Electric network cable connections saved in the blueprint

[Case]

Hey mates.

Currently if you have a blueprint with power poles in it the connections for the copper cables are not saved within the blueprint. Could I suggest that they - well are saved as well (like the circuit wires). I know it is more of a visual feature but it drives me nuts when I turn on the power wires in the map and they are all over the place - sorry it is how it is I guess. Right now I place a blueprint and spend quite a time to remove and reset the power cables again. Also if you have a blueprint which makes disconnected electric networks it is better to build it by hand compared to use a blueprint.

Just a suggestion I can live without it, but maybe someone else has the same issue and you would have made two people happy

have fun
Case

[jarcionek]

+1

Would be nice to have it as an option (like tiles and modules), so when enabled, no wires would be placed automatically.

[Neovik]

yes i would also love it when Electric wires are saved in the blueprint and then build the same way as saved

it is totally annoying if you have one or several powerswitch to shut of parts of your plant in a blueprint, now you set up the blueprint, then wait till it is built up, come back again and correct the wires so that the powerswitches work
lately i often don't use the powerswitches any more , just build more nuclear plants as it is more easy

[impetus maximus]

yup need this. frustrating having to rewire something i have blueprinted.
even if you had to check [do not auto connect copper wires] or something like that.

[Zavian]

I've suggested how this could be implemented before.

For every pole (that is included in the blueprint) that is connected to another pole (that is included in the blueprint), save the connection as part of the blueprint.

When a blueprint is placed place ghost entities for every power pole. Place ghost wires for every connection that is a saved within the blueprint. Add ghost connection between power poles within the blueprint, and power poles outside the blueprint, using the same connection rules we have now (adjusting the logic, so it knows about the ghost connections, since those were saved within the blueprint, they should be restored). Also do this for old blueprints from before wires were saved. At this point we have finished creating ghost connections, and we should have ghost connections for all the wires that were in the blueprint, plus ghost connections between the blueprint and any nearby power poles that aren't part of the blueprint (both real poles, and ghost poles). Any removed wires between poles (where both poles were included in the blueprint) should have no ghost connections, and hence they will remain removed when the ghosts are revived.

When bots or players (or scripts like nanobots or bluebuild) revive a ghost power pole, check it's ghost connections, and revive any ghost wires to other poles that have already been placed.

Using this scheme blueprints should connect automatically to adjacent power poles just as they do now. A player who wants to create a blueprint that preserves the fact that wire between 2 poles has been removed needs to include both power poles as part of the blueprint. That should be natural if the removed wires is from the middle of the blueprint area. It's less natural if the removed wire is at the edge of a blueprint, but it is necessary if we want to preserve the current behaviour of blueprints automatically connecting to adjacent power.

[Tekky]

I know it is more of a visual feature but it drives me nuts when I turn on the power wires in the map and they are all over the place - sorry it is how it is I guess.

It also drives me nuts.

So, yes, I agree with your suggestion.

[Vegemeister]

+1

IMO any time a build is duplicated by blueprint and the result isn't identical to the original it should be considered a bug.

[<NO_NAME>]

yup need this. frustrating having to rewire something i have blueprinted.
even if you had to check [do not auto connect copper wires] or something like that.

This defeats the whole point of some blueprints, e.g. if they are too big and complex to manually fix them every time after placement.

[steinio]

This topic should also discuss ghosts of electric poles.
It's annoying, when the power switch gets bypassed after rebuilding a destroyed electric pole by robot.

[impetus maximus]

yup need this. frustrating having to rewire something i have blueprinted.
even if you had to check [do not auto connect copper wires] or something like that.

This defeats the whole point of some blueprints, e.g. if they are too big and complex to manually fix them every time after placement.

i meant to manually connect to the existing poles that are next to the blueprint you are laying.

[Neovik]

+1

IMO any time a build is duplicated by blueprint and the result isn't identical to the original it should be considered a bug.

I think so too that it is a bug, so should i open a bugreport ?
Is there a chance it will be fixed ?

[AlienRaven]

TL;DR

Remember electrical wires positions when making a blueprint, so when blueprint is used wires will be built in the same order as in the original.

What ?

Currently when you make a blueprint. it only remembers the position of the poles inside the area. While robots movement can be chaotic, depending on where the character of roboport is located and the distance to the structure they are building it results in a electrical wires being randomly attached to each other in each next iteration of blueprint pasting.

I realize that it is done for the sake of speed and size of the blueprint, however i'd like to suggest an option to remember exact connections of electrical wires and replicating them in building structure, the same way circuit network wires are placed.

Why ?

When you get the circuit network known and used in the designs - you start to build structures that are optimized for something. For example. in my runs I try to build a UPS- and power-efficient base, where smelters would only get electricity when they have something to smelt (train is at the station) and output station is not full with the products of smelting. While trying to beacon smelters as much as possible and use as less beacons as possible my designs usually result in lanes, where beacons are shared between several lanes. Example:

Fact_a_001.jpg (238.71 KiB) Viewed 11814 times

It works great, but it requires that electrical wires should be aligned vertically and not share lanes (due to power switches at the begining of the lane). Pasting such reciepe will results in a wire mess like this:

Fact_a_002.jpg (83.6 KiB) Viewed 11814 times

while to work properly it should be adjusted like this:

Fact_a_003.jpg (118.55 KiB) Viewed 11814 times

Which results in the need to run and manually deattach all wires and then manually attach them in the right order. The process is very monotone and not fun, so I though that maybe devs can help me automate it.

I know that this is an issue that players who dont really use circuit network wont ever encounter. For such players, however, it might be useful, in case they care about aesthetics of how electric network looks on the map, so they would see adjusted pattern over map instead of chaotic wires connections.

I hope that the description and suggestion will make sense to you and thanks in advance!

[McDuff]

+1

[Zavian]

Similar things have been suggested before. eg viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47949 where I reposted my suggested fix.

For every pole (that is included in the blueprint) that is connected to another pole (that is included in the blueprint), save the connection as part of the blueprint.

When a blueprint is placed place ghost entities for every power pole. Place ghost wires for every connection that is a saved within the blueprint. Add ghost connection between power poles within the blueprint, and power poles outside the blueprint, using the same connection rules we have now (adjusting the logic, so it knows about the ghost connections, since those were saved within the blueprint, they should be restored). Also do this for old blueprints from before wires were saved. At this point we have finished creating ghost connections, and we should have ghost connections for all the wires that were in the blueprint, plus ghost connections between the blueprint and any nearby power poles that aren't part of the blueprint (both real poles, and ghost poles). Any removed wires between poles (where both poles were included in the blueprint) should have no ghost connections, and hence they will remain removed when the ghosts are revived.

When bots or players (or scripts like nanobots or bluebuild) revive a ghost power pole, check it's ghost connections, and revive any ghost wires to other poles that have already been placed.

Using this scheme blueprints should connect automatically to adjacent power poles just as they do now. A player who wants to create a blueprint that preserves the fact that wire between 2 poles has been removed needs to include both power poles as part of the blueprint. That should be natural if the removed wires is from the middle of the blueprint area. It's less natural if the removed wire is at the edge of a blueprint, but it is necessary if we want to preserve the current behaviour of blueprints automatically connecting to adjacent power.

[AlienRaven]

Similar things have been suggested before.

Thanks for sharing this. I guess, that's good that I'm not the only person, who would like this as a feature. However, I hope that in my post I've provided slightly more reason why it is worth looking in, as in topic you linked the arumentation was just about cosmetics and such argument probably would not give devs any sence of importance

[impetus maximus]

47949

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged newer topic into older same suggestion topic

[MeduSalem]

+1


Though I remember that the devs once commented somewhere that it would be rather ugly to implement into blueprints, hence why they haven't done it yet.

[impetus maximus]

+1


Though I remember that the devs once commented somewhere that it would be rather ugly to implement into blueprints, hence why they haven't done it yet.

i'll take ugly over broken.

[MeduSalem]

i'll take ugly over broken.

I have to agree on that.

Also the mechanic must be already there otherwise circuit connections wouldn't work in blueprints.