Blueprint book

[Ratzap]

The blueprint book is a great enhancement. I think we can agree on that much.

However I feel the stock game needs to incorporate export/import of blueprints (via the book perhaps?). Blueprint string is fine and I have a nice library of designs I've built over the last year but with the advent of the blueprint book I think it's high time this function moved into the core game. Factorio has huge replay value but I'm really tiring of rebuilding from scratch every time to do the achievement runs when I have a library of designs I could use.

[Mr. Tact]

+1

[Xterminator]

Also agree that it would be a great feature to add to the base game. I'm no programmer but I don't believe it would be too difficult to do.

[factoriouzr]

I completely agree. I replayed this game probably around 100 times now and I am really sick of rebuilding the same designs every time (I have already experimented and found the designs I like).

This is still tolerable for some of the simpler designs, but the more complex ones and the trains are just a pain. I almost never use trains in this game because of how annoying it is to set them up. In particular, laying the track is annoying (this was fixed in the latest update with the way you can lay tracks automatically now and the elimination of the curved rail), doing the intersections over and over again every game is a pain (eg. straight track blueprint, circle blueprint, T junction etc), doing the loading and unloading for ores and resources is a pain, then doing a supply train loading and unloading is also just work and not fun because you can only load 12 types of items per wagon due to inserter to train wagon size restrictions and there not being logistics train wagon loaders and unloaders.

As such I almost never used trains before aside from trying them once or twice because they are a pain to set up. I would love to use them more, but they are just not worth the effort. In 0.13 I gave them a try again, and with the rail builder it's a lot better. I wouldn't even mind setting up the many varieties of loading and unloading stations for resources and supply trains for my outposts (roboports, walls, repair packs etc) once and tweak it from game to game if there was a way to easily transfer blueprints between games. Right now it's just work to set up train stations and manually set the same list of items one by one on requester chests and then set the filter inserter for every one. It's just boring (there should also be a way to copy and paste between logistic inserters, filter inserters and factories and requester chests. ie. you should be able to copy from a factory or requester chest onto a filter inserter or an inserter connected to the logistics network and it should set the filter to the item from the factory or first item from the requester chest, or first 4 items, and it should also set the good produced as the logistics filter).

I think we really need a way to import and export blueprint books and it would just save one file with the blueprint books name and then the import would let you pick what name you want to import into your current blueprint book. An automatic synchronization option would be even better (just put a checkmark on the blueprint book to automatically save all changes you make to the file and when you load your other games, to automatically import your changes from file for each of your blueprint books.

I also don't think crafting blueprints makes sense at all. We have phones, pda's and in game we have train guis that show all of our trains now, why are we using paper blueprints? How does paper blueprints make sense for robots? Do you show it to them and they scan it? Why isn't it digital? Ie. my point is that we should only have blueprint books (perhaps renamed) and you can put a blueprint in every slot without having to craft the blueprints first. ie. we just have blueprint books (renamed to something else) and no blueprints. Then you select a slot in the book and use it like a blueprint to scan and save a blueprint. Then you can make a blueprint slot active similar to how it's done now, and use the book to place the blueprint. Then when you import the blueprint book from a file, all the slots are filled in exactly as you exported them (this would simplify implementation of importing as you don't have to craft missing blueprints).

Quite honestly, I'm a bit dissapointed with the blueprint book. When they first talked about it in the Friday facts, I thought it would be a global list that you can save and search (kind of like recipies) and then you can load whichever you want into a blueprint item. The book is still a good addition but without import/export, blueprints in general are not as useful as I would like them to be between games.

[factoriouzr]

I also think this should be implemented in 0.13 as it's such a core and important feature and I don't think it would be too hard to do either, given that modders were able to make this work in crude ways because they don't have full control of the code and GUI.

[MrGrim]

How does paper blueprints make sense for robots?

I've always thought of them more like USB drives since they're made from circuits. I figure a drive made from circuit consisting of a chunk of iron and plastic with some copper wiring probably doesn't hold much data so each one can only hold one blueprint. The crude nature of the circuits also explains why you need a combinator a third the size of an assembly machine to do a single math calculation.

[factoriouzr]

How does paper blueprints make sense for robots?

I've always thought of them more like USB drives since they're made from circuits. I figure a drive made from circuit consisting of a chunk of iron and plastic with some copper wiring probably doesn't hold much data so each one can only hold one blueprint. The crude nature of the circuits also explains why you need a combinator a third the size of an assembly machine to do a single math calculation.

LOL that makes sense

[ssilk]

This is clearly a suggestion, so moved to Suggestions, but left a link in General.

[malecord]

How does paper blueprints make sense for robots?

I've always thought of them more like USB drives since they're made from circuits. I figure a drive made from circuit consisting of a chunk of iron and plastic with some copper wiring probably doesn't hold much data so each one can only hold one blueprint. The crude nature of the circuits also explains why you need a combinator a third the size of an assembly machine to do a single math calculation.

LOL that makes sense

True. But the fact remains that they introduced stuff like the remote train management (with features like camera image transmission) at a time when you don't even have red circuit yet. It can be that the protagonist is leveraging his own wearable advanced computer for that task. But this is stretching it.

Imho gameplay wise, there should be an additional requirement, an "advanced blueprint book", possibly requiring blue circuit, that allows you to intercept from the subspace the signal of the Galaxynet (galactic internet) and download blueprints from there (then ofc, galaxynet is infact Internet and you load/download stuff from your own personal gamedata on the cloud).