Factorio Forums

TL;DR

When an underground pipe/belt is blocked because of lava/space/etc, display an alert, either locally or globally or both.

Why?

Currently it's easy to accidentally block your undergrounds. This can occur because the blueprint construction is only blocked if the actual tiles are blocked, but the undergrounds can break if tiles not actually pasted in the blueprint are blocked by lava. This effectively means the player can place blueprints that don't work. Additionally you can remove space platform tiles (or Foundation but this is way less likely) that accidentally block up an underground without realising it until way too late. Considering the possibility of accidents (I just placed a print that happened to have one very hard to see tile of lava between two undergrounds so it just didn't work) it would be nice if the game made it obvious when this happened.

+1 I've broken my space platforms this way a couple times even after learning the rule. "Oh I can just trim off this unused platform... whoops my asteroid chunks aren't flowing."

How would this distinguish from an underground that was placed too wide, or just a solo underground without a partner? Is this specifically only if they are blocked by lava? I feel like the display tips, and inability to create an underground by dragging already do a pretty good job of guarding against this... or am I missing something?

This would be nice to have. There's a couple of times where I missed that a particular tile was actually lava and blocking my underground belts, and on space platforms you can sometimes miss a gap in the platform.

evandy wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2024 11:32 pm How would this distinguish from an underground that was placed too wide, or just a solo underground without a partner? Is this specifically only if they are blocked by lava? I feel like the display tips, and inability to create an underground by dragging already do a pretty good job of guarding against this... or am I missing something?

The difference is that you can create a working blueprint, paste it without error or force, and then it does not work. So the blueprint promise is broken; the player can't stamp out something that works and assume it will work. Dragging means nothing when the print is built by robots. Honestly, notifications for lone undergrounds would also be totally fine in my book, but they are less problematic because they can't happen without the player making a mistake at build time.

DeadMG wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 12:55 pm

evandy wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2024 11:32 pm How would this distinguish from an underground that was placed too wide, or just a solo underground without a partner? Is this specifically only if they are blocked by lava? I feel like the display tips, and inability to create an underground by dragging already do a pretty good job of guarding against this... or am I missing something?

The difference is that you can create a working blueprint, paste it without error or force, and then it does not work. So the blueprint promise is broken; the player can't stamp out something that works and assume it will work. Dragging means nothing when the print is built by robots. Honestly, notifications for lone undergrounds would also be totally fine in my book, but they are less problematic because they can't happen without the player making a mistake at build time.

I agree, alerts (like the one when things aren't plugged in to the power network) would be great.

I see no real difference between lone belts, belts that are two far apart, and belts with lava or space between them, and all of these happen when placing blueprints.

DeadMG wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 12:55 pm Honestly, notifications for lone undergrounds would also be totally fine in my book, but they are less problematic because they can't happen without the player making a mistake at build time.

I've deliberately built unmatched underground belts for builds I was planning to extend.

Nemoricus wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 2:19 pm

DeadMG wrote: Thu Dec 05, 2024 12:55 pm Honestly, notifications for lone undergrounds would also be totally fine in my book, but they are less problematic because they can't happen without the player making a mistake at build time.

I've deliberately built unmatched underground belts for builds I was planning to extend.

Well there's a command to mute alerts, there isn't one though to make new alerts.

+1
Either an alert, or automatic request to add foundation in between the tiles when pasting a blueprint on vulcanus.
Many times when I paste blueprints on vulcanus, I only find it doesn't work many hours later, because there was a random tile of lava that blocked an underground. My bots could have used foundation, but didn't.