Change colors of efficiency and/or productivity modules?

[Apollolux]

Hello! I don't expect my use case is a common one, but it just happened to me and I'd like to use the occurrence to suggest a possible color change of the efficiency modules and/or the productivity modules to make them more distinct from each other.

I had gone into the player inventory looking to shift-click productivity module so I could produce them en route to a factory for production science. I did not have a factory set up for production modules nor was I looking to make one just for this purpose. I went very quickly and instead of shift-clicking production module 1 I accidentally shift-clicked efficiency module 1. I know their positions are different and if I was paying attention I could read the text, I was just trying to go quickly and wrongly went by "color." I did not catch it quickly enough and about 60% of them were already made before I realized the error and cancelled the rest. The immediate result was that I now have efficiency modules I don't plan on ever using and can't recycle (not running any recycling mods), and had to go back to get more circuits and advanced circuits to make production modules.

I have red-green color blindness, deuteranopia if I remember correctly. The existing color filter and brightness/contrast/saturation options were not enough to prevent this from happening, as even with them changed the (apparently green?) colors of efficiency module still look too similar to those (apparently orange? yellow?) of productivity module.

This post is NOT a call for people to chide me for not reading text or memorizing item positions or for not setting up a factory or any such "strategy suggestions" or "pay attention" remarks. This is a genuine request for the devs to reevaluate the color schemes of some (maybe eventually all) items objectively with the goal of making them more distinct from each other.

[Koub]

Hi,

If you're not hostile to mods, have you tried one of these ?
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Colorblind_AllInOne
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Colorblind

(I haven't tried them, not being colorblind myself)

[ssilk]

When I think about it: it should be relatively easy to tweak the graphic filters so, that they can color-change in a way that they compensate any kind of deuteronophia. It makes a lot of sense, because about 10% live with that kind of deficiency.

[Deadlock989]

When I think about it: it should be relatively easy to tweak the graphic filters so, that they can color-change in a way that they compensate any kind of deuteronophia. It makes a lot of sense, because about 10% live with that kind of deficiency.

For heaven's sake. If it were "relatively easy" do you not think it would already have been done? Do you think they provided a filter which only has a partial effect because they are lazy or just to mess with people, or what? Please, tell us how this "relatively easy" colour filter should actually work, with equations and diagrams if necessary, since you're the expert.

It only partly works because it's a very difficult problem to solve. Colour perception is unbelievably complex and entirely subjective. Go and read about it. Start with something simple if you're brand new to the topic, like an encyclopaedia. Read about perceptual hue shifts with increased illumination power. Read about chromatic adaptation, probably most familiar to you as the green "burn" you get if you stare at a lightbulb. Read about metamerism. Go and read about the dress if you've been living under a rock.

The productivity modules are "red". Except they don't necessarily look red even if you have "normal" colour vision because colour is not only a matter of photons emitted or the biological structure of your retina. For two years I interpreted productivity modules, with my "normal" colour vision, as purple. They are not even slightly purple. I only found out they were red when I literally opened them up in Photoshop. Why did my brain do that when purple isn't used for any other tier or class designation in Factorio? Because brains are fucking weird. I look forward to a "relatively simple" formula which can explain that.

Six colours - three primary and three secondary hues - are not enough to make unambiguously meaningful distinctions even for so-called "normal" colour vision. The real solution is that the three module types would be visually distinct in some other way than simply hue. That directly translates to time and money. And if they were changed people would probably whine about that, as well.

[Koub]

My boss has one form of colour blindness. He asked me this afternoon if I could change some colours on an Excel graph I'm producing because he can't distinguish some sort of orange with some sort of green. I spent 20 minutes juggling with colours to try and produce a version of my graph (4 colours) and testing it on an online simulator. I gave up, because I could not produce a 100% colourblind proof graph, every time I fixed it for one type of colourblindness, it became unfriendly with another type. So I just made it that his own colour blindness would not be a problem any more. It's terribly difficult (or at least I have no algorithm that can reliably produce a colour scheme that checks all the colourblind marks.

The productivity modules are "red". Except they don't necessarily look red even if you have "normal" colour vision because colour is not only a matter of photons emitted or the biological structure of your retina. For two years I interpreted productivity modules, with my "normal" colour vision, as purple.

WTF, I see them orange

[Deadlock989]

Exactly. If you changed productivity modules to be yellow it would screw someone else over. There are 7.5 billion different forms of vision and it's all swings and roundabouts.

The best approach IMHO is on the lines of this mod for circuits which use colour masks for specific items so that the player can tweak the item to their own specific visual preference in settings. But this has a performance implication if you want it to look good because it means multiple sprite layers per item and there can be thousands and thousands of belts items on the screen at once, so there is no way it should be done for every item in the game even if it didn't result in options hell. Modules you could get away with maybe, I don't think many people have 16 lane buses of modules.

[ssilk]

When I think about it: it should be relatively easy to tweak the graphic filters so, that they can color-change in a way that they compensate any kind of deuteronophia. It makes a lot of sense, because about 10% live with that kind of deficiency.

For heaven's sake. If it were "relatively easy" do you not think it would already have been done? Do you think they provided a filter which only has a partial effect because they are lazy or just to mess with people, or what? Please, tell us how this "relatively easy" colour filter should actually work, with equations and diagrams if necessary, since you're the expert.

Hell, I really hate when you mean you know everything better, Deadlock.

This problem is an issue since 2015 (?) and a lot of suggestions had been made for this. So, of course I know how problematic this could be and one size fits all doesn’t work here. But there are very different types of color blindness and some (most?) are not color blind, but just color weak. They have problems to see green for example.

So, to make Factorio +1 better I thought about a graphic setting where you can choose from a number of filters and see on picture, where the most problematic items can be seen, how that will look for you. And if you find something appropriate you can fine-tune it eventually.

The harder form of color blindness need a change of the look of the items etc., as you said. But afaik these types are more seldom. And if the user can switch between two color profiles, it should be possible to “see” colors even for people, that can see no colors at all.

[Koub]

The harder form of color blindness need a change of the look of the items etc., as you said. But afaik these types are more seldom. And if the user can switch between two color profiles, it should be possible to “see” colors even for people, that can see no colors at all.

It's not as simple as that. There is no linear "hierarchy" of colour blindness, it's more of a continuum where only some colours become indistinguishable from another, but not the same as for another colour blind.
Sometimes, the "weirdliest" different colours look similar for just one type of colour blindness (and not the others).

I use this "simulator" when my manager calls for help with my Excel charts : https://www.color-blindness.com/coblis- ... simulator/. If you're not colour blind yourself, you can give it a try. Make a chart (with Excel, Google docs or whatever) with 4 colours you pick randomly, and check it afterwards. Fix it for one colour blindness, and check it for all the others. I'd be surprised if you didn't mess things up for another.

The only reliable way to be colourblind proof I found was going full greyscale (which isn't really an option in corporate world), or any form of monochromatic scale (always the same colour, but only different levels of darkness). But one has a limit on how many variations of the same colour one can distinguish on a chart, so the result is always limited.

[ssilk]

Fix it for one colour blindness, and check it for all the others. I'd be surprised if you didn't mess things up for another.

Koub, I try to explain it again: I know that color blindness is very personal.

Therefore you could choose between different presets, that hopefully cover most cases, for most types of cb. Not all! I think/hope that will cover the problems of a majority of color blind people. But I’m not an expert, I would ask one or two before implementation.

The remaining issues are much more complex, agreed.

[foamy]

Fix it for one colour blindness, and check it for all the others. I'd be surprised if you didn't mess things up for another.

Koub, I try to explain it again: I know that color blindness is very personal.

Therefore you could choose between different presets, that hopefully cover most cases, for most types of cb. Not all! I think/hope that will cover the problems of a majority of color blind people. But I’m not an expert, I would ask one or two before implementation.

The remaining issues are much more complex, agreed.

That'd be the usual approach. I think ONI -- another game that is heavily reliant on colour-coding for status information -- does things that way, with what are effectively palette-swap filters.

[ickputzdirwech]

The fact that you cannot make it perfect for everyone shouldn't stop you from making it better for at least some people. Adding a setting with a different color palette wouldn't make it worse for anyone. The worst case would be that it wouldn't make it better for anyone.

[Deadlock989]

Hell, I really hate when you mean you know everything better, Deadlock.

The point is not that I know better on this subject. It is the exact opposite. You lack the competence to assess how much it is that you don't know. Please read up on the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[ickputzdirwech]

This is getting nowhere except insulting. As far as I am concerned about the application of the Dunning-Kruger effect in this case, it could well be the other way around. Luckily I don’t care! Please let’s all stay on topic.

[Koub]

[Koub] Please, keep focused on the subject, not on who knows best, don't want yet another verbal fight here.

[TheRaph]

The productivity modules are "red". Except they don't necessarily look red even if you have "normal" colour vision because colour is not only a matter of photons emitted or the biological structure of your retina. For two years I interpreted productivity modules, with my "normal" colour vision, as purple.

WTF, I see them orange

It is type of red with tendencies to orange: (Edit: AND Yellow lights on top (when lit))

RedScience.PNG (67.72 KiB) Viewed 3669 times

BTT: Adding color-filter-option to factorio would be a god thing. But it only solves your problem just for THIS one game.

So there may be some ways which help you in every game (and real-live too).

A 9 year old boy in Wedel (Germany) solves his problem with red-green-blindness on its own way. He put two types of translucent foil (or film) on his glasses. One colored in yellow and a second one in pink. Now he can shift with his eyes between this two color-foils and so he can distinguish red and green. He won a youngsters-science-award.
If you like to see a picture of his glasses you may click that link. (Be warned it is German )
The mechanics behind that is to filter some colors so that green will be darker looking through one foil and vice versa looking through the other one. After some days (or month?) of wearing that glasses your eyes/brain will be trained to do that check automatically. You will not be able to see real green or red as most other people but being able to figure out the difference.

I can imagine that the same principle may also work for different types of color-blindness if you adapt the color of that glasses to your needs. But I'm not sure. (I believe it will not work for rare total color-blindness.)

There are also a commercial product called "Enchroma" - it's also type of a filter which manage it that red and green appear in different feelings (as far as I'know people with red-green-blindness sees both colors in different shades of "yellow-brown". Encroma moves red-like colors on one end of that spectrum and green-like colors to the other end, which makes it possible to differentiate).
And there are tons of other products ... most of them don't look very helpful.