Add option to force character screen to open in remote view

[Ovidian]

I'm used to using blueprints from my inventory while looking at the map. It was really useful. With 2.0, I cannot open my character screen in the remote view, because the button I've set to open my character screen does something else in this particular case (open's "ghost cursor"). I feel like contextual buttons are something of a plague on videogames as a whole, and this is an egregious example. It's restricting my ability to design,in a game of navigating menus to design. But if that's the way it has to be, let me use another button to force my character screen open when remote view is up. There's no reason to just make this functionality unavailable.

[dragon_gawain]

TL;DR

When in map view (including interplanetary), I want to be able to open my inventory.

Why?

2 main reasons:

1. Custom planners are difficult to make on the fly:
To make a custom deconstruction/upgrade planner, I have to put it on my hotbar, which may be full of other things that I want there.
This becomes even more annoying when I have the exact planner I want to use in my inventory. It would be nice to be able to just grab it from there instead of making a new planner that does the exact same thing.

While the blueprints page exists and can be accessed by pushing 'B', opening my inventory is faster, easier, and more instinctive (for me). Also, I tend to not use the blueprints page much, especially not for putting single-use things.

2. Ease of access
The full 'select ghost icon' GUI is cool, but it has some issues:
a. It has buildings that I haven't unlocked yet (nice for when I'm researching them, confusing and cluttering when I have no idea what it is)
b. Information overload/organization - I know where things are in my inventory, it might be faster for me to select it from the inventory rather than needing to find in the place where it would be crafted

How?

I'm thinking that another tab in the ghost cursor GUI that lets you look at the inventory would fit in. That way, you still have the full suite of items to select from, but it also gives you the option of opening the inventory. Or it could just look like the inventory always done, with the crafting menu to the right. I've noticed that you can use the pipette tool on anything now, so you can just hit Q in the crafting window to grab the thing you want.

This is also a matter of consistency - I can close the map, grab something from my inventory, then go back to map view, go to a different planet, and it'll still be in my cursor. But if I put it away, I can't get it again unless I find it in the full GUI, or close the map and start all over.

[dragon_gawain]

Seconding this opinion!
Would love to be able to open my inventory from map view again!

There's 2 main applications that I was able to articulate properly into words:
(my reason 1 is very similar to the OP's reason)

1. Custom planners are difficult to make on the fly:
To make a custom deconstruction/upgrade planner, I have to put it on my hotbar, which may be full of other things that I want there.
This becomes even more annoying when I have the exact planner I want to use in my inventory. It would be nice to be able to just grab it from there instead of making a new planner that does the exact same thing.

While the blueprints page exists and can be accessed by pushing 'B', opening my inventory is faster, easier, and more instinctive (for me). Also, I tend to not use the blueprints page much, especially not for putting single-use things.

2. Ease of access
The full 'select ghost icon' GUI is cool, but it has some issues:
a. It has buildings that I haven't unlocked yet (nice for when I'm researching them, confusing and cluttering when I have no idea what it is)
b. Information overload/organization - I know where things are in my inventory, it might be faster for me to select it from the inventory rather than needing to find in the place where it would be crafted

An extra reason would be "I'm used to being able to open my inventory from map view and it's comfy". I list this as extra cause it's a subjective point of view, whereas the others are more objective.

[myridium]

Thanks for your suggestion! This is one of those things that I just put up with, without noticing.

I agree with both of you on your reasons, and I think it's probably true that contextual buttons are a bad design choice. I think the devs have done a good job integrating the ghost cursor and regular menu in a seamless way that does almost feel like it's not context-sensitive. It's probably a hard problem to solve in Space Age, and they've done a decent job of it. The unified 'ghost UI' seems to disembody the player, though... there's no difference between building on your current planet and building on another one! I find this contributes to the problem of 'nonlocality' that breaks immersion. Same for being able to arbitrarily manipulate objects instantaneously from anywhere, on any planet, without any logistics connection. (At least if they made an explicit research technology to 'adjust item settings via radar' it would make more sense...)

I also miss that comfy feel. For example: putting everything away and only holding in your inventory the relevant building materials. Now you open the build menu and have a clean interface with only the relevant materials to work with...

Something has been lost here with the new UI, but it's hard for me to see how they could have done better with what was demanded by Space Age. Do you have any more specific suggestions on how to integrate the ambitions of Space Age with the old Factorio feel?

I would also add that showing the player all recipes, including those not unlocked, is a bad thing for new players. It's okay for old players who already know all the items etc but it will overwhelm new players and they'll miss out on the fun of that comfy experience.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into an older thread with the same suggestion.

[runamucker]

We don't need to see the whole player inventory. Just having access to all the things from our inventory that we're allowed to hold for real in map view would be great, like blueprints, deconstruction planners, etc.

Being at the right location in map view, then having to close it, put the blueprint in our hand, then going back to the same place in map view is bad flow.

[herdek550]

I definitely miss the option to go to my inventory in remote map view.

Why:
I often create temporary blueprints that I only use once or twice so I don't want to put them in blueprint library and I keep them only in inventory. Also it is often easier to look for a building in my inventory than in the build menu. Because I tend to keep my inventory filled with the most frequently used items anyways. Inventory is like an extended hotbar for me.

Solution:
Adding button that can switch between player inventory and builder view. I think that both the inventory and builder view have pros and cons. But with button that can switch between them, we can have the best of both worlds.

[runamucker]

The ghost view that opens in remote view could show both the player inventory and recipe list, just like it normally does, but all of it ghosts only, except blueprints, etc.