports copy-paste, which not only copies the color, name, and logistic requests, but even the equipment grid contents, which it takes from the player doing the operation if possible. This removes the tedium of setting up additonal Spidertrons.

Any plans to make vehicles blueprintable (but lower priority / unchecked by default) along with their grid contents?

Such a capability would take vehicle grid configuration to the next level, while enabling vehicle-as-infrastructure (automated loading of vehicles without Spidertron's internal logistic requests?) designs beyond static cargo wagons.

Still, having copy-paste of grids in the base game will at least allow a template style arrangement, similar to how people used to leave trains somewhere for copy-pasting before they could be blueprinted. Good QoL changes all around!

[Klonan]

Whta is 1.1 ETA?

It's either before or after Cyberpunk 2077

Before

[ThunderFD]

Whta is 1.1 ETA?

It's either before or after Cyberpunk 2077

Before

So early next year? ;DD

[Koub]

All those changes are awesome. With all those changes to how ghosts will remember all kind of wiring, have you considered removing the need to craft the red, green, and copper cables for pole/circuit management ? It's not as if the resource cost changes much, and just having them as tools would be so convenient (as they are basically free when building from ghosts).