Quick Access Menu

Quick Access Menu

Factory Town has a ton of things to build, but switching frequently between items is a bit unwieldy and can mess up your flow.

The Build menu has everything in it and lets you perform a full-text search on items, but that often means taking your hand off the mouse.

Hotbars are customizable, but they're limited in how many items they can display at once.

I originally wanted to have hotkey combinations on the Build menu for the most useful items, but these interfere with the regular text search.

So, to solve these issues and streamline the building process I created the Quick Access menu!

It uses a nested hotkey system - one key to select a category of item, and another key to select the item itself. This means you can access most items in the game with just 3 keys. For example:

• Press E to open the Quick Access Menu
• Press A to select Paths
• Press W to select Road

Although it would take a lot of practice to remember the key code for each item, it can still be easy to think "Oh I need a path" and hit E+A to view the paths, then select the one you need with the displayed hotkey.

The hotkeys map to the left-hand side of the keyboard (QWER, ASDF, ZXCV) but they are remappable. Just right-click on the Quick Access slot and hit 'Assign Control' to change to whatever keys you find useful (if you are left-handed, or use AZERTY layout, etc).

Misc Improvements

• Items traveling on a belt or chute are no longer obstructed on a path based on the full block above it. For example, a regular scaffold block can be used above a belt instead of needing an arch
• Items rolling downhill on a wooden conveyor belt will slightly speed up, but will slowly decelerate to normal wooden belt speed on flat terrain
• Can use combination tags (“A,B” = tag A or tag B) on rail cars
• Signal Tags can now be triggered based on tag existing on train cars, not just the locomotive
• Changed Field Of View to make the game look more isometric
• Item Filter and Text Input panels are now resizable
• Improved visual display of belts to remove gaps on ramps
• Improved visual display of chutes
• Game will no longer automatically minimize when it loses focus
• New Interface option: Run In Background. Keeps the game running when it does not have focus
• Build Menu search is more forgiving (e.g. “Wooden Rail” will be a match for search text “Wood Rail”)

Balance Changes

• Fish Oil recipe now only requires 1 Fish instead of 2 Fish

Bug Fixes

• Pipe items would sometimes get stuck if you created a pipe crossing over an existing one that contained items
• Automatically placed Rail Transfer blocks were not having Fuel transfer option checked on by default as intended
• Plant Dragon Fruit was linked to a requirement of Farming instead of Forestry
• Steep paths were not always connecting to neighbors if placed individually
• Some Traditional Chinese characters were not displaying
• “Supply X” localization error in European Portuguese