Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Automatically reduce any amount of empty blueprints in your inventory to just one.

What ?

When having more than one empty blueprint in the inventory make them reduce to one blueprint automatically.

Currently:
After the change:

Why ?

Often times, when improvising medium to large building projects, i use the blueprints shortcuts to cut and align parts of said project, leaving me with an excess of one-time-used unnecessary blueprints.

Example:

The most effective way of deleting these blueprints is right-clicking one, then hovering to "Delete Blueprint", clicking, and moving onto the next one.
For 8 blueprints this makes 16 clicks, with hovering the mouse every time from central-left of the screen (Blueprints in inventory) to the central-top-right of the screen (Delete button).
This feels like a hassle.

Clearing blueprints on the other hand is incredibly easy (Default: Shift-Right mouse button), and takes one click and a button press, which is really easy to do (finger is already on the shift-button).

If the game would delete all empty blueprints but one, i could simply hold shift (one button press) and right-click on each blueprint one time (8 quick clicks, almost at the same position) and have my inventory cleared from all but one blueprint in no time.

Comparison between current mouse movement status and suggested mouse movement status to delete 8 blueprints:

With the introduction of the new hotbar at the bottom-right and a hotkey for putting empty blueprints directly in your hand, it shouldn't be necessary having more than one empty blueprint in the inventory.
I also can't find a reason to hoard empty blueprints in your inventory anyways, i don't "stock up" on empty blueprints, putting x amount of empty blueprints in my inventory in preparation of a building project.

Thank you!

This is a great idea. I would even go so far and suggest that the number of empty blueprints in the inventory should be 0. They can be grabbed at any time without cost. Having empty blueprints in the inventory is just a useless annoyance.

+1. I run into this problem when updating multiple blueprints to newer versions (e.g. optimizing rail system blueprints). It struck me as odd that blueprints are so hard to get rid of. If someone takes issue with the suggestion above, I think an alternative would be for Shift+Right Click to trash a blueprint if it is already empty.

Theikkru wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2019 9:34 pm +1. I run into this problem when updating multiple blueprints to newer versions (e.g. optimizing rail system blueprints). It struck me as odd that blueprints are so hard to get rid of. If someone takes issue with the suggestion above, I think an alternative would be for Shift+Right Click to trash a blueprint if it is already empty.

Chrisi wrote: ↑Sun May 05, 2019 8:42 pm This is a great idea. I would even go so far and suggest that the number of empty blueprints in the inventory should be 0. They can be grabbed at any time without cost. Having empty blueprints in the inventory is just a useless annoyance.

I like how you both think! A quick-delete-key or deleting all empty blueprint automatically, both ideas were also on my mind.
I don't know how many people use blueprints directly out of their inventory and i didn't want to interfere with their playstyle, but any of these ideas would be so damn good in reducing blueprint clutter, i love it.

+1 on deleting all empty blueprints from the inventory. They are truely pointless now.

With one exception. To update a blueprint you first have to clear it and then capture the content for it again. On clear the blueprint would disappear and you would have to get a new one.

So I would say that an empty blueprint should only disappear when the inventory is closed. A blueprint linked to the toolbar should never disappear. And a blueprint book probably doesn't need more than one empty blueprint. It might even always have one empty blueprint implicitly. Chests and trains should preserve blueprints.

mrvn wrote: ↑Mon May 06, 2019 12:33 pm +1 on deleting all empty blueprints from the inventory. They are truely pointless now.

With one exception. To update a blueprint you first have to clear it and then capture the content for it again. On clear the blueprint would disappear and you would have to get a new one.

So I would say that an empty blueprint should only disappear when the inventory is closed. A blueprint linked to the toolbar should never disappear. And a blueprint book probably doesn't need more than one empty blueprint. It might even always have one empty blueprint implicitly. Chests and trains should preserve blueprints.

So much great input!
I couldn't agree more with "A blueprint linked to the toolbar should never disappear.", i just had so much hassle with this.

I'm also in favor of "upon deletion, there shouldn't be an empty blueprint remaining". I think this is a remnant of the ancient times where new empty blueprints had to be crafted from resources.
Now, a blueprint is basically "free", it's more a concept than an actual item.
I'm confident that, with the planned rework of the BP book GUI, these inconstancies will be addressed.