Friday Facts #278 - The new quickbar

[DanGio]

I'm so looking forward 0.17

About quickbar shortcuts persistence :

1) Items you have in your shortcuts at the end of your last game will almost certainly not be unlocked at the beginning of your new game. I will just be faced with a wall of unusable ghosts which make me feel disappointed that I haven't unlocked yet.
2) It discourages changing play style. If all my shortcuts are set in preference of doing things one way (eg. certain weapons/capsules, or only laser turrets, not flamethrowers), then I'll play the same sort of way next time. Not that I'll forget alternatives exist, but the options I'm familiar and used to are presented in a handy way so I don't have to find them, and notice another weapon whilst I'm looking.

I agree, but I think the advantages given by shortcuts persistence are greater. I'm using the same belt/inserter/splitter/underground shortcuts for ages. Giving a choice is more an advanced player issue, which won't be an issue if you're an advanced player
I wonder if this is easily implementable... The quickbar filters would not be save dependant anymore but more like an interface setting.

[Jonathan88]

On second thoughts, maybe when joining a game for the first time, the quickbar should be copied across, but only up to the current tech level.

This means when starting a new game you won't have lots of tempting-but-out-of-reach shortcuts of locked technology, but when joining a server, you'll have all your shortcuts synced which have been unlocked.

It's not a perfect system though - what happens if you switch back to an old game with higher tech after rewriting some of the shortcuts to lower tech items?

[1234tv]

Currently the second quick bar is unlocked by a research, do you now get all of this from the start?
I could see one research unlock a second page and the second bar, and a second research unlock the other 8 pages or a similar thing.

[Muppet9010]

I don't think the ghost cursor should be disabled by default on the interface. Yes disable it during the early stages of the campaign, until it can be tutorialed and introduced to the player.

But during free play the whole game should be unlocked and active. Same logic applies to research queue. The new player experience is the campaign, not random free play games.

[JekoRhino]

So they Remove Shift + 1-5 for right side?

Think about it. How would you Access Pages 6-0 fast?
It's very uncomfortable to reach them and I don't have small hands.

For me It allays was just:

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.

That's so intuitiv and comfortable. Why not keep that?

There is no use for X(hold) right now the Quickbar change imitatively when you press X.
For me at least I just tap X to get to the other Quickbar so why not make a use for X(hold).

With the new System the Quick bar would change when you release X but not if you pressed 1-5 while X was pressed.
That wouldn't change the old System much but add the new System.

So the Old System + the New System:

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.
- X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 1-5
- Shift(hold) + X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 6-0

I hope the Devs consider my Idea and add it to 0.17.

[DanGio]

This means when starting a new game you won't have lots of tempting-but-out-of-reach shortcuts of locked technology, but when joining a server, you'll have all your shortcuts synced which have been unlocked.

I think if you're advanced enough to have blue belts in quickbar, you're advanced enough not to place blue belt ghosts when starting a new game.

It's not a perfect system though - what happens if you switch back to an old game with higher tech after rewriting some of the shortcuts to lower tech items?

The solution, to me, would be the simpliest : shortcuts are kept the same everywhere, in any case. They're not save dependant anymore, they act like a game setting, except they are changed ingame. That may be a huge problem for implementation... idk, I'm not qualified

[Avezo]

I wish new quickbars were stacking horizontally - having multiple open pages almost in the middle of the screen wouldn't be good if they were stacked vertically in the middle of the screen as in pictures in FFF.

Other than that - what's happened that FFF is so early this time?

[Avezo]

So they Remove Shift + 1-5 for right side?

Think about it. How would you Access Pages 6-0 fast?
It's very uncomfortable to reach them and I don't have small hands.

For me It allays was just:

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.

That's so intuitiv and comfortable. Why not keep that?
(...)

I think it will be still possible to change bindings to work the same as old quickbar - FFF as I understand it only means new default settings, everyone will be still able to change it in options to own liking.

[morsk]

I don't like it. Players have been trying to get developers to stop using the right side of the board for important keys for decades. You must realize why it's wrong; you made the 1-5 and Shift 1-5 before. But something changed, and now you're delivering the same 1-0 keys that everyone knows are bad, yet no developer can resist shipping in a product.

Wasting 10 keybinds on switching bars is also silly. It could be 1 button and a popup menu. I might bind the popup to 6, and keep the 1-5 and Shift 1-5 from before for the other keys. But no way am I wasting 10 binds on switching bars. Even if I were "advanced" enough to memorize them all, it's a waste of so many keys.

[JekoRhino]

So they Remove Shift + 1-5 for right side?

Think about it. How would you Access Pages 6-0 fast?
It's very uncomfortable to reach them and I don't have small hands.

For me It allays was just:

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.

That's so intuitiv and comfortable. Why not keep that?
(...)

I think it will be still possible to change bindings to work the same as old quickbar - FFF as I understand it only means new default settings, everyone will be still able to change it in options to own liking.

So they would need to add Quickbar Preset 1-0 that's like 10 new Options.
I would hope they do It because I really enjoy the Shift +1-5 thing.
I don't know any other Build Game that features this alternate for 6-0 and the first time I used it I wondered why no other Game did it.

[JekoRhino]

I don't like it. Players have been trying to get developers to stop using the right side of the board for important keys for decades. You must realize why it's wrong; you made the 1-5 and Shift 1-5 before. But something changed, and now you're delivering the same 1-0 keys that everyone knows are bad, yet no developer can resist shipping in a product.

Wasting 10 keybinds on switching bars is also silly. It could be 1 button and a popup menu. I might bind the popup to 6, and keep the 1-5 and Shift 1-5 from before for the other keys. But no way am I wasting 10 binds on switching bars. Even if I were "advanced" enough to memorize them all, it's a waste of so many keys.

YES! I'am not alone.

- 1-5 for Left Side Items.
- Shift(hold) + 1-5 for Right Side Items
- X to get another Page.
- X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 1-5
- Shift(hold) + X(hold) + 1-5 for Pages 6-0

Maybe that is something for you?

[Matthias_Wlkp]

Love the quickbar! For sure I will be turning on Ghosts when item count=0.

One thing about ghosts - when you have bots/roboports, every ghost within the range of bots gets built automatically. Is there a way that the player character could build ghosts within his building range? One thing that might be annoying is during the early game - OK, I run out of inserters, I place ghosts - but now I have to re-place them again?

I understand that players build ghosts as placeholders, not intended to be actually build, so probably we would want a toggle to turn this behavior on/off...

[VuiMuich]

Having the Quickbars configured global has imo more downsides then bendeits, despite possible implementation difficulties.

Especially if you have safes with very different play styles (say one vanilla megabase, one in the campaign, one train world/death world, one early game peaceful, one sea block, one creative mode for designing and sometimes you are running some category of speedrun) you want to have very different layouts.

For this I would propose either a “Quickbar Exchange String” oder maybe a special Quickbar Blueprint book.

And +1 for keeping the 1-5 scheme.

As well I like the idea of automatically activating the ghost cursor which research of construction robots and have the settings as “activate bevor research”

[quaatal]

Will you add a GUI opacity setting? It is an unpleasant experience when I cannot see things that are obscured by the interface.
Especially when the object I want to look at is in the top right corner or the bottom part of the screen.

[Shingen]

Phew, i'm honestly relieved to hear that you didn't drop this idea after all, and it's looking great! well, nearly...

As for the ghost cursor stuff, I don't really like having it disabled by default.
You already know theres gonna be 100 million people who will never realise that its an option.

I think it would be a good idea to turn it on automatically when you unlock construction robots, and give a quick popup to explain it. (And optionally a setting: enable ghost cursor before construction robots or something along those lines).

i second this.

1) Items you have in your shortcuts at the end of your last game will almost certainly not be unlocked at the beginning of your new game. I will just be faced with a wall of unusable ghosts which make me feel disappointed that I haven't unlocked yet.
2) It discourages changing play style. If all my shortcuts are set in preference of doing things one way (eg. certain weapons/capsules, or only laser turrets, not flamethrowers), then I'll play the same sort of way next time. Not that I'll forget alternatives exist, but the options I'm familiar and used to are presented in a handy way so I don't have to find them, and notice another weapon whilst I'm looking.

i disagree.
1. it is already "disappointing" to see nearly entirely red technology tree, and unlike the technology page, you won't even see the higher tier bars until you decide to change them, which will most likely be caused by... having just unlocked some new items.
2. i place my shortcuts the same way every normal game because essentially there are no different playstyles. and i WANT it to be set this way from the start, so i don't have to repeat myself in every save. automation, guys.
i really hope the pages will be bound to the character/account, like the blueprint library.

Love the quick bar and pages concept, please do the same for Logistic Requests and Trash slots. It's gonna be a life saver!

logistic request and auto trash slots already work as "shortcuts" of sorts... but yes, being able to pick between "pages" of LR/AT setups would be sweet

also it would be nice to have an option to set a 1-time delivery request from the logistic system that would disappear afterwards, instead of the player having to remove it manually, if he doesn't need to have this kind of items all the time.

I wish new quickbars were stacking horizontally - having multiple open pages almost in the middle of the screen wouldn't be good if they were stacked vertically in the middle of the screen as in pictures in FFF.

you aren't gonna have these 10 pages opened during gameplay, they're there temporarily just so you can switch between active ones

One thing about ghosts - when you have bots/roboports, every ghost within the range of bots gets built automatically. Is there a way that the player character could build ghosts within his building range? One thing that might be annoying is during the early game - OK, I run out of inserters, I place ghosts - but now I have to re-place them again?

I understand that players build ghosts as placeholders, not intended to be actually build, so probably we would want a toggle to turn this behavior on/off...

going backwards...
some people build ghosts as placeholders, but that's rather rare and kinda out of place in a regular game, where people place them exactly to be built.

i don't know what are you talking about with "re-placing them" - if you place ghosts both in range of your character and the base, but you have no robots/items for that ghost, then robots of the base will build it, no replacing of anything needed.

the ability to lock out the base from building ghosts in player's range would be nice in some situations, like when you're building something requiring more robots than you have on you.
currently the base just fills the rest of the ghosts, which may take ages if the storage is far away, while you could do it yourself in 2 seconds with the robots that have just returned to you.
the problem i see here is that if you had no resources of that type, these structures wouldn't have gotten build until you move away.
so imo base could be prevented from building things close to you if and only if you have the resources required.

as of 1-5, shift+1-5/1-0, i personally prefer 1-0. never gotten used to this weird shift system, and partially because of that i'm only using keys for the most important 1-5 items anyway.

[Raphaello]

Especially if you have safes with very different play styles (say one vanilla megabase, one in the campaign, one train world/death world, one early game peaceful, one sea block, one creative mode for designing and sometimes you are running some category of speedrun) you want to have very different layouts.

For this I would propose either a “Quickbar Exchange String” oder maybe a special Quickbar Blueprint book.

+1 for this - integrating quickbar layouts into blueprint manager would be a great idea, esp if we are also able to share them as strings.

As for 1-0 discussion: I am not using Shift+1-5 now as I find it uncomfortable so I would prefer 1-0 keys.

[Amegatron]

Why do people want to persist quickbar pages when starting new game?
In current game you have blue belts, electric furnaces and so on. Will you have them when you start a new game? So, whats the purpose of persisting? Or you just want to have e.g. first 3 rows for early game, 3 for mid and rest for the late game?

[VuiMuich]

Question to the devs:

Will there be toolbelt research for the Quickbars 2-10?

[rubberduck]

This gave me a semi...
until i saw that:



at which poit it went full on

[Nova]

All the fame for ghost cursor please!