The Blueprint Hub

[mmmPI]

Also, people can access from singleplayer OR multiplayer.

I have no assumptions about the details of how this would work beyond that description, and also don't think that description needs to be how it would work.
If you would like me to build the ideal blueprint hub, I can't. I hadn't given it any thought. The abstraction of being about to asynchronously share blueprints through the game was all I had in mind. For the record, the game does have an in-game chat through the console with other players in the same game. I'm not sure if you meant a type of chat that can talk to people not also in your game, but I think that's a little off topic.

It seem fairly obvious to me the amount of thought given was not in the proposition but more in the choice of the 4 years old quotation necessary to illustrate your point so we better understand it.

When i read it is for accessibility, and that it should be accessed from single player; but yet allow to share blueprint asynchronously sorted by "latest" so you can connect with your friend. It made me think too there was not an actual proposal but more of a vague thought, i don't know how you could connect with your friend if you are accessing it in single player. This is why i asked how in your thought it would work to achieve the stated objective of

More generally playing even a single player game can involve community and connection.

I'm curious to understand how it works, like the blueprinthub is downloaded with the game ? so you can accesss it in singleplayer/offline ? So if there are 12 million blueprint, you need to have the whole folder somewhere in your computer ? and you update it everytime you play, to see if your friend uploaded a new one ?

[LackadaisyFrog]

Someone in a multiplayer game using blueprints to ruin the fun for other people is already incredibly easy for a person to do without an in-game blueprint hub.

And an official bp hub would make it even easier and suggest to players that using bps from the hub instead of finding own solutions is the intended way to play the game.

I have three questions (one with an attached follow-up), and I mean to ask them earnestly without malice or intent to trick or trap or misrepresent you. I will follow them with my own thoughts on an answer, but your own answer could be just as valuable as mine, in my opinion.

Do you think a reasonable person would simultaneously care about the way the game was intended to be played by someone other than themselves, but not care about the intent of the host of a multiplayer game? If a person spams blueprints in a multiplayer game where that isn't allowed, the appropriate response is to ask them to stop and explain the host's intent for the multiplayer game. Whether a person cares how you want them to play the game is a much bigger and more detailed issue than whether the game should have an in-game blueprint sharing resource.

Whose intended way to the play the game, and why does that intended way supersede any other intended way? I believe the game developers should have in mind some intention on how to play their own game, but I also don't think that should necessarily be a consideration in my own intent when playing the game. The game developers also seem to feel this way, that the freedom of the player to play the game how they want is more important than their intentions, considering their admirable support of and participation in the modding community.

Do you mean to imply in your comment that there is only one correct way to play the game? I feel that can reasonable be inferred, but I don't want to put words in your mouth or argue about a point you aren't making.

[LackadaisyFrog]

Also, people can access from singleplayer OR multiplayer.

I have no assumptions about the details of how this would work beyond that description, and also don't think that description needs to be how it would work.
If you would like me to build the ideal blueprint hub, I can't. I hadn't given it any thought. The abstraction of being about to asynchronously share blueprints through the game was all I had in mind. For the record, the game does have an in-game chat through the console with other players in the same game. I'm not sure if you meant a type of chat that can talk to people not also in your game, but I think that's a little off topic.

It seem fairly obvious to me the amount of thought given was not in the proposition but more in the choice of the 4 years old quotation necessary to illustrate your point so we better understand it.

When i read it is for accessibility, and that it should be accessed from single player; but yet allow to share blueprint asynchronously sorted by "latest" so you can connect with your friend. It made me think too there was not an actual proposal but more of a vague thought, i don't know how you could connect with your friend if you are accessing it in single player. This is why i asked how in your thought it would work to achieve the stated objective of

More generally playing even a single player game can involve community and connection.

I'm curious to understand how it works, like the blueprinthub is downloaded with the game ? so you can accesss it in singleplayer/offline ? So if there are 12 million blueprint, you need to have the whole folder somewhere in your computer ? and you update it everytime you play, to see if your friend uploaded a new one ?

I get the sense that you believe I am the one who made this suggestion originally. If that's the case, allow me to clarify that I was not. If I am mistaken, I apologize for my misunderstanding.

I don't want to assume what insight you might have into my thoughts, but let me illuminate them further, if only to confirm any suspicions of my devious intentions you might have. In the original suggestion, the blueprint hub is described as working thus:

...
something somewhat like steam workshop, (but hosted on factorio servers so switch users can access too)
...
Also, people can access from singleplayer OR multiplayer.
...

I interpret this as meaning the feature would be available through the game, but allow access to an asynchronous online feature, since that's what's steam workshop is.

Beyond this, I am not familiar with the game's engine nor with the game's modding API at the time of writing, so I am unwilling to even consider the details of how an actual implementation of this might work for the purposes of this discussion, nor do I think it necessary. I seek only to argue the merits of the idea, not the feasibility of its implementation.

If I have misunderstood your concerns and you are instead not understanding how asynchronous online features work, I would be more than happy to tell you all about them in a different setting, perhaps a direct message. It just so happens I am quite familiar with the structure and function of asynchronous online features in some other games, both server-mediated and peer-to-peer.

One part of your comment is confusing to me:

It seem fairly obvious to me the amount of thought given was not in the proposition but more in the choice of the 4 years old quotation necessary to illustrate your point so we better understand it.

My confusion stems from two things:

• What proposition of mine are you referring to?
• What does the age of a quotation matter to the illustration that a single player game can help forge connections with other people?

[LackadaisyFrog]

[Koub] Is it possible to recenter this thread on just the poll/suggestion ? It's become mostly off topic.

I apologize if the thread has digressed. To that end, I have and will do my best to keep the spotlight on the topic of an in-game blueprint hub, further urging everyone to think critically about their own motivations for voting the way they do, as I strive to do.

[Tertius]

Do you mean to imply in your comment that there is only one correct way to play the game? I feel that can reasonable be inferred, but I don't want to put words in your mouth or argue about a point you aren't making.

I take the liberty to answer on Loewchen's behalf, because I know exactly what he means. The danger of a shared ingame blueprint library is that players in multiplayer games will start to demand other people use specific blueprints from that library. They can do this, because everyone has access to exactly these blueprints with a shared library: every blueprint is just a click away. Some good blueprints are declared as standard, and people who don't use that standard are frowned upon in multiplayer or even kicked. People who use their own equally good but unknown blueprints are kicked. This is not healthy for multiplayer gaming and for the player community as a whole.

This is a common problem with any multiplayer game that relies on some kind of build. For MMOs for example, it's the character build. The more easy it is to share and show builds in such games the more streamlined and standardized these builds get, because people are kicked from groups and instances who don't use the "meta" or "standard" builds. Just the most powerful build survives, and the game loses diversity and variety.

And now, and this is the point, players might come to think this is the intended way to play the game: grab the most powerful build from the blueprint library and use this. Not developing your own builds and don't get kicked from multiplayer. Developing your own builds is not the task of the ordinary player. Instead, it is the task of a small community of more or less self-proclaimed pro-gamers who do nothing else than testing and improving their builds day and night and present them in the library. That might sound surprising and strange to you, but experience from other games tell this can and often will happen. For Factorio, which has all freedom to solve any challenge your own way and achieve every goal by doing that, this would be unhealthy for the game as a whole, not just multiplayer.

[LackadaisyFrog]

Do you mean to imply in your comment that there is only one correct way to play the game? I feel that can reasonable be inferred, but I don't want to put words in your mouth or argue about a point you aren't making.

I take the liberty to answer on Loewchen's behalf, because I know exactly what he means. The danger of a shared ingame blueprint library is that players in multiplayer games will start to demand other people use specific blueprints from that library. They can do this, because everyone has access to exactly these blueprints with a shared library: every blueprint is just a click away. Some good blueprints are declared as standard, and people who don't use that standard are frowned upon in multiplayer or even kicked. People who use their own equally good but unknown blueprints are kicked. This is not healthy for multiplayer gaming and for the player community as a whole.

This is a common problem with any multiplayer game that relies on some kind of build. For MMOs for example, it's the character build. The more easy it is to share and show builds in such games the more streamlined and standardized these builds get, because people are kicked from groups and instances who don't use the "meta" or "standard" builds. Just the most powerful build survives, and the game loses diversity and variety.

And now, and this is the point, players might come to think this is the intended way to play the game: grab the most powerful build from the blueprint library and use this. Not developing your own builds and don't get kicked from multiplayer. Developing your own builds is not the task of the ordinary player. Instead, it is the task of a small community of more or less self-proclaimed pro-gamers who do nothing else than testing and improving their builds day and night and present them in the library. That might sound surprising and strange to you, but experience from other games tell this can and often will happen. For Factorio, which has all freedom to solve any challenge your own way and achieve every goal by doing that, this would be unhealthy for the game as a whole, not just multiplayer.

I believe you have made an excellent point, though I'm not sure I agree with it entirely. MMOs having meta builds has a lot to do with the nature of MMOs, where endgame content MUST be experience with a group in most cases. Factorio doesn't require multiplayer to experience almost anything except multiplayer itself.

I don't believe that having easier access to well-developed builds will necessarily result in the future you describe here. Getting good blueprints and importing their strings is super easy already, but it hasn't resulted in any "one true blueprint book" or some meta like that.

The multiplayer games you describe as having a preferred set of blueprints already exist, they don't need this feature. They put the blueprints in the library, and if it's not from the approved blueprint book, it's not allowed. I don't think their existence has affected me at all, and since you don't seem to think they already exist, apparently they haven't affected you, either.

Your argument rings false to me, not because it isn't a powerful argument, but because, if it is taken to be true, then why doesn't everyone build city-block mega-factories with recursive blueprints? It's the most powerful, efficient, and hands-off way to build a factory and it works. There's tons of videos about it. Why don't I build those if they're so good and easy to do. It's a couple mods and a book of blueprints. Why don't you build those? (I'm assuming you don't, I don't actually have any idea if you do, but if you do, good for you, I hope you have fun) Never have I once worried about anyone's opinion of the blueprints I have created and saved, other than my own, and I never will.

[mmmPI]

I get the sense that you believe I am the one who made this suggestion originally. If that's the case, allow me to clarify that I was not. If I am mistaken, I apologize for my misunderstanding.

That's fine, i'm going to try and mispell any misunderstanding, it is clear for me that you didn't make the suggestion originally, even if you spend a lot of time arguing for it to the best of your ability as far as it seem for me, not without some lyrical plume considering you may have done that after misunderstanding the original suggestion, that's why i try to gather the most amount of legitimate information, to properly weight the arguments, the personnal reasons you give, and what make sense from a technical standpoint, the other players reaction about it, to try and adress my own misunderstanding about what you are arguing for.

I don't want to assume what insight you might have into my thoughts, but let me illuminate them further, if only to confirm any suspicions of my devious intentions you might have. In the original suggestion, the blueprint hub is described as working thus:

...
something somewhat like steam workshop, (but hosted on factorio servers so switch users can access too)
...
Also, people can access from singleplayer OR multiplayer.
...

I interpret this as meaning the feature would be available through the game, but allow access to an asynchronous online feature, since that's what's steam workshop is.

Beyond this, I am not familiar with the game's engine nor with the game's modding API at the time of writing, so I am unwilling to even consider the details of how an actual implementation of this might work for the purposes of this discussion, nor do I think it necessary. I seek only to argue the merits of the idea, not the feasibility of its implementation.

I hope you are not spending all this time to argue in favor of something that doesn't make sense from a technical standpoint that's all,i think it's fair to assume it can happen if one skip the feasability of implementation side of things. On the other hand i am not assuming you have any thought, and don't blame you for not having knowledge on the game's engine or modding API. I feel it limit somewhat the potential for argumentation of a following discussion however, since beyond your personnal preferences for the merits of the ideas, i don't think there is much more to say. It's not like i would feel entitled to tell you that your personnal preference is wrong or should be different, i just have a different one.

If I have misunderstood your concerns and you are instead not understanding how asynchronous online features work, I would be more than happy to tell you all about them in a different setting, perhaps a direct message. It just so happens I am quite familiar with the structure and function of asynchronous online features in some other games, both server-mediated and peer-to-peer.

You seem like you would be happy to do so, really, and i wouldn't want to let you down, so please feel free to send whatever you think would fill in the gaps in my knowledge necessary to make me think you haven't being arguing "for" something that doesn't make sense from a technical standpoint. I suppose i am afraid it's what you might have been doing because i am not having that same knowledge and it could play a role in convincing me of the merits of the idea.

One part of your comment is confusing to me:

It seem fairly obvious to me the amount of thought given was not in the proposition but more in the choice of the 4 years old quotation necessary to illustrate your point so we better understand it.

My confusion stems from two things:

• What proposition of mine are you referring to?
• What does the age of a quotation matter to the illustration that a single player game can help forge connections with other people?

1) I meant the proposition of the blueprint hub.
2) I meant that it must have taken some time to find the best and most appropriate quote to illustrate your talk, not like random quote and then you try to make them say something out of context, things that are still relevant 4 years later. Like very broad statement, from which you extracted valuable lesson applicable to something different ( the blueprint hub) to use to illustrate your personnal preference about it and how it relate to the fact that 4 years ago some people said they liked things about the blueprint library, and how you are able to understand that it means something "FOR" the blueprint hub idea. The way you link those despite the time gap is impressive, it must have taken some time to put yourself back into context, just for us to understand your line of reasonning, so it doesn't sound as random and out-of-context as it may have otherwise. I can understand how this is more the core of your argumentation than the actual feasibility that you don't want to even consider.

[LackadaisyFrog]

I don't want to assume what insight you might have into my thoughts, but let me illuminate them further, if only to confirm any suspicions of my devious intentions you might have. In the original suggestion, the blueprint hub is described as working thus:

...
something somewhat like steam workshop, (but hosted on factorio servers so switch users can access too)
...
Also, people can access from singleplayer OR multiplayer.
...

I interpret this as meaning the feature would be available through the game, but allow access to an asynchronous online feature, since that's what's steam workshop is.

Beyond this, I am not familiar with the game's engine nor with the game's modding API at the time of writing, so I am unwilling to even consider the details of how an actual implementation of this might work for the purposes of this discussion, nor do I think it necessary. I seek only to argue the merits of the idea, not the feasibility of its implementation.

I hope you are not spending all this time to argue in favor of something that doesn't make sense from a technical standpoint that's all,i think it's fair to assume it can happen if one skip the feasability of implementation side of things. On the other hand i am not assuming you have any thought, and don't blame you for not having knowledge on the game's engine or modding API. I feel it limit somewhat the potential for argumentation of a following discussion however, since beyond your personnal preferences for the merits of the ideas, i don't think there is much more to say. It's not like i would feel entitled to tell you that your personnal preference is wrong or should be different, i just have a different one.

If I have misunderstood your concerns and you are instead not understanding how asynchronous online features work, I would be more than happy to tell you all about them in a different setting, perhaps a direct message. It just so happens I am quite familiar with the structure and function of asynchronous online features in some other games, both server-mediated and peer-to-peer.

You seem like you would be happy to do so, really, and i wouldn't want to let you down, so please feel free to send whatever you think would fill in the gaps in my knowledge necessary to make me think you haven't being arguing "for" something that doesn't make sense from a technical standpoint. I suppose i am afraid it's what you might have been doing because i am not having that same knowledge and it could play a role in convincing me of the merits of the idea.

One part of your comment is confusing to me:

It seem fairly obvious to me the amount of thought given was not in the proposition but more in the choice of the 4 years old quotation necessary to illustrate your point so we better understand it.

My confusion stems from two things:

• What proposition of mine are you referring to?
• What does the age of a quotation matter to the illustration that a single player game can help forge connections with other people?

1) I meant the proposition of the blueprint hub.
2) I meant that it must have taken some time to find the best and most appropriate quote to illustrate your talk, not like random quote and then you try to make them say something out of context, things that are still relevant 4 years later. Like very broad statement, from which you extracted valuable lesson applicable to something different ( the blueprint hub) to use to illustrate your personnal preference about it and how it relate to the fact that 4 years ago some people said they liked things about the blueprint library, and how you are able to understand that it means something "FOR" the blueprint hub idea. The way you link those despite the time gap is impressive, it must have taken some time to put yourself back into context, just for us to understand your line of reasonning, so it doesn't sound as random and out-of-context as it may have otherwise. I can understand how this is more the core of your argumentation than the actual feasibility that you don't want to even consider.

I don't begrudge you a difference of opinion, I think it's another spice of life.

I couldn't possible speak to what gaps in knowledge you might have. In fact, I get the impression that you have a good understanding of what is and isn't possible within the game engine and modding API. Far be it from me to assume I know any better than you, I ask only that we communicate clearly and without unnecessary assumptions. On a personal note, I would never deem a refusal of an opportunity to discuss what we might learn from each other as anything like "letting me down".

Certainly, if someone tries to make a version of this suggestion and finds it to be impossible for some unfixable reason, I would have reasonable alternative than to believe them and their documentation unless I was willing to test it myself. However, without any evidence either way, I don't think it's reasonable to assume implementing this suggestion isn't feasible, a priori. Perhaps you have some information I don't, and if so, I do hope you share it.

As far as a possible implementations, I now have a full 24 hours since I first read this suggestion, so how about this rough idea: since https://factorioprints.com/ already exists and seems to have many of the suggested features, perhaps there is a way to access it through the game somehow. Obviously, this is not run by Wube, but it's a start, or at least an inspiration.

I don't want to get too far off topic, but in regards to the source of my quotations, I merely remembered kovarex's story about using the game to connect with his son and the threads that followed with a outpouring of support and similar stories of using the game to connect with people in their lives. I went looking for that story, and it was a coincidence that the context happened to also be about something else to do with blueprints.

[cybersteve547]

I'm curious to understand how it works, like the blueprinthub is downloaded with the game ? so you can accesss it in singleplayer/offline ? So if there are 12 million blueprint, you need to have the whole folder somewhere in your computer ? and you update it everytime you play, to see if your friend uploaded a new one ?

no, you would have to be connected to the internet, but you don't have to be in a multiplayer game to use it.


how did this topic get so big?

[LackadaisyFrog]

how did this topic get so big?

That would seem to be my fault, sorry.

[cybersteve547]

how did this topic get so big?

That would seem to be my fault, sorry.

no, it's okay, i like all the attention my idea is getting

[mmmPI]

Certainly, if someone tries to make a version of this suggestion and finds it to be impossible for some unfixable reason, I would have reasonable alternative than to believe them and their documentation unless I was willing to test it myself. However, without any evidence either way, I don't think it's reasonable to assume implementing this suggestion isn't feasible, a priori. Perhaps you have some information I don't, and if so, I do hope you share it.

I think it is important to not lose the broader objective, to keep in mind the purpose, as you so well illustrated, and as such i wanted to remind you of that part of the original suggestion :

Baically, i am suggesting something somewhat like steam workshop, (but hosted on factorio servers so switch users can access too).

I was under the impression that mods were not available on the Switch for reasons beyond Wubes ability to bargain, more like Nintendo's policy. It's not like certified information though. More like something i thought everybody knew, but i never actually did research to have a piece of evidence to provide.

As far as a possible implementations, I now have a full 24 hours since I first read this suggestion, so how about this rough idea: since https://factorioprints.com/ already exists and seems to have many of the suggested features, perhaps there is a way to access it through the game somehow. Obviously, this is not run by Wube, but it's a start, or at least an inspiration.

The first 5 minutes are very promising , can't wait to see what comes out of 24 hours at this speed

( i saw you did some sarcastic paragraph earlier, hopefully it's not inappropriate if i do some too)

I mean that this is quite a simple idea that doesn't really showcase how the knowledge you proposed to share with me is useful, i was expecting some impressive explanation like on the FFF, where i learn things, likehow you would connect with someone in particular, ( maybe like the steam friend system ? ) , based on factorio account i suppose, or something ?

I fail to see how it would be better for accessibility than what people with special needs already have set up for them when they use a web browser to download mods or search for blueprints. I think it's much harder for Wube to redo all those inside the game and would be very impressed to see your mod.

I don't want to get too far off topic, but in regards to the source of my quotations, I merely remembered kovarex's story about using the game to connect with his son and the threads that followed with a outpouring of support and similar stories of using the game to connect with people in their lives. I went looking for that story, and it was a coincidence that the context happened to also be about something else to do with blueprints.

I think it's better if we don't talk about this anymore, so as to stay on topic and avoid mixing up things that are unrelated.

[LackadaisyFrog]

Certainly, if someone tries to make a version of this suggestion and finds it to be impossible for some unfixable reason, I would have reasonable alternative than to believe them and their documentation unless I was willing to test it myself. However, without any evidence either way, I don't think it's reasonable to assume implementing this suggestion isn't feasible, a priori. Perhaps you have some information I don't, and if so, I do hope you share it.

I think it is important to not lose the broader objective, to keep in mind the purpose, as you so well illustrated, and as such i wanted to remind you of that part of the original suggestion :

Baically, i am suggesting something somewhat like steam workshop, (but hosted on factorio servers so switch users can access too).

I was under the impression that mods were not available on the Switch for reasons beyond Wubes ability to bargain, more like Nintendo's policy. It's not like certified information though. More like something i thought everybody knew, but i never actually did research to have a piece of evidence to provide.

I also believe, possibly erroneously, that mods are unavailable on Switch. Having a mod implementation of this suggestion wouldn't immediately help Switch players, but it would provide better feedback than hypotheticals and a proof of concept for how to implement this function natively in the game.

That last bit is the crux of the Switch part of the suggestion, I think: getting this natively integrated into the game allows switch users to update their unmodded games to be able to access blueprints much more easily, seeing as blueprints are not mods. It might require that factorio work with Nintendo online services for this specific feature, but that's hardly insurmountable, just inconvenient. What's more, the online functions and thus the Nintendo online services wouldn't be mandatory to play the game, just mandatory for this particular feature.

For example, the Dark Souls Remastered on Switch functions with all its online features normally, as long as you have paid for the Nintendo online services. Everything from the peer-to-peer asynchronous features of bloodstains and messages to real-time invasions and co-op, latency and disconnects included.

Being a mod is a problem for Switch users, but getting an implementation in the engine would replace that problem with whether the subscription to Nintendo is worth it.

I mean that this is quite a simple idea that doesn't really showcase how the knowledge you proposed to share with me is useful, i was expecting some impressive explanation like on the FFF, where i learn things, likehow you would connect with someone in particular, ( maybe like the steam friend system ? ) , based on factorio account i suppose, or something ?

I fail to see how it would be better for accessibility than what people with special needs already have set up for them when they use a web browser to download mods or search for blueprints. I think it's much harder for Wube to redo all those inside the game and would be very impressed to see your mod.

I'm no netcode expert or software engineer. Rather my interest is in applied mathematics. While it would be my honor to write an FFF, I will be doing no such thing in this thread for the purposes of explaining asynchronous online features. Perhaps I'll put my rudimentary coding to the test when I am back at my own computer in a week or so, but I anticipate a pretty heavily stacked schedule in the immediate future already.

For the sake of clarity, my previous comments about connecting with people were about emotional connections, as in the connections you have with friends and family from sharing good memories playing a game together, not internet connections. Streamlined blueprint uploading through the game is just a mechanism by which I can share my experiences of the game with a friend or a stranger, not necessarily connect with them via the internet.

[mmmPI]

While it would be my honor to write an FFF, I will be doing no such thing in this thread for the purposes of explaining asynchronous online features. Perhaps I'll put my rudimentary coding to the test when I am back at my own computer in a week or so, but I anticipate a pretty heavily stacked schedule in the immediate future already.

I hope you don't in this thread again as that would be even more off topic and i said i would gladly receive it as PM

I feel a bit embarassed for you when you tell things about your personnal schedule like you have a full 24 hours for this, and now your schedule is busy. I don't need to know those thing, now i'm worried something happened that causes this shift, and i hope i'm not the cause of it.

[Kyralessa]

I like the "local, small scale" sharing, like if my friend and I play together, comparing our builds through our blueprints, "Here, take this chemplant blueprint, and I'll take your beaconed furnace array", or whatever.

What I don't like, is to make things so easy, so convenient, that the temptation to bybpass the effort of designing things one self (or at least trying to) vanishes : the more something is convenient, the more people will use it on average, including at their own detriment.

Yes, exactly this. Analogously, when playing Grim Dawn, I don't use predefined builds from grimtools.com. What's the fun in that? I might look at other people's builds out of curiosity (usually to convince myself that the skill I like is really viable long-term), and similarly I might look at people's screen shots of Factorio designs to find some new ideas, but that's very different from copying a bunch of other people's blueprint strings. At the point, in what sense am I playing the game?

[sarge945]

Many of the problems people have with blueprints are similar to the problems I have with the logistics network.

In much the same way slapping down a "base in a blueprint" can ruin all the fun of iterating and designing something, I feel like bots mostly introduce the same problems on a smaller scale.

Instead of being "why iterate and improve when I can slap down someone else's blueprints", it's more about "why fix my messy base when I can just dump requester chests everywhere". Obviously bots don't offer the same throughput as belts or trains do, but to me at least, it still undermines a lot of the fun when "transfer from box over here to box over there" becomes the ideal solution for smaller-scale problems, like removing spent fuel cells from a reactor or moving the occasional intermediate around. Finding out that your nuclear reactor is boxed-in and you didn't build a way to empty it should be an oh-s**t moment, not an easily solvable problem using 2 chests and a few roboports.

I am voting no on this proposal because I don't like the game moving towards a "blueprint everything" direction, but at the same time, I kind of hope bots get an overhaul (or at least the automated logistics chests) because, at least in my opinion, it's the same problem on a smaller scale. I don't just want blueprints to be less emphasised, I want bots to be less emphasised too.

I do love the blueprint library, though. Blueprints are awesome. I love curating my own little collection of books. But the key is that I designed them. They aren't optimal blueprints, many downright suck and leave a lot to be desired, but they are mine. Obviously I could go and import a bunch of blueprint strings, but I would rather keep the game fun. I respect and understand my blueprints even if they are suboptimal.

Slapping down someone else's blueprints, at least to me, is the equivalent of writing some 5 line script that just calls into some fully-featured python library to do everything. It will work, will probably be pretty optimal, and get whatever job you need done quickly and easily. But where's the fun if you're learning nothing?

Granted, I feel like blueprint strings should obviously be left in. If people want a base in a book, that is their right and I won't go out of my way to stop them. And since the feature is already implemented, removing it would just waste all the effort that was put into it and make the game objectively worse. But it shouldn't be encouraged, especially to new players, because that's just setting them up to have a bad time. Sure, they will probably have fun for a few hours building a cool looking base. But they won't stick around for 300 hours optimising it because they won't have the same investment in it, because it's not really their base.

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

TL;DR

A library of blueprints that can be searched by anyone, and accessable in game.

What ?

An in game search function, similar to the multiplayer search function, that allows players to find blueprints that are shared. Each player would be able to share a certain number of blueprints and use a check box style tag system. Things like balancer, mall, or train.

Why ?

This could be used to solve a main problem that switch players are having. Mainly the inability to import blueprints through strings using copy\paste from the Internet. Currently switch players have to either build it from scratch, or they have to rely on friends or strangers to share blueprints in a game.

Ideas and suggestions are welcome. I'm not entirely sure of the form this would take, but the concept itself is the key here.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into an older thread with a similar suggestion.

[Melodi-of-Crystals]

TLDR : I read everything, and still think a library could be a good idea.

Please forgive me in advance for the long drawn out series of thoughts, but I felt it appropriate to address a majority of things previously mentioned in this thread. Feel free to disregard this if it seems too long as I've likely rambled on for quite some time in the process of constructing these thoughts.

If you're still reading then you are at least forewarned of what to expect.



Having seen the string of thoughts and opinions presented throughout the majority of this board, I find myself in two different mindsets.

While on one hand I do understand the frustration with blueprints making many complicated parts of the game seem trivial, on the other I see them as a way to demonstrate how systems can or do function for players who don't understand them.

As a personal example, when I first developed advanced oil refiners, I had no concept of how to chain them together into one fluid network. We're not for the fact that when searching for this problem online I found an existing blueprint that listed how to do so, I wouldn't have been able to. I had assumed that each one needed to have its own outputs into a mass storage that connected to the network, whereas now I understand I can simply chain the outputs of each and bring the cumulative output into the network.

Now that I'm more experienced in the game self, I find myself looking for blueprints to improve my own efficiency. Not in the sense that I would paste the blueprint down to do a task for me, but in the sense that I'm looking for how to achieve something I already know how to do in a more streamlined or efficient method. Considering any blueprint that I currently have are use I've had to manually construct as I play on switch, having any ability to make use of a blueprint from any other source would be a significant improvement.

As to the idea of having an in-game browser that connects to a specific website, I know of at least two games that currently run on the switch that currently have that function. This doesn't mean that it would be permitted in all cases but it means that precedence exists for this ability. Were there some native connection between Factorio and factory prints The ability to import a blueprint into your game would mean only those prints that you feel are important enough to make the effort to go obtain are the ones that you have new access to.
(I've highly likely quoted the website name wrong as I typically do not go there due to my inability to make use of anything there)

[cybersteve547]

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As to the idea of having an in-game browser that connects to a specific website, I know of at least two games that currently run on the switch that currently have that function.

what games?