Friday Facts #412 - Undo/Redo improvements & Car Latency driving

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-412

[ochrid-fact]

Undo preview . With these quality of life improvements, they are setting the bar so very high, no other game will come close for decades.

[Tooster]

This is the FFF I've been waiting for the most

First, a shameless plugs: viewtopic.php?t=104721 and https://t3st3ro.github.io/stuff/factorio-waypoints.html
and requests directly related to that:
Could you add some API for registering a bunch of actions as a single entry on the undo stack, basically a "transaction"? Just like in the linked thread, building one continuous strip of belts would be such a good QOL change I could add with a mod!

Secondly, some questions and proposals:

• will the prompt for confirmation of old undo actions "remember" we confirmed last action or will it ask that every time we undo something older than X minutes? For example imagine I want to undo 10 actions from 15 minutes ago, does it mean 10 confirmation popups will show up?
• is there some "undo stack window" which displays the undo stack and allow to preview each action and revert to this state with a simple button click? I imagine it would be very useful when we could for example see a list, click a position 15 entries ago and just click "undo everything up to this point".

A car latency improvement is an awesomely pleasant surprise!

[MEOWMI]

These are some of the best improvements so far (but only some, because you've showcased some absolutely amazing ones previously too!)

[Justderpingalong]

OH MY GOD THEY'VE FIXED DRIVING.

[Upserter]

Do you still get an undo preview if the relevant area is outside radar coverage?

[Aqo]

this is my favorite FFF, thank you so much Wube, those are exactly the two things I wanted for years

[Kyralessa]

Fantastic FFF. I've quite often undone something and heard the sound, but couldn't see anything, and wondered with trepidation just what I'd inadvertently destroyed in my factory. And of course I couldn't redo it. This is an excellent change.

I've also done multiplayer online with a guy in Australia before (I'm in Germany), and I had to give up on the car as completely unusable with the latency.

Very much looking forward to these updates.

[kevincox]

Please support CTRL+Shift+Z redo for Windows and Linux as well. Not only is it a very common shortcut for redo but it is also one-handable which is very useful for a game like Factorio where you are often using the mouse in the other hand while building.

[svalorzen]

I do wonder what's going to happen when you cross a railway in a car and there's a train coming. You'll think you can make it, but the car actually gets run over by the train? Doesn't sound like a lot of fun

[GregoriusT]

Awesome, now please fix shooting weapons in Multiplayer, which is far worse than the Vehicles.


Like merely holding the "Shoot" Button causes the Game to lag like mad, if there is any latency, even if you dont have Ammo at all, its like its trying to send my mouse coordinates every game tick... (speaking from transatlantic multiplayer experience)

[Terrahertz]

Amazing work

Although I hope to never be in a position where I need the later improvement, it's good to know that it's there.

Seeing the undo, redo feature being fully implemented now, makes me wonder of there are other features usually associated with editors that could be added to the game.

[FuzzyOne]

Oh my, now I'm undone!
But now my undoing is redone!!

[koliw_br]

Do these changes also apply to the Spidertron in manual control mode (not via remote control)?

[jamaicancastle]

Previously, you showed a remote manual drive option for trains - will that be available for other vehicles? I ask, knowing how often I leave cars in weird places when I'm laying long rails/pipes/belts/power lines and have to walk all the way back to my car in order to get it back. (Or worse, I'm using the car to run between biter nests and I underestimate one of them... now I need a car, to get to my other car, to rescue my body in time.)

[Kyralessa]

Please support CTRL+Shift+Z redo for Windows and Linux as well. Not only is it a very common shortcut for redo but it is also one-handable which is very useful for a game like Factorio where you are often using the mouse in the other hand while building.

I agree. I think most actions in Factorio don't have a secondary shortcut set, but only a primary, but this seems like a case where it would make sense to make Control-Shift-Z the initial secondary shortcut (while still allowing reassignment, of course). A lot of software development tools use Control-Shift-Z to redo.

[StrangePan]

Please support CTRL+Shift+Z redo for Windows and Linux as well. Not only is it a very common shortcut for redo but it is also one-handable which is very useful for a game like Factorio where you are often using the mouse in the other hand while building.

We generally try to make all controls configurable in settings, including undo and redo. I use a Mac normally, so when I play on Windows, I also remap it to Ctrl+Shift+Z.

[Lou]

I do wonder what's going to happen when you cross a railway in a car and there's a train coming. You'll think you can make it, but the car actually gets run over by the train? Doesn't sound like a lot of fun

Unfortunately, simulating train movements for latency hiding is currently a no-go

[Lou]

Awesome, now please fix shooting weapons in Multiplayer, which is far worse than the Vehicles.


Like merely holding the "Shoot" Button causes the Game to lag like mad, if there is any latency, even if you dont have Ammo at all, its like its trying to send my mouse coordinates every game tick... (speaking from transatlantic multiplayer experience)

Latency hiding in combat is generally problematic, because we would need to simulate a lot of expensive stuff.

I am not sure what do you mean by "lag", but currently when you are shooting, the latency hiding is dropped -> you should have a delay but not lag in the sense of minifreezes.

[deso]

So, I have had a thought on something I would like to see as the topic for a Friday fact. I think showing all the ways you're improving performance in the base game and DLC could be interesting. I know that the game is already very optimized but there is still specific things that cause lots of time usage(specifically pumps, placing long belts, flame turrets, world file size, etc...). optimizing this could be the difference between 1000 SPM to 1500 SPM before you start to lag.