Self Replicating (e. g. with Blueprints)

[ssilk]

This is in general about factories, that automatically build themselves. And in special about how an automatic replication of a factory could work.

This is one of the Reasons, why Factorio exists!

Really.

One of the key posts is this: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2198#p16254 (Recursive use of Blueprint)
which points to a key post viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1393 How it all begun
which points to a post of Kovarex in the builtcraft forum.
Which is sadly not longer online (I searched a while around, maybe someone will find it?)
I doesn't matter much. All what that post basically said was: It was not possible with Minecraft and even without knowing that content, the point is: Yes! The devs want it, and it is one of the main motivations for Factorio.

What is it?

Self-recursive construction. The factory builts itself.
There are many ideas and aspects, but the (more or less) general consensus is, that an blueprint is placed automatically and the factory builds that new part and then the process repeats...

Along with this - if implemented more or less - it is an very interesting side-effect to have the ability to built very easily a computer AI. Something that is able to play with or against the player. In that case this feature is just very helpful for the AI-programmer, cause the handling of blueprints is then just an API-call; he just needs to say "Place blueprint X at Y and built it", instead of "place item X1 at Y1, place item X2 at Y2..."

Mods
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/DaveMcW/ ... blueprints
https://mods.factorio.com/mods/justarandomgeek/conman

Interesting/Related

viewtopic.php?f=80&t=18153 Information-Layers (for map and/or normal view)
viewtopic.php?f=80&t=19987 More Game Information (Statistics, Monitoring, Graphs)
Those two are needed to be able to automatically trigger the event of placing a blueprint, when some kind of "state" is reached on the map. Because it is questionable, if the current circuit network is able to "see" such things.


viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4682 Planning (Signs, Cloning, Ghosts, Blueprinting and more...)

Construction plan
This is a "program of blueprints", it includes the order, timing and many things which are needed to create self-reproducing factories. Very far, unkown future!

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1575 Thoughts about blueprints
I think that are some fundamental (but still valid) and/but quite scientific expressed thoughts about what are blueprints and how they should work. For example:

The blueprint is a fixed plan of how to set entities in a fixed area. Using a blueprint means automatically place planned entities. Fixed plan means: When you have it (created, loaded)... the blueprint itself cannot be changed. The blueprint is fixed, like an plan on paper. You need to plan it (place it on the map, see above), then planned stuff can be changed of course (remove entities, turn them, replace...).

It is still important, cause some thoughts of this seems to be implemented and some not. For example there are still many problems to mirror a blueprint. But mirroring is (in my opinion) needed for this topic, cause it would enable a lot of things.

Suggestions

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2631 Autoplacing of blueprints
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2198 Recursive use of Blueprint
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7406 Build Action Repeater
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8687 Multi-Stage Blueprints Installation
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=18329 A few small construction robot improvements
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21714 Blueprint-Tablet
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=21828 Blueprint extend
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=27048 Blueprint Projector added to roboport
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=30507 Constructing Inserter
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=32982 A Blueprint Printer - creating multi-purpose factories in a different way
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=38801 Automating Blueprint Placement
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=46630 Self-Replicating Mode (Thing ive wanted for a while)

viewtopic.php?f=80&t=27054 Self Replicating (e. g. with Blueprints)

[Toch]

I need this Is thery any progress in this way ? How about viewtopic.php?f=93&t=24053 does any of you interested in this idea using this ?

[ssilk]

I just did a quick look into it and it seems to be compatible with 0.13/0.14.
Try to add factorio-version to the info.json. No guarantees.

[Toch]

Oh yeah ! i finally figured out how it works and its amazing ! i started some pretty cool projects in self replicating factories. When ill get some decent results ill share the fun.

[alan2here]

Something I like about my approach from the list above, instead of it being a blueprints thing, particularly as it's such a late game feature, is how tricky it is, how you have to describe exactly how to self replicate, how local to different parts of the factory it is, instead of being god like placements, and how dealing with unexpected aspects of the environment becomes at most a "build a computer that can deal with computer vision like sensing problems" problem, but could be something potentially far more concise.









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However the blueprint approaches are nifty and make lots of sense in a world with flying robots that can already build things fully automatically from big designs. I think it makes a lot less sense thematically that blueprints cannot not be placed automatically. Also from a world-building perspective, there seems little in the way of building computational infrastructure, however I'm sure "server building" type suggestions have been done to death, and there might not be too much point to them if it's just "you need one in a factory" and that's it.

[Gergely]

We neeeed this in vanilla Factorio. Along with auto land fill.

[theDemolisher13]

Hello so is there a way here to duplicate a blueprint and make multiple copies of it without player interaction? And before someone says have you tried recursive blueprint mod the answer is yes and it builds everything but whatever is in a chest or item.

[Gergely]

Hello so is there a way here to duplicate a blueprint and make multiple copies of it without player interaction? And before someone says have you tried recursive blueprint mod the answer is yes and it builds everything but whatever is in a chest or item.

I see what you mean. Because of this, I can't build two dimensional recursion. Spiraling is still possible though.

[Toch]

Hello so is there a way here to duplicate a blueprint and make multiple copies of it without player interaction? And before someone says have you tried recursive blueprint mod the answer is yes and it builds everything but whatever is in a chest or item.

And have you tried recursive blue pritns after this update ?