More gradual increase in Belt slots

[Peter34]

You start the game with 2 banks of 5 slots each, total 10, and then you can research one tech, at tier 2 cost (50 Red Potions, 50 Green), to get 2 additional banks of 5 slots, for a total of 20 slots.

That's always one of the first ones I pick, when playing SP, and when playing MP I argue for it to be given research priority. It's simply that good.

Or rather, it's not so much that it is good in itself as that not having it is very, very un-good. Having only 10 slots is very claustrophibic, when I'm running around setting up my factory early game.



I'd really like for a transitional tech, an intermediate stage tech, to be added, so that for instance Extra Slots 1 adds 5 more slots (not 10) and has a tier 1-like cost (e.g. 20 Red Potions) instead of a tier 2-like cost (50/50). And then Extra Slots 2 can have a tier 3-like cost (100 Red, Green and Blue, or lots more time per tick, or both) rather thn a tier 2-like cost. In this way most players will research the first one early game and the second one in the mid-to-late game phase.

There are two ways this can be implemented, game UI-wise:
1. When the player cycles his toolbelt, e.g. by pressing the x key or the equivalent UI icon (which is very tiny, but then again I always use the x key so I don't mind personally), all the slots change place. This means that if the player is at the 15-slot stage, then 5 last new slots are simply unusable. Pressing Shift+1 through 5 does nothing, and their boxes are greyed out.

2. When the player cycles his toolbelt, only the movable slots move. This means that when the player is at the 15 slot stage, anything that's in slot 6 through 10 stays in those slots and remains accessible with the keypresses Shift+1 through 5 (or 6 through 10, as I've re-configured my Factorio to). Once the next stage is researched, so that the player has 20 slots total, 4 banks of 5 each, the game reverts to normal behaviour, where the two actively chooseable banks of slots change places with the 2 presently inactive banks.

The devs can choose to implement one or the other (I'd prefer the first one, personally), or they can let the player choose which method he prefers (this would be the best implementation, of course).

Either way, this also opens up for additional tool belt slots, total 25 slots, even 30 slots, and/or special slots that can only hold Blueprints (and the red Deconstructor print), as talked about here: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 140#p88426

[ssilk]

The right term is "stack", not "slot".

[bobucles]

What if the player inventory got more rows from research tech?

[Peter34]

What if the player inventory got more rows from research tech?

I don't really think that's necessary. The problem isn't not being able to carry around enough stuff. The problem is the very frequent need to hit the E key to open niventory to get one of the build items that can't fit into the hotkey bar. That's why I'm suggesting a larger hotkey bar.

[orzelek]

What if the player inventory got more rows from research tech?

I don't really think that's necessary. The problem isn't not being able to carry around enough stuff. The problem is the very frequent need to hit the E key to open niventory to get one of the build items that can't fit into the hotkey bar. That's why I'm suggesting a larger hotkey bar.

Larger hotkey bar is welcome - mods add usually at least 3rd row. Inventory size is also important - especially in modded game where amount of items can be increased significantly.