New Feature: Allow sharing blueprints between different game

[factoriouzr]

Solution: bind blueprints to a player file which contains all blueprints and player name.

The blueprints might be in a database of all blueprints for that player and might still need to be bound to to a craftable blueprint to be used.

[Koub]

This is maybe the most commonly requested feature along the past years
First, I think we should wait for this : http://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-108
Then, the sharing would be on the book, not the blueprint.

Finally, you can give a try to https://forums.factorio.com/forum/viewtop ... 92&t=14243

[factoriouzr]

I personally would have liked a player level blurprint library not an item that holds blueprints because then you have to manage it again and open it to get blueprints out, but I'll wait until it comes out to see how it's implemented.

[ssilk]

Hm. I think the blueprint book will make much sense, cause you can share a whole bunch of blueprints. One alone is nothing, for example the blueprints of a castle need edges, walls, doors, towers etc. If you have all the blueprints, you can build stuff like with Lego. Handling each blueprint as a single item would not be very useful, cause you need so many to build a castle.

It's about the same as with a single song and a whole album from an artist.

[factoriouzr]

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Hm. I think the blueprint book will make much sense, cause you can share a whole bunch of blueprints.

I'm not sure where the sharing part comes in. You mean to someone else playing with you because there was no talk of sharing between characters from the devs.

Perhaps you misunderstood my comment. When I mean a player level library I mean an infinite library of all blueprints you want to store there that is searchable, categorizable (possibly with something like blueprint books) and persistent across characters. It is not a replacement of the blueprints or blueprint books but a companion. Ideally you could build right from the library, but as I said in a previous post, I'm find with having to make a regular blueprint from the library before use. As such the existing bluepring and the blueprint book functionality would function as they do now (will on release).

I'm curious how the book will be implemented in 0.13 because I think the way it will be implemented (based on existing architecture) won't be that ideal. Based on the screenshots and comments it looks like the book is just another inventory for blueprints only. This means one has to put the blueprints in and likely to use them they have to take the blueprint out before use. To me this doesn't solve much. Dont' get me wrong, it's a step in the right direction, but the only advantage for the book that i see is to save inventory space and categorize blueprints. To me this would have been much better implemented with the categorizable and searchable player library of as many blueprints as the player wants to store.

[ssilk]

Well, to understand what I said: What is the difference between a blueprint and a mod?
There is currently not very much difference between them. Both contain executeable lua code. More or less (I admit, this is a very high abstraction but it can be abstracted to this simple points: a blueprint and a mod is executeable code ). But what I mean is, what hinders you, to take some of your best blueprint (beautiful, outbalanced, perfect working, reliable) you made and share them as some kind of mod?

All we need for this is a mechanism, which makes sharing of mods (and so blueprints easier).

That was the side story.

What I really mean: A single blueprint makes in most cases no sense. Ok, most current blueprints are usable on it's own. But that is, cause it is as it is. When I have a book of blueprints, which belongs together and if I have something like "anker points" (not implemented yet) or "blueprint masks" (also not implemented yet), I can use such blueprints in any combination. [Hmmm. I see I need to specify this more exactly, cause there is a longer story behind it, many other suggestions here are in about this direction. And with the new rail-builder in 0.13 things like that seem to be possible now. But that is a completly different thing.]

Some specific examples, that might make it more clear, what I mean:

Train stations.
There is a big discussion around that the train stations are horizontal larger, than vertical. https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =5&t=17795
With blueprint books it seems to be a very logical way to say this:
- First I need to choose the right book. There is one book for vertical and one for horizontal train stations.
- Then you need of course first the train stop.
- After the train stop you can built for example a coal-loader for the top train.
- Then you can built loader- or unloader-parts (for each wagon).
- The interesting stuff begins, when do I choose an loader/unloader with 7 or 8 tiles space (horizontal)? Such rules can be automated.

So both books ("Horzontal train stations" and "Vertical train stations") include the same functionality, but work completely different.

Walls and Defense
The walls and defense blueprint book might be a collection of parts of walls (and laser defenses), as well as entries and blueprints, that guarantee fast repair of the walls or (much more clever) auto-off-switching of the lasers, or belt systems to provide gun-turrets with ammunition.



So, to come back to the point, you mean to share blueprint on the player level: a player can reuse his blueprints from game to game.
I mean, that this is just the beginning, the top of the iceberg. The really cool stuff begins, when I can use blueprints from other players. And that means, they need to be organized in "containers", cause they belong together for some reason. And that "belonging together" means, that this knowledge should be contained inside of the "container" (=book). If I have all these components, I can
- Take the first blueprint of a train-stop, place it and the game shows you then, what other kind of blueprints you can place now.
- Take a part of a wall blueprint and drag it (walk while you build). The game adjusts matching other blueprints to built a complete wall, much longer than any simple blueprint can be.

[factoriouzr]

ssilk, not sure where mod came from. I was replying to your following post:

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Hm. I think the blueprint book will make much sense, cause you can share a whole bunch of blueprints. One alone is nothing, for example the blueprints of a castle need edges, walls, doors, towers etc. If you have all the blueprints, you can build stuff like with Lego. Handling each blueprint as a single item would not be very useful, cause you need so many to build a castle.

It's about the same as with a single song and a whole album from an artist.

If I understand you correctly you see this as a stepping stone to better things such as sharing blueprints globally and some sort of intelligence and a sort of ability to place an entire blueprint book with possible prompts for what can be placed next.

I agree that this is all great stuff and would love to have it in game, but unless I missed it, this kind of thing was never discussed in any Friday facts. If this is indeed the direction of the devs, I support it fully. As it stands now from Friday facts, this is merely another level of indirection. Another mouse click and just serves to conserve inventory space.

I hope for great things with blueprint organization, sharing and upgrading.

[bobucles]

I'm not sure where the sharing part comes in. You mean to someone else playing with you because there was no talk of sharing between characters from the devs.

If you can share blueprints between your own maps, why not share them with other players? It's not a big leap.