Include hidden tiles in blueprints

[mrvn]

TL;DR

Blueprints that include tiles do not include the terrain below stone paths making it impossible to place on water.

What ?

I suggest that tiles in a blueprint include the hidden tile below tiles like stone paths. When placing the blueprint any water tile will get a ghost of landfill of the right type (if possible, otherwise generic landfill). The landfill can the be build and placing the blueprint again will add path tiles.

Why ?

My rail system is made up of repeating cells. So I've made bleuprints of the cell including terrain tiles so that I can simply place them to extend my grid and any water that is in the way gets landfilled. Problem is that I also included rail crossings and streets in the blueprint. If any water is below the streets then they can't be placed and no landfill is placed either. So I'm left with water where streets are supposed to be and only there.

PS: It would be nice if waterfill could be included in blueprints too (optionally just around pumps).

[Lav]

Couldn't the same be achieved at placement time? Simply request landfill (possibly dependent on config option, blueprint option or modifier key) when placing anything over water?

[mrvn]

Not quite. Mods add different types of landfill. The Landfill painting mod adds landfill for all the terrain tiles of vanilla. So you can add a nice sand border around your rails and a grass border around your roads and other visual effects. You might also produce more of one type of landfill than another and want to use the most available type.

Picking a landfill at placement is also an option if no terrain tiles where included in the blueprint (at that spot) but that would be a different feature.

[4xel]

Not quite. Mods add different types of landfill. The Landfill painting mod adds landfill for all the terrain tiles of vanilla. So you can add a nice sand border around your rails and a grass border around your roads and other visual effects. You might also produce more of one type of landfill than another and want to use the most available type.

Picking a landfill at placement is also an option if no terrain tiles where included in the blueprint (at that spot) but that would be a different feature.

It feels like your suggestion presumes the landfill painting mods is already integrated, which is a debate for another topic.

If not, I'm pretty sure with mods you can already blueprint landfill and waterfill, I have seen a fully automated and expanding factory using waterfill (with recursive blueprint). I'm not sure how hard it would then be for modders/dev to integrate different landfills, but the option to use landfill through blueprints is great and I support you saying it should be base game.

[mrvn]

You can blueprint landfill. But not below stone paths. The blueprint only contains the stone path, not the landfill below that. The stone path tile hides the landfill in the map but unlike landfill it is not placeable on water.

[4xel]

^
Yeah, that's a bit weird, I guess it has to do with landfill encoded as a path tile.

Your suggestion is definitely how blueprint should work. I don't know how hard and useful it would be to implement though, as there is an easy workaround : blueprint landfill, then pavement.

[mrvn]

Then I need 2 blueprints for everything. And you can't just make a landfill blueprint from something you build. You have to make the normal blueprint, place it somewhere, remove all the paths, make a new blueprint without paths. So rather annoying.

[4xel]

Then I need 2 blueprints for everything. And you can't just make a landfill blueprint from something you build. You have to make the normal blueprint, place it somewhere, remove all the paths, make a new blueprint without paths. So rather annoying.

It won't necessarilly solve everything, or make things as they should be, but isn't it easy to duplicate a blueprint and remove a specific type of items from it? Using the BP library then editing one of the blueprints?

[mrvn]

Then I need 2 blueprints for everything. And you can't just make a landfill blueprint from something you build. You have to make the normal blueprint, place it somewhere, remove all the paths, make a new blueprint without paths. So rather annoying.

It won't necessarilly solve everything, or make things as they should be, but isn't it easy to duplicate a blueprint and remove a specific type of items from it? Using the BP library then editing one of the blueprints?

Yes, but that does not bring out the hidden tiles below paths. It makes the blueprint transparent in those places.