Research progress visualization ☸

[sillyfly]

Just a quick UI/Visual idea - have the research bar have another color (lighter shade of green?) to show the amount of research currently done by labs.
That is - if you research a technology with 20 steps, you currently done 6 units, and you have 3 labs currently working on it, the bar would be 6/20 parts green, 3/20 parts light-green, and 11/20 parts black.
The idea is to help you see how fast your research is going, plus allow you to see if you have a problem in the research (if you have no light-green part it means your labs stopped working for some reason).

Just for a visualization - here is how it looks in Civilization 4:


(For those who don't know civ4 - the top green bar shows research. the first light-green part is how much you currently have researched, and the darker semi-transparent part to the right is how much research will be done in the next turn)

[ssilk]

Had problems to follow. You mean, if a lab has all ingredients for research one part, the research-bar should show the amount of that research in darker green?

You know, that it could be also, that the lab has no power? Or switched power off in purpose to save energy?

[sillyfly]

No, I mean show only what the labs are currently actually doing. If for _any_ reason a lab is not currently performing research - it is not counted for this.

So the new part (whatever color it may be) only counts the number of labs actually researching at the moment (having all required Science packs and electricity connection)

[therapist]

I don't understand your meaning, the bar at the top of that screenshot seems to show the progress of research, but I don't see how it indicates the number of research centers conducting research.

Maybe somewhere on the current research bar you could put an indicator that shows: WorkingLabs(TotalLabs)

So for instance, if you had 20 labs but only 18 were working you would see:

Research Optics 18(20)

Because of the way belts usually feed labs, you would typically see your amount of working labs decrease by 1 over time as you run out of one particular type of lab pack.

[sillyfly]

I don't really mind if it would be textual, I just thought a graphical representation might be quicker to see at a glance.
I'll try to show some examples of what I mean, with a text-based representation of the current research bar.

Legend:

Code: Select all

=  :  unit already researched
-  :  unit being researched by a lab
.  :  unit not being researched

In the current state we only have "=" and ".". Now - Let's say it's the beginning of the game, you haven't automated Science pack production yet, and maybe you forgot to look at your labs for a while. Your bar would show -

Code: Select all

===..........

Note there are no "-" - no research is currently being made, so something must have gone wrong!

Second example - you are researching some technology and you see this -

Code: Select all

----................

Great. Your research is going at a pleasing rate. After a while you glance at the bar again and see this -

Code: Select all

====-...............

Uh-oh! The research has slowed down considerably - probably some science pack is being made too slow and only a few labs are getting it.

Another thing is - if you know all your labs are working you can have a feeling of if you have "enough" labs. Of course you can look at the amount the technology takes, but I'd rather have the information constantly visible, especially if it takes absolutely no more "screen real-estate"

I hope I have made my meaning clear by this. I would have hoped anyone who played Civilization would have understood what I meant, but apparently I was wrong (or you haven't played Civ? )

[Bleda]

I haven't played civ4 but I understood what you mean in the first post without problems.

And I must totally agree that this would be a very nice little detail improvement the devs should consider.

[drs9999]

+1

[provet]

Joined -- ßilk

Example:
Advanced material processing (researching)
time_30: 23/50
science_pack_1: 23/50
science_pack_2: 23/50
Optimal time left: 13min 30sec


Also (although I shouldn't!) a second suggestion; discontinuing research does not mean the counter resets back to zero.

[Kalabint]

This Silly Fly has some good ideas:

Just a quick UI/Visual idea - have the research bar have another color (lighter shade of green?) to show the amount of research currently done by labs.
That is - if you research a technology with 20 steps, you currently done 6 units, and you have 3 labs currently working on it, the bar would be 6/20 parts green, 3/20 parts light-green, and 11/20 parts black.
The idea is to help you see how fast your research is going, plus allow you to see if you have a problem in the research (if you have no light-green part it means your labs stopped working for some reason).

Had no Problems in understanding it

+1

[MF-]

sounds nice, clean and simple

[ssilk]

Userstory: Implement better research progress visualization as described in topic and below.
Prerequisites: complete.
Game-value: Better planning. Better feel of progress.
Developer-costs: Rewriting code of that part and dependent parts.
User-opinions: Obvious.

[Chi]

The idea is simple: change the color of the Research Bar when the research is stopped (for instance, make it red).
I think it's a neat, simple solution that shouldn't be too hard to implement.

Now, a quick search around the Forum shows that some people have already suggested many improvements to the Research bar, but I personally think they are all too complex considering that Factorio has a pretty straightforward research system (like in this one).

So, what do you guys think?

[Edit] Merged by Koub

[bk5115545]

I know this is over a year old but it would still be really nice to have.
I often have to walk over to see if my labs are working and then wait quite a bit as I figure out the issue.

[sillyfly]

Actually, since research progress is now continuous (rather than discrete, as it was before) this is much less relevant.

[bk5115545]

Actually, since research progress is now continuous (rather than discrete, as it was before) this is much less relevant.

It would still be really nice to have since the current system doesn't tell you the rate of research progress.

[steinio]

Could be a mod cause the value exists:
https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... h_progress

Maybe an EvoGui Sensor with stagnation detector for x ticks.

Greetings steinio

[jason03272002]

Thumbs up over here!

[bk5115545]

Could be a mod cause the value exists:
https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... h_progress

I'm pretty sure this value is the progress of the current research item (like the progress of Automation 1).

I could watch that value to make sure that research doesn't stop increasing (in a mod) but it doesn't tell me if I have enough science packs in the labs to finish this research item.