Creating a "building factory"

[ElGaucho]

Hi everyone,

i currently am trying to start building my own mod. I am currently trying to build an assembly machine, that does not really output something, but instead builds another part of your base - completely automated. Just like this guy did using various mods via the blueprint deployer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF--1XdcOeM, which is nice, but has a lot of restrictions. Therefore, i thought it should be easily avoidable, by programming this stuff in factorio itself.

Basically, what i'm trying to achieve is a factory, that accepts a blueprint, then sets up the recipe for it automatically (e.g. if it has 200 streets on it, it needs 200 streets to be deployed) and uses this recipe. Is this even possible with the given entity types? I'm kinda familiar with LUA, but just need a helping hand where to start looking around. I've already setup an assembly machine that uses a recipe, but now i'm missing the ability to place a blueprint in the assembly machine (see screenshot - is something like this possible?) I mean, the rocket silo itself is kind of an assembly machine, and has as well an additional slot for the satelite. Nevertheless, i've seen that it has its own entity type "rocket silo"

[Ranakastrasz]

There is no way in game to make a recipe dynamically. While you can use script to generate recipes when the game loads, in the data files, you cannot do this as a response to an ingame event.

Best way I can think of to manage it is to use a custom chest. Put the blueprint in, put the components in, and ontick or on inventory change or something, delete the items and place the blueprints everything.

[ElGaucho]

Thanks for your reply!

Is there any possibility to restrict a chest in a way so that inserters and / or players can add only given items to it? E.g. like in a factory, you can only add the elements which are needed for the given recipe.

[Ranakastrasz]

Uhm..

Might be possible to base it on a Railcar, somehow get it to not stand on a rail, and set a filter. For some reason, inventories don't have filters by default. No idea why.