Allow things permissible by remote view when out of reach

[icey]

Since the release of SA, I've really enjoyed remote view, even when I'm present on the planet. It is a truly great way of interacting with the factory and I have, as I'm sure is fairly common, a fairly large bot network, meaning, I can play in remote view without my character moving most of the time. It's great for travel time, never missing items, etc.

But that puts me in a situation where I feel like the duality between being present and remote view is not handled particularly well. I was tripped up several times now where I'm playing in remote view most of the time (really bots and ghosts are amazing), but the when I drop out of remote view the reach distance is a problem again. Especially for things like looking at an assembler's recipe. It almost feels like we should be allowed to do the things we are allowed to do when we open remote view, even if we're out of reach? Because it puts us in the relatively counter-intuitive situation that I can't reach something but most certainly can hit m and do the same exact thing I just wanted to do?

I wonder if it would be reasonable / tractable to either simply allow us to do all the things we're allowed to do in remote view without being in reach, or maybe have a hotkey like shift / control that, when pushed, will let you remote-view-interact even from the normal screen. So rather than your character interacting, it'd be a remote view interaction, just without needing to explicitly toggle between the two.

[Brother Matthew]

As I have gotten used to using remote-view since the release of 2.0, I find myself getting into the habit of clicking on things to fiddle with their GUI settings since this has no range restrictions in remote-view. But then whenever I switch back to controlling the engineer, walking around and building etc. I often click on buildings on the edges of my screen that are sometimes too far to conveniently walk to (cliffs, liquids in the way) and the GUI won't open up because the engineer is not close enough to interact with that machine. And all I do when that happens is open up remote-view to give myself "the privilege" to edit GUIs from a distance. But this is annoying not only because it is more clicks but also remote view defaults to a particular far-out map-render zoom which forces you to then zoom in again to be able to click on machines to open GUIs but this switch between map-view and real-rendering during the zooming process makes me lose my bearings of where I was in my factory and what particular machine I was trying to click on.

This range-interaction restriction used to make sense in 1.0 but with the integration of remote-view allowing you adjust GUIs from afar, not being able to do it while in engineer-mode has just become a chore requiring extra effort and clicks for no gameplay reason. I believe the solution to this to be simple, If the engineer is out of range of a machine when it is clicked on, open remote-view and the machine GUI at the same time. Even better would be to not force you into remote-view because that would save you an input when exiting the GUI and then also having to exit remote-view, but I do understand this solution would be more complicated depending on the current code configuration.

Thank you for your time <3 you devs are a blessing

[Hares]

+1 on that. At least for the entities w/o inventory such as combinators, lamps, etc -- as it is for power poles or train stops.

[typecasto]

There was a mod for 1.1 that did this called Remote Configuration, I bet it could be updated to 2.0 to open it in the new remote view mode (with the ghost inventory).

[rockaday]

Once you're on multiple planets, and using remote view and construction bots a lot, it's kind of silly how much *less* powerful you are when interacting with things without the map. It happens over and over that I try to do something and get the "out of reach" error message.

My suggestion is to add a research that allows players to unlock a longer reach, so this happens less often, and we don't feel like little weaklings when we're not using map/remote view.

[IsaacOscar]

Yes please, I keep opening remote view as it's literally easier than walking a few squares, but then I have to close it when I want to move items around or craft stuff.

It would probably get confusing if clicking on items caused bots to remove them instead of them going to your inventory....

But other than playing with items, you should definitely be able to just see the items and configure entities e.g. change recipes.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into an older thread with a suggestion aiming to address the same issue.

[Tinyboss]

Yes please, I keep opening remote view as it's literally easier than walking a few squares, but then I have to close it when I want to move items around or craft stuff.

It would probably get confusing if clicking on items caused bots to remove them instead of them going to your inventory....

But other than playing with items, you should definitely be able to just see the items and configure entities e.g. change recipes.

I was about to make the same comment about getting the remote-view version when you're not expecting it. I think there would either need to be a separate control to open it that way (though we're running out of modifiers), or do something to the UI so it's unmistakable which interaction mode is active.

[IsaacOscar]

For completeness, I'm wondering what we can do in remote view that we can't in normal view:

• Place ghost entities with normal build (in normal mode, if you have the entity in your inventory, you can use q + shift to "force" build a ghost, but theres no way to do a "normal" ghost build unless you don't have the item in your inventory and have a certain option enabled). I suggest making shift+q put a normal ghost in your cursor.
• place ghost items (again, shift+q could be made to add the item to your cursor, but it may be hard to find the item if it's not in your inventory or crafting menu)
• place put of reach red, green, or copper wires
• configure entities that are out of reach (greying out item slots to make it clear you can't reach them, and give an error if you try to?)
• mark items for removal by a bot (I guess if it's in reach, you can just move it to a personal logistic trash slot?)
• drive vehicles remotely (probably should stay remote view exclusive)
• zoom out to map level (ditto)
• move the camera around without moving the player (ditto)

Is there anything I'm missing?

[macdjord]

Note that there are some cases where the same input does different things in remote view vs. normal mode. Having the game silently transition from doing the normal-mode thing to the remote-view thing just because the object you are interacting with is outside the (invisible) reach threshold would be very confusing.

E.g., in normal mode, if I open a building's screen and then left-click on an item stack, I pick up that stack; in remote view, left-clicking an item stack marks the stack as trash to be removed by logibots. It would be annoying if I clicked on a stack expecting to pick it up only to trash it by accident just because the building was farther away than I thought!

[IsaacOscar]

FYI this suggestion is a duplicate of 117165

[Hares]

There are number of entities which can be opened from any distance in both 1.1 & 2.0: power poles & train stops. I suggest extending this a bit so that things not requiring inventory access (accumulators, combinators, wires, pipes/tanks, pumps, inserters, belts, etc.) could be used from any distance smoothly. At least wires, combinators, and tanks, they are painful.

[IsaacOscar]

There are number of entities which can be opened from any d is distance in both 1.1 & 2.0: power poles & train stops. I suggest extending this a bit so that things not requiring inventory access (accumulators, combinators, wires, pipes/tanks, pumps, (?) inserters, belts, etc.) could be used from any distance smoothly. At least wires, combinators, and tanks, they are painful.

You can transfer items between your inventory and an inserters hand though...

[Tinyboss]

There are number of entities which can be opened from any d is distance in both 1.1 & 2.0: power poles & train stops. I suggest extending this a bit so that things not requiring inventory access (accumulators, combinators, wires, pipes/tanks, pumps, (?) inserters, belts, etc.) could be used from any distance smoothly. At least wires, combinators, and tanks, they are painful.

This is a great suggestion and I can't think of any downside. Someone else pointed out that inserters don't qualify since they have inventory...but everything else, absolutely!

[Koub]

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

[Kitoyo]

I hope this is related enough to the topic at hand. My apologies if I misunderstood and it is not:

Currently, when opening the train menu via the train overview (default hotkey O), the fuel tab is inaccessible.
However, when opening the train menu via remote view by clicking on a train, the fuel tab is accessible.
It would be great if this could be changed so the train overview will open the train menu GUI in remote view, making the fuel tab accessible. I've found myself wanting to check how much fuel a train has left/what fuel they're currently running on a few times and instead of just being able to check via the train overview window, I had to close the window, open the map, navigate to the train's position (so potentially setting it to manual mode so it won't drive off and I lose track of it) and open the train menu that way, which is pretty cumbersome.

If there were other ways to check a train's fuel content, e.g. in the train overview GUI when hovering the mouse over a train or below the small map view (where it also says where the train is headed/stopped etc.), that'd be an adequate solution as well.

[IsaacOscar]

I hope this is related enough to the topic at hand. My apologies if I misunderstood and it is not:

Currently, when opening the train menu via the train overview (default hotkey O), the fuel tab is inaccessible.
However, when opening the train menu via remote view by clicking on a train, the fuel tab is accessible.
It would be great if this could be changed so the train overview will open the train menu GUI in remote view, making the fuel tab accessible. I've found myself wanting to check how much fuel a train has left/what fuel they're currently running on a few times and instead of just being able to check via the train overview window, I had to close the window, open the map, navigate to the train's position (so potentially setting it to manual mode so it won't drive off and I lose track of it) and open the train menu that way, which is pretty cumbersome.

If there were other ways to check a train's fuel content, e.g. in the train overview GUI when hovering the mouse over a train or below the small map view (where it also says where the train is headed/stopped etc.), that'd be an adequate solution as well.

Definitely related, and I agree I also kept getting annoyed & confused when sometimes I can see the fuel but not other times.

Other entities on the other hand simply don't allow you to interact with them if they're out of reach or you're not in remote view.