Factorio Forums

TL;DR

New 'copy' and 'cut' blueprint tools to allow you to quickly move or duplicate a section of factory

What ?

I appreciate there is a drive towards 'if you can do it already, then don't ask for an improvement even if the current workflow is a pain in the proverbial', however this is not about the contents of the factory, just a workflow improvement sop I figured I may as well ask.

Copy Tool

Currently, if I want to quickly duplicate a section of my factory, I need to:

1. Have a blank 'temp' blueprint in my toolbelt, click on that
2. Drag around the area of the factory
3. Click the tick button to accept the blue print
4. Stamp the copy down somewhere
5. Shift-Right-click the temp blueprint on the toolbelt to clear it for next time.

Instead if we had a special 'copy blueprint tool' I could just

1. Have a the 'copy blueprint tool' in my toolbelt, click on that
2. Drag around the area of the factory
3. Stamp the copy down somewhere

Which is a much more fluid workflow. Granted it has less steps but more importantly (in my mind) we don't have the workflow interruption in the middle where I have click OK to accept the blueprint. I can't even use a keyboard shortcut to accept that dialog, meaning I have to move my mouse to the OK button, and thus away from it's position in the 'world' meaning I have to re-contextualise the mouse position once the dialog has been dismissed.
(https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... the_user__)

Cut Tool

This is even more significant if I want to move part of the factory (effectively cut and paste):

1. Have a blank 'temp' blueprint in my toolbelt, click on that
2. Drag around the area of the factory
3. Click the tick button to accept the blue print
4. Select the deconstruct tool
4. Drag a box around exactly the same area of the factory
5. Select the temp blueprint in the toolbelt
6. Stamp the the blueprint down in the new location
7. Shift-Right-click the temp blueprint on the toolbelt to clear it for next time.

With a 'cut blueprint tool' I could just:

1. Have a the 'cut blueprint tool' in my toolbelt, click on that
2. Drag around the area of the factory
3. Stamp the cut area down in the new location (at which point the initially selected area will be marked for deconstruction)

There are far fewer steps in that second scenario, but even more significantly, there's less context switching that the user has to do in terms of thinking about what the want to select, then what they want to delete then where they want to move to it just becomes: "I want this, here"

Here's a video mockup (sorry if it's a bit big)

Why ?

This is really a QoL / workflow improvement, that will make working with blueprints more pleasing to the user.

I just found: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4682 Should this be linked under there? I'm not sure it's an exact duplicate of the things on that thread, but it seems related.

Shift+Click with an empty blueprint in hand creates a Quick Blueprint bypassing the conformation box. You would still have to manually clear it though.
If you set aside a reserved space in your toolbar for this specific blueprint it would be very easy to access in the future for quick copy situations ..and clearing would be the usual shift+right click.

Hope that helps

I'd never use this but I can see it being useful to some

BlackKnight wrote:Shift+Click with an empty blueprint in hand creates a Quick Blueprint bypassing the conformation box. You would still have to manually clear it though.

Interesting, I didn't know that (hooray for hidden User Interactions!) That certainly helps for the copy situation; clearing the blueprint afterwards is not too onerouse, because it doesn't interrupt the flow, it happens after everything else.

I guess if the UI philosophy is to be totally concise, but not discoverable (i.e. you need to actually read the manual to work out how to do these things) I might see if I can make a mod that allows shift-alt-dragging for blueprint creation that would mark the objects for deletion, achieving the 'cut' workflow for those that want it (and can find it!)

I far too often need to move part of the factory 1 meter to the side while building things.Or duplicate some part I've already build 3 more times to make a finished unit. You are no the only one needing a quick copy and cut+paste blueprint. Also didn't know about shift+click to make blueprints quicker.

I'm all for removing blueprints from inventory altogether and as such am more in favor of a keyboard shortcut solution.

B+Right Click (drag): Copies all selected buildings into temporary blueprint
B+Left Click (drag): Pastes temporary blueprint into selected area, repeated if space allowed

I find the Cut+Paste suggestion especially valuable, it would make refactoring a base so much easier.

In the end I gave up and wrote the mod myself:

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/StevilKn ... yBlueprint

StevilKnevil wrote:In the end I gave up and wrote the mod myself:

https://mods.factorio.com/mods/StevilKn ... yBlueprint

Awesome, thank you very much for sharing!

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4682 Planning (Signs, Cloning, Ghosts, Blueprinting and more...)

And there is a mod: https://mods.factorio.com/mods/mickael9/cut-and-paste