Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Please display all consumed resources in the information panel for ghost Uranium mines in a similar fashion to the actual mine.

What ?

A placed Uranium mine shows that it consumes Sulfuric acid and Electricity in the information panel on the right.

A ghost mine shows that it consumes Electricity, but the Sulfuric acid requirement is absent.

Why ?

In the vanilla game it is very easy to remember that the unique Uranium mine needs Sulfuric acid even if a ghost mine is placed before the technology has been unlocked. However, for Mods that add many more resource patch types that have similar mine recipes to that of Uranium, planning ahead for supplying those extra resources is denied to the player when consulting a ghost entity. The Electricity requirement is shown, so it seems to follow that the additional required resources should also be shown for ghost entities too.

Your ghost is missing the sulfuric acid plumbing as well... as you sure you're over vanilla uranium? Posting a save might be in order here.

It is a vanilla game (sandbox) created for the sole purpose of providing screenshots for this suggestion.

The plumbing is superfluous to the suggestion.

netmand wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2020 2:54 pm Your ghost is missing the sulfuric acid plumbing as well... as you sure you're over vanilla uranium? Posting a save might be in order here.

Squelch wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2020 2:58 pm It is a vanilla game (sandbox) created for the sole purpose of providing screenshots for this suggestion.

The plumbing is superfluous to the suggestion.

I think what netmand means: the ghost is missing the visuals for pipe connections, this is very much relevant because this ghost also does not display its sulphuric acid requirement in the tooltip – which is the entire point.

I see where the confusion may come from now. It really doesn't matter whether there is plumbing or not for the purposes of the suggestion. The info panel shows what resources an entity will consume regardless of whether it actually has that resource connected or supplied.

Take a boiler for example: The info panel shows that it consumes water and burnable fuel, and generates steam. This information is shown for both an actual boiler and a ghost boiler. Plumbing or actual resources are not required.

A Uranium mine cannot be placed anywhere else but where Uranium ore is present.

[Edit for clarity]
A mine placed on any Uranium ore will be a Uranium mine and will consume Sulfuric acid. Even if the ore is mixed, it is still a Uranium mine.

netmand wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2020 2:54 pm Your ghost is missing the sulfuric acid plumbing as well... as you sure you're over vanilla uranium? Posting a save might be in order here.

I've been reflecting on what you have said, and I possibly see what you mean now.

Before the advent of the enhanced information in the right hand info panel, this wasn't so obvious, but now, as you point out, the ghost mine does not show the sulfuric acid plumbed model, and instead, the standard mine model. I have always assumed the standard ghost was merely a placeholder only, and the ghost could only show the standard mine due to the underlying logic. However, when a mine is placed over uranium, it can only be a uranium mine regardless of whether the tech has been researched or whether there are other ores within its footprint.

Mining machines will extract whatever mixed ores are within its footprint in an apparently random fashion. Uranium can only be extracted when there is a supply of sulfuric acid. We might be lucky and initially mine, say, stone, but the mine will stop at uranium if there is no sulfuric acid available. We cannot choose to mine only the stone, and must accept that it will be randomly distributed.

I've spun up another sandbox game (attached) where there are some uranium and stone patch overlaps. Technology has not been completed, cheats are on, and only the starting items added plus an electric energy-interface cheated in. The results in placing an electric mine over mixed uranium and stone are shown here.

Having seen bug reports dismissed as "not a bug" because the underlying logic has not been implemented, I had assumed that this was also the case here. However, as @netmand points out, and @valneq did attempt to clarify, the mine's ghost model is a standard one and not one that is plumbed for sulfuric acid when it can only be a uranium mine, leads me to suspect that this in indeed a bug. ie the wrong mine type is selected for the ghost, and therefore the consumed resources show only for the standard electric mine.