Plan / Debug mode (similar to Pause)

[Mooncat]

With more and more factory games come with pause / unpause feature that allows players to plan and debug their builds while items are frozen, I propose Factorio implements one as a QoL update.

The current Escape Menu and the Pause function in keybind is useless for planning and debugging as they freeze everything, including UI. Placing ghost entities is impossible. Hovering over entities to check the circuit signals is impossible. The entire world is frozen. No progress can be made.

With spoilage and instant building on space platforms now, they add more reasons why being able to place ghost entities while pausing the game is a good thing.

Differ from the existing pause mode, the proposed plan / debug mode (not sure if these are good names) should:
- Pause all entities
- Not pause the UI
- Automatically enter Remote View (or rather, players can only enter the proposed mode in Remote View ?)
- Let players place ghost entities.
- Let players hover over entities to see its current status, including the circuit signals.
- Let players select entities and change their configurations, but the effect is applied only after player exit the proposed mode.

[eugenekay]

Feature Exists; try the “/editor” command to activate.

Good luck!

[Mooncat]

Feature Exists; try the “/editor” command to activate.

Good luck!

No. It is completely different thing. I'm suggesting a feature that is not cheating and does not disable achievement.

`/editor` allows cheating and disables achievements.

The feature does NOT exist.

[Muche]

Cheating is subjective.
I would say using external blueprints designed by someone else is cheating.
Biters would say using external blueprints designed by you in a previous game is cheating.
What you are proposing is essentially the same. You are trying to design/improve your factory and squeeze it into a zero-time-passed moment withing your main game.
As such, this can be accomplished by saving, doing the design/improvement work as usual, blueprint the result, export the blueprint, load the previous save, and apply the blueprint.

[Mooncat]

Cheating is subjective.
I would say using external blueprints designed by someone else is cheating.
Biters would say using external blueprints designed by you in a previous game is cheating.
What you are proposing is essentially the same. You are trying to design/improve your factory and squeeze it into a zero-time-passed moment withing your main game.
As such, this can be accomplished by saving, doing the design/improvement work as usual, blueprint the result, export the blueprint, load the previous save, and apply the blueprint.

I agree "sometimes" cheating is subjective.

But the difference of `/editor` and in-game pause mode is obvious. `/editor` lets you spawn something that you can't in normal playthrough regardless of their tech and biome requirements. It is OBVIOUSLY cheating.

But is Blueprint cheating? I have to say no. You can PLACE blueprint, but you can't BUILD the entities in the blueprint without limits. You need the tech, you need robots, robots can be destroyed, etc. As long as you are limited by the game, I won't consider it cheating.

Is pausing the time cheating? Not in factory games, especially when we already have blueprints. Same as above, you can PLACE blueprint when time is frozen (in my proposal), but you can't actually BUILD the entities until time is resumed.

And my proposal aims to fix frustrating scenarios that can happen very often, so often that you don't want to open another save just for doing them -
1. Items go through spiltters / picked up by inserters before we can set their filters quick enough (Especially when entities are instantly built on space platforms)
2. Items spoil while we are still designing the factory
3. Almost impossible to debug circuit networks where signals change rapidly in frames

Just let me pause the time, place the ghosts, set their filters, resume time and let robots finish the job.

[eugenekay]

I agree "sometimes" cheating is subjective.

But the difference of `/editor` and in-game pause mode is obvious. `/editor` lets you spawn something that you can't in normal playthrough regardless of their tech and biome requirements. It is OBVIOUSLY cheating.

Just let me pause the time, place the ghosts, set their filters, resume time and let robots finish the job.

Yes, Using the /editor mode disables achievements. It is letting you slow down Time and still perform Actions, which (according to the Rules of the Achievements for a Savegame) would be "Cheating"..... so are you asking to "change the rules of Cheating" ? I do not understand the point of this Suggestion; since this Functionality exists as otherwise described. If you want to Re-Enable Achievements for your Savefile you can do that - Factorio does not implement Steam VAC Bans or have any mechanism beyond reading the Savegame binary data.....

In the Editor Settings tab, uncheck all of the Instant settings that you don't want:

Screenshot 2025-02-26 113551.png (99.23 KiB) Viewed 495 times

[Mooncat]

according to the Rules of the Achievements for a Savegame

Where is it?

[eugenekay]

according to the Rules of the Achievements for a Savegame

Where is it?

In the source code for the game, of course. "Achievements Enabled" is a Binary flag that is en/disabled based upon Runtime conditions (such as running a Console /command) - and persisted as a Binary bit in the savefiIle. If you have done something that you feel is "not Cheating", but which disables Achievements - such as the use of /Editor mode - then you can re-enable Achievements with no further enforcement checks.

Mods (which are a first-party Main Menu feature) also Disable Achievements, so it's really not a concern for a lot of players. It is up to you how to decide how to play the game, and what is "fair".

[Mooncat]

according to the Rules of the Achievements for a Savegame

Where is it?

In the source code for the game, of course. "Achievements Enabled" is a Binary flag that is en/disabled based upon Runtime conditions (such as running a Console /command) - and persisted as a Binary bit in the savefiIle. If you have done something that you feel is "not Cheating", but which disables Achievements - such as the use of /Editor mode - then you can re-enable Achievements with no further enforcement checks.

Mods (which are a first-party Main Menu feature) also Disable Achievements, so it's really not a concern for a lot of players. It is up to you how to decide how to play the game, and what is "fair".

Then that's not a definition of cheating and my proposal still stands. Comments in source code are not official statements. Comments can be written just for convenience.

Unless the devs come out and announce that simply slowing down time is considered cheating in Factorio, then it's dumb I'll stop proposing the idea. Otherwise, the proposal is not the same as `/editor`. I am proposing an easily accessible and actually usable pause/resume feature, preferably represented as a toggle button on the UI, that does not magically give you access to things that you can't normally access, and makes the good use of the existing Remote View. Consider the pause feature in Cities: Skylines, Shapez 2, Planet Coaster, Oxygen Not Included. They are all not considered cheating.

[eugenekay]

Unless the devs come out and announce that simply slowing down time is considered cheating in Factorio, then it's dumb I'll stop proposing the idea. Otherwise, the proposal is not the same as `/editor`. I am proposing an easily accessible and actually usable pause/resume feature, preferably represented as a toggle button on the UI, that does not magically give you access to things that you can't normally access.

So you want the button from the EditorExtensions mod (which is developed by a Wube employee) to be included in the Base Game, but also have it not disable Achievements if you don’t use the non-Instant features? To provide a game mode that completely removes the “time pressure” mechanic for Evolution and achievements like There Is No Spoon?

That seems like a large change to replicate a lot of Existing Features, with mild Benefit. Good Luck!

[Mooncat]

Unless the devs come out and announce that simply slowing down time is considered cheating in Factorio, then it's dumb I'll stop proposing the idea. Otherwise, the proposal is not the same as `/editor`. I am proposing an easily accessible and actually usable pause/resume feature, preferably represented as a toggle button on the UI, that does not magically give you access to things that you can't normally access.

So you want the button from the EditorExtensions mod (which is developed by a Wube employee) to be included in the Base Game, but also have it not disable Achievements if you don’t use the non-Instant features? To provide a game mode that completely removes the “time pressure” mechanic for Evolution and achievements like There Is No Spoon?

That seems like a large change to replicate a lot of Existing Features, with mild Benefit. Good Luck!

I was the creator of Creative Mode so I know what I'm saying... or not. I actually haven't stopped time with Editor Extensions because I don't need to when I already have the god power.

So... yes about "the button"? I'm proposing the stop time feature without disabling achievements.

No. It does not completely make Enemy Evolution and There Is No Spoon redundant. As Muche has already said, you can already achieve the same by using existing blueprints. Speedrunners are already using blueprint books to speedrun the game. But also as I have answered, you can't build the blueprints without resuming time and that's the actual challenge. (And no, if you are still thinking about the redundancy of my suggestion, my suggestion aims to help you fixing problems that happen very often without the need of making blueprints.)

Yes, it replicates a lot of features. This suggests that this feature is easy to implement.

Yes and no. Mild benefit if you are already a mod player, don't care about achievements, are willing to ignore the in-game limitations. Very beneficial if you want to enjoy vanilla Factorio / Space Age and respect what the game offers.

[Factoruser]

Back on topic: a pause button, stopping the gametime, maybe even "fast forward" would be good. But because you can only build by hand or with bots, you could only place ghosts or edit circuits.

[Mooncat]

Back on topic: a pause button, stopping the gametime, maybe even "fast forward" would be good. But because you can only build by hand or with bots, you could only place ghosts or edit circuits.

Yes! It would be great if there are other options to control time speed, like x0.5, x1, x2, or an option to advance the game by 1 tick.

The legendary inserters are moving so fast now even a "hold" signal would only last for 1 or 2 ticks. Having an option to advance the game by 1 tick each click would be useful for debugging circuit network.