Is there a Blueprint Editor?

[Peter34]

I find a few aspects of working with Blueprints in-game annoying and tedious.

Of course, for one-off Blueprints, such things must be tolerated, but I'm trying to build a library of 20-30 "main" Blueprints for 0.15.

One thing that bothers me is that I can't rename an already-created Blueprint. The name/rename button is non-functional. Instead, I have to jump through numerous hoops of copying and re-creating the Blueprint before I am allowed to give it a new name, and then I have to type in the entire name, even though I may only have wanted to make a small change to the existing name, such as append a x2 in front of the name.

Secondly, adding small things, adding new things, or replacing items with higher tiers, e.g. Small Poles with Medium Poles or Stone Furnaces with Steel Furnaces. Again, I have to re-create the entire Blueprint, a very tedious process, in order to add a very few things or replace a very few things with a few other very similar things.

Often, I find myself wanting to create several variants of the same Blueprint.

For instance, I might want to make a tier-1 Smelter setup based on Stone Furnaces, Electric Inserters and wooden Small Poles. I also want to have a tier-2 setup based on Steel Furnaces, some use of Fast Inserters, and full use of metallic Medium Poles. Finally, I migth want even more elaborate setups, small "islands" that do stuff and which are surrounded by 2 or 3 tile wide walking paths paved with Brick. And possibly I'll want another similar set of "island" Blueprints but larger, and surrounded by 4 tile wide roads paved with Concrete.

All these multiplying/editing/renaming existing Blueprints is horribly tedious.

I'm thinking that using an out-of game graphical editor would speed up the process immensely.

Is there such an editor?

[iceman_1212]

I don't know of such an editor.

Although I play vanilla only for my main save, I do find it helpful to go into sandbox with the creative mode mod for blueprint preparation. It has a mode that instantly places / deconstructs and ofc you'll be able to instantly warp in anything you want into your inventory.

Regarding renaming - I've had no issues renaming existing blueprints / blueprint books if I open the blueprint from my inventory (i.e., not from the blueprint manager that's accessed by pressing B).