is there a way to label things?

[Konk]

everytime i come back to the game after taking some time off, i completely forget what parts of my factory do. is there a way to label certain machines or parts of the factory so i can keep track of what they are suppose to do?

[ReBootXD]

Only from the map view, on the map view you can place various Icons over your factory. An iron or copper plate icon over your smelters, for example.

I believe you can leave text boxes on the map too, but Idk for sure because I haven’t used it.

[Fel]

You can also use constant combinators to display icons or even write (with 2 letters signals per constant combinator).

EDIT: You can also use train stops to label things, it takes a bit of space to add a rail and a stop where there are none so it's not the best in those cases but it is very helpful to name your stops when you are using trains for your factory.

If you want other ways, mods like "text plates" give you a bunch of buildable letters, numbers and symbols.
Dectorio (and others) also adds a bunch of signals for labelling through constant combinators.

[Konk]

Originally posted by ReBootXD:

Only from the map view, on the map view you can place various Icons over your factory. An iron or copper plate icon over your smelters, for example.

I believe you can leave text boxes on the map too, but Idk for sure because I haven’t used it.

had no idea i could even do this, thanks

[knighttemplar1960]

You can also use pins on the map that can have icons and text and you can use pavement or walls to hand place readable text on the map.

[Lumpous]

You could also use constant combinators (not hooked up to any logic) and use them to mark certain belts by adding the item in the combinator that is supposed to be on this belt

[brian_va]

Shift +tab brings up steam overlay, one of the buttons at the bottom is for a notepad. They are game specific so should be persistent but I don't really use them much. Combined with the other ideas you can write yourself a user manual if you wanted.

[desertpunk3912]

Hit the ALT key, all machines show what recipes are assigned. Many other things are shown too. In the options screen you can configure what you want shown.

[Blitz4]

Originally posted by Kronk:

is there a way to label things?

everytime i come back to the game after taking some time off, i completely forget what parts of my factory do. is there a way to label certain machines or parts of the factory so i can keep track of what they are suppose to do?

I was just thinking about this for some other games like Turing Complete.

For Factorio there's two ways without using mods

* Shift+Tab in the Steam overlay you can open the notes app and what you put in there is specific to each game you play. You can edit/delete/create/read these notes in the library page of any game.
* You can write anything in a tag on the map and there's a button in the map filters to toggle visibility of your custom map tags.


with mods there's even more options
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/notepad
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/notes

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/QuickMapTag - fast way to create map tags

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Todo-List
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/TaskList
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/taz-todo-list
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Not_Enough_Todo
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/fox-todo


and by searching and sorting by downloads you'll see what's popular.

you can even add "notes of what parts of the factory does" using helmod and similar tools: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/helmod

another option. try the program share-x and auto-upload to imgur. there's a way you can draw on those screenshots before they're saved/uploaded. i don't know of any way todo that in game.

[Fletch]

Originally posted by desertpunk3912:

Hit the ALT key, all machines show what recipes are assigned. Many other things are shown too. In the options screen you can configure what you want shown.

This. #1 tip for new players. I play with the "ALT" view always enabled -- you always know what every part of your factory does because it shows you the recipes set in every building.

I've never really had a need for the labeling on the map view -- likely handy for screenshots of megabases so they can point out what each massive part of the huge base does.