Friday Facts #255 - Construction tools

[Zool]

Just THANK YOU!!!

Thank you to keep the research queue in game!
Thank you for implementing the upgrade planner!
Thank you for implementing Copy & Paste!

Just love you guys

[ili]

6c0.png (51.58 KiB) Viewed 7516 times

[rbrucemtl]

Sexy FFF! Yummy.

[zOldBulldog]

This all looks pretty good. I know it will be a long time, but this is something I'll look forward to getting.

[ThorsDragon]

YAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M SO EXCITED FOR THE RESEARCH QUEUE AND UPGRADE PLANNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[T-A-R]

Trollarex did it again xD

Yayayay:D These addition are damn sexy. I like the shapes which are forming.
What would be the problem if q-ing a blueprint puts it on the clipboard? The clipboard is a good candidate to become a powerful construction tool (including familiarity of ctrl Z, C and V (Yes ).

Is it an option to have a checkbox when saving a blueprint: " dispose blueprint after use" So when nothing is pressed, the blueprint goes goes to the clipboard, else dispose. You can do whatever you want with it when the bp is on the clipboard (edit-library-inventory-delete), and checkbox it while making if you dont want it to clutter your clipboard.

Maybe also add a button on the interface of interesting copy-able items such as trains and wagons: { Export settings to clipboard ]. Including baking a bp-string. In that way a blueprint item could be used to click locs and wagons to transfer complex setting via the library. In this way a consistent systems forms, i like the idea of a universal clipboard. (so you can share logistic setups, including train settings). How many entities could be on the clipboard? (adjustable; performance wise??)

I love your decisions on shared blueprints! I'm glad you agreed on names in the library " for some players" (i tried to change the icons in the library once -.-). I hope your next LAN party shows that the library really deserves it ' s own friday facts!

or did i read over the red prints saving? Books in books? Etcetera. Ohhh, we can never have enough happy things in a FFF.

But I' m already satistfyingly exited this week by the construction tool:mrgreen:

Keep op the good work, and keep LAN-ning!

[5thHorseman]

Okay you did it. I'm officially hyped or 0.17.

[Slayn25]

As always great job guys!

[Tesse11ation]

Oooh! This Friday Facts is literally FFF-FF! Brilliant!

(Get it?)

Great additions by the way! This copy/paste function will come in handy especially in PvP.

There are 2F types of people in the world; don't even get me started on hexadecimal.

[SuperflyR6]

WHAT "Copy paste", "Undo" in Factorio and a perfect solution for the "Research queue"
Mind just exploded!

Love you guys. Keep rocking our world!

[TheVeteraNoob]

Stupid feature just for requesting. You forgot Ctrl+y aka un-undo aka redo.

Also what if clipboard blueprints were actually on the clipboard? I dunno if generation of blueprint strings is instant enough to be unnoticeable. But it would be kinda neat to copy paste from forums and other maps with one less click.

Also. This is the #1 thing I use Blueprints for so +many internet points

[Oktokolo]

Will undo/redo be a complete experience? Would it apply to module insertion/removal, recipe changes, entity rotation, filter selection / slot reservation, research selection, train station configuration...?

Will there be an API for mods so we could make modded actions undo-/redo-able?

[cpy]

Upgrade planner now in game? This is really good news! Can't wait to play 0.17.

[Dev-iL]

I have a couple of questions about the CTRL+Z functionality:

1. If the last removed thing had entities with configurations (e.g. assembling machines) do we get the configurations back, or do we get empty entities?
2. How "deep" is the history? Can I undo everything until the start of the game? A certain number of actions (e.g. 100)? Perhaps only actions that only happened in a certain time window?
2a. If there is some limit to the history, would it be configurable? Would it have a performance hit on the game? Would it imbalance the game if people with stronger computers could allocate a bigger history?

Also:

1. I second the suggestion about adding hotkeys to the blueprint popup.
2. I, too, find the lack of usefulness of the QOL features for the pre-bot period unfortunate. Perhaps it would make sense to add a lower tier of non-flying {burner?} construction bots, as previous posts indicated.
3. As always, I must inquire about the state of RTL support

[H0lyD4wg]

Most of the time my toolbar will have every slot reserved for something, so unless I'm missing something, I would need to open my inventory, then click to place it into my inventory, then close my inventory.

That's true in 0.16, where the vanilla quickbar has at most 20 slots. That won't necessarily be the case in 0.17 - maybe they'll add quickbar "pages" a-la FFF-249, effectively increasing the number of slots to 100.

[ef_ex]

My faith has been restored, i do love every single thing in this Friday facts and can't wait for them to be released.

[mp0011]

Sounds good, but for UNDO I would restrict it to current screen/view only. Even with long reach settings.

I imagine situations, where I press CTLR+Z and nothing happened. Nothing near the player...
But far away, in remote factory outpost, some crucial infrastructure element just gone out of existence...

[eradicator]

The (arguable) advantage is, that it can no longer upgrade instantly from the player inventory, so it is more balanced and consistent with the other construction tools.

And the (arguable) disadvantage is that it is now completely locked behind robots. This means that the example screenshot of replacing yellow/yellow belts/inserters with blue/red isn't ever going to happen, because you get red belts and fast inserters way before robots. This is especially hurtful in mods that make robot research significantly more expensive while still requiring several upgrade steps (i.e. xanders mod). Maybe a sort of manual mode would be possible where you have to press a button and hover over each marked-for-upgrade entity to manually upgrade it? This wouldn't be as fast as bots, but works without them and removes the need to manually select the correct item for each upgradeable entity. I.e. an "assisted manual upgrade" mode.

it will invoke a small selection popup next to the mouse, so the player can explicitly select what to do:

• Put it in the blueprint library - clicking it just opens the blueprint library, so it can be put there, if it is already opened, it just flashes.
• Put it in the inventory - clicking it just opens the character screen with inventory, so it can be put there, if it is already opened, it just flashes.
• Destroy

Not a big fan of popups..., i'd like to propose an addition:
When pressing Q again while the popup is open the action used the last time is automatically used (or there could be a checkbox next to each option to mark it as default for double-Q). For moving to the library this would either put the BP into the last active folder or into an "unsorted" folder ala browser bookmarks (i personally prefer the "unsorted" option).

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

Research queue : 9
Cut'n'paste + copy'n'paste : 10+

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

A quick question about cut'n'paste. Can I select a large area, press <CTRL+X>, move my cursor 1 block, press <CTRL-V> in order to move a whole area a tiny bit? My self-imposed OCD tells me I need/want things to align perfectly.

[powa]

Sounds good, but for UNDO I would restrict it to current screen/view only. Even with long reach settings.

I imagine situations, where I press CTLR+Z and nothing happened. Nothing near the player...
But far away, in remote factory outpost, some crucial infrastructure element just gone out of existence...

This is a great point.

But instead, perhaps a small indicator would pop up when an UNDO action affects an offscreen tile, like an arrow pointing to it at the closest edge of the screen.

Having off-screen changes would make a REDO (e.g. CTRL+Y) even more important. If you accidentally undo something far away, you can just redo to ensure no damage is caused.

I have a couple of questions about the CTRL+Z functionality:

1. If the last removed thing had entities with configurations (e.g. assembling machines) do we get the configurations back, or do we get empty entities?
2. How "deep" is the history? Can I undo everything until the start of the game? A certain number of actions (e.g. 100)? Perhaps only actions that only happened in a certain time window?
2a. If there is some limit to the history, would it be configurable? Would it have a performance hit on the game? [...]

^