Search in Map View / Map Search Box: Resources, Recipes, More?

[IronCartographer]

TL;DR

Add a search box to the map screen.

What ?

People could find hard-to-spot ores (especially in low resource or modded games) more easily with a search box, which would be one possible solution to this issue: viewtopic.php?f=182&t=54776

It could highlight the resource(s) all at once the same way they are currently highlighted on mouse-over.

Bonus: The search could find machines with a certain recipe set, making it easy to find automation and learn / remember the layout of a factory. Again, more helpful in modded games, but even in vanilla people can end up asking "Where is the automation for this thing?!"

[Pinga]

+1

Eyeballing through the map, slowly passing the mouse like a point and click game is not fun.
Some patches are reeeeally small, or doesn't have enough contrast (I think stone on sand is almost invisible).

[Kenira]

That would come in really handy, both the search for ores and machines with certain recipes. Especially if you could do conditional searches like not just for iron ore patches, but iron ore patches bigger than 5 million. I often find myself not wanting to bother with most patches because they're just too small.

[Koub]

The title is misleading : 0.17 is not out yet. I'm changing it to 0.16 in the OP

[IronCartographer]

The title is misleading : 0.17 is not out yet. I'm changing it to 0.16 in the OP

I figured it would be part of the UI overhaul, if added at all.

conditional searches like not just for iron ore patches, but iron ore patches bigger than 5 million. I often find myself not wanting to bother with most patches because they're just too small.

Like this, perhaps?

Code: Select all

iron > 5M

Advanced features like that run into the persistent issue of discoverability in Factorio. A more powerful UI would help, but there are advantages to simplicity and having a single text box...

[Kenira]

Like this, perhaps?

Code: Select all

iron > 5M

Advanced features like that run into the persistent issue of discoverability in Factorio. A more powerful UI would help, but there are advantages to simplicity and having a single text box...

Just because a first time player might not see or use it, i don't think it's necessarily bad to implement a feature like that. However, i do agree it would not be a very high priority feature to implement in general, it would be useful but not overwhelmingly so.

Anyway, personally, i imagine it maybe a bit similar to the mod "What is it really used for". When you hit CTRL+F (and maybe add a button in map view too, to tell players there is a search function in the first place), a small window pops up where you can enter the name of what you're looking for. Similarly, i can imagine the map / ore search opening a window for text input, and then it'd just need another box like with decider combinators where you can input a condition (iron ore > 5M) and the results will then be filtered to that condition. By default it would be empty and just not filter at all so you can simply ignore it.

[Zavian]

I think that the contrast of resources to the background is too low in the map screen. If they just fixed that, or added a high contrast outline around resources, I think that would be help a lot.

[blazespinnaker]

Yeah, maybe some kind of minor UI tweak to make the patches stand out would be fine. Even just a debug option to show icons for the resources in full zoomed out mode would be good. In other words, when you fully zoom out, you'd just see high priority icons and then you can zoom in on them as necessary.

I find assigning a label like "RES" and an icon that actually stands out on the map when I run across the resources helps a bit. I was a bit sad when I found out that my icons don't stay on the map when I fully zoom out. I know it'd look a little cluttered, but I think there are certain high priority icons that should remain. Maybe a checkbox in the label editor?

Oil patches in particular are an irritant as they are the same color as ghost builds outside of roboports. Other colors that blend poorly are the red which can either be my weapons or enemies. I find as the map grows, I have to keep checking. Though not mines, sadly :p I use them for borders and it's unfortunate they vanish in the map mode.

Also, for what it's worth, I probably spend about 50%+ of the time in the map mode.

More constructive feedback on map mode, non search related in the spoiler below.

I'd spend more time in it if there was a few additions.. I'm really ok with the low rez graphics (very very snappy! so sweet), but the problem is that it's so awesome you just want it to be more functional. Search, Cut/Copy, Rail Planner.

While on the topic, When I go to paste a BP in map mode, it'd be cool if the colors were different from rocks/trees getting clobbered and things that won't get replaced, like pre-built structures. I have to keep zooming in and losing my place to see what I am building around. Either that or have a way to clobber pre-built structures, which would be even nicer. Also, I'd like to point out that the blueprint icon in map mode when pasting often obscures what it is that I'm pasting, and I have to zoom in to see what is beneath the icon. I'm a bit puzzled as to why the icon is there in map mode. The actual BP itself now floating in map mode is much more descriptive than the BP icon.

I really enjoy watching the trains zip around in map mode. Brilliant addition. With few minor changes, I could probably a play a game that was just the map mode, tbh.

Anyways, please don't take the constructive criticism negatively. Factorio is by the far the best 30$ I have ever spent on entertainment in my life.

[peternlewis]

TL;DR

I am forever looking for where the [random widget] assembler is in my highly disorganised and organic factory.

What ?

I would like if there was a search field in Map view. Ideally it would probably hide all the non matching icons (if in show icon mode) and (if not in show icon mode) show all the matching icons. Then my widget assemblers would stand out instead of being lost in the mess of all the assemblers.

For example, in this base trying to find where I make relays:

20220303-115805.png (2.68 MiB) Viewed 7648 times

Could be easily done with a search:

20220303-120139.png (610.34 KiB) Viewed 7648 times

Why ?

Yes, I show icons, and that helps, but in a crowded base with a thousand assemblers, it can still be tricky to find where I am making some random widget that has decided not to produce enough. So a search field, where I could enter the name of the widget and it would highlight the location, would help a lot in finding the items.

Potentially it could show storage locations where the items are stored as well, since this is frequently useful to find, and the robots clearly know where they are.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older thread with similar or same suggestion.

[ssilk]

I found similar threads:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=59909 Improve Map View (Search and Remote Logistic changes)
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=62309 Search Labels in Mini-Map

Implemented:
viewtopic.php?f=66&t=57860 Search for train stops by name in the map / Map search for tags and train stops

In m opinion this will not implemented. Because of the enormous CPU-effort for this kind of search (*); a search over the whole map could be used as DoS-Attack by griefers, or it must be programmed quite differently.

But I would appreciate to limit the search onto the size of the mini-map. See link above.


(*) a map search needs to look into each tile, each entity etc. on the map. This search depends also on how much you zoomed out. Fully zoomed out map can contain a map with a size of many Gigabytes. It's not possible to male this search in realtime.

[FuryoftheStars]

Regarding finding resources via map view, there are mods for that.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/ResourceLabelsUpdated
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/resourceMarker

[ssilk]

Thanks, I forgot the mods.

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/BeastFinder Is another one

[peternlewis]

In m opinion this will not implemented. Because of the enormous CPU-effort for this kind of search (*); a search over the whole map could be used as DoS-Attack by griefers, or it must be programmed quite differently.

The suggestion I made requires only filtering the display of icons on the map so I hardly see how that could be excessively CPU intensive.

The effort to show the icons on the map just needs a slight conditional on it. And it could be entirely local to the display in which case the CPU would only be on the end user.

[ssilk]

The suggestion I made requires only filtering the display of icons on the map so I hardly see how that could be excessively CPU intensive.

The effort to show the icons on the map just needs a slight conditional on it. And it could be entirely local to the display in which case the CPU would only be on the end user.

Well, ok, that is not a whole search, that’s a search for producing entities only (more exactly: you search for the results of the recipes of entities). And I would call it a filter instead of a search, because the display-logic is reversed.

Because of the limited amount of entities (only a few hundred instead of millions) it takes much less time. Of course that is much faster.
A “search” — as I would seen it suggested here — looks for all entities and items that match. What is with items in chests for example? Maybe you’re looking for a special plant-type. Or what is with wooden poles that you want to replace?

And — I again looked back to the pictures you made — I was not able to see the small icons of the filtered entities this second time . It took me about ten seconds to see them. I would say that needs to be much more visible, it can’t be just turning off the icons and let the player search for the remaining icons.

But you made the point: to make the search “useful” we need to shrink the functionality somehow, because otherwise it just takes too long.

[ssilk]

uhm, seems, that I accidentally hit lock topic. Unlocked it. I really don’t know how that happened.

[BlueTemplar]

Resource Labels (updated) indeed noticeably slows down the game (especially if you configure it to take 1 tick per chunk).

[ssilk]

Of course, but that I comes from the mod, not Factorio.

[JasonC]

+1 in general. Got linked here from a similar suggestion for train stops.

Fwiw my little mock up looked like this:

It would be really handy if, in the map view, if I had train stop names enabled, there was a little search box that, when I type in it, it hides the names of all train stops that don't contain the search text.

...

I think a convenient UI would be that if the train stop name toggle button was enabled, then the search box would be visible in the area under the toggle buttons, and if the train stop name toggle were disabled, then the search box wouldn't be visible.

...



Also I think it should honor the fuzzy text search game setting if possible.

...

I was only thinking of train stops; but maybe where I have the little train station graphic next to the search box, that could instead be a button that lets you pick other search categories besides train stops (and if you add some map search hooks to the api then mods could implement additional search features).