Factorio Forums

The problem: see if a certain logistic network contains some item

Currently, we have two ways to see the contents of a logistic network:

1. Hover over a logistic chest on the map view.
   Pro: Easy to find
   Con: No way to search for the specific item, except manually. That might not work because the list overflows the screen, or because the icon jumps around the list.
2. Use the logistic network overview (keybind L)
   Pro: Allows searching for a specific item by name
   Con: No easy way to find the network; even worse: no way to verify that the one you found is the correct one, unless you know the amount of roboports and there is no other network with that amount of roboports.

Proposal:
Allow some way to select a network and go to that network in the logistic network overview. Some suggestions on how to do that:

1. Special button combo click on a logistic network from the normal map view, like ctrl+shift+alt+tab+middle click.
   Con: all logical options (shift click, ctrl click, alt click etc) are already taken, so it would need to be some ridiculous button combination.
2. Special selection mode: first click a button somewhere on the map view (beneath the overlay options?), then normal left click in the map.
   Con: selection / clicking modes are maybe not very user friendly.
   Pro: you can also use such a system for artillery targeting, which now uses a targeting remote item, which is kinda contrived in my opinion.
3. Open a special map view from the logistic network overview (either full screen that closes when something has been selected, or on the side like trains are shown now. Player clicks on a logistic network on that map view to open the contents in the logistic network overview
   Con: seems kinda ad-hoc
   Pro: would work well.

I personally like the second option, as the same system can be used to do artillery targeting.