Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

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Soul-Burn
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Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by Soul-Burn »

TL;DR
To reduce confusion for new players, the oil refinery should only show input and output pipes that are used for the specific recipe.
What and why?
Many new players that see the oil refinery for the first time get confused by the amount of pipes that go in and out of the refinery.
A common mistake is that they connect the wrong inputs and outputs, thinking they all accept oil and output petroleum.

Similar to how assembly machines only show the pipe interface when a relevant recipe is chosen, the oil refinery should only show the extra pipes when the advanced oil recipe is selected, and hide the unused pipes when the basic oil recipe is selected.

The change is cosmetic, but could help new players understand this building better.

wobbycarly
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Re: Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by wobbycarly »

'Alt' mode already does this. IMO, we should instead be encouraging new players to enable 'Alt' mode.

Amarula
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Re: Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by Amarula »

I think it is more useful to show all the pipes, so new players can see where there are inlets to avoid, in order to allow the possibility of switching recipes in the future, without having to remove and replace all the piping.
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Re: Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by Soul-Burn »

wobbycarly wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:45 am
'Alt' mode already does this. IMO, we should instead be encouraging new players to enable 'Alt' mode.
I've seen several people, with ALT mode on, and still connect the pipes incorrectly.
Amarula wrote:
Mon Aug 02, 2021 2:38 pm
I think it is more useful to show all the pipes, so new players can see where there are inlets to avoid, in order to allow the possibility of switching recipes in the future, without having to remove and replace all the piping.
That's probably true. Maybe instead of not showing the pipe, it should show a 🚫 or ❌ on the pipe to show that it's not currently used, but it's still there.

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ssilk
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Re: Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by ssilk »

On the other hand even if you print on it “not used”, there would be players, that connect it. :lol:

How many times does a new player make this kind of error?
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MEOWMI
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Re: Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by MEOWMI »

I do like that you can always see there are clearly recipes that use both inputs and all 3 outputs, but I will agree, the current situation is flawed, because you actually can't know which output to use if you don't use alt view, which shouldn't be a requirement, as useful as it is. You could even make the argument that any of the inputs and outputs should be usable if there's only one input and output material, and actually that's probably the most logical solution if you don't hide the unused pipes instead.

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Silari
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Re: Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by Silari »

MEOWMI wrote:
Tue Aug 03, 2021 8:05 am
I do like that you can always see there are clearly recipes that use both inputs and all 3 outputs, but I will agree, the current situation is flawed, because you actually can't know which output to use if you don't use alt view, which shouldn't be a requirement, as useful as it is. You could even make the argument that any of the inputs and outputs should be usable if there's only one input and output material, and actually that's probably the most logical solution if you don't hide the unused pipes instead.
It used to work where all the outputs were petroleum (this MIGHT have changed before the basic oil change and thus you still had all three outputs, it's been a while), but both inputs were oil. It was specifically changed to how it works now in order to avoid the issues new people had with trying to change over to advanced oil processing and finding all their refineries were using the wrong pipes.

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Re: Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by MEOWMI »

^ That does sort of make sense yes... I guess it is then probably a better idea to remove the graphics for the extra outlets, though it is only a small issue.

Since the old recipe never had only one output I guess the system was never designed to support it, unlike the assembler.

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Re: Oil refinery should only show the pipes used in the chosen recipe

Post by netmand »

sure why not. the pipe in the assembler only appears when the recipe calls for it.

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