Belt placement as a sizeable brush

[uliko]

Make belt placement a sizeable brush tool similar to landfill to enable placing multiple lanes at the same time.

Sizing could either be as a square or a single line of parallel belts.

Helpful lategame when placing huge amounts of belts and personal robots can't keep up with only four fusion reactors being available to provide power.

[ssilk]

I think that doesn’t make things really easier, you can paste 8 lanes at once, but you need a special tool for that. Which is used only in some very special cases.

Instead of introducing new tools, I would like to see, that copy/paste is a lot more easier to use. For example, I copy me part of multi-belt and paste it while walking. So you can copy also edges. What I would like to see here too is flipping/mirroring. Or simpler choosing former copied blueprints. Everything which makes this building with the copy/paste easier and more useful.

[Squelch]

Copy/pasting, or even a blueprint library of your favourite layouts is far more desirable, and configurable in my opinion. However, what would be nice while laying belts out, is to be able to draw by dragging the pointer in a similar manner to rail tracks. ie click to start the line, drag the pointer and release to end. The method on how this might be invoked instead of laying belts immediately on click, is another question. Perhaps a click and hold for a second on the first belt segment?

Currently, to make straight lines, the player must run in the direction they wish to lay the belt, but this is often spoilt when bumping into trees, rocks, or walking over an already laid belt (pre belt immunity research)

[GlassDeviant]

I do this all the time with blueprints. No need for some tool that makes this game work like some other game you liked. About the only improvement I could make to laying belts is being able to set a start point and then move to an endpoint and have the belt laid between those points, but that idea is too subject to pathing issues to make it viable without some heavy weight code, or even with it in some cases.

If you want an 8-wide lane to have multiple lengths, blueprint it in multiple lengths.

[Squelch]

About the only improvement I could make to laying belts is being able to set a start point and then move to an endpoint and have the belt laid between those points, but that idea is too subject to pathing issues to make it viable without some heavy weight code, or even with it in some cases.

It seems we seek the same thing. Drawing of straight lines is all that is required in my opinion. No pathing desired (railtrack often does not lay where I intend, and belts could get even more snarly), so the belts are laid within reach of the player when they are held in hand, and ghosts are laid otherwise for those longer runs. I envisage it working in much the same manner as laying railtrack, but without the pathing. Where a belt cannot be laid according to the normal rules, it is omitted and leaves the player to do the fiddly bits.

@ulika, if it's ok with you, I would be happy to format the above suggestions according to the desired template? These would be the closest to a belt brush that I personally see feasible, and would allow you to quickly lay multiple lanes at once too.

For people with impaired movement or co-ordination, I can see this would be highly useful.

[GlassDeviant]

Sounds like a good approach, plus it would reduce the number of blueprints I maintain to do sections of X parallel belt tracks of length Y and type Z (normal, fast or express). One tool to rule them all, and in the menu bind them!

[uliko]

Blueprint-related alternatives are not feasible for the reason I outlined in the original post, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhUI_-UJ1F0

[ssilk]

Im not here to say how to play Factorio. But when I watched that video I thought ”oh my god”.

When you are about to lay more than 3000 items with your personal robots, you are doing something wrong - in my eyes. This takes forever. This is not advanced, nor lategame, it’s just slow.

The better way to do this is placing the blueprints and let the construction bots of your robotic network do their job, while you are building something else. And for lategame I think of interconnected roboports, or self-requesting outposts, and most stuff is covered with roboports...

Another reason: A tool like described in OP will not help in construction of the edges. But - in my eyes - the edges are the most time consuming thing here (from the sight of a player, not the time it takes to build it).

[eradicator]

Blueprint-related alternatives are not feasible for the reason I outlined in the original post, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhUI_-UJ1F0

As someone who has worked on a prototype belt-planner mod (no need to get your hopes up), i have to say that video is completely unsuited to get your point across. A well balanced belt brush mod would still be placing belt ghosts, because placing that many belts instantly from the player inventory would be well beyond the realm of what the player is usually capable of. Seeing that you already managed to place the belts, maybe you just want a mod that gives you instant blueprint revival powers. (If you're now tempted to say "i dont want mods" then you should urgently read the sticky topic in this forum. And google up why "belt planner" has been officially rejected already.)

[kbk]

When you are about to lay more than 3000 items with your personal robots, you are doing something wrong - in my eyes. This takes forever. This is not advanced, nor lategame, it’s just slow.

Actually this is quite feasible in late game. I usually enjoy packing 2 fusion reactors, at most 1-2 exoskeletons, some advanced batteries and at least 4 mk2 personal roboports into my suit by that time. Works pretty fast but you have to slack off from time to time to recharge your batteries and inner roboport buffers.

Logistic network, on the other hand, is huge by that time — if I ever come to use it — so conbots really grind my gears while traversing slowly from its outer reaches to the spot I demand them to be. There also is an implication of trying to keep the smaller networks (e.g. ones which main goal is to fix the walls on some spot) separated from the bigger factory-wide one, so generally I like to have zero active networks where I paste some blueprints.

[vanatteveldt]

Yeah that video is a mess.

You can use ~infinite bots from stationary roboports, so why not make a 64 wide (or whatever that was) blueprint with roboports integrated so you can fire and forget?