Required Prototypes Auxillary Page

[PennyJim]

I am here to ask for an auxiliary page to list the required prototypes, eg: the 'out-of-map' tile. I feel there should be sections for each grouping of required prototypes; "core" for always required prototypes, "space_travel" for the prototypes required with the "space_travel" feature flag, etc
These individual sections can then be directly linked to by the feature flags.

Finally, the error for when you don't provide one of the required FeatureFlag prototypes says "Error loading Base Mod". That suggests it's "base"'s fault for not defining the feature flag prototype when it's a mod that enabled the feature flag. It should either say something different when it's a feature flag prototype or should just be changed to "Required Prototype Error"

07-29-2026, 16-56-20.png (32.21 KiB) Viewed 302 times

[sparr]

If I delete every locomotive entity prototype:

> 'entity' prototype type 'locomotive' requires at least 1 prototype be defined so save files can be loaded

This rule seems to apply to locomotive and solar-panel, but not to thruster or agricultural-tower which seem to behave just fine with every prototype removed from the type.

It would be helpful if the api docs described this distinction across all the other types.

[sparr]

Claude Opus 5 helped me build this partial list

Cannot be emptied: 106 types
The game refuses to start without at least one prototype of each of these.

Code: Select all

accumulator, arithmetic-combinator, arrow, artillery-turret, artillery-wagon, beacon, blueprint, boiler, burner-generator, car, cargo-wagon, character, character-corpse, cliff, constant-combinator, construction-robot, container, copy-paste-tool, curved-rail-a, curved-rail-b, decider-combinator, deconstructible-tile-proxy, display-panel, editor-controller, electric-energy-interface, electric-pole, electric-turret, elevated-curved-rail-a, elevated-curved-rail-b, elevated-half-diagonal-rail, elevated-straight-rail, entity-ghost, equipment-ghost, equipment-grid, fish, fluid-wagon, gate, generator, god-controller, gun, half-diagonal-rail, heat-interface, heat-pipe, highlight-box, infinity-cargo-wagon, infinity-container, infinity-pipe, inserter, item-entity, item-group, item-request-proxy, item-subgroup, lab, lamp, land-mine, lane-splitter, legacy-curved-rail, legacy-straight-rail, linked-belt, linked-container, loader, loader-1x1, locomotive, logistic-container, logistic-robot, map-settings, market, mining-drill, noise-expression, offshore-pump, pipe, pipe-to-ground, power-switch, programmable-speaker, proxy-container, pump, radar, rail-chain-signal, rail-ramp, rail-remnants, rail-signal, rail-support, reactor, remote-controller, roboport, rocket-silo, rocket-silo-rocket, rocket-silo-rocket-shadow, selector-combinator, simple-entity-with-force, simple-entity-with-owner, solar-panel, spectator-controller, speech-bubble, spider-vehicle, splitter, storage-tank, straight-rail, tile-ghost, train-stop, transport-belt, turret, underground-belt, upgrade-item, valve, wall

Can be emptied: 73 types
The game loads with the category present but empty.

Code: Select all

achievement, agricultural-tower, ambient-sound, ammo, assembling-machine, battery-equipment, belt-immunity-equipment, blueprint-book, build-entity-achievement, cargo-bay, cargo-landing-pad, change-surface-achievement, combat-robot-count-achievement, complete-objective-achievement, construct-with-robots-achievement, create-platform-achievement, custom-input, deconstruct-with-robots-achievement, deconstruction-item, deliver-by-robots-achievement, deliver-impact-combination, deplete-resource-achievement, destroy-cliff-achievement, dont-build-entity-achievement, dont-craft-manually-achievement, dont-kill-manually-achievement, dont-research-before-researching-achievement, dont-use-entity-in-energy-production-achievement, electric-energy-interface-equipment, energy-shield-equipment, equip-armor-achievement, furnace, fusion-generator, fusion-reactor, generator-equipment, group-attack-achievement, gui-style, inventory-bonus-equipment, item-with-entity-data, kill-achievement, map-gen-presets, module-transfer-achievement, mouse-cursor, movement-bonus-equipment, night-vision-equipment, place-equipment-achievement, player-damaged-achievement, produce-achievement, produce-per-hour-achievement, repair-tool, research-achievement, research-with-science-pack-achievement, segmented-unit, selection-tool, shoot-achievement, shortcut, solar-panel-equipment, space-connection, space-connection-distance-traveled-achievement, space-platform-starter-pack, spidertron-remote, sprite, surface, thruster, tile-effect, tips-and-tricks-item, tips-and-tricks-item-category, train-path-achievement, use-entity-in-energy-production-achievement, use-item-achievement, utility-constants, utility-sounds, utility-sprites

Undetermined: 72 types
For these, a reference somewhere else fails the load before the engine gets as far as counting prototypes, so the question never gets asked. They may or may not need a survivor.

Code: Select all

active-defense-equipment, airborne-pollutant, ammo-category, ammo-turret, armor, artillery-flare, artillery-projectile, asteroid, asteroid-chunk, asteroid-collector, autoplace-control, beam, burner-usage, capsule, capture-robot, cargo-pod, chain-active-trigger, collision-layer, combat-robot, corpse, damage-type, delayed-active-trigger, deliver-category, equipment-category, explosion, fire, fluid, fluid-turret, font, fuel-category, impact-category, item, lightning, lightning-attractor, module, module-category, noise-function, optimized-decorative, optimized-particle, particle-source, planet, plant, procession, procession-layer-inheritance-group, projectile, quality, rail-planner, recipe, recipe-category, resource, resource-category, roboport-equipment, segment, simple-entity, smoke-with-trigger, space-location, space-platform-hub, spider-leg, spider-unit, sticker, stream, surface-property, technology, temporary-container, tile, tree, trigger-target-type, trivial-smoke, tutorial, unit, unit-spawner, virtual-signal

[Bilka]

[Merged into doc improvement request]