Is it really wrong for wanting an active pause feature?

[Skyblue]

I love this game, but I wish the game has an active pause feature. The fact that I play a lot of Mindustry is because it's kinda similar to this game (not as complex) and it came with an active pause feature.

I'm turning 40 this year, and I've been playing RTS since my teenage years. But I'm not as responsive as I used to be, I'd rather play this game at my own pace. I understand that there is a peaceful mode (CMIIW) where there is no enemy, but that's not what I'm talking about, I want to start building things as soon as I can, but I also want to pause to see where my base at and what I would do next, where I would put stuff, etc. That's the part that I enjoy the most.

I understand that most people are satisfied with how the game is. But maybe the devs can add active pause to an "easy" mode where you can't unlock achievements or something like that.

[Fel]

This game doesn't require speed from the player.
There are plenty of us around here that also can't do quick stuff like we used to when we were younger (and some like me that never could do well in RTS and such in the first place).

Enemies can kind of punish you going too slowly, but only if you also neglect your defenses.
There are defensive setups you can get fairly early and that will carry you throughout the whole playthrough.
Even just adding flamethrowers to your defenses already does that to some extent.
Of course, that means not skipping military technologies as you get further, but that's something you kind of have to do when playing with enemies anyway.

It is also worth pointing out that enemies mostly react to you rather than the other way around, so "faster" players will just make enemies grow faster.
Similarly, more pollution means attacks coming from more nests if you don't clean them up.


Now, for the active pause, the problem is that it is going against the core of this game's design that is determinism.
It would require pretty much breaking the game to put it in, and it would invariably lead to a whole lot of issues and bugs since it ties into everything.
I know it can sound weird that a seemingly simple feature could break the game, but it is due to how the game was built from the start.

Your suggestion definitely makes sense, being able to look around the base while paused isn't something that would only benefit "slow" players either (pretty sure nearly everyone going for the rocket under 8 hours would love this), but I doubt it will be added.
I could be wrong of course, since I'm just a random player like everyone else here.

Which brings me to the next (and last) point, this forum is mostly just players, the devs are not really around here.
So if you want this to reach them, the official forums or sending it to them via e-mail would probably be more effective.
It was suggested quite a few times in various forms and never implemented, but it doesn't mean you can't suggest it again.

[Chindraba]

You don't need an active pause feature to keep achievements. Though, as a slow player myself, it wouldn't be neglected by me if it existed. I used to use the map view in pause often. Now I just reload saves.

There are three things which can help here. First, most enemy-related settings don't affect achievements. Assuming that you don't want any of the achievements disabled then you have to have the enemy bases set to at least 100% for frequency and size, you have to have peaceful mode turned off, and you have to have pollution turned on. There are two (and a half) ways the enemies get worse when you're slow.

Expansion is on a timer, and if you're slow they will expand too fast to keep track of.

The time it takes for expansions to happen can be changed in the settings, or expansion can be turned off. Neither will affect achievements at all.

Evolution has one component where the time the game is active increases the evolution factor. My first game was so slow that the evolution was over 50% before I'd even automated blue science.

How much 'time' figures into the evolution increase can be changed in the settings, again, with zero effect on achievements.

The half thing is pollution. Like time, the pollution you create - no matter how much is absorbed by trees and such - also adds to the evolution. If you play slow, and build big, pollution can grow fast and both get to the nests before you're ready and the total pollution created will move evolution up faster.

The effect of pollution on evolution can be changed in the settings, which changes how much the pollution effects evolution. You can also change the diffusion rate of pollution, when makes the cloud grow slower, but also make the concentration of pollution in each chunk go higher. Diffusion affects how fast it spread, not how fast you make it, and it has to be somewhere, if it isn't spreading out, then it's getting higher in each place where it is.

There is one effect, non-serious, for setting diffusion to zero, meaning it never goes anywhere. With that setting you won't trigger an attack based on pollution. One achievement is _It stinks and they don't like it_ which is earned by triggering an attack based on pollution. You can still get that, however, by just building something which makes pollution in the same chunk as a nest. Burner mining drills or stone furnaces will work nicely.

The second thing which can help is that if you open map view before you pause, while paused you can zoom in and out all you wish. The zoom-in always centers on the cursor, not the screen center, so you can zoom way out and then zoom in anywhere you like. This will not show details where you don't have radar coverage, so it's not as good as driving around, but it's decent for doing overview planning at least.

The third thing which can help, which is my current 'go to', is to decide "now is the time" for some long-range exploring, save the game, then drive all over the place and look around. I can get ideas of what to do in various places, check out the map to see how the pieces might fit together, and build the master plan in my head. Then I can reload the save and have lost no time. Of course the map is also reset so none of the explored area is shown on the map view - even the nests I found while driving around.

Yes I'm slow. My current game is at 70 hours and I'm rebuilding the mall before automating the last science. Still, with lots of practice, and determination, even I was able to finally earn the 8hr achievement, as part of a full all-achievement challenge to myself. And, WUBE might still exists as a company by the time you reach my age.

Happy gaming, and keep it growing.

[The_Mell]

First it is not wrong to ask for a pause...but maybe phrasing it that way feels a little manipulative to me.

Second Factorio is able to handle pause.
It pauses when activating the menu or opening ech tree and there is a key command for it: Shift+Space
The question is what people can do during pause, what kind of interactions are available , and those given ones mean little to none - just selecting tech research or change game options.

Third there is a work around via editor because that features a time mode which can be used to pause while looking around.
Editor means no achievements and you easily screw up things - and it's not user friendly.

Fourth there are mods that include pause features as i just checked on the mod portal.
I have not tested them so i cannot say how well they work but give it a try (on a dedicated test save) and maybe that helps.
Found those 2 that look promising:
Adding console commands: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/pause-commands?from=search
Adding a button: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/afk-pause?from=search


Fifth would be some advise how handle the game without pause:
1) Starting area size: Most stress for me comes from early attack paranoia and a maxed out starting area gives you a lot of time for setting up defenses.
2) If defenses are damaged upgrade them. Simple rule of thumb that can save a lot of trouble. Upgrade means more turrets per spot, mixture of different turrets including flamers, munition upgrade (from yellow to red is an huge step), or just research.
After a while enemies can become just a constant background noise, attacks happen but nothing to fear...

[Hurkyl]

Originally posted by Skyblue:

I also want to pause to see where my base at and what I would do next, where I would put stuff, etc. That's the part that I enjoy the most.

You can scroll the map around during a pause by using the zoom feature. Your mouse pointer affects where the zoom is centered, so it is possible to zoom out the map and zoom in somewhere else. With a little practice you can quickly move the map around how you'd like.

[Pok]

you can pause the game with Shift + space ... of course you cannot move then but... it is paused :)

[Chindraba]

Folks, the OP isn't asking for a pause, nor how to pause the game. They want to stop the clock - no production, no biters moving, nor change in pollution or pollution spread, and no evolution advance, and still be able to see the map and the factory and have time see 'what's up' think about things and make plans. The technology screen, unless in multiplayer, is an active pause, but only for dealing with the tech tree. OP want's the same freeze-frame view of the factory.
The closest, currently, is the zoom in/out if the game is paused in map view. Perhaps, if they didn't know about that, and try it, it will be enough for their 'solution'. Perhaps not good enough, even then.

[puschit]

I recently installed a mod called "Game speed button" and it does excatly what the name implies: You can speed the game up or slow it down to a crawl. It's configureable how much the change is per click, so you can easily turn this into a pause-button.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by Chindraba:

Folks, the OP isn't asking for a pause, nor how to pause the game. They want to stop the clock - no production, no biters moving, nor change in pollution or pollution spread, and no evolution advance, and still be able to see the map and the factory and have time see 'what's up' think about things and make plans. The technology screen, unless in multiplayer, is an active pause, but only for dealing with the tech tree. OP want's the same freeze-frame view of the factory.
The closest, currently, is the zoom in/out if the game is paused in map view. Perhaps, if they didn't know about that, and try it, it will be enough for their 'solution'. Perhaps not good enough, even then.

There is no reason to look at your factory in a freeze-frame. And if your reason is to get the time based achievement then news flash: part of the achievement is doing it in real time, that's the challenge of it...

There is no argument for an active pause feature. You need time to think? Stop and think. You need to walk away and do something and don't want the time to progress? Save and quit. Can't deal with biters in real time? Disable them or lower their difficulty. The game already gives you everything you need to address any of the related issues, and there is nothing in this game that requires you to play fast or be efficient with your time, unless you did that to yourself by playing on death world or doing a self imposed challenge (in which case... don't do it if you can't handle it?). A pause feature is completely redundant.

[Chindraba]

Originally posted by DaBa:

There is no reason to look at your factory in a freeze-frame. And if your reason is to get the time based achievement then news flash: part of the achievement is doing it in real time, that's the challenge of it...

On this point, at the very least, you are actually incorrect. The spedrunner's rules, if trying to get on that website's leader boards, do use real time for their records. The timed achievements in the game, however, are not based on real time, they are based on the time the game is actually running and not paused. If you pause the game with the shift+space keys, or by opening the menu, the timer for those achievements stops running. If you are not in multiplayer, opening the technology screen also stops the timer. If you save the game and then come back a week later and continue it, the time continues from where it was when saved. Your 'newsflash' is fake news.

Originally posted by DaBa:

There is no argument for an active pause feature. .... The game already gives you everything you need to address any of the related issues, ... A pause feature is completely redundant.

And yet, here we are, working on a thread where someone has made an argument for an active pause feature.

That there are ways to address the issues, (issues which happen to be part of the non-existent argument for the feature) does not mean those ways are the best option. Right now when in map view you can directly change the settings on train stops, and you cannot do so for combinators and filters on inserters and splitters. There is still a "way" to change them, by doing a copy/paste to build the same thing in the local area, make the changes and doing a copy of the local version and pasting it on the remote version. Apparently the devs didn't thing that was, even though workable and valid, the best option. In version 2.0 we can change all the settings directly in map view for those things, just like we can for train stops now.

That a feature is not something I want, or need. or something you want, or need, does not make it a bad idea. That I want it, or that you want it, does not make it a good idea either. I don't think the active pause the OP is asking for is redundant.

[yoru]

Idk why yall are writing long arguments about achievements or cheating or whatever. Maybe the dude just needs a pause so he can go take a sh tter in the loo without worrying. I personally don't need a pause and the thought never crossed my mind, but I don't see why not. If you don't need or want it, then simply don't use it. Leave your game running. It doesn't affect you at all. Meanwhile people who need to pause have a pause. It's not that serious.

[PunCrathod]

Originally posted by yoru:

Idk why yall are writing long arguments about achievements or cheating or whatever. Maybe the dude just needs a pause so he can go take a sh tter in the loo without worrying. I personally don't need a pause and the thought never crossed my mind, but I don't see why not. If you don't need or want it, then simply don't use it. Leave your game running. It doesn't affect you at all. Meanwhile people who need to pause have a pause. It's not that serious.

This post is a prime example of not reading or comprehending what the thread is about.

I understand why op wants active pause but the thing is you need to balance the game with that feature existing in mind. Otherwise the game becomes too easy and a game that is too easy is not a good game.

[yoru]

Originally posted by PunCrathod:

This post is a prime example of not reading or comprehending what the thread is about.

I understand why op wants active pause but the thing is you need to balance the game with that feature existing in mind. Otherwise the game becomes too easy and a game that is too easy is not a good game.

This reply is also a prime example of what I just wrote.

If it "makes the game too easy" then don't use it or do you have less self control than a 3 month old dog? Or even better, when you pause, the screen blacks out with just a word PAUSED in the middle for the people who have no self control and their hands will slip and accidentally press pause to "cheat" and make the game too easy. It's REALLY not that serious bro.

"Omg why does this game have an accessibility setting for people who need it! I clearly don't need it so it shouldn't be in this game!!! It's cheating!" That's what you sound like.

[PunCrathod]

Originally posted by yoru:

Originally posted by PunCrathod:

This post is a prime example of not reading or comprehending what the thread is about.

I understand why op wants active pause but the thing is you need to balance the game with that feature existing in mind. Otherwise the game becomes too easy and a game that is too easy is not a good game.

This reply is also a prime example of what I just wrote.

If it "makes the game too easy" then don't use it or do you have less self control than a 3 month old dog? Or even better, when you pause, the screen blacks out with just a word PAUSED in the middle for the people who have no self control and their hands will slip and accidentally press pause to "cheat" and make the game too easy. It's REALLY not that serious bro.

"Omg why does this game have an accessibility setting for people who need it! I clearly don't need it so it shouldn't be in this game!!! It's cheating!" That's what you sound like.

The game already has multiple ways to pause. What the thread is about is that op wants the ability to build stuff and/or make and place blueprints etc while the game is paused. Nothing to do with going to the loo. Also "you don't have to use it" just shows you don't understand videogame design. If "you don't have to use it" was a valid argument then every fps game etc would have a godmode and infinite ammo checkboxes right in the main menu.

[Khaylain]

Originally posted by yoru:

Idk why yall are writing long arguments about achievements or cheating or whatever. Maybe the dude just needs a pause so he can go take a sh tter in the loo without worrying. I personally don't need a pause and the thought never crossed my mind, but I don't see why not. If you don't need or want it, then simply don't use it. Leave your game running. It doesn't affect you at all. Meanwhile people who need to pause have a pause. It's not that serious.

Uh, "esc" is a pause for everyone when in single player at least. And I know you can pause the game in multiplayer too. That's not what's being talked about here. So yeah, try reading and understanding what is being talked about before "opening your mouth and removing all doubt" as they say.

EDIT: Thanks for the points, I guess.

[Fel]

OP wants an "active pause" that lets you look around your factory while paused, something that can kind of be achieved when pausing in the map screen (which I didn't know about before this thread) if you have proper radar coverage.

Not sure why most people are talking about the "normal" pause instead.