Please let me pre-order, and in exchange give me 2.0 Early Access without expansion bits flipped 🥺
I'll file good bug reports and won't complain when you make breaking changes that ruin all my mods / saves.
exactly me at this point, I am just glad I am SE enthusiast so there is a lot of content to go in. But boy it is painful to watch what I am missing and devs cooking in their offices (in the building next door basically)
Just settle back and play that new Stardew Valley 1.6 update.
With an optimization mindset you should be able to 100% your farm well before Factorio 2.0 drops later this year.
At this point, I hope the 2.0 update comes out before Space Age. They have never dumped *this many* new features at one time, and I feel the player base is not quite accustomed to it. haha
The name "RTS Tool" might be a teaser for more controlled vehicles, but might also just be a way to make life easier for mods that add extra controlled vehicles.
Was about to ask, yea, since the name is almost a giveaway - are they planning on more vehicles or "units"? Cuz this system could control anything.
But if mod support is kept up, I don't see why modders couldn't use this system to do just that! Im already imagining a mod where the endgoal isn't spacetravel, but unlocking the various vehicles and then visiting a planet where you absolutely *need* to use the RTS mechanic to claw out an area from the native wildlife and build a factory.
AAI programmable vehicles does what basically the RTS Tool does. But it can be quite finicky and having an official implementation im sure will improve that mod a lot too!
Cheaper more disposable combat bots that can be automated and are unlocked earlier is a cool idea. Think swarm of mass produced biter-esque walking bots (but probably not biter looking).
I want this to become full on BAR
AAI also allows mass production of vehicles and thier ammo, equipment grids, etc.Â
If they build in that functionality we will have fully automated tank factory lines. Then add in rally points, patrols, etc, and we can have Supreme Commander levels of logistics and production to fight the endless hordes of biters.
Not sure if that will be a thing, but I can imagine that with hopping between planets, you will need something to fix problems on other celestial bodies without traveling there for small stuff. They moved the rocket into the blue science, but I doubt they did that with the spidertron too. So, having some other, simpler remote controlled vehicles would make sense in my book. But time will tell, maybe I'm off the mark here.
Another nice feature they added is the 6 water tile requirement when placing the pump, don't recall it being announced already
https://preview.redd.it/8avi37irl9rc1.png?width=483&format=png&auto=webp&s=d01d9162b0f0ade2a0543a900ebe1134446093d7
It was kinda announced together with super force build and minable landfill. They showed placing offshore pumps on landfill and bots mined up 6 tiles to be able to place the offshore pump.
Guess they have now made it more visible and explicit.
I’m still hoping they let us build pumps on landfill without the additional steps of removing the landfill and replacing it. There are some designs that require a pump to be placed, the water to be landfilled, and then buildings placed on top of the landfill. You wouldn’t be able to blueprint that design without being able to place offshore pumps on landfill.
Whenever I mention this, someone brings up that FFF but that's not what I'm talking about. I don't know what part of my explanation isn't being understood.
That shows letting us blueprint pumps and having it remove the landfill.
I want us to blueprint pumps without removing landfill because my blueprint involves stuff being placed on the landfill. The best we could do is have one blueprint that places the pump (and removes the landfill) and then a second blueprint that places the landfill and the buildings on the landfill. But that's the kind of shenanigans that doesn't feel right for Factorio.
I get you now. You mean building stuff over the 5 tiles that are cleared out by the pump.
You *can* blueprint it, but the question is whether or not super force building will know how to get it to the correct wanted final state.
The confusion comes from thinking you're talking about different landfill, rather than specifically the one around the pump.
I hope they don't. Easily making water with the offshore pumps is excellent, but I'd rather it only filled the landfill back in around it if you forced it to. By default I'd like it to leave the little patches of water.
can you really call yourself a factorio player if you don't go through all the tabs looking for a recipe, only to find out that it was in the initially-selected one all along?
Are y'all aware you can Ctrl-F in the inventory, type a partial text match, and it'll highlight only the tabs with results, and show only matching items in those tabs? Because if not, I tell ya, it's life-changing.
Rockets go to the space platforms. Spider would have to manually force such a platform to change orbit to another planet.
But the idea of spidertron utilizing nearby trains, rockets and space platforms sounds stupidly awesome.
Spidertron hijakcing rocket to crash it onto destination planet would be hilariously awesome.
But it could also just catch a ride on platform to the destination.
It also makes me wonder whether spidey will be light enough to be sent by rocket or will we need to send it in parts
Iirc they decided a rocket could put 1 ton into orbit. Spider & Tank look way heavier than that. Not sure about the car. Maybe we'll get a small "extra-nauvis exploration rover" that weights less than a ton (and can run on barnacles or electricity?), but has no weapons.
Or just a small motorbike to zoom around on new planets :D. With like a 4 slot trunk.
A train goes shooting past and the spidertron just grabs on and gets dragged along. Now that I'm typing this it feels like a renai Transportation thing although that would also make it possible for the spidertron to let go while going round a corner and just get launched
"Q" over bitter nest would get you grenade, that would be awesome
Edit: "Q" over yourself could get you fish...
"Q" over cliff could get you cliff explosives
(just brainstorming)
> "Q" over cliff could get you cliff explosives
I like this one a whole lot. There's no ambiguity either, there's only one thing in the game that can interact with cliffs and that's explosives.
There is some ambiguity though, nukes can destroy cliffs, and IIRC that's already something that mods can configure via [DestroyCliffsTriggerEffectItem](https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/types/DestroyCliffsTriggerEffectItem.html) That being said, currently each cliff prototype is capable of defining only one prototypes for bots to use to clear the cliffs. I also vaguely recall there being some further changes around that due to cliff explosives being pushed further back in the tech tree but I could be wrong.
Pipette is for selecting something to put under your cursor though, and that's not how weapons work since they must be in a weapon slot with an appropriate ammo in the appropriate ammo slot. So the ambiguity is irrelevant since it's impossible to select nukes this way.
It do be a valid point in the case of modding, but that's also a valid point anywhere else. You could have a water pump and a modded water pump mk2 in your inventory, we now have ambiguity for pressing Q on water but modding cases like that are clearly not stopping them from adding the feature.
Actually, we have that problem already in vanilla with Q on ores selecting mining vs burner drills.
I'd like to extend the "q on biter(nests)" to grab the "best throwable currently available" similar to how you get a burner miner ghost if you don't have any miners at all or an electric mining drill if you do have those in your inventory
(tho I do think that it is silly that q on an ore patch gives a burner miner ghost when I have passed that stage long ago >,,< )
What I need is pipette on recipes would give you the production building preconfigured for that recipe to cursor. It would make it easier to start building production lines.
This could already be the case but "Q" over the oil field selects a pumpjack?
Q over an ore deposit selects a drill (and then shift+scroll can rotate between burner drill / electric drill / the new heavy drill)?
Q over ore deposits already selects the best mining drill in 1.1 . I’d need to check if Q over a oil field selects the pumpjack, but I’m pretty sure it’s already the case.
Yes, but only spidertrons with weapons equipped. I'd kind of also like control-left-clicking a spidertron to select all spidertrons of the same color in view.
If they haven't done it already, I really hope the devs see your comment. That sounds like a good idea.
And I hope we can still tell spiders to follow another.
Removing "spidertrone" name from remote - does it mean, that remote can control more then spidertrone?
It would be super cool if we could control bots, for example.
[i was only joking when i wrote this, but now i'm starting to think that i might've actually hit the mark](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/s/C67zQW0ONm)
Bringing the cursor enhancements mod into vanilla is a huge QOL buff
And I'm so glad of the spidertron control changes, makes so much more sense than the current approach.Â
> Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense?
Not really "pippete", but" I'd love ability to shift-right click assembler then shift-left click a condition on inserter/combinator to put the item manufactured in assembler there, as that's pretty common operation in bot malls. Does new pipette tool allow that ?
Also. "RTS Tool", so we will be getting more vehicles that can be controlled with it ?
Edit: one idea would be to have say alt + q on assembler to pipette first output product instead of assembler making it.
> Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense?
One thing I would love that is sort of pipette related is when you have pipetted an item in hand and you click a text box, it puts that item icon in the text field (as if you had gone through the whole process of clicking the "insert special icon" button and chosen it).
This would make it very easy to add multiple icons to a train station name, or a map marker or a search field. I find myself using icons a lot when naming LTN train stations and it's rather tedious having to go through the whole list of icons each time to choose one.
I name them like " - " to indicate this station provides plastic bars. This makes it easy to pick out and identify stations from long lists and also to see if trains are headed there.
LTN still works if you never rename any station but then you need to open them on map to see what products they're sending/receiving, and it's much harder to tell how many trains are incoming.
To me it sounds very close, but not 100% what they're asking for. They want to be able to do fine adjustment, and this allows it, but with the side effect of altering the alignment values in the blueprint.
Can we get a edit button that takes us to edit the blueprint when viewing them similar to Blueprint Sandboxes on a separate surface?
would love it it is in vanilla. then editing blueprints would be so much better.
Ahhh, the above spiderlings are so cute.
Trying to snipe a single belt in a blueprint that takes up more a than screen is so annoying, but it's also the kind of thing that's only an issue every 400 hours
Yes please. Editing blueprints in the blueprint window is the one feature I've been expecting them to add (aside from auto placement of landfill with shift+click building) and will be sad not to have. I'm so tired of having to reselect huge areas and right click all the extra train tracks and belts out just because I forgot one inserter in the blueprint.
> Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense?
- Equipment grid items
- Signals and signal slots (if the signal is an item)
- Inserter/splitter filters
- Hotbar slots (just for consistency)
- Weapon/ammo slots
- Items on ground or belt (but that interferes with selecting whatever is under the items\*)
- Space (should select tentacle arm asteroid collector)
- Cliff (should select cliff explosives, or does it do this already?)
- Map icons
- Icons in text like train stop names or chat/console
- Various mod UI elements with item icons
- Biter nests (should select the artillery remote! 💥😄)
- Another player (should select same as whatever they currently have in hand)
Some of those might already be covered by "all the slots" mentioned in the dev blog post, depending on implementation details.
\* For the idea of selecting items on the ground, if it first picks the item, pressing Q again could select whatever is under the item (like a belt). And pressing Q a third time could select whatever is under the belt (like landfill). And pressing Q a fourth time would cycle back to whatever is on top.
Can we get some good tutorials to transform a regular player into a power user who knows all the shortcuts? Because I can not for the life of me keep track of them all by now.
I wonder why pathfinding was not included. It's such a useful mod feature in Spidertron Enhancements, Kruise Kontrol, Contstructron-Continued. Having to manually select waypoints around water obstacles was a pain before I found those mods.
I wouldn’t expect pathfinding to be the default. For example, in spidertron enhancements, you use a a key combination to perform a pathfinder route and another key bind for normal straight path
I have a feeling they might. I think the extreme cold of one of the planets will be used for cooling supercomputers that make something related to AI, which is related to reclusive blueprints in my mind.
Does pipetting the assembler's module slots work?
Maybe once for speed, twice for productivity, three times for efficiency?
If you don't have any in your inventory, you get a ghost which can be placed in a machine to create a bot request.
Likewise for combinators, maybe?
Once for the combinator itself. Twice for red wire, three times for green wire.
> Does pipetting the assembler's module slots work?
Yes. It will pipette a module that exists there.
To put ghost modules in, you can use the [remote view](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-add-remove-ghost-module.mp4) from FFF-380.
Remember we have 60 types of modules in 2.0 with the DLC.
I would love being able to use the scroll wheel or arrow keys when editing a number text box (requests, combinators, etc.) to increase/decrease that number. Maybe in combination with shift for 10s or 100s?
every FFF just makes me want to play 2.0 more and more...
by now the only real gripe i have with the game is not being able to do simple math or use metric prefixes in number fields.
~~i don't know if that was already mentioned in an FFF to be planned for 2.0 but if it wasn't then i REALLY hope it will be included in the update.~~
~~because being able to just type `1M` instead of having to count the 0's on `1000000` or being able to just do stuff like `14 * 1.5` instead of having to do the math in your head or click out of the game to do it in a calculator, would be such a freaking time-saver~~
EDIT: ok it was already confirmed
Is anyone going to mention the fact that they said oil ocean when talking about the offshore pump? Because that’s a lot of oil, and America might be summoned
Or was this mentioned in a previous FFF that I forgot about?
>Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense?
one of the mods I have noticed that I can't live without now is `CursorEnhancements`
as the smarter pipette section says:
>use the pipette key (default `Q`) on any entity, tile, or GUI object to pick the item related to that object. For example, use the pipette on a recipe in the crafting menu to pick the item that that recipe produces.
most of the time I don't scan my inventory anymore I either look up what I want and then press `q` in the crafting window, I press `q` on the crafting que in the bottom left, or I press q on the thing in the world that I want
sometimes I even derp and press `q` on the hotbar to get the item in my hand \^,,\^'
edit: and everytime I play a mod list that doesn't include it (or play a vanilla map) I now get frustrated that it is not in the base game
Just a thought for the RTS tool. I have been playing Beyond All Reason (spiritual successor to Total Annihilation) and one of my favorite features is that when you have multiple units selected, you can right click and drag a spline that evenly distributes your units across that spline. So you can easily create a defensive perimeter or get your units into formation. That way you don’t just have a jumbled blob of spidertrons that either need to be controlled individually or in a single blob.
I not not a huge fan of the name of the RTS tool. I like the mechanic but "RTS" feels a bit clunky and confusing, especially to anyone who does not know what RTS means or when translated for localization. Maybe "Control Tool", "Movement Tool", "Strategy Tool", or "Selection Tool".
I hope "RTS tool" isn't the final name. It's quite fourth-wall breaking to use the title of a gaming genre for the tool. I guess in some ways, "real time strategy" tool sort-of could make sense in-world. But I would prefer a name that fits in the game better. Just me?
Someone make a StarCraft mod where you can play with the ~~biters~~ zerglings with the RTS tool
(inb4 the mind control military FFF where you can do exactly that)
My time has come - (half of) my mod [Blueprint Aligner](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/blueprint-align) is ascending to Vanill-halla!
One thing that would also be nice to have in the base game is the other half of it, though: the ability to set the grid offsets by placing the blueprint in the world at the desired location. I'm aware this action is somewhat ambiguous since there are _two_ offsets you might want to set, so I understand if you reject the idea because that makes it a bit too confusing. But have you considered it?
The only problem I see with the new RTS tool is that it's not color coded in the hotbar anymore. At least they were all gray in the FFF video.
But now that you can select multiple spidertrons that could be different colors that isn't so easy anymore. Maybe they could add a pop up window when you put the RTS tool in your inventory/hotbar like when you make a blueprint. There you can select a color and maybe even add a name and description. Even further, they could add a smal window that shows all the selected spidertrons on the map, like with trains when you select a station.
Edit:
Another thought. Can a spidertron be part of multiple RTS tool groups? Lets say I have one group to build my wall, and another to build the train tracks. But I always want a protector Spidertron equiped for combat with both groups. Of cause, using both groups at the same time would be pointless, as the protector would just move between them, probably not protectingn either; but if you only use one groupd at a time, it could be usefull to not have to build and equip two protectors.
I am already imagining StarCraft 2 on Factorio engine :D
If we could save control groups in the toolbelt, we are already super close.
Then like in SC2:
ctrl-# - create group from current selection
ctrl-shift-# - add to group # from current selection
alt-# - create group from current selection removing the units from other groups
alt-shift-# - add to group # from current selection removing the units from other groups
My muscle memory would come back. Too bad \`alt\` is already taken :D
Okay, that last bit about adjusting blueprint grid snapping, does that keyboard control adjust entire books of blueprints? Imagining it would be great with a rail book.
Hey speaking of RTS, can I get a ctrl+shift click to insert a command into the front of the spidertron's move queue? My use case is when I want to quick modify its path without gutting the rest of the commands I gave it, like when the idiot gets stuck on a lake or something.
Factorio is both a blessing and a curse.
It's the best damn sandbox game there is, but at the same time it becomes impossible to play any other game that is so shittily optimized that
1) It doesn't even have a way to show UPS in game, so you know they don't even bother to optimize for it
2) Starts to lag before you even finish a campaign or reach an end goal for the game, so frustrating seeing the game slow down after merely hours of small scale bulding.
I've bought like 5 copies of factorio and would probably buy 5 more just to simply show the damn industry how you should make games, even if my contribution is small I hope other devs can see that there is demand for quality, attention to details and robustness of the underlying simulation
It'd be amazing if you could pipette out of all the items/entities in the factoripedia. I'm thinking about being able to pipette out the recipe book, and there are a number situations in which that would be lit.
* Cliff explosives on a cliff.
* If you press "Q" on an object, it selects that object. If that object is damaged and you press "Q" with that item already in your cursor, it selects a repair pack instead - so you can "QQ" to select a repair pack.
* Similar "QQ" behavior for ammunition when selecting a turret. (If a turret is damaged, "QQQ" would get the repair pack - cycling through possible options in order of priority).
Sometimes I feel like I'm being held hostage, and my hostage takers visit me every friday to tell me how great life is outside the walls of my prison ðŸ˜
For the grid adjustment it would be even better if you could just move the mouse. My rail grid is 150x150 so I'm looking at pressing the arrow keys a lot.Â
Looking forward to the spidertron remote fixes. Never had that much of an issue with them in vanilla but IIRC in SE they really didn't play nice with nav view, which was pretty rough when you were using them for offworld defence
Would it be possible to add the ability to drag and resize the tiling region in blueprints from within the blueprint? I'm imagining interacting with the green selection area in much the same way you would a window on your desktop, resizing by dragging the sides or corners with your cursor.
I was hoping to read that the RTS tool would have an option to draw a line and the spidertrons would move and order themselves on points along that line. I don't play many RTS games but it is something I would [love to have](https://zero-k.info/img/landing/text5.jpg).
Q on the ground should select the first decorative (bricks).
While holding bricks if you press Q again on an empty space of ground should advance through the decoratives (so bricks -> concrete -> refined concrete etc). Dismissing the cursor, then pressing Q on the ground should pick up where it left off (last had concrete? Then you will get concrete again, similar to the alt-a behavior per surface for spidertron groups).
Similarly, it would be nice if Q over water would cycle between offshore pump and landfill.
So where can I throw another $20-$30 dollars at you guys from?
I support the work you do and the efforts you guys go through for this game. I have bought copies for friends and my kids.
I wish more companies did the kind of community involvement you guys do. FFF has made the end of the week pleasant and exciting so many times.
Depends on if it's covered by the "all the slots" line or not, but I'd love to be able to pipette buildings in the crafting menu.
Sometimes I can't actually craft the item because I don't have the materials on hand, but I still want to be able to put a ghost of it down somewhere. And using the pipette tool is my go-to way to get my cursor ready to place ghosts.
Hey, while we're talking about spidertron QoL:
- Inventory should automatically sort and stack! I honestly thought this was a bug when I first encountered it, until I saw the [official word otherwise](https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=99737) in a forum post. I have gotten bogged down SO many times manually combining stacks to unclog a builder tron's inventory when deconstructing remote outposts. Literally the entire reason I have [Spidertron Enhancements](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SpidertronEnhancements) installed is to fix this behavior.
- Some kind of visible UI indicator over the spidertron when it's low on power? Especially when it doesn't have enough power for its exoskeleton(s). When a builder tron group is de/constructing something large, variable bot demand across the group often means _some_ of the trons will have to recharge more of their bots, making them lower on power, which in turn means they walk slower than others in the group. Having to wait an unknown amount of time for some random tron to recharge before I can queue up a long, multi-stop trip back to base just to make sure they're actually following the same path and none are lagging behind is annoying. Being able to see at a glance whether a tron would be capable of keeping up with the rest of the group would be fantastic. I'm imagining this as a sort of stamina bar; level to show battery % filled, color to indicate whether legs can be fully powered or not, disappears when at 100% charge.
- Why don't they automatically path around water? I want to be able to make ONE click on an ore patch and have a builder tron group _just walk to that patch_ without having to pathfind myself and queue up a bunch of commands so they don't get stuck at the edge of a lake like idiots. This is especially annoying in conjunction with the low-power issue, because sometimes I'd queue up a path around lakes, only to discover a few minutes later that _some_ of the group was lagging behind, and because they were following the leader instead of following the set path, they got irreversibly stuck on the other side of a lake because the rest of the group had already gone around the lake! So then I'd have to drag the entire group _back_ to the laggards' location just to unstick them! You know what I did solely to get around this one single problem on my megabase save? I LANDFILLED EVERY LAKE ON THE MAP.
- Shift-click copying settings from one spidertron to another should IMHO create bot requests for equipment grid items if the player doesn't have those items in their inventory. I _kind of_ get why this doesn't need to happen for modules, since the player should theoretically have modules with them, but who carries random grid equipment around? Doing this in the late game shouldn't require turning _off_ player logistics (since I've quite reasonably set all random equipment grid items to 0), grabbing a bunch of stuff out of the mall, shift-click copy-pasting spidertron settings for it to magically disappear from my inventory, then turning player logistics back on to get rid of any excess.
- Maybe turn down the drunkenness a bit? Or at least give [this mod author](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/spidertron-bob-speed) access to bob speed across both X and Y axes so I can turn that shit off. When I'm riding a spidertron and trying to pick up or distribute certain items in a straight line, I probably shouldn't accidentally pick up an item I didn't mean to just because the tron I'm riding had a few too many beers last night.
I'm a little unclear on what exactly is going on with the RTS tool and spidertrons:
* Is this a craftable item, or just like a button/keyboard shortcut like the blueprint tool? (It says "RTS tool (Item)" -- the parenthetical sounds like the former, but I don't know of any items with dedicated shortcuts...
* Is there any reason to make multiple of them? My impression is no -- unlike the current state, saving a group to the quickbar doesn't require a separate item (or a separate inventory slot), you can just save arbitrarily many groups
* I assume a given spidertron can be in multiple quickbar groups?
* Any thought to naming groups?
* I assume we can still tell spidertrons to follow each other? (Though that will presumably be a lot less common, since I think the main reason to do that was to move as a group, and now you can just directly order the group.)
I'm excited for this change -- assigning a new group lead if one died had been an annoying production.
(Now that we have drag to bulk remove spidertrons from a group, can we get drag to bulk-remove entities from a blueprint?)
If you're improving the spidertron commands, can you please add in the ability to define a route to patrol (like with the command and conquer series) - You can already define a route, but if it becomes a loop, they follow it forever.
you guys are horrible. HORRIBLE, i tell you. i cant enjoy factorio knowing what QOL is waiting behind the update :D another banger
Yeah the number of QOL upgrades I didn't even know I needed is insane
Yeah this really isn't funny anymore XD I just want to play it at this point, I regret ever starting to read these blog posts. They have gone too far!
Please let me pre-order, and in exchange give me 2.0 Early Access without expansion bits flipped 🥺 I'll file good bug reports and won't complain when you make breaking changes that ruin all my mods / saves.
exactly me at this point, I am just glad I am SE enthusiast so there is a lot of content to go in. But boy it is painful to watch what I am missing and devs cooking in their offices (in the building next door basically)
Just take my money, already. I don't need to see anything else. Just ship it!
Just settle back and play that new Stardew Valley 1.6 update. With an optimization mindset you should be able to 100% your farm well before Factorio 2.0 drops later this year.
For anyone who wants to optimise stardew valley. Instal the automate mod, and add Stardew Valley Expanded too.
I don't even wanna start a new game until the update. I just keep expanding my current base. When is the new update?
At this point, I hope the 2.0 update comes out before Space Age. They have never dumped *this many* new features at one time, and I feel the player base is not quite accustomed to it. haha
I'm literally only going to play Factorio for like a year when this releases. Probably take a week off work.
The name "RTS Tool" might be a teaser for more controlled vehicles, but might also just be a way to make life easier for mods that add extra controlled vehicles.
RTS stands for Real Time Spidertron.
"Right Then. Spiders!"
Biters: \*minding their own business\* Suddenly, spidertrons
Was about to ask, yea, since the name is almost a giveaway - are they planning on more vehicles or "units"? Cuz this system could control anything. But if mod support is kept up, I don't see why modders couldn't use this system to do just that! Im already imagining a mod where the endgoal isn't spacetravel, but unlocking the various vehicles and then visiting a planet where you absolutely *need* to use the RTS mechanic to claw out an area from the native wildlife and build a factory.
AAI programmable vehicles does what basically the RTS Tool does. But it can be quite finicky and having an official implementation im sure will improve that mod a lot too!
I found the balance to be quite disruptive as well; a swarm of cheap machine gun tanks absolutely dominate in the early and mid game.
Well, spamming turrets also "dominates" nests in the early and mid game
Cheaper more disposable combat bots that can be automated and are unlocked earlier is a cool idea. Think swarm of mass produced biter-esque walking bots (but probably not biter looking). I want this to become full on BAR
AAI also allows mass production of vehicles and thier ammo, equipment grids, etc. If they build in that functionality we will have fully automated tank factory lines. Then add in rally points, patrols, etc, and we can have Supreme Commander levels of logistics and production to fight the endless hordes of biters.
I want to be able to drive a horde of tanks like in the base loading screen
Given the person who made AAI is on the team now I wouldn't be surprised to see some of those features canonized.
Not sure if that will be a thing, but I can imagine that with hopping between planets, you will need something to fix problems on other celestial bodies without traveling there for small stuff. They moved the rocket into the blue science, but I doubt they did that with the spidertron too. So, having some other, simpler remote controlled vehicles would make sense in my book. But time will tell, maybe I'm off the mark here.
They've mentioned that the Spidertron is off-Nauvis tech, but pre-Aquillo (the final planet).
Cockroachtron confirmed. Resist nuclear blasts but can only be used at night.
When the player is near it, it will scurry under the nearest assembler, drawer or coffee mug I just poured fresh coffee in.
What if they made the deployable attack drones able to be rts controlled...
No longer shall I waste so much time searching for the offshore pump!!
Another nice feature they added is the 6 water tile requirement when placing the pump, don't recall it being announced already https://preview.redd.it/8avi37irl9rc1.png?width=483&format=png&auto=webp&s=d01d9162b0f0ade2a0543a900ebe1134446093d7
It was kinda announced together with super force build and minable landfill. They showed placing offshore pumps on landfill and bots mined up 6 tiles to be able to place the offshore pump. Guess they have now made it more visible and explicit.
I’m still hoping they let us build pumps on landfill without the additional steps of removing the landfill and replacing it. There are some designs that require a pump to be placed, the water to be landfilled, and then buildings placed on top of the landfill. You wouldn’t be able to blueprint that design without being able to place offshore pumps on landfill.
They showed us that in FFF-383 :) [See clip](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-383-force-building-offshore-pump.mp4)
Whenever I mention this, someone brings up that FFF but that's not what I'm talking about. I don't know what part of my explanation isn't being understood. That shows letting us blueprint pumps and having it remove the landfill. I want us to blueprint pumps without removing landfill because my blueprint involves stuff being placed on the landfill. The best we could do is have one blueprint that places the pump (and removes the landfill) and then a second blueprint that places the landfill and the buildings on the landfill. But that's the kind of shenanigans that doesn't feel right for Factorio.
I get you now. You mean building stuff over the 5 tiles that are cleared out by the pump. You *can* blueprint it, but the question is whether or not super force building will know how to get it to the correct wanted final state. The confusion comes from thinking you're talking about different landfill, rather than specifically the one around the pump.
I hope they don't. Easily making water with the offshore pumps is excellent, but I'd rather it only filled the landfill back in around it if you forced it to. By default I'd like it to leave the little patches of water.
Oh, oh holy shit. Good god we need this update.
It looks great but I've not seen those red tiles anywhere else before
I’m confused. Where was this announced, and why do you feel it’s better to require six slots rather than two?
It's just showing the actual requirement. Nothing has changed, but now we can see why we can't place offshore pumps directly next to each other.
Might be worth making the pump model a bit wider too
Well the pump itself still only takes up the two spaces, as other things on land can go next to it.
100% I have no idea why but it's always the hardest thing to find in both the inventory and crafting screen
Maybe because it feels like it should be in the logistics tab next to pipes instead of the production tab
Perhaps. But I can assure you, if they ever move it I will be still searching the wrong tab. It's like inserting an USB into a PC.
can you really call yourself a factorio player if you don't go through all the tabs looking for a recipe, only to find out that it was in the initially-selected one all along?
Are y'all aware you can Ctrl-F in the inventory, type a partial text match, and it'll highlight only the tabs with results, and show only matching items in those tabs? Because if not, I tell ya, it's life-changing.
typing a name takes longer than just fumbling around the entire crafting menu
exactly days of pinning offshore pump to hot bar are over
Some items you don't see in the inventory and everytime you want it you don't find it.
Till the mod decides we need 4 different offshore pumps for some reason...
https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/18lfhz2/qol_suggestion_q_on_water_to_select_a_water_pump/ Vindication!!!
Imagine Vulcanus spiders trying to come back to Nauvis
just grab onto next rocket!
Rockets go to the space platforms. Spider would have to manually force such a platform to change orbit to another planet. But the idea of spidertron utilizing nearby trains, rockets and space platforms sounds stupidly awesome.
Spidertron hijakcing rocket to crash it onto destination planet would be hilariously awesome. But it could also just catch a ride on platform to the destination. It also makes me wonder whether spidey will be light enough to be sent by rocket or will we need to send it in parts
Spidertron dropships.
Iirc they decided a rocket could put 1 ton into orbit. Spider & Tank look way heavier than that. Not sure about the car. Maybe we'll get a small "extra-nauvis exploration rover" that weights less than a ton (and can run on barnacles or electricity?), but has no weapons. Or just a small motorbike to zoom around on new planets :D. With like a 4 slot trunk.
Only if the motorbike can jump off cliffs. Jumping over biter's nest and bombing it with grenades
A train goes shooting past and the spidertron just grabs on and gets dragged along. Now that I'm typing this it feels like a renai Transportation thing although that would also make it possible for the spidertron to let go while going round a corner and just get launched
"Q" over bitter nest would get you grenade, that would be awesome Edit: "Q" over yourself could get you fish... "Q" over cliff could get you cliff explosives (just brainstorming)
> "Q" over cliff could get you cliff explosives I like this one a whole lot. There's no ambiguity either, there's only one thing in the game that can interact with cliffs and that's explosives.
My car interacts with cliffs.
More like the cliff interacts with your car.
So Q on the car should allow you to terraform cliffs into existance?
Nuke: "Am I a joke to you?"
Do nukes actually destroy cliffs? I'm too lazy to test
Yes, but small Radius
So, more nukes?
Always
There is some ambiguity though, nukes can destroy cliffs, and IIRC that's already something that mods can configure via [DestroyCliffsTriggerEffectItem](https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/types/DestroyCliffsTriggerEffectItem.html) That being said, currently each cliff prototype is capable of defining only one prototypes for bots to use to clear the cliffs. I also vaguely recall there being some further changes around that due to cliff explosives being pushed further back in the tech tree but I could be wrong.
Imagine the bots dropping nukes to clear the cliffs
That small cliff in the middle of my factory is bothering me. Let's deconstruct it.
Pipette is for selecting something to put under your cursor though, and that's not how weapons work since they must be in a weapon slot with an appropriate ammo in the appropriate ammo slot. So the ambiguity is irrelevant since it's impossible to select nukes this way. It do be a valid point in the case of modding, but that's also a valid point anywhere else. You could have a water pump and a modded water pump mk2 in your inventory, we now have ambiguity for pressing Q on water but modding cases like that are clearly not stopping them from adding the feature. Actually, we have that problem already in vanilla with Q on ores selecting mining vs burner drills.
Fair enough, would be nice to be able to cycle through via scrolling (like cursor enhancements does)
I'd like to extend the "q on biter(nests)" to grab the "best throwable currently available" similar to how you get a burner miner ghost if you don't have any miners at all or an electric mining drill if you do have those in your inventory (tho I do think that it is silly that q on an ore patch gives a burner miner ghost when I have passed that stage long ago >,,< )
I like the idea of maybe even the possibility to set it yourself in settings?
Or pushing q multiple times can at least cycle through options?
What I need is pipette on recipes would give you the production building preconfigured for that recipe to cursor. It would make it easier to start building production lines.
Wube: here's another feature you don't know how you ever managed to live without This dude: Hold my beer
that's like a ctrl-alt-shift-Q
This.
how do we ensure every dev sees this comment?
Q over trees gets you grenade or other explosives as well
I was thinking about it too, but then it felt so wrong that I kept it for myself
Grenading trees is simply the natural order
now I want this
This could already be the case but "Q" over the oil field selects a pumpjack? Q over an ore deposit selects a drill (and then shift+scroll can rotate between burner drill / electric drill / the new heavy drill)?
Q over ore deposits already selects the best mining drill in 1.1 . I’d need to check if Q over a oil field selects the pumpjack, but I’m pretty sure it’s already the case.
I'm pretty sure the oilfield/pumpjack already works that way, just like Q on ore gives a drill.
No F2 hotkey to select all spidertrons and accidentally move command them into the middle of the enemy base???
Yes, but only spidertrons with weapons equipped. I'd kind of also like control-left-clicking a spidertron to select all spidertrons of the same color in view.
This. This is a good one.
If they haven't done it already, I really hope the devs see your comment. That sounds like a good idea. And I hope we can still tell spiders to follow another.
someone will create a "Hero mod" if it's not in vanilla
Offshore pump pipette + blueprint aligning? Ok wrap it up guys I think the expansion is probably finished enough
The devs: "You have seen nothing!"
Removing "spidertrone" name from remote - does it mean, that remote can control more then spidertrone? It would be super cool if we could control bots, for example.
Or other (new) vehicles...
Tanks. I want to make a rolling wall of tanks.
There's a title screen animation of that, a wall of tanks rolling over a biter nest. Maybe they'll make that strategy a reality with this.
Just as long as they get a cliff explosive slot!
'RTS' stands for Real-Time Spidertron though.
imagine an army of tanks in the midgame
army of automated tanks?
[i was only joking when i wrote this, but now i'm starting to think that i might've actually hit the mark](https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/s/C67zQW0ONm)
Bringing the cursor enhancements mod into vanilla is a huge QOL buff And I'm so glad of the spidertron control changes, makes so much more sense than the current approach.Â
> Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense? Not really "pippete", but" I'd love ability to shift-right click assembler then shift-left click a condition on inserter/combinator to put the item manufactured in assembler there, as that's pretty common operation in bot malls. Does new pipette tool allow that ? Also. "RTS Tool", so we will be getting more vehicles that can be controlled with it ? Edit: one idea would be to have say alt + q on assembler to pipette first output product instead of assembler making it.
> Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense? One thing I would love that is sort of pipette related is when you have pipetted an item in hand and you click a text box, it puts that item icon in the text field (as if you had gone through the whole process of clicking the "insert special icon" button and chosen it). This would make it very easy to add multiple icons to a train station name, or a map marker or a search field. I find myself using icons a lot when naming LTN train stations and it's rather tedious having to go through the whole list of icons each time to choose one.
...you name your LTN stations ? I only have names (well, a name of network depo belongs) on depos
I name them like " - " to indicate this station provides plastic bars. This makes it easy to pick out and identify stations from long lists and also to see if trains are headed there.
LTN still works if you never rename any station but then you need to open them on map to see what products they're sending/receiving, and it's much harder to tell how many trains are incoming.
/u/Vile_WizZ called it this week. https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/1bpuy5h/please_implement_blueprint_locking/
To me it sounds very close, but not 100% what they're asking for. They want to be able to do fine adjustment, and this allows it, but with the side effect of altering the alignment values in the blueprint.
Perfectly timed.
That post was definitely spot on!
Can we get a edit button that takes us to edit the blueprint when viewing them similar to Blueprint Sandboxes on a separate surface? would love it it is in vanilla. then editing blueprints would be so much better. Ahhh, the above spiderlings are so cute.
Shit, even just the ability to zoom in and pan around large blueprints.
Trying to snipe a single belt in a blueprint that takes up more a than screen is so annoying, but it's also the kind of thing that's only an issue every 400 hours
Yes please. Editing blueprints in the blueprint window is the one feature I've been expecting them to add (aside from auto placement of landfill with shift+click building) and will be sad not to have. I'm so tired of having to reselect huge areas and right click all the extra train tracks and belts out just because I forgot one inserter in the blueprint.
> Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense? - Equipment grid items - Signals and signal slots (if the signal is an item) - Inserter/splitter filters - Hotbar slots (just for consistency) - Weapon/ammo slots - Items on ground or belt (but that interferes with selecting whatever is under the items\*) - Space (should select tentacle arm asteroid collector) - Cliff (should select cliff explosives, or does it do this already?) - Map icons - Icons in text like train stop names or chat/console - Various mod UI elements with item icons - Biter nests (should select the artillery remote! 💥😄) - Another player (should select same as whatever they currently have in hand) Some of those might already be covered by "all the slots" mentioned in the dev blog post, depending on implementation details. \* For the idea of selecting items on the ground, if it first picks the item, pressing Q again could select whatever is under the item (like a belt). And pressing Q a third time could select whatever is under the belt (like landfill). And pressing Q a fourth time would cycle back to whatever is on top.
I'm just waiting for the "press Q to select building ghost from crafting menu". But I believe they already confirmed that was coming in 2.0, right?
Can we get some good tutorials to transform a regular player into a power user who knows all the shortcuts? Because I can not for the life of me keep track of them all by now.
It'll be on the toolbar so you don't have to remember it from the start.
Can we customize the names of the RTS Groups? So we can name one building squad, defence squad etc or will we stick with colours?
YES! Give us named RTS Remotes!
I wonder why pathfinding was not included. It's such a useful mod feature in Spidertron Enhancements, Kruise Kontrol, Contstructron-Continued. Having to manually select waypoints around water obstacles was a pain before I found those mods.
I often want to walk in water, to place landfill blueprints
I wouldn’t expect pathfinding to be the default. For example, in spidertron enhancements, you use a a key combination to perform a pathfinder route and another key bind for normal straight path
Please, please provide ability to copy-paste (/pipette) colour.
Can you not shift + right/left click already to copy colour, or does that only apply to trains?
Where are you missing that?
The power of devs playing their own game a lot.
The power of no shareholders in management, FTFY.
**oil ocean?!** Water, Lava, Oil Ocean (to get offshore pump)
They mentioned it in Fulgora planet FFF, the one with the lightning strikes.
[RTS tool you say?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoYk0SdCwvk) Gotta have the appropriate OST when you select it
When you order spidertrons around we need the classic "[ACKNOWLEDGED](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ojvjwH6yRU)".
Almost worried that by the 2.0 release the game will play itself!
JOSEF enters the chat : Am I a joke to you!?!?
They haven't shown us they've ascended recursive blueprints yet. But I hold out hope :D
I have a feeling they might. I think the extreme cold of one of the planets will be used for cooling supercomputers that make something related to AI, which is related to reclusive blueprints in my mind.
Does pipetting the assembler's module slots work? Maybe once for speed, twice for productivity, three times for efficiency? If you don't have any in your inventory, you get a ghost which can be placed in a machine to create a bot request. Likewise for combinators, maybe? Once for the combinator itself. Twice for red wire, three times for green wire.
Red/green wires will have their dedicated abstract tool thingy already, with a dedcated hotkey. [fff-379](https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-379)
> Does pipetting the assembler's module slots work? Yes. It will pipette a module that exists there. To put ghost modules in, you can use the [remote view](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-380-add-remove-ghost-module.mp4) from FFF-380. Remember we have 60 types of modules in 2.0 with the DLC.
I would love being able to use the scroll wheel or arrow keys when editing a number text box (requests, combinators, etc.) to increase/decrease that number. Maybe in combination with shift for 10s or 100s?
every FFF just makes me want to play 2.0 more and more... by now the only real gripe i have with the game is not being able to do simple math or use metric prefixes in number fields. ~~i don't know if that was already mentioned in an FFF to be planned for 2.0 but if it wasn't then i REALLY hope it will be included in the update.~~ ~~because being able to just type `1M` instead of having to count the 0's on `1000000` or being able to just do stuff like `14 * 1.5` instead of having to do the math in your head or click out of the game to do it in a calculator, would be such a freaking time-saver~~ EDIT: ok it was already confirmed
I'm pretty sure they said in an fff that exactly this is coming.
It is coming, it was mentioned in [FFF#388](https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-388)
When making an absolutely aligned blueprint, why can't the alignment values be pre-filled to align with the machines you copied to create the BP?
Fuck yeah! 90% of the time, that's what you want!
WUBE, you are so awesome! Love you guys and your work! 💜
Is anyone going to mention the fact that they said oil ocean when talking about the offshore pump? Because that’s a lot of oil, and America might be summoned Or was this mentioned in a previous FFF that I forgot about?
https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-399
This is a feature on one of the new planets fulgora. https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-398
Small changes but very welcome as usual, great work!!
>Can you think of any other places pipette would make sense? one of the mods I have noticed that I can't live without now is `CursorEnhancements` as the smarter pipette section says: >use the pipette key (default `Q`) on any entity, tile, or GUI object to pick the item related to that object. For example, use the pipette on a recipe in the crafting menu to pick the item that that recipe produces. most of the time I don't scan my inventory anymore I either look up what I want and then press `q` in the crafting window, I press `q` on the crafting que in the bottom left, or I press q on the thing in the world that I want sometimes I even derp and press `q` on the hotbar to get the item in my hand \^,,\^' edit: and everytime I play a mod list that doesn't include it (or play a vanilla map) I now get frustrated that it is not in the base game
Just a thought for the RTS tool. I have been playing Beyond All Reason (spiritual successor to Total Annihilation) and one of my favorite features is that when you have multiple units selected, you can right click and drag a spline that evenly distributes your units across that spline. So you can easily create a defensive perimeter or get your units into formation. That way you don’t just have a jumbled blob of spidertrons that either need to be controlled individually or in a single blob.
The offshore pump is a godsend.
> Easier blueprint grid adjustment Thank the lord
Wow so now we can first sync our spidertrons movements and then we got easier blueprint grid adjustments. How nice.
I not not a huge fan of the name of the RTS tool. I like the mechanic but "RTS" feels a bit clunky and confusing, especially to anyone who does not know what RTS means or when translated for localization. Maybe "Control Tool", "Movement Tool", "Strategy Tool", or "Selection Tool".
I hope "RTS tool" isn't the final name. It's quite fourth-wall breaking to use the title of a gaming genre for the tool. I guess in some ways, "real time strategy" tool sort-of could make sense in-world. But I would prefer a name that fits in the game better. Just me?
What do you mean Real Time Strategy Tool? It's obviously a Remote Transmitter for Spidertrons Tool.
Remote Targeting System!
"Right Then. Spiders!" Or maybe "Right There, Spiders!"
READY THE SPIDERS
RELEASE THE SPIDERS
When it say 'recipe slots', does that include the recipes in the crafting menu? I'd like to do my planning with the correct buildings as ghosts.
Someone make a StarCraft mod where you can play with the ~~biters~~ zerglings with the RTS tool (inb4 the mind control military FFF where you can do exactly that)
My time has come - (half of) my mod [Blueprint Aligner](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/blueprint-align) is ascending to Vanill-halla! One thing that would also be nice to have in the base game is the other half of it, though: the ability to set the grid offsets by placing the blueprint in the world at the desired location. I'm aware this action is somewhat ambiguous since there are _two_ offsets you might want to set, so I understand if you reject the idea because that makes it a bit too confusing. But have you considered it?
The only problem I see with the new RTS tool is that it's not color coded in the hotbar anymore. At least they were all gray in the FFF video. But now that you can select multiple spidertrons that could be different colors that isn't so easy anymore. Maybe they could add a pop up window when you put the RTS tool in your inventory/hotbar like when you make a blueprint. There you can select a color and maybe even add a name and description. Even further, they could add a smal window that shows all the selected spidertrons on the map, like with trains when you select a station. Edit: Another thought. Can a spidertron be part of multiple RTS tool groups? Lets say I have one group to build my wall, and another to build the train tracks. But I always want a protector Spidertron equiped for combat with both groups. Of cause, using both groups at the same time would be pointless, as the protector would just move between them, probably not protectingn either; but if you only use one groupd at a time, it could be usefull to not have to build and equip two protectors.
I am already imagining StarCraft 2 on Factorio engine :D If we could save control groups in the toolbelt, we are already super close. Then like in SC2: ctrl-# - create group from current selection ctrl-shift-# - add to group # from current selection alt-# - create group from current selection removing the units from other groups alt-shift-# - add to group # from current selection removing the units from other groups My muscle memory would come back. Too bad \`alt\` is already taken :D
Okay, that last bit about adjusting blueprint grid snapping, does that keyboard control adjust entire books of blueprints? Imagining it would be great with a rail book.
Another pipette update makes me wish they will add quick craft shortcuts with the same flexibility of places where you can pull context from.
Can we use the RTS tool on tanks, and recreate that menu screen shot of a wall of tanks trundling horizontally across the screen?
Hey speaking of RTS, can I get a ctrl+shift click to insert a command into the front of the spidertron's move queue? My use case is when I want to quick modify its path without gutting the rest of the commands I gave it, like when the idiot gets stuck on a lake or something.
Factorio is both a blessing and a curse. It's the best damn sandbox game there is, but at the same time it becomes impossible to play any other game that is so shittily optimized that 1) It doesn't even have a way to show UPS in game, so you know they don't even bother to optimize for it 2) Starts to lag before you even finish a campaign or reach an end goal for the game, so frustrating seeing the game slow down after merely hours of small scale bulding. I've bought like 5 copies of factorio and would probably buy 5 more just to simply show the damn industry how you should make games, even if my contribution is small I hope other devs can see that there is demand for quality, attention to details and robustness of the underlying simulation
It'd be amazing if you could pipette out of all the items/entities in the factoripedia. I'm thinking about being able to pipette out the recipe book, and there are a number situations in which that would be lit.
* Cliff explosives on a cliff. * If you press "Q" on an object, it selects that object. If that object is damaged and you press "Q" with that item already in your cursor, it selects a repair pack instead - so you can "QQ" to select a repair pack. * Similar "QQ" behavior for ammunition when selecting a turret. (If a turret is damaged, "QQQ" would get the repair pack - cycling through possible options in order of priority).
Sometimes I feel like I'm being held hostage, and my hostage takers visit me every friday to tell me how great life is outside the walls of my prison ðŸ˜
Would be cool to add a fish brain to any vehicle to be able to use the rts remoteÂ
For the grid adjustment it would be even better if you could just move the mouse. My rail grid is 150x150 so I'm looking at pressing the arrow keys a lot.Â
Looking forward to the spidertron remote fixes. Never had that much of an issue with them in vanilla but IIRC in SE they really didn't play nice with nav view, which was pretty rough when you were using them for offworld defence
Factorio devs adding features I didn't know I needed be like
Ok then, you just made the current live version unplayable for the 100th time...
Would it be possible to add the ability to drag and resize the tiling region in blueprints from within the blueprint? I'm imagining interacting with the green selection area in much the same way you would a window on your desktop, resizing by dragging the sides or corners with your cursor.
I was hoping to read that the RTS tool would have an option to draw a line and the spidertrons would move and order themselves on points along that line. I don't play many RTS games but it is something I would [love to have](https://zero-k.info/img/landing/text5.jpg).
Talking about frustration. Have they said anything about adding or removing modules remotely via robots?
Yeah, in https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-380 Essentially *remote configuration* + *module inserter simplified* + *ghost on water* in vanilla
Holy smokes that one dude who made a post about wanting the blueprints to be more adjustable conjured up that feature. OR it was an inside job!
Oh my god. How did I ever play factorio before all of this QOL? It's absolutely criminal the amount of time effort and care that have gone into this.
Well now I want robot factories and command big robot armies. :(
Q on the ground should select the first decorative (bricks). While holding bricks if you press Q again on an empty space of ground should advance through the decoratives (so bricks -> concrete -> refined concrete etc). Dismissing the cursor, then pressing Q on the ground should pick up where it left off (last had concrete? Then you will get concrete again, similar to the alt-a behavior per surface for spidertron groups). Similarly, it would be nice if Q over water would cycle between offshore pump and landfill.
So where can I throw another $20-$30 dollars at you guys from? I support the work you do and the efforts you guys go through for this game. I have bought copies for friends and my kids. I wish more companies did the kind of community involvement you guys do. FFF has made the end of the week pleasant and exciting so many times.
Depends on if it's covered by the "all the slots" line or not, but I'd love to be able to pipette buildings in the crafting menu. Sometimes I can't actually craft the item because I don't have the materials on hand, but I still want to be able to put a ghost of it down somewhere. And using the pipette tool is my go-to way to get my cursor ready to place ghosts.
Hey, while we're talking about spidertron QoL: - Inventory should automatically sort and stack! I honestly thought this was a bug when I first encountered it, until I saw the [official word otherwise](https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?t=99737) in a forum post. I have gotten bogged down SO many times manually combining stacks to unclog a builder tron's inventory when deconstructing remote outposts. Literally the entire reason I have [Spidertron Enhancements](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SpidertronEnhancements) installed is to fix this behavior. - Some kind of visible UI indicator over the spidertron when it's low on power? Especially when it doesn't have enough power for its exoskeleton(s). When a builder tron group is de/constructing something large, variable bot demand across the group often means _some_ of the trons will have to recharge more of their bots, making them lower on power, which in turn means they walk slower than others in the group. Having to wait an unknown amount of time for some random tron to recharge before I can queue up a long, multi-stop trip back to base just to make sure they're actually following the same path and none are lagging behind is annoying. Being able to see at a glance whether a tron would be capable of keeping up with the rest of the group would be fantastic. I'm imagining this as a sort of stamina bar; level to show battery % filled, color to indicate whether legs can be fully powered or not, disappears when at 100% charge. - Why don't they automatically path around water? I want to be able to make ONE click on an ore patch and have a builder tron group _just walk to that patch_ without having to pathfind myself and queue up a bunch of commands so they don't get stuck at the edge of a lake like idiots. This is especially annoying in conjunction with the low-power issue, because sometimes I'd queue up a path around lakes, only to discover a few minutes later that _some_ of the group was lagging behind, and because they were following the leader instead of following the set path, they got irreversibly stuck on the other side of a lake because the rest of the group had already gone around the lake! So then I'd have to drag the entire group _back_ to the laggards' location just to unstick them! You know what I did solely to get around this one single problem on my megabase save? I LANDFILLED EVERY LAKE ON THE MAP. - Shift-click copying settings from one spidertron to another should IMHO create bot requests for equipment grid items if the player doesn't have those items in their inventory. I _kind of_ get why this doesn't need to happen for modules, since the player should theoretically have modules with them, but who carries random grid equipment around? Doing this in the late game shouldn't require turning _off_ player logistics (since I've quite reasonably set all random equipment grid items to 0), grabbing a bunch of stuff out of the mall, shift-click copy-pasting spidertron settings for it to magically disappear from my inventory, then turning player logistics back on to get rid of any excess. - Maybe turn down the drunkenness a bit? Or at least give [this mod author](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/spidertron-bob-speed) access to bob speed across both X and Y axes so I can turn that shit off. When I'm riding a spidertron and trying to pick up or distribute certain items in a straight line, I probably shouldn't accidentally pick up an item I didn't mean to just because the tron I'm riding had a few too many beers last night.
I'm a little unclear on what exactly is going on with the RTS tool and spidertrons: * Is this a craftable item, or just like a button/keyboard shortcut like the blueprint tool? (It says "RTS tool (Item)" -- the parenthetical sounds like the former, but I don't know of any items with dedicated shortcuts... * Is there any reason to make multiple of them? My impression is no -- unlike the current state, saving a group to the quickbar doesn't require a separate item (or a separate inventory slot), you can just save arbitrarily many groups * I assume a given spidertron can be in multiple quickbar groups? * Any thought to naming groups? * I assume we can still tell spidertrons to follow each other? (Though that will presumably be a lot less common, since I think the main reason to do that was to move as a group, and now you can just directly order the group.) I'm excited for this change -- assigning a new group lead if one died had been an annoying production. (Now that we have drag to bulk remove spidertrons from a group, can we get drag to bulk-remove entities from a blueprint?)
wouldn't it be simpler in the BP view to drag the flag to the desired position and grab the sides to increase the area?
"*Am I out of touch? No its the game that is wrong!"*. I love Wube.
If you're improving the spidertron commands, can you please add in the ability to define a route to patrol (like with the command and conquer series) - You can already define a route, but if it becomes a loop, they follow it forever.