Tool for mining belts

[ssilk]

My daily suggestion.

Now it's a bit illogical, that placing belts take no time to place, but much to remove (=mining).
I thought a while for that problem and I recommend a special tool for removing that stuff. Instead of the axe. So you have to manually exchange it. (So the players might learn how to repair tools)

When using this tool, mining belts works as fast as placing. The tool might not work only for belts, but also for poles, tracks, mines, inserters, walls. I mean everything, which is built in high numbers. It should work also from car and train, like placing. You can't remove trees and other stuff with it, this takes the same time as without tool.

PS: it would be fine, if the player won't continually turn back and forth, when mining something, this just looks stupid, especially in the night.

PPS: tools are underestimated. I thing that we can use tools for other things, like planning tracks for trains or speed up crafting or a chainsaw, which cuts trees as placing them.

[_0rbit_]

I think this is an excellent idea, however I would implement it a bit differently, so that it serves more than one purpose and extends the game also in other places.

There should be a tool, perhaps a wrench, that once you click on it with something, it is "mined" and then placed as an item on the ground. So there will be no need to keep your mouse button pressed, but it will still take time to remove objects. After the object is "recycled" if you will, you can pick it up like any other item, using the 'F' key.

Same thing for building; You place the thing you build, it is immediately placed and you can place other things immediately after, but they become active only after they have been built.

A big plus of such a wrench tool is that it allows you to quickly select a larger area for recycling. You know... the big part of a mining structure that has become irrelevant because there is just no more iron ore left in it?

[ssilk]

Hm. I meant this tool for very long belts. 100 tiles and up. I wouldn't like to take it down and then again walk over it to catch it up. It's especially for that ultimate long stuff which takes 1 or 2 minute to take down.

An alternative, which I thought long too, was that I mark an item and it is taken down by the logistic bots. They drive to a marked item, mine it and bring it to the next chest. Marking doesn't take time, but taking it to the chest and the bots are in danger, cause it is wide outside. I think this could be an interesting game-element.

[Coolthulhu]

Late game shouldn't have tools used for major (de)constructions.
There's already a mod with (de)construction bots. An official version of this should be an eventual goal, upgrading tools is a more of a hack than a solution.
That said, making a removal tool would probably be like 30 minutes of programmer-time and weeks of saved player-time.

[_0rbit_]

I am going to have to change my opinion on this. I have played with the deconstruction nano-bot mod (forgot its name). I hardly used it, since it was too expensive in terms of nano-bot costs.

I noticed in my latest replay that deciding what to take down and where to put up new things was heavily influenced by the time it takes to remove stuff like belts. It actually added a planning element to my playing, one that I enjoyed very much, especially when rerouting belts to find better solutions.

[ssilk]

Yes, enjoyed that also much, making belts, reroute it, dammed, wrong belt, I routed iron ore into copper smelting.

But a tool is also useful when you want to catch up the items from inside the car. I mean there is just no other solution as having a tool or special mode or anything which makes picking up working identical as placing items.