Parameters for blueprints

[TheUnknown007]

Note: I have seen this suggestion floating around here and there, but never in a dedicated thread. Since I think this would be very useful, I want it to have its own thread. So this will be the dedicated thread.
TL;DR: add parameters to blueprints, so that it is possible to slightly tweak a blueprint without having multiple copies.

Background: I have a blueprint for unloading trains:

Image

Blueprint for loading green circuits in trains

blueprintTrainLoading.PNG (1.8 MiB) Viewed 1109 times

This blueprint is for loading green circuits. When I want to load something else (like iron), I place this blueprint, let the bots build it, and then switch the circuits everywhere (in this case, once in the combinator, and twice in one of the inserters, which is then copied over with SHIFT + right / left click). This is relatively a lot of work, and takes a lot of time, since I have to wait before the bots built it. It also would be much more work if I couldn't copy paste the inserters (example: a blueprint for loading multiple items at different inserters. That would require configuring each set of inserters individually)

Proposal: when in edit mode, select certain condition squares to have them as argument, which appears somewhere in the edit blueprint window. This parameter can now be changed on this one square in the window, and it will change it everywhere where it was selected.

This requires a possibility to see the conditions for an object in the blueprint. If you add that, please also make the conditions individually changeable in the blueprint. And maybe make the conditions copy-able with SHIFT + right / left click.

[ssilk]

Hm. I mean the idea lays on hand and it has a high game value, but the thought comes from "traditional" games (games, where you cannot influence the game-logic). So I want to point to an alternative to this:

Instead of changing all the inserters after it is built, you can change one constant combinator. This constant combinator provides the values, that changes with each blueprint.

I need to explain: The inserters are connected with a circuit network, right. So, instead of using some signal like "iron < 1000", you can use also a virtual signal like "A > 0". The task is then to create some circuit, that calculates what formerly was calculated in all the inserters separately and outputs a signal "A = 1", if the inserters should work and "A = 0" if not.

My opinion is, that this is much more organic and is also much more flexible, cause if you need to change the values, you need just to change the value(s) in the constant combinator (*) and do not need to reprogram all the inserters.

And the best is: This is already possible. So I played around with the thought to move this to "implemented", but before that I want to hear other opinions, cause what I said here is probably not the same as suggested.


(*) It would be useful, if we could have notes (for blueprints, for combinators ....), to explain, what each value means.

[TheUnknown007]

After much thinking and some trying, I have concluded that this is indeed possible. But the implementation is quite messy (it requires at least 1 combinator near each inserter, and then another 10 combinators for the actual logic, which is quite a lot for a single station)

As you noted, notes would be really useful (in general). A workaround would be to use a blueprint with the note as its name (and put it in a chest near the constant combinator), but that wouldn't copy over on other blueprints.

I also found out that the one thing I am missing with combinators is the possibility to filter a certain item type from the network.
Example: I have a chest containing some items and a circuit signal for an item X. How can I find out what the number of items of type X is? (example: iron. How can I know how much iron is in that chest when I cannot "hardcode" iron in any of the combinators?).
This is a problem that could kinda be solved with parameters on blueprints: it is hardcoded, but each time when you build the blueprint you can choose beforehand with a single click, instead of having to switch it over manually in all the combinators where it should be hardcoded.

[ssilk]

Ahh. That goes parallel to my thoughts. I came to the conclusion, that we need some kind of "controller network". An own network - working with the same borders as the logistic network - that only transfers the meta information needed to make such things.
But I admit, from here on I don't know exactly how to handle this. My idea was, that I send the signals on the control network inverted - I send "-10000 iron". In the inserters, that handles the iron both signals (logistic network and control network) are added. And the rule in the inserter is then simply "run if iron < 0".

See viewtopic.php?f=6&t=28302&p=179760&hilit=Lrlr#p179760

I mean that would work like a charm, but we need a second network, that works like the logistic network, but contains only signals, that the player controls. More or less a radio based circuit network. And we need devices, that can convert circuit signals into radio signals (routers between networks).