Multiplayer blueprint sharing

[n3ss]

TL;DR

Blueprint sharing in multiplayer was effectively killed after the .37 update. Currently you need to use game blueprints (No one is going to dump their entire library in game BPs) or manually make a copy of a blueprint and share it in chat.

What ?

With the recent blueprint updates, in multi player we are no longer able to view other players blueprint libraries. Sharing BP's is a critical part of the multiplayer experience. Of course the game blueprints still exist, but with the updates unless everyone knows what they're doing, players can unintentionally remove blueprints from the library (unless you specifically know to click the copy button, selecting a blueprint from game blueprints removes it for everyone.) And of course, the game blueprint library only shows what has been shared and hasn't been deleted.

Essentially, I am suggesting that you implement the ability to browse and copy other players blueprints in multiplayer. There are third party websites for this, but they are far from an ideal way to share, especially for newer players.

Why ?

I, like many people learned a lot of what I know about the game in multiplayer. I operate and play public servers and have seen countless (especially new) players join servers just to get inspiration and grab some blueprints that they can toy with offline. I would argue that it's an essential part of the online multiplayer experience.

[Koub]

Actually, I think it does make sense that when playing on a server, you access to a blueprint library designed for that map/server, and not like the blueprints of maybe tens of people.
I think it's best as it is. People put together the blueprints they want used for a certain server.

It's like when I want to share a friends phone number with another. I don't share my whole contacts list, just the relevant info.

[n3ss]

Actually, I think it does make sense that when playing on a server, you access to a blueprint library designed for that map/server, and not like the blueprints of maybe tens of people.
I think it's best as it is. People put together the blueprints they want used for a certain server.

It's like when I want to share a friends phone number with another. I don't share my whole contacts list, just the relevant info.

I could kind of see that, server admins setting game BPs, but the current permissions allow anyone to add / remove blueprints from the game blueprint library and it is not possible to restrict that. So as an admin I can add blueprints but any rando can join and wipe them out. If the intent was to have server operators /trustees manage game blueprints, permissions have not be implemented for that. But even then, I still think exploring BP's is an essential part of the MP experience on public servers.

[Koub]

exploring BP's is an essential part of the MP experience on public servers.

I admit I'm abysmally ignorant of what people who play multi find interesting in playing with other people, but in my mind, using others' blueprints is about as rewarding as solving a puzzle with the solution under the eyes. That's why I have hard time to imagine the interest in having full access to all the other players' blueprints.

[darklich14]

exploring BP's is an essential part of the MP experience on public servers.

I admit I'm abysmally ignorant of what people who play multi find interesting in playing with other people, but in my mind, using others' blueprints is about as rewarding as solving a puzzle with the solution under the eyes. That's why I have hard time to imagine the interest in having full access to all the other players' blueprints.

This is all such a bizarre response, for you to deflect and minimize the play-style of hundreds of players. The blueprint overhaul has a lot of fantastic features but without being able to default expose to my friends, they are crippled. I am their blueprint hub. Additionally, the fact that the personal and game libraries are physical collections means I am *constantly* permanently losing blueprints. You may say "well, don't do that" but this puts me, the player, in a position to do configuration management responsibilities with my blueprint library which is work and that is not what I play factorio to do. It is whimsical fun for me but now I'm constantly fighting blueprint problems I never had before. Can't something be done? Our server has been upended over all this.

[Koub]

exploring BP's is an essential part of the MP experience on public servers.

I admit I'm abysmally ignorant of what people who play multi find interesting in playing with other people, but in my mind, using others' blueprints is about as rewarding as solving a puzzle with the solution under the eyes. That's why I have hard time to imagine the interest in having full access to all the other players' blueprints.

This is all such a bizarre response, for you to deflect and minimize the play-style of hundreds of players.

I disagree : I neither deflect nor minimize anyone's playstyle. I'm expressing the way I percieve things, not necessarily the way they are. I didn't write "all the people who use others' blueprints are lazy" or something analogous. Just that using solutions designed by other people in a puzzle oriented game (like Factorio) is beyond me.

Everyhting is a question of balance. I also use design parts or clever tricks I've seen in a random let's play or speed run and found ingenious, but not whole smelting arrays or nuclear plant blueprints for example. My own conviction is that not solving things by oneself removes something to the game. And in that perspective, I think the devs' choice is appropriate.

[darklich14]

exploring BP's is an essential part of the MP experience on public servers.

I admit I'm abysmally ignorant of what people who play multi find interesting in playing with other people, but in my mind, using others' blueprints is about as rewarding as solving a puzzle with the solution under the eyes. That's why I have hard time to imagine the interest in having full access to all the other players' blueprints.

This is all such a bizarre response, for you to deflect and minimize the play-style of hundreds of players.

I disagree : I neither deflect nor minimize anyone's playstyle. I'm expressing the way I percieve things, not necessarily the way they are. I didn't write "all the people who use others' blueprints are lazy" or something analogous. Just that using solutions designed by other people in a puzzle oriented game (like Factorio) is beyond me.

Everyhting is a question of balance. I also use design parts or clever tricks I've seen in a random let's play or speed run and found ingenious, but not whole smelting arrays or nuclear plant blueprints for example. My own conviction is that not solving things by oneself removes something to the game. And in that perspective, I think the devs' choice is appropriate.

That's fair but you are devaluing the challenge of integration. Our server is a blueprint integration server rather than the sort of atomic problem-solving to which you allude. And in that perspective, I think the devs' choice is inappropriate.

[Koub]

This is true. However, maybe the devs think the game they are making is more an "atomic problem-solving" than a "challenge of integration" , thus their decision to change the way blueprints are shared in multiplayer games (just speculating).

[n3ss]

Regardless of what anyone thinks the devs are thinking, this is ultimately about a regression in features.

[foamy]

Regardless of what anyone thinks the devs are thinking, this is ultimately about a regression in features.

Yeah. If nothing else it's neat to see what other prints people have for the same problems.

[darklich14]

Regardless of what anyone thinks the devs are thinking, this is ultimately about a regression in features.

Progression in the privacy feature.

[superstalkerX]

I agree, removing the ability to easily sharing of blueprints is a massive step back.

When I play multiplayer, I don't play the game as a puzzle but a conquest to increase outposts to ultimately help other players with resources. When there is a need to increase the production of an item, instead of asking around for blueprints and ultimately not getting them because the one player that had the BP is AFK. It is a massive setback. A task of simply setting down a BP and connecting the belts in 10 minutes, becomes a spaghetti mess that takes hours to complete and massively inefficient.

My playstyle is undercut by this removal and it makes me not want to play anymore.

3rd party BP sharing sites are not very good in my opinion, for example, factorio prints. Because the prints are not tested for the highest production and UPS optimization.

I understand that some people don't like sharing BPs because they feel like they put hours of work into a print, and all they get back is someone stealing the print and slapping their name on it then uploading it to Reddit. It is unfair and annoying. On the other side of the coin, some people love playing the game together and helping out the community free of charge. So the change should be a setting where you can selectively share BPs freely and openly instead of having to manually upload the BP to the game and ultimately some random player coming online and wiping out all the BPs with no trail to administrate consequences.

I love this update in the fact that they added a lot of features that the community has be begging for since BPs released in the game. My BP library has gone from 70 BPs in a single page to 4. All by BPs are now sorted by category. I will eventually comment on the BPs to tell me the throughput and other qualities that I need to know but that will take time.

This removal feels like a slap in the face to me.

[Koub]

I understand that some people don't like sharing BPs because they feel like they put hours of work into a print, and all they get back is someone stealing the print and slapping their name on it then uploading it to Reddit. It is unfair and annoying. On the other side of the coin, some people love playing the game together and helping out the community free of charge. So the change should be a setting where you can selectively share BPs freely and openly instead of having to manually upload the BP to the game and ultimately some random player coming online and wiping out all the BPs with no trail to administrate consequences.

I understand better. Is there no way for the server/map administrators to set up privileges allowing people to share whatever they want in the game blueprints, while only administrators have the privilege of deleting blueprints ? If not, would that be a good enough tradeoff ? I had a quick look at the group management in the admin panel, would one of those do what I said ?

Blueprint related privileges

2020-08-02 09_53_47-Factorio 0.18.40.jpg (50.4 KiB) Viewed 8934 times

[ssilk]

This removal feels like a slap in the face to me.

Hm. I don’t think so. I think it either has been forgotten or is now solved in a super clever way.

BTW: There is also a discussion about this in the general (initially by KatrinOfSky): viewtopic.php?f=5&t=87401
In this special case (normally I would be against such things) I recommend to bring in this issue into there, because it has a higher chance to be recognized by the right persons.

Off topic:
Yesterday I updated, because I had time. I think I like most of the changes; at minimum it solves a lot of issues I had with the old bp-lib, but I need time to get used to some things, for example I don’t understand why the blueprints are not just another tab in the player inventory... and I don’t like the useless changing UI (I think I’m little picky about that, because that’s part of my job).

And what I thought yesterday evening was this: “hm, this looks like a quite well produced part of Factorio (DEEP INSIDE) but there was not enough time to get enough user feedback and put it in. Because it is such a complex subject and not every player (including me) knows every aspect of blueprints. And the other point is: it doesn’t break anything (At least it tries hard), which makes the UI quite complex from UI-design view.”

I think some things will be changed, but after 1.0 release.

[darklich14]

Hm. I don’t think so. I think it either has been forgotten or is now solved in a super clever way.

Can you please elaborate? This is quite opaque!

[ssilk]

Hm.
First: This is just a guess, wich came in my mind after a beer on a very hot day. Don't take me too serious, just my personal opinion.

The blueprints are complex and playtesting means you need players, that don't know too much about the game. Because if you play-test with experienced players, you will not find problems in the UI, because those players already know, how to go around the weaknesses. But on the other hand you need experienced and creative testers to find those situations that needs to be tested. In this example players that are used to share the blueprints in multiplayer.

This is especially a problem with new User Interface around a complex problem, that haven't been tested like so during development.

Again: Because I cannot know how this was developed it is just a guess. I thought it was funny, but it isn't.

[darklich14]

Hm.
First: This is just a guess, wich came in my mind after a beer on a very hot day. Don't take me too serious, just my personal opinion.

The blueprints are complex and playtesting means you need players, that don't know too much about the game. Because if you play-test with experienced players, you will not find problems in the UI, because those players already know, how to go around the weaknesses. But on the other hand you need experienced and creative testers to find those situations that needs to be tested. In this example players that are used to share the blueprints in multiplayer.

This is especially a problem with new User Interface around a complex problem, that haven't been tested like so during development.

Again: Because I cannot know how this was developed it is just a guess. I thought it was funny, but it isn't.

Ha, all in good fun. Thing about playtesting is this thread has some of the most experienced and open-minded and objective players I've come across, so *shrug*. I promise we're not all ganging up or anything, but it certainly has thrown us for a loop. I think after getting used to some of the physical metaphor analogs it's working out. *HOWEVER*, not having an option to default share is a major bummer.

Also, I keep crashing with the new version and I've been told my playstyle that involves any AFK is "wrong" and that a manual blueprint libary sync to disk is "wrong" so that's still a bummer.

[Epb7304]

TL;DR

to prevent people from accidentally deleting books from their BPL blueprints and blueprint books in the BPL should only be deletable from the BPL

What ?

remove the button to delete a blueprint or book unless it comes from your inventory and not your BPL

Why ?

I have seen people on the factorio Reddit complain about losing important books because they thought there was a copy in the library and they were deleting the book from their inventory, I've actually have been a part of said group, thankfully I had the same book in my inventory as well

not to mention it is impossible to tell if the blueprint or book comes from your inventory or from your BPL

[NotRexButCaesar]

Yeah, it was red hard to learn not to delete things from your quickbar. It seemed unintuitive that something can be deleted from far away.

[retlom]

Problem:
We constantly loose Blueprints because some one accidently pull out the BP from the BP-Libary into the inventar instead to the shortcut. Only multiple people can use the same BP when you add it to the toolbar instead of Pulling it to the Inventory wich will delete the whole Blueprint from the Libary its is frustrating as hell when some one did this "again by accident" and one of your prints is not working or may he even loggs off ...

Suggestion:
1)
Make Blueprints inside of the Libary only removeable by DELETING them within the Libary like a trashcanbutton at the top somewhere that deletes the selected BP otherwhise Copy them to your Inventory if you Drop it into the Inventory or creating a Shortcut to the Libary like it is now incase of the Toolbar.
2)
Unrelated to this Problem but can we rename My and Game blueprints maybe to something like Shared/Global (The one other peoples can access) and Personal/Local Blueprints the one only i have access to in a MP game?


And no this is not an issue with only long time players the one who pull them out the most is acctually a fresh man and we need to tell him can you pls return the BP XY its missing again
PS: I love the Book in Book in Book thingy, BP from map and the Redflag to hook the Blueprint positioning a blessing for rails

Thank you for reading my horrible english

ReTLoM