Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Pre-bot demolition/deconstruction should be made easier (though still inferior) via explosives or tweaking the deconstruction planner.

What?

The method that would likely take more work would be to make a dedicated explosive item that instantly demolishes friendly buildings without leaving debris. Whether the demolished buildings/resources are preserved or destroyed would be a matter of balance, but I favor the former.

The method likely requiring less work would be to adjust existing tools to speed up manual demolition. Have it so buildings marked by the deconstruction planner are mined faster or even instantly. Or make cliff explosives demolish friendly buildings.

Why?

I think that both the "Careful Planning" and "Trial and Error" play-styles should be roughly equally valid, but before bots, demolition takes far longer than construction, in effect punishing a looser play-style. Large-ish scale adjustments before bots can be a headache. Grenades and other weapons may technically work, but you often need a lot ammunition, it creates lots of ugly debris, you lose the resources/buildings, and you need to repair any collateral damage. Placing buildings is instant, so why isn't demolition?