Blueprint Book is not enough for me

[ssilk]

TL;DR

I want something, which give me much more control over blueprint, destructors, upgrade-planner (etc.) and a way to build with them more automatically.

What ?

This is inspired by https://mods.factorio.com/mod/recursive-blueprints

This is the future of factorio: Automate everything, make yourself as player just watch how clever you are.

I want something, that gives me the power to place for example:
- a destructor over the are of the next blueprint and removes stones and trees first, then waits some time (until all enough is cleaned up) and then place the blueprint
- Filters over the blueprint, that enables me to place only power poles and roboports first, then the rest
- Some kind of Filter: Are there resources in this area? If yes, then place BP, if not go to the next step in program
- A blueprint, that is able to copy/paste, while rotating and flipping
- Blueprint placement in loops (build walls)
And so on.

My idea is that you can put in any blueprint, destructor, update-planner and then you can "program" with very basic commands like "IF" and then you need to insert coordinates (that are displayed live on map) and depending on that result you can step to the next entry or jump to another.

Possible commands (sorry I won't explain it further, let your phantasy run):
- ZEROPOINT: sets the zero-point for all following areas, is either current position or absolute or depends on first entity that an area-filter can find
- PLACE: area, blueprint/destructor/upgrade-planner/cancel bp or destruct, rotation, flip (this means you can place also only parts of an existing blueprint)
- IF: area, filter, circuit-condition, jump to positive command, jump to negative command
- WAIT: time in ticks or seconds
- WAITUNTIL: area, filter, circuit-condition
- REPLICATE: blueprint or -book/destructor/upgrade-planner, position where this copy should be put into
- COPY: source-area, destination, rotation, flip, blueprint-options (copy station names etc.)
- LOOP: from, to, step, start of loop program, end of loop-program (the first command then should be ZEROPOINT-command)
- IFCIRCUIT: (works only when this is placed as entity and connected to a circuit) circuit-condition, jump to positive command, jump to negative command
- CREATE: position, entity, orientation (creates ghost)
- DESTRUCT: position (marks for destruction)
- KILL: position, weapon - destroys (only own) entity at that position with currently best amuntion as long as the entity is destroyed, good for automated destruction instead of shooting or for forest cleanup (fire)

Just a bunch more ideas in backlog, but enough for now.

What else?

To make this tool efficient we need a much better blueprint-editor than yet. It should be able to handle some of the needed features like selecting a part of a blueprint area, rotate, and flip (with some exceptions for rails and chemicals).

Why ?

The way to the fully automated and intelligently replicating factory needs better tools.

[conn11]

+1 blueprints are such an important gameplay element and at least for me replacing single entity placement to a high degree. The possibility of a simple programmable deconstruction/ bp-chain could put much more emphasis on design in outposting, rather than more or less manually repeating the process n amount.
Also a blueprint should be much more configurable, like the ability to place new structures, place modules, to further distinguish it from the copy and paste shortcut and of course , minimizing tediousness for minor changes.

[Mgis09]

+1
And I found myself in need for a blueprint diff tool.

[MisterFister]

I WOULD like the ability to edit within a blueprint if I find an error. I can't tell you how long I've been using my book of early game blueprints (bootstrap, burner-drill placement, initial smelts, etc.) that have a duplicated small pole, a wrongly rotated inserter, etc. because I always procrastinate fixing it.

Because fixing it means finding the time, either live in the game itself, or by moving over to a Creative Mod testing map, that I have to stamp the flawed print, fix the change, re-blueprint it, name and icon the blueprint, carefully take the safety precaution of placing the corrected blueprint into a steel chest so that I don't accidentally delete it instead of deleting the old defective blueprint, delete the defective blueprint from my inventory and from my master bluebook library, then retrieve the corrected blueprint, place it in the appropriate new book, rename the book and include that day's date so that I can track versions and updates that I make, and then deposit the corrected version in my permanent library. I wait until I have like 4 or 5 bp's to rekerjigger just because I can't manipulate the blueprint the way I want to.

I know there's a mod that allows for some sort of "research planner" structure that presents the equivalent of a factorissimo floor, but it's for purposes of science production or something. I like the idea that we can create a blueprint creative-mode environment, maybe with the checkerboard floor pattern we all recognize. It would render Creative Mod test saves to be almost entirely obsolete, or at least it would for singleplayer. I imagine outside game time is paused, and inside, it's creative mode where everything is free to craft and place, I can create fluid voids and passive power voids, etc. And it would simply save the changes, upon exit, to modify the blueprint with a versioning scheme embedded into the BP name, so that if you made mistakes you still didn't delete the original baseline.

Or at LEAST the ability to zoom and scroll on a blueprint! When you need to delete one stray rail tile or lamp or power pole, or maybe a dozen landfill tiles, and it's a huge bp so you have to squint and hope you're clicking in the right spot.

I think that my ideas here might make your ideas unnecessary, OP. But I support your ideas too, if mine are too wonky. +1

[Pi-C]

Or at LEAST the ability to zoom and scroll on a blueprint!

I would immensely appreciate such a feature! Generally my blueprints are small enough not to bother about zooming, then again, if I do blueprint a bigger area (e.g. complete train station, branches off the main bus all the way down to the actual assembly line …) I have a hard time distinguishing the details because everything looks so tiny. Zooming/scrolling should be much easier on the eyes.

[planetmaker]

Zooming/scrolling should be much easier on the eyes.

Oh, that would be totally awesome. It would also come in handy when actually *creating* a blueprint and when it comes to removing single items which don't belong there. For large blueprints, it's really tedious to click on a single inserter or power pole when it has the size of a few pixels only - and you never know whether you didn't disable accidentially another item in the process as well as the transparency is not clear enough at tiny scale.

[MisterFister]

Zooming/scrolling should be much easier on the eyes.

Oh, that would be totally awesome. It would also come in handy when actually *creating* a blueprint and when it comes to removing single items which don't belong there. For large blueprints, it's really tedious to click on a single inserter or power pole when it has the size of a few pixels only - and you never know whether you didn't disable accidentially another item in the process as well as the transparency is not clear enough at tiny scale.

Agreed. That's when it becomes necessary to sigh in exasperation, stamp the existing blueprint at a blank-slate location, and then correct the arrangements that was at full scale. Then delete the flawed print and make a new one once revisions are complete.

[jamiechi1]

I WOULD like the ability to edit within a blueprint if I find an error. ...

I really like this idea. It would eliminate the need to move the blueprint to my storage area. Plop it down. Change stuff. Make a new blueprint. Place the new blueprint in the blueprint storage area. And then delete the old blueprint. A very tedious and error prone process.

[MisterFister]

I WOULD like the ability to edit within a blueprint if I find an error. ...

I really like this idea. It would eliminate the need to move the blueprint to my storage area. Plop it down. Change stuff. Make a new blueprint. Place the new blueprint in the blueprint storage area. And then delete the old blueprint. A very tedious and error prone process.

I like the idea of being able to list or hide certain bp's / bp books, so that I can save multiple iterations or revisions over time without cluttering my display. On that note, maybe allowing for some display schema that's not thumbnail-only with truncated names underneath.

And this is waxing afield from what I suspect this forum section is designed for, but why is it so difficult to blueprint landfill? It's not intuitive. Why can we not just have the controls set up so that clicking stamps the ghost if unobstructed; shift-click force-overrides obstacles like rock / tree / cliff; and maybe a ctrl-click, or a ctrl-shift-click would automatically be understood by the game as "automatically apply landfill to any water tile otherwise implicated in this blueprint, whether or not the blueprint original had been designed and snapshotted on landfill at the time of original creation of the blueprint."

Maybe with a toggle for player preferences. "Minimal," which means only those exact, specific, individual single tiles that are absolutely minimally required for all structures and entities of this blueprint to be laid -- this would cater either to early-game builds where landfill inventories are low and the material must be used sparingly, OR for deathworlds with high biter aggression, and every possible water tile must be preserved in order to reduce attackable surface area for biters to chew on. "Tight," which means that those minimal landfill tiles above, with a 1-tile-radius or a 2-tile-radius of landfill around every minimal-landfill tile -- slight landfill coverage, presumably to be mostly for aesthetic purposes or some other elective / non-vital conern. And "loose" with maybe 3, 4, or 5 tile radiuses aesthetically landfilled, theoretically builds where manual access by the player character is vital, i.e. 3x3 nuclear reactor setups where the center reactor is inaccessible to bots or inserters (yes I know that's a bad example because it also means no heat pipe connection, but that's not relevant to my context here.)

[ssilk]

That sounds either for blueprint-versions (version control system for blueprints)

or

sounds more like "layers" - like photoshop - we can add layers to a blueprint. Layers can be filters and the player can make a number of filters in a blueprint, that can filter out unecessary stuff as whished. Which also can be seen as a kind of version control system, just different. See also here viewtopic.php?p=469552#p469552

I think the layer-idea is much more flexible than a pure VCS.

[jenea]

I WOULD like the ability to edit within a blueprint if I find an error. ...

I really like this idea. It would eliminate the need to move the blueprint to my storage area. Plop it down. Change stuff. Make a new blueprint. Place the new blueprint in the blueprint storage area. And then delete the old blueprint. A very tedious and error prone process.

THIS, a thousand times this. I joined the forums specifically to beg to be able to edit blueprints directly from the blueprint book. While others are talking in this thread about powerful features like layers and so on, I would be somewhat satisfied with having access to the same controls from within the blueprint UI as from within the inventory (specifically changing the icon, deleting unwanted objects from the blueprint). There is no good reason why the experience of editing from your inventory and from the blueprint book is so radically different, and it is absolutely crazy-making to have to put the blueprint in your inventory, edit it, re-import it into the blueprint book, then delete the old blueprint from the book and the updated one from your inventory.

[MakeItGraphic]

I agree with most that is said here. It would be nice to also have access to a blueprint portal, where people can share/download blueprints/libraries in game.

[varundevan]

i believe , what you are suggesting is a like a PLC unit that can control anything in the game. and you wanted to play the game by writing a program.
Devs create programs for players to play the game , and now it has come to a point , players want to write programs to play the game ..

at some point i also wanted something like that instead of placing many combinators.

[ssilk]

That thread inspired me

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=88691 Better Blueprint Placement

When I read that, I thought: everyone has its own needs, it’s own playstyle.

Some examples

For OP suggestion (viewtopic.php?p=509751#p509751) these operations are needed:

- make two layers from blueprint (by FILTERING, we need a special filter for that): LAYER1 includes only entities that have an update group,
- LAYER2 two the remaining entities (just the NEGATIVE filter).
- we use LAYER1 as a MASK to the entities on ground, to create LAYER3.
- we COMPARE LAYER1 with LAYER3. The comparator finds those entities, which are in the same update group (E.g. basic splitter is replaced with fast splitter). That result is stored in LAYER4.
- LAYER5 are those entities, which are NOT in the same update group (NEGATIVE).
- LAYER2 and LAYER5 are MERGED into LAYER6.
- Now we are nearly finished; LAYER4 is PRINTED on ground as an UPDATE.
- LAYER6 is used as MASK to generate a MASKED DESTRUCTOR, which is PRINTED to ground.
- LAYER6 is PRINTED to ground.

I really liked to think in the categories of layers and what I need to do with them to achieve the right result.


I played that also through for building on water (building landfill below entities on water, I assume here that the landfill should have the size of the blueprint):

- First create LAYER1 by FILTERING water tiles within the AREA of the original blueprint.
- Create LAYER2 by REPLACING water with landfill.
- PRINT LAYER2.
- RESERVE original blueprint for a lifetime of N minutes. (That will place ghosts, that don’t create an order for the bots; also some suggestions about such a function)
- LOOP
—- WAIT some seconds
—- FILTER the ground for ghosted entities -> LAYER3
—- COUNT entities on LAYER3, COUNT entities on LAYER2
—- COMPARE if 80% of entities have been built then Leave LOOP, otherwise continue LOOP
- PRINT Origin blueprint.


Well, this last example can be made much more clever if it PRINTS those entities that have already ground below. And you can calculate the lifetime of the reserved ghosts somehow by estimating how much landfill needs to be placed.

But it’s more to show the capabilities of that system.

[NotRexButCaesar]

I wonder if the grey goo factory is still around

[sparr]

fixing it means finding the time, either live in the game itself, or by moving over to a Creative Mod testing map, that I have to stamp the flawed print, fix the change, re-blueprint it, name and icon the blueprint, carefully take the safety precaution of placing the corrected blueprint into a steel chest so that I don't accidentally delete it instead of deleting the old defective blueprint, delete the defective blueprint from my inventory and from my master bluebook library, then retrieve the corrected blueprint, place it in the appropriate new book, rename the book and include that day's date so that I can track versions and updates that I make, and then deposit the corrected version in my permanent library. I wait until I have like 4 or 5 bp's to rekerjigger just because I can't manipulate the blueprint the way I want to.

While it doesn't address most of the other requests in this thread, I suspect a bunch of folks here haven't yet noticed the "update contents of blueprint" button that got added to the top of the blueprint interface at some point.

Once you plop the blueprint into the world and fix it, you can click that button in your existing blueprint then select the fixed design area then you're done. No need to re-name, re-icon, re-grid, move blueprint items around in inventory, etc.

[IronCartographer]

Worth noting that in addition to the Update Contents button of the base game, there's this mod for editing a blueprint in a pocket dimension (alternate surface) just as the tutorials function: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Edit-Blueprints

[ssilk]

Both above comments are valid. The turn this suggestion wants to make is, that all such operations could be automated without changing the original bp.

Btw: the blueprint-edit mod works only with relatively small blueprints. A size of 200x200 can take a minute or more until it is initialized.

[unknownzzzz]

I love the updates to the blueprint book.
The features!

• Upgrade item button is amazing!
• Absolute reference point is amazing! (though tool tip is not easily understood. Something like "Shift + Left-click grid to move around inside blueprint" is more intuitive)

The only blueprint features that are not in-game that I could really, really use are:

• Mirroring print (like what https://christoph-frick.github.io/facto ... ls/#mirror does)
• Automatic Landfill with print seems to be a major undertaking, worse then a super dense forest. But a Blueprint button "copy landfill footprint" would be great! Or a check box on normal prints that sets it to "Clear" the trees, cliffs, and water (landfill) where the buildings would go. Both avoid the "ghost building on top of ghost landfill" logic, queueing, and lag.