Factorio Forums

I would love to edit blueprints directly. Often I make a tiny error and I have to paste the blueprint somewhere and make changes. I know you can remove items from a blueprint already, but I would like to be able to add items.

It would be nice if you had a remote view version of a blueprint ... so you can have the abilities you have in remote view, but in the blueprint window. So if I want to add a piece of pipe or a foundry, I can paste it directly in the blueprint. Also it would be nice to have zoom in/out ability which will help with larger blueprints.

Thanks for all the good work!

I would love some kind of in-game editor now that remote view is a thing. I've always found Factorio to have a big problem with incentivizing the player to close their game and open a sandbox save any time they want to design something new, which doesn't work in multiplayer and is a poor play experience besides.

nzer wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2024 7:58 pm I would love some kind of in-game editor now that remote view is a thing. I've always found Factorio to have a big problem with incentivizing the player to close their game and open a sandbox save any time they want to design something new, which doesn't work in multiplayer and is a poor play experience besides.

yeah, it would definitely help in multiplayer

Agreed. That would be an amazing thing to have, without it the blueprinting system feels clunky to use without mods. Having to look for in-world space outside of the roboport grid but inside the radar range to edit a blueprint definitely isn't the best experience. Same for working with big blueprints without zoom.

LCStark wrote: Fri Nov 22, 2024 8:56 pm edit a blueprint definitely isn't the best experience. Same for working with big blueprints without zoom.

Ugh, big blueprints are nearly unusable, because you can't see if they're right or wrong without placing a copy of them. (I basically always encounter this, when trying to get an idea from a shared blueprint. If it's big enough, I can't really see what it's doing without at least ghost-placing it.) I suuuper want a blueprint editor, where I can just move around and zoom in and out, and place and remove items, basically like I'm right there beside the items.

Have you tried this mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/EditorExtensions?
it is however a bit annoying to switch between the real world and the "lab" one.
I suggest having an edit blueprint button that adds a new surface for the blueprint in remote view so you can play with it and switch back and forth to the real world.

+1 from me.

I want to some other suggestions that are not as nice as a full-blown editing mechanism but would go in the same direction and are probably easier to implement:

1. EDIT: This one is unnecessary. It is already possible by left clicking on the removed entity. Was: It would be nice, if you can implement an "undo" button. Currently, when adding a blueprint, I copy the structure from the map into my quickbar as a blueprint, open it, and remove all unnecessary parts. If the blueprint is big and I have to remove a lot, I need to right-click on every part which is a big potential for mistakes. And if I do a mistake, I have to start from the beginning. An "undo" button that re-adds the last deletion would be helpful here.
2. It would be nice, if you can add some way of mass removing for blueprints (like applying a destruction planner), so you don't have to click on every part that should be removed (or place it somewhere in an robot-empty but visible area, remove the parts, and copy it back).
3. It would be nice to be able to apply an upgrade planner to parts of the blueprint and not the whole one.
4. It would be nice to have an abbility to place the blueprint somewhere while keeping the parametrization intact. This way, it is possible to fully edit it without redoing the parametrization ever and ever again (especially when finding a bug in the blueprint).

Additionally, these topics go into the same direction than this one:
viewtopic.php?p=635827
viewtopic.php?t=50130

bodobram wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 1:36 am [*] It would be nice, if you can add some way of mass removing for blueprints (like applying a destruction planner), so you don't have to click on every part that should be removed (or place it somewhere in an robot-empty but visible area, remove the parts, and copy it back).
[*] It would be nice to be able to apply an upgrade planner to parts of the blueprint and not the whole one.

Yeah, it would be nice to apply planners like you can do in-world or through the remote view. Manual clicking is good to remove an item or two, right-clicking in the Components list is nice to remove everything of a type, but it would be good to be able to modify only parts of the blueprint.

bodobram wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 1:36 am [*] It would be nice to have an abbility to place the blueprint somewhere while keeping the parametrization intact. This way, it is possible to fully edit it without redoing the parametrization ever and ever again (especially when finding a bug in the blueprint).

The way I do it is to place the blueprint in the world and instead of putting a specific signal for each parameter, I set them to their parameter signal (i.e. instead of selecting a recipe signal I select the "parameter 0" signal). They get placed in the world, I can modify what I need, then I just do "select new contents for the blueprint" and everything seems to work fine. Though I hope we get better editing within blueprints so that sort of workaround isn't needed.

I run a second copy of Factorio, from the ZIP Standalone, using a second (or fourth) monitor. I switch between Editor mode or “playing the game” as needed. Blueprints strings can be Copy-Pasted easily enough between Windows.

It may not be a perfect solution, but it works and doesn’t require any Mods!