Make blueprints fully 'out-of-world' feature

[SupplyDepoo]

I feel like blueprints are in an awkward in-between spot right now - partially in-world items (like circuit wire), partially a tool / playing aid (like pipette). You can create and manage blueprints for free, but you can also still carry them in your inventory. But what is the point of them still being items? Inventory management is no longer an issue, since a single blueprint book can hold unlimited blueprints, and even if your inventory is 100% full you can just grab a blueprint/blueprint book from the library, use it, then immediately discard it. It's honestly more of an annoyance that the blueprints are automatically added to your inventory now. Having to open every blueprint and click the trash can icon after every use is just a mindless chore.

Another thing is that when I go to create a new blueprint, but change my mind and press 'Q', I now have an empty blueprint in my inventory, which I will have to trash or remember to use later (can't develop muscle memory like 'new blueprint --> B, LMB'). This makes sense and is unavoidable from a technical perspective because when you click on 'New Blueprint' it simply puts a blank blueprint under your cursor, which is an in-world item, so it should behave like other items when you press 'Q', but it results in a bad user experience.

The only reason for blueprints to still be items is so you can put them in your toolbelt. But this could be solved by just allowing you to somehow link toolbelt slots to a blueprint or blueprint book, or making a dedicated blueprint shortcut bar.

Another reason to keep blueprints as items I guess would be for mods that allow automatic blueprint placement (see GreyGoo, and Factorio Glider). With respect to that, maybe the best way to go is to make blueprints fully 'in-world' items again and rework the blueprint library (e.g. by adding a cost to creating & cloning blueprints), i.e. the exact opposite of this suggestion?

I think blueprint management should take a clear direction either way, instead of this half-n-half approach we have now.

[ssilk]

That are good thoughts, but it's not clear for me, what change you want to suggest.
Don't misunderstand me, for me it's more or less clear, what you want: I have my own ideas how to change that.
But I have no idea about what's yours.

[5thHorseman]

I can't speak for SupplyDepoo, but I know what I want:

I never ever want a blueprint in my inventory. They are not useful there as it's far easier to have them in the "B" gui screen, and they don't eat up inventory space.

I want to hit 'B', select a blueprint, place it in the world, it "1" or "e" or whatever to cancel blueprint placing, and have that blueprint not go into my inventory.

I want to hit 'B', select a blueprint book, scroll through it for the blueprint I want, and paste that in the world. Then scroll more and place another, etc as long as I need to, and then when I hit "1" or "e" or whatever, have that blueprint vanish and not go into my inventory.

I want to hit 'B', select a blank blueprint, highlight what I want to make, touch it up as we can do now, and when I hit "save" the blueprint should go into the blueprint store and not into my inventory.

[sparr]

It would be trivial to write a mod to auto-delete blueprints from your inventory.

Unfortunately we can't do that with books yet, because there's no way to scroll down in books in the blueprint window until you make them an inventory item

[aober93]

This is like windows8 classic desktop vs metro desktop. Not one nor the other, its both, and its shit

And i want to note, that the library is really cool. It doesnt randomly shuffle blueprints around, it has text to identify blueprints, its virtually unlimited in space and cost. Only thing is that to access you go to the top of the screen instead of bottom. Got to get used to that. SO dont take it awayy!

[Nemoricus]

I can't speak for SupplyDepoo, but I know what I want:

I never ever want a blueprint in my inventory. They are not useful there as it's far easier to have them in the "B" gui screen, and they don't eat up inventory space.

I want to hit 'B', select a blueprint, place it in the world, it "1" or "e" or whatever to cancel blueprint placing, and have that blueprint not go into my inventory.

I want to hit 'B', select a blueprint book, scroll through it for the blueprint I want, and paste that in the world. Then scroll more and place another, etc as long as I need to, and then when I hit "1" or "e" or whatever, have that blueprint vanish and not go into my inventory.

I want to hit 'B', select a blank blueprint, highlight what I want to make, touch it up as we can do now, and when I hit "save" the blueprint should go into the blueprint store and not into my inventory.

This captures how I'd like blueprints to work quite nicely.

[5thHorseman]

It would be trivial to write a mod to auto-delete blueprints from your inventory.

I assume it would be. I've never written a mod for Factorio but it seems very moddable based on the mod portal.

However, this is a suggestion for the stock game, not a mod request.

[sparr]

However, this is a suggestion for the stock game, not a mod request.

The devs here put a lot of weight on how popular a feature is in mods when deciding whether or not to add it to the base game.

[leoch]

I don't much like the blueprint book scroll-to-change mechanic.

I'd prefer to right-click a book, left-click a blueprint, and that blueprint immediately become the active one in the book and have the book in my cursor, not the blueprint. I don't want blueprints to constantly get removed like this!

[aober93]

It would be trivial to write a mod to auto-delete blueprints from your inventory.

Unfortunately we can't do that with books yet, because there's no way to scroll down in books in the blueprint window until you make them an inventory item

Depends on how you put it "trivial". It took me 2 hours ,but i have never done lua before.
I made a mod that automatically removes blueprints and books from your inventory. Youll have to manage them all from the library only. Primitive mod

viewtopic.php?f=92&t=46216&p=265471#p265471

[robyoublind]

I'll just repost my reply from a similar discussion in a dismissed bug report (ironically, adding a way to delete blueprints didn't do much to alleviate the issue, as it only increased the complexity of the design instead of treating the inventory/library clunkiness directly):

I don't think blueprints and books should appear in the inventory or even exist as items at all. If you can't craft them, they are obtainable with no cost, and aren't used anywhere as an intermediary, what's the point? Just treat the library as a special kind of inventory limited only to blueprints.

I don't think you should drag the remnants of the old design into the new system. Library GUI may require another optional layout/"zoom level" (like in the Windows Explorer) to remain usable at a large number of stored blueprints, but it should become the one and only way to manage blueprints. Even books feel obsolete now, a grouping concept (inventory-based) nested in another grouping concept (item-less list, akin to the Trains tab)? Feels redundant.

"There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it."

My suggestion, on top of removing blueprints as items altogether, is to replace books with collapsible sections/list groups in the Library GUI. Interactive example here. Multiple sections should be able to remain open, and one would be able to drag blueprints between sections. Clicking a "Load" button would put a section into the cursor, just like holding a book. One downside is that it goes against the current Factirio GUI design, but one way out could be to keep book-icons in the grid, but clicking them would expand the book contents directly inside the same Library list. I'll try to provide a mockup later.

And one-off uses can be covered with a new shortcut that would turn the cursor into a blank blueprint. After using it to copy-paste some structures, the blueprint can be manually added to the Library, otherwise it would disappear without trace after switching to another active item or pressing Q.

[SyncViews]

My suggestion, on top of removing blueprints as items altogether

I don't much like the blueprint book scroll-to-change mechanic.

I never ever want a blueprint in my inventory. They are not useful there as it's far easier to have them in the "B" gui screen, and they don't eat up inventory space.

Except it is useful (especially a couple of books with common stuff for tracks/outposts) to have them and the deconstruction planner in the toolbelt for faster access without popping up any windows (and so also the ability to cycle through a small book).One or two "temp blueprints" is also pretty useful for fast copy-pasting small stuff.

Them going into the actual main inventory though is a bit pointless and cluttering, that really does seem to lack a point, so maybe they can be put in the toolbelt explicitly, but never drop into normal inventory.

Deconstruction planner could maybe be replaced with its own dedicated thing with a hotkey, the item has always been fairly redundant since all it really does it put the "cursor" in a different mode.

[sparr]

I would accept blueprints in inventory exactly and only including filtered quickbar slots. If I filter 3 quickbar slots for blueprints, those three slots can fill up. All others should go away. I'm sending that as a feature request on the mod linked above.

[Claudius1729]

I agree with 5thHorseman's suggestion

Them going into the actual main inventory though is a bit pointless and cluttering, that really does seem to lack a point, so maybe they can be put in the toolbelt explicitly, but never drop into normal inventory.

I would be fine with that, but it seems this is something that could be solved with 1-5 slots of quick-keys that could be set up in the blueprints library rather than using precious toolbelt slots.

Edit: but then after some thinking, with 20 toolbelt slots, maybe using a few of them for blueprints would be fine.

[SyncViews]

I was thinking more in regards to hotkeys. To have a seperate belt you want another set of keys or to use a modifier key which is less convienient