[1.1.19] Blueprints are too easy to accidentally delete.

[Zavian]

Hi

Whilst reproducing viewtopic.php?p=534460#p534460 I managed to accidentally delete a blueprint from my blueprint library.

I started a new sandbox game and dragged a blueprint from my blueprint library to my toolbar. I then moved around the map to get closer to the edge of the charted area. I saved the game, then attempted to reproduce the bug.

Then I decided that I really ought to add the blueprint to the game blueprints, in an attempt to make sure that it would be included in the save. So I grabbed the blueprint and added it to the game blueprints, thinking that that would copy it. (That actually moves the blueprint, which even with my 4000 hours I didn't realise. That behaviour isn't intuitive, and to my mind isn't what most players performing that action would actually want).

I then reproduced the bug, then decided to make some screenshots for the bug report, and reloaded the save to repeat the reproduction.

After loading the save, the blueprint was gone. It was no longer in the blueprint library. It wasn't in the game blueprints since I had loaded a save made before I had moved it there. It also wasn't in the toolbar, since that is presumably just a reference to a blueprint that doesn't exist.

Ok. I had only just created that blueprint in another save. I still had a copy in the toolbar of that save. Nope. That copy was also gone. Luckily I still had the design on the map so it was easy to make a new copy of the blueprint.

I can't think of how many blueprints I must have accidentally removed from my blueprint library by grabbing them and moving them to the game blueprint section. Until today I had always assumed that would copy them, and make them available in both sections.

Mostly I don't reuse blueprints much, but design new (although often similar) builds most games. However for megabase scale games, I typically have a design save where I do the detailed design of production lines, and then copy the designs as blueprints to the blueprint library, and then open the megabase save and grab the blueprints and add them to the game blueprints where they are more convenient to access than searching through the blueprint library. So since I often don't reuse those blueprint in later saves, I never noticed that I had removed them from the blueprint library).

Since I'm guessing the code is working as designed, I believe that this is a design defect. Probably 90+% of the time when a player grabs a blueprint from their blueprint library and moves it to game blueprint (or vice versa) they are intending to copy it, and make it available in both places. I expect that only Only rarely would they be intending to remove it from their blueprint library and add it to game blueprints. They probably assume like I did that this sort of operation works the same as grabbing the blueprint and adding it to the quickbar, ie that it would be available in both areas.

I believe that this behaviour should be changed. It is much better to have the occasional unintended copy from someone who is attempting to move a blueprint from the blueprint library to the game blueprints (or vice versa), than to have what I believe to be the more common case of accidental (and probably unnoticed) deletes that will be gone permanently if the save game is deleted/overwritten. (An unintended copy is only an minor irritation, whilst the unnoticed a delete of a large and complex blueprint with over 20 hours of iteration is potentially rage inducing).

[Zavian]

So I filed this as a bug report, and someone moved this to ideas and suggestions. (I'm not sure who? A developer or a moderator?)

As I stated above I actually believe that is behaviour is a UI design defect, ie a bug.

[Loewchen]

That moving blueprints does not make a copy of them is intended and has been filed already. I thought you might be interested to have it as a suggestion, if not I can close it.

[NotRexButCaesar]

+1