Blueprint APIs

[SupplyDepoo]

I was looking into what would be required to implement a mod idea, and found the APIs a bit lacking for blueprints. I would like to be able to add entities to a blueprint with all of the normal placement checks, but instead it seems that the API for blueprint entities is just an array. It would be better if there was an API for placing entities into blueprints similar to the API for placing entities on surfaces, including the ability to test if a placement would be valid. It seems right now you would first need to create a whole hidden/temporary surface and stamp the blueprint down. This seems bad to me. It feels like the API for blueprints reflects the origin of blueprints as an afterthought (a mod that was promoted to vanilla due to its popularity). With the changes coming in 2.0 it seems clear that blueprints are truly a first-class feature from the perspective of game design, so I suggest that blueprints should also have first-class modding APIs.

Also, anything that can currently be done by the player should have an equivalent API, like filtering blueprint entities or flipping and rotating. Modders should not have to reimplement game features when they want to just add something small to them.