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The whole concept of blueprints in this game reminds me very much of a Buildcraft mod for Minecraft. I think at least with oil the devs were inspired by this mod. Whether or not it was the same case with blueprints, there is one feature from buildcraft missing, which I think would be extremely useful and not that hard to implement.

And that is the ability to save your blueprints to your hard drive and load them, even between games. Such a feature would not only be incredibly useful when starting out in a new game (skipping tedious parts of constructing basic manufacturing departments) but would also encourage sharing your designs and creations on the internet. Additionally, it might make PVP slightly more plausible (at least after you research robotics), since repairing heavy damage to your base in case of a broken defense would be slightly easier and less tedious.

This feature is already implemented in mods. Take a look at them. They are widely used
https://mods.factorio.com/?tags=blueprints

And given such heavy use they are something the player-base wants, and should be added to vanilla.

Yeah, I just realized. There are mods for that.

Nevertheless, I agree with atloomis - the fact that it's such a popular feature among modders is a reason why it should be implemented in vanilla. This did happen in the past, so why not this time?

Also, after reconsidering, I think solution from this mod:"https://mods.factorio.com/mods/DaveMcW/blueprint-string", is actually better than saving blueprints in a file, as handling a string is much easier and flexible. Though it wouldn't hurt to use both solutions - functionality of saving blueprints in a file from which they can be quickly loaded, and at the same time providing a string which can be copy-pasted.

Vykromod wrote:Nevertheless, I agree with atloomis - the fact that it's such a popular feature among modders is a reason why it should be implemented in vanilla. This did happen in the past, so why not this time?

This time is now 3 years since the first suggestions for this. This suggestion is just one in a long row. Can be seen for example with this search: search.php?keywords=save+blueprint&fid%5B0%5D=6

Also, after reconsidering, I think solution from this mod:"https://mods.factorio.com/mods/DaveMcW/blueprint-string", is actually better than saving blueprints in a file, as handling a string is much easier and flexible. Though it wouldn't hurt to use both solutions - functionality of saving blueprints in a file from which they can be quickly loaded, and at the same time providing a string which can be copy-pasted.

That is exactly the reason, why this is not implemented into vanilla yet.

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4682 Planning (Signs, Cloning, Ghosts, Blueprinting and more...)

ssilk wrote:

Vykromod wrote:Nevertheless, I agree with atloomis - the fact that it's such a popular feature among modders is a reason why it should be implemented in vanilla. This did happen in the past, so why not this time?

This time is now 3 years since the first suggestions for this. This suggestion is just one in a long row. Can be seen for example with this search: search.php?keywords=save+blueprint&fid%5B0%5D=6

Also, after reconsidering, I think solution from this mod:"https://mods.factorio.com/mods/DaveMcW/blueprint-string", is actually better than saving blueprints in a file, as handling a string is much easier and flexible. Though it wouldn't hurt to use both solutions - functionality of saving blueprints in a file from which they can be quickly loaded, and at the same time providing a string which can be copy-pasted.

That is exactly the reason, why this is not implemented into vanilla yet.

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4682 Planning (Signs, Cloning, Ghosts, Blueprinting and more...)

Devils advocate:
The reasoning about "there is mod for it" lost all of it's merit with introduction of achievements. You are basically left with option to have achievements or have convenience of blueprint strings. It seems for me that recently you "torture" yourself with vanilla once and then grab all the mods that you like and then play the game properly

Hehe. The point goes to you. It would be cool if the game could distinct between how much a mod influences the game.

Wouldn't it be possible to mark certain methods as safe or unsafe? as long as a Mod only calls the "Safe" methods such as maybe just informational methods such as would be required to build a blueprint string, then achievements would remain active.
The unsafe methods would be anything game changing. upon calling an "Unsafe" method, such as one that adds resources or one that alters the function of a building, then the achievements become disabled. this could probably be evaluated at run time at the time the mod tries to call an unsafe method.

If you then published a list of the safe and unsafe methods Mod writers could potentially use that to make safe mods that still allow achievements.

This is possible and I think Kovarex mentioned this anywhere.
That would enable to categorize mods in
- no change to the game (new graphics, sound...)
- just some kind of helper mod
- new items, more or less big changes
- change of the game as it is

ssilk wrote:This is possible and I think Kovarex mentioned this anywhere.
That would enable to categorize mods in
- no change to the game (new graphics, sound...)
- just some kind of helper mod
- new items, more or less big changes
- change of the game as it is

Made a new thread to develop that idea further with its own topic.

We do see this particular suggestion coming up often though, simply because of how useful it would be.

I posted about blueprints in other topic:

Neotix wrote:Blueprints should be stored in account and be accessible in every game. We also should have feature to share ours blueprints.
Something like save blueprint and make it private/public. Then when next person want to use it just click on import blueprint, and search by blueprint name or author nick.

In that way I could go to my friend and show him my designs without carrying pendrive with text file, without forcing him to install mods etc.

I want to add my voice to the crowd of people who think it would be nice to carry over blueprints from one game to the next, rather than having to remember how you did things.