The most annoying UI issue

[Junksteel]

It's annoying when we are getting low on a specific resource and the game automatically switches to another material whenever you close the tab.

It's even worse when we actually spend the last drop of a resource and the game automatically switches to the more abundant material with no warning at all, sonorous or visual.

I wish there was a way to prevent that from happening and completely lock the auto switch. I prefer not being able to build rather than building it wrong. I can't tell how many times I went from ceramic to sandstone or other crap material because of this and only realized the mistake when insulation started failing.

Do we have a current solution to this?

[Marsfc]

Same problem here.

[Gus Smedstad]

I think there’s a priority system. Every time I’ve had this problem with insulated tiles or pipes, it’s switched to igneous insulation, not sandstone. Because igneous rock is the best insulator after ceramic.

I’d prefer to switch it off myself, but I think it’s that way to avoid confusion with less experienced players. In many cases it’s a convenience, going from iron ore to copper ore automatically isn’t a serious flaw.

[Nitroturtle]

11 minutes ago, Gus Smedstad said:

I think there’s a priority system. Every time I’ve had this problem with insulated tiles or pipes, it’s switched to igneous insulation, not sandstone. Because igneous rock is the best insulator after ceramic.

I’d prefer to switch it off myself, but I think it’s that way to avoid confusion with less experienced players. In many cases it’s a convenience, going from iron ore to copper ore automatically isn’t a serious flaw.

It switches to the most abundant material.  It's especially annoying when trying to collect enough steel to lock down space.  It's easy to get into a situation where you run out of gold/iron and it switches to your steel reserves and starts using them in unwanted places.  This is a large part of the reason why I use the MaterialColor mod, because it makes it quite easy to spot when it happens.  I agree with the OP that it's very annoying and it would be nice if it could be disabled or at least a more noticible indication when it happens.

[Sebastiangperez]

another issue is the critters o selection tree in the storage / critters feeders when you select one item, jumps at top and you have to scroll down again, it will be nice if we can have a search input at top ? 

[OxCD]

1 hour ago, Junksteel said:

It's annoying when we are getting low on a specific resource and the game automatically switches to another material whenever you close the tab.

It's even worse when we actually spend the last drop of a resource and the game automatically switches to the more abundant material with no warning at all, sonorous or visual.

I wish there was a way to prevent that from happening and completely lock the auto switch. I prefer not being able to build rather than building it wrong. I can't tell how many times I went from ceramic to sandstone or other crap material because of this and only realized the mistake when insulation started failing.

Do we have a current solution to this?

You have my full support against this mechanism. I prefer a thousand time that the game send me a "bruuu" when choosen material isn't available anymore, than switching by itself.

2 minutes ago, Sebastiangperez said:

another issue is the critters o selection tree in the storage / critters feeders when you select one item, jumps at top and you have to scroll down again, it will be nice if we can have a search input at top ? 

Aaaaand I agree also. Too much scrolling, especially with critter feeders. Pleeeease post it under "suggestion" forum.

[Sebastiangperez]

5 minutes ago, OxCD said:

You have my full support against this mechanism. I prefer a thousand time that the game send me a "bruuu" when choosen material isn't available anymore, than switching by itself.

Aaaaand I agree also. Too much scrolling, especially with critter feeders. Pleeeease post it under "suggestion" forum.

I will add something to this , in the critter feeder do not exists the option Balm Lily , why ? 

[Gus Smedstad]

You can’t feed Dreckos with a critter feeder. They’ll only eat directly off the plant. Since only Dreckos eat balm lily, that’s why it’s not an option.

[Sebastiangperez]

2 hours ago, Gus Smedstad said:

You can’t feed Dreckos with a critter feeder. They’ll only eat directly off the plant. Since only Dreckos eat balm lily, that’s why it’s not an option.

Ok.

[qda]

8 hours ago, Nitroturtle said:

It's easy to get into a situation where you run out of gold/iron and it switches to your steel reserves and starts using them in unwanted places.

This.

Once I start to stockpile steel, everything gets built out of steel whenever I temporarily run out of the default chosen refined metal, which paradoxically and coincidentally happens a lot since you need to deplete your refined iron ressources to make steel. I thought they changed steel to belong to the "manufactured material" category specifically to avoid that behavior, but it is still the same as always. Some might answer that this is a micromanaging aspect of the game, but I will disagree since, as said before, there is no clear message, no unmissable warning when the switching occurs. You can't micromanage something you're not aware of, especially in game with a tremendous amount of variables and parameters changing perpetually. As said by others here in this topic and before, having the option to toggle on/off the automatic switching between materials (which happen even when drawing a single instance of pipes/wires/tiles/you name it) seems to be a major, and needed, QoL improvement and would make every opinion happy. However, I don't know if this is realistically coding-wise feasible, but if not, the default not-switching behavior seems the way to go since it gives crucial information to the player.

[malloc]

I would prefer to be able to queue up a build even after I run out of the material.  There is already a mechanic to indicate the missing material which would allow the player to see the issue and change the material if they prefer.

[OxCD]

6 hours ago, malloc said:

I would prefer to be able to queue up a build even after I run out of the material.  There is already a mechanic to indicate the missing material which would allow the player to see the issue and change the material if they prefer.

It's also a good idea, but I think it depends. In early game, you production isn't constant, and any mistake has a probability to be deadly. Uncorrectly monitored, this feature could lead inexperienced player to sink because of something critical, even tiny, remaining unbuilt.

[Lilalaunekuh]

Not sure if everyone would like it, but my prefered state would be:

Let us construct/schedule builds even if we have run out of an resource.

(Like beeing able to lay down a complete power grid if you got just enough material for one wire.)

Spoiler

This resulted in a little mini game for me:

How can I build/schedule a power/pipe network as one task. (This will result in many additional wires/pipes I schedule and cancel later.)

 

[Craigjw]

I agree, this is an irritating feature.

Like when you've spent cycles building that really awkward thing and then realise that you have tiles built in the wrong material and have to deconstruct it all just to replace them.

[Lancar]

+1 from me. I really wish they'd remove this as all it has ever done for me is cause annoyance.

[Xyer]

Agreed, Sometimes you just finish your project without realising until you find random heat leaks and have to reconstruct the whole thing. Very annoying. 

[KittenIsAGeek]

On 4/11/2019 at 7:16 AM, Nitroturtle said:

It switches to the most abundant material.  

This isn't really the case, because otherwise insulated tiles would switch to sandstone in the early game instead of igneous.

[Craigjw]

The feature should be removed in my opinion, regardless of what material it switches to, it causes way more issues than it solves.

[KittenIsAGeek]

27 minutes ago, Craigjw said:

The feature should be removed in my opinion, regardless of what material it switches to, it causes way more issues than it solves.

I'm with you.  I'll often switch to Sandbox mode and unclick the "Instant Build Mode" box so that I can finish drawing my schematics even though I don't currently have the materials.  I'd rather get the "insufficient materials" warning than build with the wrong material in a critical area.

 

However, for most players (particularly new players) I think the current system works just fine.  Its only when you get more advanced with the game that you start paying attention to the particular materials you're using.

[beowulf2010]

31 minutes ago, KittenIsAGeek said:

I'm with you.  I'll often switch to Sandbox mode and unclick the "Instant Build Mode" box so that I can finish drawing my schematics even though I don't currently have the materials.  I'd rather get the "insufficient materials" warning than build with the wrong material in a critical area.

Oh, that's clever. Thanks! 

(Yoinks the idea and runs off to play) 

[Skrivener]

It would be nice if we could overwrite existing blueprints with builds using another resource before the item is actually built. So if we run out of copper for wire we can place gold wire blueprint over the top of the copper wire blueprint without canceling first, etc. This would tie in nicely with allowing use of depleted resources making changing much easier. It would be good if the same applied to buildings as well as transport networks.

Side note: there's an annoying bug when you build over an existing (built) item such as pipe or wire and the priority is always set to 5 regardless of your build priority. I think the only exception is firepole over ladder which does accept the priority on the build tool.