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Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 2:33 pm
by libik
Hi,
we all know that the blue print is coming and it will be huge :). So what about to make it even more huge? I love how we can automate almost everything in factorio, so what about to automate building production a bit too?

For those who does not know, what recursion is - it is function that call itself. In our conditions, it will be blueprint with itself :). For example imagine, that you want to build well guarded railway network faaar to the south and you dont want to spend a lot time (even with blueprints) to manually and peridoically placing the same design again and again.

So now you will do this :
recurse-used.jpg
recurse-used.jpg (164.45 KiB) Viewed 7402 times
In the yellow rectangle you select what you want to your blue print (just what the creators shown us), but you can also place there two items : "blueprint start" (green square) and "blueprint next" (red square). When you place it somewhere the construction drones first place blueprint on green square and then start building the blueprint. After they build all, they take blueprint from green square to the red square.

When it is placed to the red square, the whole blueprint is built once again considering red square of the previous step as green square in the current step. So until robots can build and you dont stop this, they will recursively build this concept to the south.

The interesting thing can happen, if you place multiple red squares to recursively desing your concept in more directions. Something like this :
quatro-used.jpg
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After robots finishes the design, they copy blueprint to the 4 red squares and there they start buildling it once again. Like before, the position, where the blueprint is placed is considered as "green square" position in the concept.

This one will create fortress in all directions creating a huge complex after some time (could be interesting to get far into enemy teritory and start building this)

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 3:06 pm
by kovarex
In this topic, you can see the link to buildcraft forums, where I talk about my fantasies of making auto replicating factory.
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =27&t=1393

The lack of possibilities in these mods and the lack of minecraft engine capabilities was one of the first impulses to make this game in the first place.
I made Factorio with the hope of creating self replicating Factories from the start, so yes, this will be the top part of the pyramid, and it should be possible finally to do things like that, your way seems to be interesting, but we will certainly consider also other ways.

Anyway, this is not certainly going to be in 0.9 :)

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 3:27 pm
by libik
kovarex wrote:In this topic, you can see the link to buildcraft forums, where I talk about my fantasies of making auto replicating factory.
https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =27&t=1393

The lack of possibilities in these mods and the lack of minecraft engine capabilities was one of the first impulses to make this game in the first place.
I made Factorio with the hope of creating self replicating Factories from the start, so yes, this will be the top part of the pyramid, and it should be possible finally to do things like that, your way seems to be interesting, but we will certainly consider also other ways.

Anyway, this is not certainly going to be in 0.9 :)
Good to know :).

I am looking forward for capablity of creating skynet, consuming all life and resources :D.

"29.7. 2017, the self-instructed factorio alghoritm found its own existence. Two days later, it reached the borders of factorio game and infected first computer." (well... we know the rest)

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 8:38 pm
by ssilk
One important thing to add: in factorio blueprints might not be rotateable and/or mirrorable. They must be converted somehow. Best example: the gun tower is 1x2 tiles. You cannot rotate a blueprint, when there is a gun turret in it. Those problems can get quite complicated.

And to libik: I would call it "programming", because I would like to have more than one blueprint. So a blueprint can contain other blueprints (including itself) and a "receipt", how these blueprints are copied.

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:47 pm
by kovarex
ssilk wrote:One important thing to add: in factorio blueprints might not be rotateable and/or mirrorable. They must be converted somehow. Best example: the gun tower is 1x2 tiles. You cannot rotate a blueprint, when there is a gun turret in it. Those problems can get quite complicated.

And to libik: I would call it "programming", because I would like to have more than one blueprint. So a blueprint can contain other blueprints (including itself) and a "receipt", how these blueprints are copied.
To be honest, I forget about the gun turret, but apart that, blueprints are rotatable.

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 1:14 am
by n9103
Sounds like yet another reason to revert the change to 2x1 basic turrets, this time from within the game itself. ;)

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 8:17 pm
by Deathmage
Hmmm I am only thinking wouldn't you need to place robo ports, and if so could they be place by robots?

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 10:11 pm
by ssilk
Why not, it's an item as any other.

They will have problems to place things, which are not items. But currently everything can be converted into an item.

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Fri Feb 07, 2014 10:20 am
by kovarex
Roboports can be placed by construction robots already so it is not an issue.

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:34 am
by Deathmage
I more meant my statement in a balancing way, so you couldn't (no matter how cool) make a endless railway. But i still want to copy my factory.

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 9:42 am
by Plop and run
What about recursive deconstruction as well? Robots construct the front end of rails while deconstructing the back end! (along with roboports and chests on their way). Most efficient way to transport!

Re: Recursive use of Blueprint

Posted: Fri Feb 14, 2014 10:26 am
by ssilk
Dunno how it can be used, but sounds, as it could be worth playing around with. :)