Stop / sleep button for assemblers / etc

[Nova]

I would like a "Stop button" or "Sleep button" for assemblers, furnaces, chemical plants, etc... (These things will all be called "machines" in this post.)

This button would stop everything the machine does. It would not draw energy anymore, it would not assemble any more things, it would not accept any new resources from inserters / pipes. It would not delete already begun, but just pause the progress bar. Un-stopping the machine would let the progess bar continue where it stopped. A small symbol should be showed then, maybe some "zzz" for sleeping. (Nothing annoying or blinking. It's intended bavior of the machine, not an "error" like not enough energy / fuel.)

Why should we need this? Every other possible way of deactivating a machine has some drawbacks. Removing the machine or removing the order deletes things in progress and leads to forgetting which order was intended for this machine. Removing pipes or belts could distrupt other machines. Removing the energy is problematic because mostly other things are also stopped, but then again only removing the energy connection has the advantage of not drawing any stand by energy.

[Phillip_Lynx]

You can use green inserters and wired networks .

This will not shut down the production immediatly but wenn the quota is fullfilled

[FishSandwich]

This is a good idea, although I think its usefulness is limited. Either way, I'd like to see it implemented.

+1

[Nova]

It's not intended to stop the production after a storage is full, but to have a manual way to control the production, Phillip_Lynx. Of course, for your usage the smart inserters are better, because they are an automatic way to do this. Well, in the moment we have no "good" way to stop the production of a chemical plant after xy of a fluid was produced, but this will be solved with (I hope) version 0.12. I really anticipate the better smart logistic network. "Produce X until we have at least 80% of Y" - "Produce only if the storage for the base goods for X is over 500 and we have under 100 X".

[Phillip_Lynx]

I also like the idea, but there are ways already. If I watch some videos witch do programmable stuff my eyes are bulging .

[Nova]

I don't talk about nice programming ways of doing it, but just a simple button.


Oh, and if this is done, we need a way of doing it for a big area. I would like to turn off huge amounts of smelters without having to click on everything seperate.

[Graypup]

That sounds like a quite useful feature. IMHO the best way to implement it is via a shift left click on the machine. Kinda like the power poles.
EDIT: oh yeah... copy paste. Nevermind.

[Khyron]

+1 sounds great!

[OBAMA MCLAMA]

+1

i've thought about this too. I thought about a graphical user interface marking objects with a transparent color as a "group". Set your copper smelters to a orange, iron to a gray, steam engines to a blue. And some how having a way to turn it on/off.

[ssilk]

How about turning off the power instead?

[Nova]

It's hard to turn of the power for exactly that one assembler and not for much other. Also the blinking warning message is not nice. As far as I know, I already did mention this in my first post, but it's too long ago. ^^

[User_Name]

This is a good idea, although I think its usefulness is limited. Either way, I'd like to see it implemented.

+1

Would you like to guess which ones of 50 assemblers on the screen are not working because they don't have enough materials, and which ones are turned off?
Because there is no way to tell without implementing additional graphics for on/off state.

[FishSandwich]

This is a good idea, although I think its usefulness is limited. Either way, I'd like to see it implemented.

+1

Would you like to guess which ones of 50 assemblers on the screen are not working because they don't have enough materials, and which ones are turned off?
Because there is no way to tell without implementing additional graphics for on/off state.

Not sure why you singled me out, but okay.

I think pause and stop icons could very easily/quickly be generated for the alt-view overlay. That and the brain's miraculous ability to remember things would be enough I'd say.

[User_Name]

Not sure why you singled me out, but okay.

You said that it is a good idea and you want it implemented, and it was my ragequit moment.
It's hard to read "Suggestions" subforum, because many people posting here don't think too much about things they suggest.

Yes, pause icon in the Alt view shift this suggestion from the "outright bad" into the "maybe" area.

Now, whoever suggested Shift-Click didn't thought that it would break existing copy-paste mechanic.
It needs new, unique UI button in every assembler machine.
(II) icon is recognizable, but only when it's placed next to (play) icon.
It is better to use pause/play button that changes it's icon depending on the state of the machine, like it is done for locomotive UI.

Every new factorio player will see (II) button and click it to understand what it does. And it does "nothing" if the assembler machine is not working, or production cycle takes many seconds to finish (unless it pauses machine mid-cycle).
New players don't use "Alt" view, and often unaware of it's existence.
Some new players will end up with paused assembler machine, and struggle to understand what is wrong with it.

But the need to pause assemblers arises in mid/late game, thus it would be better to add pause/play button to the assembler machine 2 and 3, and leave basic assembler as it is. More power to experienced player, less confusion to new player.

New Alt view icon, new UI button. Is it worth development time? Maybe.
Players switch off assemblers anyway, and existing methods to do it (rotating inserter, cutting power, resetting recipe) are ugly.

[Nova]

I don't think that that would be confusing. If the player clicks on the "||" button and it turns into a ">", than they should now they have stopped something. On the other hand: Maybe a spinning gear wheel would be better. Spinning = on, and not spinning (+ some "zzz"?) = off.

The knowledge about the alt mode has to be conveyed in the tutorial / campaign.

[ssilk]

Too much implementation details. I bet, if this comes, it will be implemented completely different.

[Khyron]

You said that it is a good idea and you want it implemented, and it was my ragequit moment.
It's hard to read "Suggestions" subforum, because many people posting here don't think too much about things they suggest.

Many people are immediately hostile to completely reasonable suggestions because they imagine a terrible implementation of the idea. It's better to pause and think about the suggestion before immediately responding in the negative.

[immibis]

This is a good idea, although I think its usefulness is limited. Either way, I'd like to see it implemented.

+1

Would you like to guess which ones of 50 assemblers on the screen are not working because they don't have enough materials, and which ones are turned off?
Because there is no way to tell without implementing additional graphics for on/off state.

The ones that have full input belts are turned off. The ones with empty input belts don't have materials.

[Nova]

The "standard design" of assemblers is a straight line, so all assemblers share it's input belts - not possible to see which work and which don't. That's the reason why this idea should have a small, not annoying icon.