Factorio Forums

TL;DR

New hotkey / UI element to quickly create a clipboard/temporary blueprint for ghosting down a machine with the recipe already set, directly from the crafting menu, skipping the step of placing the machine and searching for the recipe in it [again].

What ?

Instead of:

• Searching for the recipe in the crafting menu
• Finding the appropriate crafting machine in the "Made in" list (for the current level of tech, or the current placement tile-restriction)

  

  Recipe.png (120.89 KiB) Viewed 2166 times

• Selecting/placing the machine
• Opening the machine's UI and searching for the recipe a second time

  

  Machine.png (617.55 KiB) Viewed 2166 times

It would be much simpler to:

• Search once for the recipe
• Modified-click on the recipe and receive a blueprint of (or selection box for, if more than one possible) the machine for that recipe with the recipe already set

  

  Blueprint.png (54.59 KiB) Viewed 2166 times

Possibilities include: Ctrl-Alt-Click or Ctrl-Shift-Click on a recipe icon.

Why ?

Especially in modded content, but even in the base game, there are two hurdles when setting up a recipe for the first time (when no machine exists to Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V from elsewhere).

• You must know which machine to select the recipe in. With some modded content, this is non-trivial, and adds a search (and sometimes evaluation based on tech level and machine availability) step for every recipe in a complex production chain.
• The machine must exist for the recipe UI to be available. Ghost entities have no interactivity.

These two hurdles would be removed if there were a way to proceed directly from the recipe (crafting UI) to a blueprint of the desired machine with the recipe already set. It would condense the entire process down to selecting the recipe first, and then picking an appropriate machine (aided by the recent addition of filtering the UI to only show unlocked filters (machines, in this case)) when necessary.

How should that work, if this item can be produced in some entities? For example the three levels of assembly machines.

You'd have AM1, AM2 ans AM3 in the list to pick from, and you'd just have to pick the one you want.

ssilk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:58 pm How should that work, if this item can be produced in some entities? For example the three levels of assembly machines.

It could make a blueprint book that lets you cycle through the machine options if there are multiple.

Earendel wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 9:59 pm

ssilk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 24, 2020 8:58 pm How should that work, if this item can be produced in some entities? For example the three levels of assembly machines.

It could make a blueprint book that lets you cycle through the machine options if there are multiple.

Oh, nice. That's a built-in UI without additional considerations (localization) and much simpler than anything I had considered. Granted the hotkey settings menu entry would still require it. Okay, I guess this is definitely not a 1.0 feature possibility.

Even so...

It would then be ideal for the active blueprint within the book to default to the highest available (unlocked) tier of machine, and if the player has researched but not begun production of that machine they can generally scroll once to return to the previous tier.

It would also be easy to make such a blueprint book temporary.