Add pause / unpause console command

[ArthurDent0x2a]

TL;DR

Add a console command that mimicks the behaviour of clicking pause / unpause button in the menu

What ?

In multiplayer games admins (and players if only_admins_can_pause_the_game is false in server settings) can pause / unpause a game by either clicking the respective button in the menu or by using the assigned keyboard shortcut (default shift+pause).

I suggest adding a possibility to the same thing from the console.

Why ?

The ability to do so via the console would enable the possibility to pause/unpause a game via RCON.

Only current way to pause a game over RCON I found is:

Code: Select all

/c game.tick_paused=true|false

This however has a few downsides:

• Players do not get a message that the game is currently paused
• It will disable achievements

[JasonC]

As an alternative; would it perhaps also work if, instead of a new command, when game.tick_paused is set, players *are* notified and it does *not* disable achievements?

If it were addressed on that end then e.g. existing mods and stuff that set game.tick_paused would also become more well-behaved.

[ssilk]

The good question here is: why do you need to pause a game as normal player?

There are many reasons for that (thinkable), I want to see them listed here, because the OP has obviously a clear idea why this is needed, but doesn’t explain them.

[SoShootMe]

As an alternative; would it perhaps also work if, instead of a new command, when game.tick_paused is set, players *are* notified and it does *not* disable achievements?

At present, "/c" always disables achievements, regardless of what you use it for (even nothing). That's easy to both understand and implement, so I think a new command makes more sense.

The good question here is: why do you need to pause a game as normal player?

The (immediate) reason was clearly given as:

The ability to do so via the console would enable the possibility to pause/unpause a game via RCON.

But the reason for wanting that is unclear. Maybe it would help with Server: automatically pause when a new player is joining.

[ssilk]

“Maybe” is the child of discussion.

[Danjen]

While not as useful for a normal player (I have my pause bound to ctrl+space so I can toggle it quickly), I can see it having some use to modders: Perhaps when debugging a complicated script, you can have it fire a pause command to freeze the game state so you can inspect things just before they break

[ArthurDent0x2a]

Sorry, I somehow missed the replies here.

The idea for this feature request came up during preparation of a LAN party. At that event we will try to do a 100% achievments run. I'll be acting as a coach / coordinator and will not necessarily be in game. I'll use a rcon script to f.e. setup permissions (i.e. disable research / hand crafting for a certain group of people) and during breaks etc. it would be nice to be able to pause the game without the need to join the game.

I figured the functionality is already there, it would just need to be exposed in a different way so I'll posted it as a suggestion.

[ssilk]

While not as useful for a normal player (I have my pause bound to ctrl+space so I can toggle it quickly), I can see it having some use to modders: Perhaps when debugging a complicated script, you can have it fire a pause command to freeze the game state so you can inspect things just before they break

That’s called a debugger. It automatically pauses every step and AFAIK it’s already included into Factorio, because otherwise there is no way to develop this game.

[Footsoldier]

When a savegame is so big that it requires several minutes to download, the server keeps going on and afterwards it's necessary to wait in my case for at least 10-15 minutes to keep up to the gameplay. This is even worse, when the server has the same specifications as the computer wanting to keep up the game. Impossible to connect in this case.

My server runs to collect resources while no players are online. For me it has become impossible to quickly get into the game. I have a huge mega base and want to continue playing on that map. But every addition I make, leads to an even worse connection experience. The late game becomes unplayable at some time just because the server can't be loaded anymore. It's unreasonable to wait a quarter of hour or even more just because of the lack of this feature.

Please add the possibility to pause the gameplay until a player is connected or to pause it via console command.d

[djedeleste]

I'm playing with friends on an SE2 server with big map size (200-300Mb), resulting in a somewhat long dl time of the save file when joining a server, and then problems catching up due to some of the players computers being at the limit already in terms of UPS on normal play (including the admin).

When someone is already on, we pause it ingame when someone connects, no problem.
For the first player to join though, the auto_pause setting restarts the game as soon as that player connects, so for the purposes of dl/loading/catching up on the map state, it's the same as if the server was kept running.

If the server auto_pause was lifted only when the first connecting player has finished the whole join process, that would be ideal.
Barring that, a pause/unpause console command would allow the admin to rejoin the server as first without having to have the long catch up problem he currently has ?