Factorio Forums

Factorio has many places where internal names leak to the surface in the base game, and especially in mod descriptions. "Ghosts" (plans?), "Entities" (buildings?), "to mine" (a mix of mine, deconstruct, fell, pick up, etc...), "tile" (flooring?), "chunk" (region?), "surface" (map? planet?), etcpp.. You can change the "official" wording, but it'll be hard to change the communities established vocabulary. Is the english "translation" on crowdin? If yes that'd be a better place to poke around.

Btw, native english speakers only make up 33% of all english language speakers. You're basically a minority :p.

That's why I said it could be "ground cover(ing)" or some thing else to be clearer.

Simple suggestion to replace "path", "paving". It semantically avoids all the problems that comes with "path" but is still a minimal change that keeps the connection to the existing terminology.

"Can be used to mine" is trickier. There are several other terms Factorio uses to discuss removing objects, "deconstruct" comes to mind. But even then none of them help with the fact that what it's saying really is "while you are holding this, then holding right click will remove a paving tile". Even if you accept "mine" for "holding right click will remove" it still doesn't easily convey "while you are holding this".

Overall it might well be easier to instead have a tile type in the inventory whose purpose is to remove paths. It would have the same sizing effect as other pavings, be placed with left click, except rather than placing itself, it just removes what is there.

This removes the mechanic of using a paving to enable right click to remove other pavings and instead relies on the exact same mechanic used to place the original. Which then means the text doesn't have to awkwardly try and explain this mechanic.

csduff wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 1:42 pm In my opinion, a simple change to "It can also be used to replace any kind of path" would be clearer, and should be sufficient to keep everyone happy.

Using "replace" is actually an inferior phrasing IMO compared to the existing one, as it is technically incorrect. As already mentioned elsewhere, it can be used to remove (not just replace) paths (but notably not tiles).

Since the point of this thread is to be pedantic about grammar and usage, I feel it's warranted to engage in such a level of pedantry.

Ultros wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 5:07 pmSince the point of this thread is to be pedantic about grammar and usage, I feel it's warranted to engage in such a level of pedantry.

No, the point of the thread was to ask if people could talk good maybe when they inscribe electric pictographs with their meat fingers.

Ultros wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 5:07 pm

csduff wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 1:42 pm In my opinion, a simple change to "It can also be used to replace any kind of path" would be clearer, and should be sufficient to keep everyone happy.

Using "replace" is actually an inferior phrasing IMO compared to the existing one, as it is technically incorrect. As already mentioned elsewhere, it can be used to remove (not just replace) paths (but notably not tiles).

Since the point of this thread is to be pedantic about grammar and usage, I feel it's warranted to engage in such a level of pedantry.

Ah. I guess despite the many hours I've played Factorio, I've never actually removed brick or concrete with anything other than a drone, so I've never tried to "mine" a path, so I didn't realize this was the mechanic. Then I agree, "replace" is not the usage they are going for. I still think that it is, even in the way Factorio's language is used, at best an odd use of terminology.

It can also be used to remove any kind of floor tiling.

Koub wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 6:06 pm It can also be used to remove any kind of floor tiling.

Has the problem of explaining how to remove. Mine at least implies (badly) the right click mechanic. "to remove" implies I could use it normally and it removes the floor tiling, which it technically does but only by then replacing it with the one you place.

Chao wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 6:14 pm

Koub wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 6:06 pm It can also be used to remove any kind of floor tiling.

Has the problem of explaining how to remove. Mine at least implies (badly) the right click mechanic. "to remove" implies I could use it normally and it removes the floor tiling, which it technically does but only by then replacing it with the one you place.

Fair enough . How about this :
It can also be used to remove any kind of floor tiling (Action : "Mine" floor while holding).

Koub wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 6:25 pm

Chao wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 6:14 pm

Koub wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 6:06 pm It can also be used to remove any kind of floor tiling.

Has the problem of explaining how to remove. Mine at least implies (badly) the right click mechanic. "to remove" implies I could use it normally and it removes the floor tiling, which it technically does but only by then replacing it with the one you place.

Fair enough . How about this :
It can also be used to remove any kind of floor tiling (Action : "Mine" floor while holding).

Definitely an improvement

Koub wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 6:25 pm Fair enough . How about this :
It can also be used to remove any kind of floor tiling (Action : "Mine" floor while holding).

Agreed, something along the lines of this would certainly make more sense from a grammatical perspective. My initial take on the rephrasing viewtopic.php?p=428656#p428656 was rather similar.

Koub wrote: Thu May 09, 2019 6:06 pm It can also be used to remove any kind of floor tiling.

Tiling makes me think of tiles and tiles can't be removed like paths.

Floor covering?

"Paving"/"pavement" seems like the best alternative so far.

Want something doing, best do it yourself.

Maybe the problem is that floor tiles should not be used to mine floor tiles in the first place.
We have a pickaxe for that. It just needs a toggle to select floor tiles instead of entities build above them.