Electric network cable connections saved in the blueprint

[LazyDev]

As the title suggests, why doesn't the copper wire have the same behavior as the red and green wires? Here's an example,

20180504150642_1.jpg (979.25 KiB) Viewed 7973 times

This is how it should have been laid out.

20180504150757_1.jpg (976.17 KiB) Viewed 7973 times

Not sure if I should create a separate bug report, but as seen on the image above, the wires get so thin that they're no longer visible at the top.

[Hedning1390]

Red and green wires aren't automatically attached. Copper wire is. There's a very good reason for this. If red and green was automatic you would often create a huge mess getting signals all tangled together. On the other hand if copper wire wasn't automatic it would get very tedious getting power anywhere.

[<NO_NAME>]

Red and green wires aren't automatically attached. Copper wire is. There's a very good reason for this. If red and green was automatic you would often create a huge mess getting signals all tangled together. On the other hand if copper wire wasn't automatic it would get very tedious getting power anywhere.

This doesn't mean that game can't save information which poles was connected by wire. Poles from outside the blueprint could still automatically connect.

[LazyDev]

The whole point of the suggestion is for that power (Or copper) wires must follow blueprint rules, regardless of what connections go where. Currently, this not so, and using blueprints makes a rats nest when it comes to copper wire infrastructure. This is annoying when you build a factory that you want kept clean and organized. It's also annoying for people, like me, that like a clean and tidy wire setup

[Hedning1390]

Copper wire is automatically connected once the power pole is placed. It doesn't matter if it is placed by a player or a bot. There is no such automatic placement when it comes to green and red wire. Blueprints are basically just a way to place ghosts. If I place power poles using my construction bots (shift clicking to place ghost) I want them to connect like normal.

For this suggestion to make any sense there has to be a difference between ghosts placed by blueprints and ghosts placed by shift clicking. However there's still problems. I want my blueprints to connect automatically too. Many blueprints are designed to be placed next to each other, eg rail blueprints. I don't want them on isolated power grids. I want them to connect. Sometimes I don't have the item in my inventory, so I can't place a ghost except by blueprinting. I want to be able to create ghosts of power poles this way too and still have them connect automatically when the bot places them.

[<NO_NAME>]

Copper wire is automatically connected once the power pole is placed. It doesn't matter if it is placed by a player or a bot. There is no such automatic placement when it comes to green and red wire. Blueprints are basically just a way to place ghosts. If I place power poles using my construction bots (shift clicking to place ghost) I want them to connect like normal.

For this suggestion to make any sense there has to be a difference between ghosts placed by blueprints and ghosts placed by shift clicking.

They are already different. They have memory of placement of red/green wires, circuit network setting, inserted modules...

However there's still problems. I want my blueprints to connect automatically too. Many blueprints are designed to be placed next to each other, eg rail blueprints. I don't want them on isolated power grids. I want them to connect. Sometimes I don't have the item in my inventory, so I can't place a ghost except by blueprinting. I want to be able to create ghosts of power poles this way too and still have them connect automatically when the bot places them.

They could auto-connect with poles that are not part of the same blueprint. Or even better - auto-connection could be an option that you can set for each blueprint.

[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 saved within the blueprint. Add ghost connections 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 wire 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.

[Deadlock989]

The whole point of the suggestion is for that power (Or copper) wires must follow blueprint rules, regardless of what connections go where. Currently, this not so, and using blueprints makes a rats nest when it comes to copper wire infrastructure. This is annoying when you build a factory that you want kept clean and organized. It's also annoying for people, like me, that like a clean and tidy wire setup

+1. It makes sense and would stop people having to resort to heroic measures like this: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/power-grid-comb

In 0.16.0, power switches got the ability to retain their copper wire connections in their blueprinted ghosts. Before that, they lost connections when blueprinted. The same would ideally be true for power poles. It doesn't make sense to me that I can manually edit the copper connections on power poles, blueprint them, then get something totally different when I rebuild the blueprint.

[Hedning1390]

They are already different. They have memory of placement of red/green wires, circuit network setting, inserted modules...

That's not being different. Blueprints are only different in the way they can place several things simultaneously. The only reason you can't place a ghost of a beacon with modules in it using shift click is because you can't hold a beacon with modules in it. The same is true for combinators and everything else you mentioned. If you could hold a combinator with settings intact the shift click would create a ghost of it with the settings applied. Once placed a blueprint ghost is exactly the same as a shift clicked ghost. There's no code in it telling the bots that it came from a blueprint or where the borders of that left click of that blueprint was.

If they can change this without wasting too much time then sure, it's an improvement to have the choice between auto-connecting and not auto-connecting.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged newer topic into older same suggestion topic

[Kilitar]

+1

[LastDawn]

Push... Still waiting for copper wires to be included in blueprints...

[ssilk]

I remember the last time the behavior of wires had changed: Devs tried to implement this suggestion (more or less). I think two or three years ago.
After some weeks Kovarex removed this behavior with the reason, that rises up a bunch of other bugs and reimplemented the current behavior.

So as I know the devs, I'm nearly sure this was the last word about it and I think this suggestion will never come.

I would suggest instead another behavior: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=70996

[ozfoxaroo]

+1 vote

I've just been directed to this thread after asking about whether or not blueprints are currently capable of recording copper wire arrangements.

I believe this should DEFINITELY be added as a feature. If the concern is over blueprints becoming "ugly" (as described earlier in the thread) then there should be an option to include/exclude the copper wire connections, same as is now already done with tiles.

[Rseding91]

This isn't going to happen. It simply doesn't work as anyone imagines it would. If a blueprint saved the connections when it was created when you built it, it would literally never connect to your existing network(s) because it was not connected to any of them when it was created.

Additionally we don't save that information anywhere in the game and are not going to be adding it in that a given connection was manually created/removed.

[<NO_NAME>]

This isn't going to happen. It simply doesn't work as anyone imagines it would. If a blueprint saved the connections when it was created when you built it, it would literally never connect to your existing network(s) because it was not connected to any of them when it was created.

The idea is that only connections between entities that are on the blueprint are saved. It is still allowed to automatically connect the blueprinted power poles to any entity that existed before the blueprint was placed.

Although, the behavior you described would also be useful, at the condition it would be optional. It would be great for blueprints that are meant as interfaces linking separated electric networks.
For example I have a blueprint that turns off the power for mining drills when there is a shortage in the network and every time I place it, I have to manually remove all the incorrect wires that connect it haphazardly with random other things.

[BlueTemplar]

Would it be *that* problematic to introduce a "golden(?) wire" that conducts power, does not auto-attach and is remembered by the game on one hand,
and on the other a "golden... ball(?)" that is attached too to the top of a power pole and prevents copper wires to auto-attach to that pole ?

[Sophisticaited]

+1

A simple halfway measure IMO:
-if a power pole has any red or green wire
then when saving to a blueprint, the connection state of ALL wires are saved (not only the red and green)

At least then you could turn off the automatic power connection for a power pole in your blueprint by making sure it had a red or green wire attached.

[Aves]

Hi,
Blueprints respect the placement of red and green signal wires, but the ordinary copper cables that distribute power still seem to be automatically connected as the poles are placed. I have templates where separation of actual power networks is intended, and every time I auto build them I have to take some copper wire and manually tidy up all the connections.
I'd love to see templates remember specific connections; and if that would bloat templates, perhaps make it optional much as including train stop names and ground tiles is?
Thoughts?

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older topic with same suggestion.