Factorio Forums

The problem

People lose blueprints sometimes. Some of them were familiar with older versions where blueprints were actually copied. Some of them just don't understand mechanics yet. So they move blueprints somewhere and then die/quit/whatever.

Every of them blames moving and suggests to change default behaviour to copy.

Why this happens? Because it's not obvious that blueprints were moved. Well, you can guess that they work as any other item, and you can see that if you try. But it's still not obvious, there are no trigger that launches this mental process. And our brains are lazy.

How this can be solved? Look at the Microsoft Explorer. It shows a little hint under cursor when you drag the file: "moving" or "copying". Files are moved by default, like in Factorio, but you clearly see that file would be moved. And brain starts thinking in right direction.

The proposal

Proposal is quite simple: show a "MOVING" hint when non-empty(?) blueprint is hovered over some inventory.

Bonus proposal: support Ctrl button that switches that hint to "COPYING" and does action of "Create copy of this" when blueprint is dropped.

I did not ever encounter this, because i either create a shortcut of the bp(or book) on the quickbar or i use the bp directly from library.

However i can understand, that is confusing, that moving it to inventory is not obvious. Also, that its possible to move a "persistent" item from lib to a "not persistent" state in the game and then loose it due to dying, which might not be possible to recover.

jodokus31 wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:26 am i either create a shortcut of the bp(or book) on the quickbar or i use the bp directly from library.

Yeah, I do the same.

jodokus31 wrote: Sun Jan 17, 2021 11:26 am moving it to inventory is not obvious

Sometimes it's almost accidental. You just work with a BP, open inventory, pick another item and voila. With hint you will have another chance to notice that you're doing something wrong, I think.