Disable new radar behaviour

[Scryllix]

TL;DR
Please add a way to disable the enemy expansion alerts radars now make in 2.1 without having to disable/mute the alert in settings.

What
The enemy expansion alert could use a bit more configurability.

For example, it would be useful to have:
An option to disable enemy expansion detection on individual radars (a checkbox or something similar).
A way to control the range at which a radar detects enemy expansions.

This way you can have both radars that are for signals/map uncovering as well as radars that are for detecting expansions.

08-08-2026, 00-42-57.png (40.32 KiB) Viewed 1708 times

Why
Personally, I find it quite annoying to receive an alert for every single enemy expansion, especially when I have artillery that is going to deal with those nests automatically anyway.

Currently, my options are essentially to remove radars that are close enough to the edge of my base to detect expansions or to disable/mute the alert. Neither option is particularly ideal since I still want the alert in some situations, but I don't necessarily want every radar reporting every expansion it detects. I also don't think that a feature should make it necessary to disable a setting to turn it off (for people like me where things like that annoy me).

Also, the alert triggers every time a base is built in a single expansion group so it starts to spam it if they aren't taken care of by artillery.

[worph]

Already scheduled for next release, before this topic was posted.

[Scryllix]

Already scheduled for next release, before this topic was posted.

I think that's a slightly different issue. I'm not looking for an easier way to access the alerts configuration menu. The issue is that the alert is currently all or nothing. I'm suggesting to be able to configure the radar itself to turn off the alert for specific radars and possible have an option to tune the distance at which expansions are detected.

[worph]

Configuring every radar I cannot imagine would ever happen.

When would you want the alert specifically and when not?

[Scryllix]

Configuring every radar I cannot imagine would ever happen.

When would you want the alert specifically and when not?

Perhaps you'd want it on gleba and not nauvis, or you want to monitor expansions at a certain outpost. You'd probably want it for nauvis early game but then having to turn off the alert after getting into endgame isn't great. And when you say "configuring every radar", it's not as if you have that many radars and this is a game about configuring machines lol.

[worph]

Assuming the developers are considering your suggestion at all, they will have to turn it into concrete fully-formed conditions.
They will need more than "perhapses" or "probablies". I was trying to get your idea more streamlined, by having you think exactly which conditions could be generalized. And since you made the suggestion, it didn't felt right for me to tell you what I think the conditions should be.

But one concrete formulation could be, i.e. show alert when the following condition(s) are true:

• CURRENTLY: Any newly build enemy base building, in range of active radar. (this will always have to be true, together with the following)
• Any newly build enemy base building, that is NOT in range of an armed artillery.

I feel like this would cover most of your issues immediately without having to disable the alerts overall, but I can only assume. Maybe you have some other corner cases in mind.

One could also argue, that at the point where you have armed artillery setup properly, you don't really need the alerts at all anymore.
One other argument could be to make the alert planet specific, i.e. you could disable them for Nauvis/Gleba separately.

• Any newly build enemy base building on Nauvis.
• Any newly build enemy base building on Gleba.

Sidenote: In my current save I have upwards of 100 radars on all surfaces, and my bases are tiny, because I was mostly testing new features. Configuring them all manually does nto seem like a reasonable approach to me.

[Scryllix]

I've already outlined the options in the "What" section, though. My "perhapses" were about how and where this proposed feature could be utilised, not what the feature would actually entail.

I wasn't suggesting more complicated conditions such as artillery being in range, although I suppose that could be considered as another option. I was suggesting two possible options to add to radars:

Detect enemy expansions: On/Off toggle
Detection range: Slider for how far the radar detects enemy bases/expansions

The current behaviour could simply be the default, so nothing changes unless the player wants to adjust it. That would also avoid the concern about having to configure every radar. You'd only change the ones where you want different behaviour.

My main reason for wanting this is that I might want a radar to uncover the map without also generating an alert every time it detects an expansion. Then I could have specific radars where I do want expansion alerts, such as an outpost that doesn't have artillery coverage, or a different planet entirely.

[worph]

You actually convinced me a few replies ago, that there should be more fine grained control over when the new alert is activated.

The current all-or-nothing approach is not well suited for several surfaces and vasty different conditions between early and late game, close to artillery or not, etc.

But I'm trying to tell you:
If the devs implement your solution, i.e. make every radardish individually configureabe, me and many other will flock to the forum and suggest this mechanic to be changed to something more generic and let the game infer logically if the alert is necessary.

And the best abstraction I could come up with was "is the new expansion also in range of armed artillery" -- then don't activate an alert.
I like that you acknowledged this. But I am curious: Assuming they don't add a configurability to each radar. But instead go with something that infers logic, like I suggested. Would that (armed artillery in range) be sufficient for all your usecases, or are there any other edgecases?

When you say:

My main reason for wanting this is that I might want a radar to uncover the map without also generating an alert every time it detects an expansion.

I think you misunderstand how the new system works. When the radar pings a map location it will not query a new alert when it finds an already existing nest. It will only activate an alert when a new nest is built under active radar coverage. So your concern about generating alerts when uncovering the map is unnecessary. You can test this by going to the edge of the fog of war and placing some solarpanels and a radar.

Again, is there any other application than not wanting alerts when armed artillery covers the expansion already?

[Scryllix]

What I meant by that example was simply that a radar can be there to uncover the map, while an expansion can subsequently happen within its coverage. I wasn't saying that discovering an existing nest would trigger the alert.

As for the artillery condition, I think that would solve a large part of my particular issue, but I don't see why it would need to replace having more configurability.

"Don't alert if armed artillery is in range" sounds like a useful option in itself, but I'd still prefer being able to manually control the behaviour of individual radars.
The artillery check could then be an additional bit of logic on top of that, rather than a reason to remove the configurability.

[worph]

You said earlier, that factorio is a game about configuring machines.

If you actually look at the machines in the game and how the player interacts with them, there is actually very little in the way of "configuration".
With crafting machines (assemblers and such) you select a recipe, that's it.
Most other machines that allow additional configuration (turrets, train stations, inserters, etc.) work out of the box without configuration.
And the vast majority those that allow configuration do not have a list of options that you can enable/disable.
Everything else always goes through the circuit connections and their adjacent settings.
But as far as I can see there is no machine whose functionality is massively changed by clicking some button in it's interface, maybe with circuitry.

I'm not saying that it can't happen.
But looking at the state of the game, this would either have to be implemented using the circuit interface or it would be somewhat breaking the convention.

I just think it's more likely that something will be implemented that is already more factorio-esque, i.e. not something where you don't have to configure potentially 100s of radars differently than the default config (worst of all possibly using circuitry only).

[Alfonse215]

Is the alert actually tied to radars specifically? Because it might just be "if you have vision over a chunk when biters expand, you get an alert." At which point, radars are no longer the way to control this.

[danbopes]

I would love to see for the ability to disable alerts for specific entities/types. Like I don't want to see alerts for destroyed walls or mines, they're just noise to me, but anything else, yeah I wanna know if they're in my base.

[Scryllix]

I would love to see for the ability to disable alerts for specific entities/types. Like I don't want to see alerts for destroyed walls or mines, they're just noise to me, but anything else, yeah I wanna know if they're in my base.

Yeah you bring up a good point, I'd like that too.

[Scryllix]

You said earlier, that factorio is a game about configuring machines.

If you actually look at the machines in the game and how the player interacts with them, there is actually very little in the way of "configuration".
With crafting machines (assemblers and such) you select a recipe, that's it.
Most other machines that allow additional configuration (turrets, train stations, inserters, etc.) work out of the box without configuration.
And the vast majority those that allow configuration do not have a list of options that you can enable/disable.
Everything else always goes through the circuit connections and their adjacent settings.
But as far as I can see there is no machine whose functionality is massively changed by clicking some button in it's interface, maybe with circuitry.

I'm not saying that it can't happen.
But looking at the state of the game, this would either have to be implemented using the circuit interface or it would be somewhat breaking the convention.

I just think it's more likely that something will be implemented that is already more factorio-esque, i.e. not something where you don't have to configure potentially 100s of radars differently than the default config (worst of all possibly using circuitry only).

Inserters are a big example of machines having a list of configurable options. The filter settings, stack size, and spoilage priority can all change how they behave. Gun turrets and storage tanks also have checkboxes in their interfaces that change their behaviour.

That's why I suggested something similar for radars. The inserter's stack size slider could also work as a good precedent for how a detection range slider could look.

With examples like these already in the game, I don't think it would be too far fetched to implement the radar settings in the way I suggested. Of course, if the devs decide to take on the idea, it's ultimately up to them how they want to implement it. I'm just suggesting what I think would be a useful and fairly straightforward way of giving the player more control.

Also, if the default behaviour remains what it currently is in 2.1, I don't think there's much reason to worry about configuring hundreds of radars all of a sudden. If you wanted some of them to behave differently, you'd configure them as you build your factory.

And if you did want to configure a large number of them, you can already use shift + left/right click to copy and paste building settings, so it wouldn't necessarily be a huge amount of work anyway.

[Scryllix]

Is the alert actually tied to radars specifically? Because it might just be "if you have vision over a chunk when biters expand, you get an alert." At which point, radars are no longer the way to control this.

Yes, you need a radar for the alert.

[worph]

Also, if the default behaviour remains what it currently is in 2.1, I don't think there's much reason to worry about configuring hundreds of radars all of a sudden. If you wanted some of them to behave differently, you'd configure them as you build your factory.

And if you did want to configure a large number of them, you can already use shift + left/right click to copy and paste building settings, so it wouldn't necessarily be a huge amount of work anyway.

I would still have to reconfigure some amount one of them, everytime a new artillery goes online, if there was no generic inferred logic to mute the alert in certain situations and everything was based on configuration.
One solution I could see is this:
Add a checkbox to the radar that says "Ignore new biter expansions when they are covered by armed artillery" and make that the default setting.
But if this were implemented on the radar buildings themselves, why would it not be a global alert variable?
The easiest way would probably be to have two alerts.

Two distinct alerts:
"New biter expansion NOT covered by armed artillery" (red)
"New biter expansion covered by armed artillery" (yellow)

And the second one is disabled by default.
That way if you want to get notified of all expansions always, even in the late game, you just turn that second alert on. And you dont need to reconfigure radars ever.

[Fletch]

To add some more mud, if fully configurable, my preferred setting would be along the lines of: "Alert if enemy expansion is in the pollution cloud, and the area is not covered by Artillery" Because if its not in the pollution cloud then I don't care (because they won't attack me), and if its covered by artillery then it's already covered.

But when dealing with these sorts of nuances I start thinking this is really the job of the circuit network... The Radars could emit a new signal for "new enemy base expansion detected", and then let the player devise their own circuit conditions to do with that signal as they see fit. Player could connect it to a Programmable speaker if they want an alarm and all sorts of other things I cannot dream up.

[worph]

The Radars could emit a new signal for "new enemy base expansion detected", and then let the player devise their own circuit conditions to do with that signal as they see fit.

I would agree with this, if they implemented the new "alert" like that, too. (I prefer the way they did it, but let's assume a different reality for a sec)
Meaning if this whole thing was implemented solely as a circuit signal that you had to hook up to a speaker, or whatever. Then this would be fine.

But by adding the new alert the way they did, now the problem is not "players need more additional info from radars" (I mean, all people want all sorts of things all the time, ...)
The core issue is that by adding that indiscriminate alert, people should arguably have more control over the alert ITSELF.

I'm always in favor of new mechanics and not against adding new signal stuff to radars.
But the alerts are too broad at the moment, or need more configuration options.

[Lashas]

Actually i think we do not need this kind of alert. Instead it should be replaced with radar being able to track how many bitters/spitters/spawners&worms does it detect.

From that then we could build circuits for any alert we need - e.g. larger increase in spawners/worms - means we have detected new base there.

[Fletch]

Instead it should be replaced with radar being able to track how many bitters/spitters/spawners&worms does it detect.

From that then we could build circuits for any alert we need - e.g. larger increase in spawners/worms - means we have detected new base there.

+1 on that. And when pairing the "counts" from that new radar signal with a programmable speaker, we could control the pitch of the alert based on the number of enemies detected by the radar(s). Radars are currently dumb devices and don't emit any signals -- they are like power poles and can just propagate something else's signals, so having Radars be able to emit signals would be a very welcomed change and opens up the sandbox some more. 2.1.7 allows labs, pipes, boilers, heat exchangers, and heat pipes onto the circuit network -- it would be great if Radars got similar sort of love too!