Desktop Notifications

[TheMagzuz]

In the mid-late game of Factorio there's a lot of idling, so mabye you could be able to minimize the game, go off to do something else and then get a notification eg. when your research is done or you're under attack etc.

Edit: The idle thing is mostly for the beginners at the game (Including myself), i don't have very much prduction and i have alot to learn. The worst that could happen is that it takes some time from the devs and mabye a very slight (Basically nothing) peformance reduction, although i do get your points to why i wouldn't really make a difference.

[sillyfly]

If you have a lot of idling - you don't have enough production!

[joon]

I agree with SIlyfly, I'm 40hours in a save and still I'm expanding and exploring.

[keyboardhack]

I have never experienced a long idle period in the game. There is always something you can do while waiting for something else to finish. If you are idle a lot, then you are not doing enough things at the same time. This is not the games fault but you playstyles fault.

[daniel34]

The only idling I've encountered in the game is in the very early stages when you set up your first few burner miners and furnaces. Sometimes you just have to wait for resources there, or mine them by hand.
If you're in mid- to end-game and idling you are not using your resources optimally.
Example: If you're waiting on some research to continue playing the game, use that time to double your science throughput, and your iron/copper throughput if necessary. You never know when these extra resources will come in handy.
Or you could double your electricity setup or set yourself some small personal goals (having x amount of some item(s), setting up trains to mine some far away resource patches, ...).

Anyway, how would you want to be notified when research is finished or you're under attack?
Currently, you can just minimize the window and if you have sound enabled you'll hear when one of these events occurs.
I think having a visual notification (popup, ...) is unnecessary and it wouldn't be that easy to implement for all the different OS. I don't see the added game-value for something like that.