Provide an option to change default cursor to in-game crosshair instead of OS default

Post your ideas and suggestions how to improve the game.

Moderator: ickputzdirwech

macintacos
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Mar 18, 2020 4:44 am
Contact:

Provide an option to change default cursor to in-game crosshair instead of OS default

Post by macintacos »

I play on macOS, and at least there, on large displays in particular, the default OS cursor can be hard to spot, especially when in particularly spaghettified sections of the factory. It's intermittent, which made it hard to diagnose.

I think it's because much of the time, you're using a tool that changes the default cursor to a high-contrast crosshair + the tool icon that corresponds to the tool that you're using (copying/cutting, various planners, mod tools, etc.). You spend a lot more time than you think with a tool as your cursor. So what ends up happening is:
  • about half the time you're using a cursor with high contrast, and the other half you're not, so it doesn't feel like it's been too difficult to find the cursor to select something. And so...
  • ...you end up having weird cursor interactions where you never have trouble selecting things when copy/pasting, but...
  • ...you always can't quite seem to open a particular assembler or storage chest quickly because you pressed 'q' a second ago to clear the cursor (so you're back to the OS default), and...
  • ...you end up spending half a second trying to where the cursor is, rather than just moving the cursor to the entity and clicking it which...
  • ...is generally a very quick operation when you figure out the location of the cursor.
Based on this observed conclusion, I am now wishing that all of my cursor interactions in Factorio could just be using the crosshair cursor that is shown for tools (sans-tools icon, naturally). I expect this would largely eliminate the readability option if I had the option to make the crosshair the default instead of the OS cursor.

Is there any way this can be an option? There are a lot of other convenience / accessibility options in Factorio already, so I'm hoping that this wouldn't be that controversial to add.
Post Reply

Return to “Ideas and Suggestions”