Split me: UX report from returning casual player

[osndok]

Where 'casual' can rightfully surmised into inefficient non-ratioed spaghetti bases that take forever to do anything. I thought that reporting my fresh experience would be valuable towards the refinement of factorio, before I get too used to the new quirks.

At this point I've only been to nauvis and vulcanis, so I might have a follow-up report if/when I get further.

I was going to file these individual bug-reports and suggestions, but I quickly remembered that I don't get paid for this (the opposite in fact) so thought I would simply make an attempt at providing the perspective and leave the work persisting it for others to hammer out.

easy fixes
* label "enable/disable" (on wire and logistics connection dialog widget) is ambiguous and self-contradictory, it should read "Enabled when" (or the like) as that is its behavior; there is a tiny cognitive load every time I see the label as I internally translate it.
* label: "stopped at <X>" should read "Orbiting <X>"
* label: "global production" is no longer accurate, as it involves more than one globe... "universal production"? "all planets"?

ux/bugs
* after habituating myself to clicking on nearest power pole to see electricity stats, the space power view was quite difficult to find. I repeatedly found myself clicking on the nearest power equipment (solar panels and accummulators) and being surprised to find no stats, and no easy path from there to the stats. Presently the dialog that opens is not particularly busy (just shows "working" with an image of the device), so I think an easy win would be to add a button that takes the user to the space platform power stats from that dialog. Less important on planet surfaces, but I think the same kind of button would be appropriate there too.
* after graduating from wires to logistics robots, it felt like a jarring step backwards to be forced to use wires in space... and felt very broken to be able to set logistics constraints that were not actually honored. To me, it made sense that if the entire platform shares a power connection, then it would make sense that everything would 'know' what is in the hub and any inserter would be able to use the logistics control behavior without a tangle of fragile wires cluttering the platform. I would suggest either implementing space logistics control behavior (i.e. just reading the contents of the central hub) or disabling the ability to set a logistics control behavior in space so as to not mislead players
* the ui is so fluid, and hitting the "escape" key 99% of the time just makes current thing go away, that I have been shocked a few times when it is a disaster: in this particular example, I was in a remote/map view of another planet (or space platform) dragging a selection rectangle for something to be cut, when I change my mind and hit 'escape' (without even thinking, just knowing with 100% faith that it would discontinue the selection process). Instead, it closes out of the remote/map view, translating the remote coordinates into local coordinates, and (very nearly) marks my entire base for deconstruction... in theory, I would suggest that a selection in one surface should not ever be translated to another. Ideally, I think that hitting escape when a selection rectangle is being captured should just stop the selection (not cancel a view or open the pause/menu, as that could be left for a subsequent press of escape).
* the ui for placing underground belts forwards is fantastic, making the experience for placing them 'backwards' (starting from the end point) very disappointing in contrast (e.g. when you want to plate an underground at max distance from the egress side
* when applying a blueprint that would turn around a belt, and then manually fixing it (turning it back around) items on that belt have magically swapped sides
* shift-click (and friends) to "fast move" of personal equipment from one's inventory into armor equipment grid clobbers the previously-selected ghost slots instead of filling any free area that is available
* putting a rocket's payload into the same requester chest as the rocket part ingredients can cause the bulk inserter feeding the rocket to jam (holding one payload element too much for the rocket)... I understand there is a similar race condition when an item spoils as the arm swings, so maybe the same solution would work here? i.e. if an inserter would flag itself as needing help from a robot if it is holding something it cannot insert into its destination
* in the crafting/item-selection menus, quality selection is logically before item selection (e.g. having wrong quality blocks selecting item as having a conflicting slot), yet occurs below item picker, resulting in a rather unnatural and ineffecient "w" mouse workflow ('down-up-down')

feels buggy
* on the landing pad on nauvice, it made sense to me to be able to select "all qualities" for a science filter (so it would suck down all qualities made in space), but it in fact did nothing
* after being forced to divest my character of blueprints in order to travel to another planet, I still "see" the blueprints in my (full) hotbar, but I cannot actually use them on the next planet or even if I "remote in" to the former planet... I was able to find way to export blue print as a string via remote control, but felt quite kludgy
* similarly: the "import-from-string" button placement seemed non-obvious to me... I intuitively expected to be able to open a new blueprint (right-click) and import it thereunto, but was frustrated by the fact that I could right-click other blueprints, but not blank ones... even though they are "the same thing".... perhaps a "replace contents from string" button? since (I presume) right-click is discluded for technical reasons (unable to show 'nothing' in the preview?), then perhaps opening an empty blueprint would have its own teensy UI with buttons for selecting contents or importing from string?

missing features
* passive provider chests should have a "space platforms only" checkbox that earmarks the contents for space platforms and allows the base to "save up" for expensive or rare materials for use in space (otherwise other logistics requests continuously steal things needed in orbit, creating some kind of live-lock, requires manual intervention or forces the user to construct an additional rocket silo for each product)... extra important if science uses robot logistics
* for some time, I thought my artillery was bugged/broken as it was loaded and ready to fire, and plenty of targets (so I thought) in what I thought was its range (the range visible was the larger manual firing range when selecting the artillery remote). I would suggest a distinct message or indicator for turret equipment (esp artillery) when it has no targets in range
* in much the same way that one can hover over a logistics request and the same items in your inventory will flash, so too should you be able to hover over an item in your inventory and see the logistics requests flash (in fact, this might even be more important b/c they now have way more text/numbers hiding the icons)

suggested enhancements
* research "Orbital Bombardment" unlocks another space platform edge-hugging device that can drop things from orbit. Fills the gap between tanks and artillery, and functions much like a manual-only artillery that can hit anywhere on the surface. Could be as simple as dropping inaccurate iron rods crafted on the space platform, and progress as far as dropping nukes (with achievement "the only way to be sure"). Perhaps further research (bombardment-2) could make it more accurate. Perhaps there could be another droppable researched that could map out a few tiles (radar? artillary shell?). Alternative name: rods from god.
* vehicle equipment grid: alternator: when vehicle is running, converts some fuel into energy (e.g. to charge batteries, lessens the need for solar panels and batteries to occupy equipment grid)
* personal assembler - consumes a large bit of equipment grid, but each one present and powered adds another "thread" towards parallelizing hand crafting
* vulcanis lava-cooling - the lava pools on vulcanis really get in the way, and it is some time into the game before you get a permanent solution, what if there was a "stop gap" solution... sort of like a reverse aquillo (where you use heat-pipes to thaw buildings), it might be a fun and useful mechanic if placing heat pipes near (and then on top of) lava pools would solidify them when they get "cold enough"... and if the heat is not dissipated quickly enough (through heat exchangers into steam?), then the building built on top of them are destroyed as the tiles revert back into lava

[Loewchen]

No compilations.