Current CTRL+Z (undo) could be more useful is expanded slightly
Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 12:20 am
TL;DR
CTRL+Z to undo (a recently-added feature) is great, but I hope that other functions can add to this shortcut's utility and usefulnes.What ?
We already have the undo feature of CTRL-Z. However, sometimes, I might need to CTRL-Z backwards by several steps. Allowing a "redo" function, possibly mapped to CTRL-Y, would make CTRL-Z-overshooting less of an annoyance. In particular, it would be great if the player could access the queue / stack / history of still-undoable actions. This would make it possible for a player to undo the fifth step back, but still be able to either select the next four changes to be kept, or at least be documented so that after reverting to the fifth-back step, we can still re-implement the subsequent steps that the player doesn't want to undo.Additionally, I've learned that on-map manipulations of already-placed structures are not tracked / trackable by the CTRL-Z keybind. This includes things like rotating structures and assemblers, assembler recipe settings, combinator settings, or the filter-settings on a belt splitter or a filter inserter. It would be awesome if the undo (and maybe redo?) function could help us revert or re-assert those on-map changes.
Finally, when instinctively attempting CTRL-Z to undo a mistake I might have already made to an assembler's recipe or a splitter's filter settings, I see that no change takes place to the item I'd made my mistake on, and my mistake still remains. Alongside that, I then realize that I CTRL-Z undid something elsewhere in my game map, and I have no way to know what previous change (that I'd apparently left alone, which implies that I was happy with it) has now been undone by my mistaken attempt to "undo" whatever my current in-game puzzle might be. Thus, it would be great if there were some method of identifying that mistakenly-undone item so that I can decide whether or not I should fix it. This would obviously be less important if there were already a CTRL-Y-redo function, but I still think that it would be useful for the player to have access to the knowledge of what was mistakenly changed elsewhere, without that knowing needing to come from realizing that a belt is contaminated or an inserter is missing somewhere.
Why ?
This is, after all, a game about automation. It would seem to me to be very much in keeping with the mindset of Factorio gameplay to be able to automate reversal or re-ratification of player-created steps and mistakes.Thank you for your time, and thanks for an awesome game!