Yeah that makes sense, I'll await patiently. Thanks for the checking so far. :p

In principle I'm sure it could be made to work. I don't have a development environment setup to continue work on the mod right now. Maybe once FCP is back in a working state I can resume work on it, but developing without that environment is a bit hard and my time is limited currently.

Doing some searching I found Paste Builder by Mad Vandal, but this seems to really be meant only for rooms. Reading the page you can only set the colour of the construction site marker, which does not allow for individual block control.

I'd really like a way to save and copy creative creations (in survival mode), whether it's a flat 2D canvas with pixel art or 3D creative building designs (not a rectangular room). Is it really not possible to add support for colouring blocks in some way to this mod? The entire way this mod works is really great imo besides the missing colour support.

Thanks!

I think the best one is just called the room builder. I'm sure a quick browse of the workshop should find it. There aren't that many mods out there to browse through.

Mmm makes sense. Do you happen to know which mods would be good for copying coloured blocks? I did some searching but couldn't find.

I don't think I ever wrote a conversion process for colors. The main purpose of blueprints was to support complex machine reconstruction and not the buildings they sit in so I never developed out the aesthetic conversions. There are other mods out there that handle this better and I didn't feel it worth the time to try to replace their functionality with an inferior option when the focus of the mod is machine layouts. If you want to print with the colored blocks, you'll need to automate the production and supply of the specific block color of choice.

(cont.) Also, regarding "White Canvas" block which I originally had problem with: here it explicitly requests white canvas block, paste does not work. Here too it only builds the non-coloured blocks, but none of the coloured ones, instead staying stuck at requesting white canvas. (Try a 2x2 with white canvas and paint some blocks for this one.)

Possibly it never starts building if the first block it wants to place is coloured, as it does request only white canvas for the entire blueprint. Not sure didn't test this explicitly.

Really many thanks for all your work on this game I'm using a bunch of your mods and having a great time even in 2024.

Hi Steve, I did some additional testing on the same world loaded in single player with only this mod loaded. The log file seems not useful, no error or exception. However I found it very easy to reproduce and observe. Could you try locally too with the following?

1. Using "Dyed Marble" block, build a 2x2 (4 block total).
2. Paint 2 of those blocks in any colour (I did 100% blue with paint gun).
3. Make a blueprint of these blocks and try to build the blueprint.
4. Note it requests construction paste, put that in (dyed marble doesn't work, which is fine).
5. Observe it only builds the non-coloured blocks.
6. It now requests "Dyed Marble" blocks for the blue ones.
7. Putting in self-crafted dyed marble does not work (neither does paste).

So it seems that the way it stores the coloured blocks it very specifically wants that specific block inside the hopper. But of course it is not possible to put a coloured block in your inventory or inside the hopper.

I don't know of any issues related to paintable blocks. The way the color is stored might not be handled properly, but I don't expect that it'd break the ability to print entirely. Are you able to provide a log file?

Hi hi, on a (Linux) dedicated server, which might not be relevant, I'm having trouble using a blueprint with paint gun coloured "white canvas" blocks. It seems to load in the blueprint but it doesn't actually start. Tried both construction paint and white canvas block itself.

Is there some issue with coloured blocks that you know of?

awesome!

Yes, I rotated either CCW or CW. Obviously, your code that handles rotations is already doing adjustments, but I'm guessing the handling for vertical orientations needs some special casing.

Is this after some sort of mirroring or rotation?

Vertical LETs are also pointed in the opposite direction.

Wow! You make wonderful mods!

I just used this for the first time. I notice that horizontal conveyor belts are placed correctly. However, all the vertical conveyor belts are pointing in the opposite direction of what they should.

ok will make sure get the log if i found crash again

Can I get the log when it crashes?

Great mod. My game is crash when i set the blueprint with complex one such as all tier 1-2 automation research pod + lab with lot of ptg below. Everytime i do that again will crash.

Any suggestions on this?

I've run into another error, this time with lots of entries in the log. I updated my existing thread in the discussion section with some info. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look!

Hmmm i disagree paste builders mod is a cheat that it construct decor blocks for paste. It's more a cheat as it can dig entire area's up and directly convert block into paste :-)

But then you've got to move the entire fleet of paste builders, and set up new freight stations to construct every new thing you want to build (if you're not just using Hoppers). I'm not saying it isn't powerful or useful, I'm just saying it's more suited for one style of building than the other.

The blueprint builder should accept paste for paste-based blocks. And you don't *need* to use freight. You can always use freight for what you have in the system and then revert to a hopper for the special items that you don't keep stocked.

As for the cost, the idea is that it isn't a trivially overpowered machine. Paste builder is a great example of a completely overpowered mod that does everything in one. If you want a cheating machine, it's there, but I design my mods to be in line with the relative capabilities of other machines in the game. If you do invest in a fleet of blueprint builders and establish a fully stocked freight network with many common machines in the game it becomes quite trivial to print entire new factories with only a few clicks which I consider to be still quite powerful for the investment.

...continued from below vvvv

And the fact that you have to have all of the materials delivered to the build site by freight carts means that somewhere, you've got to have a mass storage or hoppers that contain all of the aesthetic blocks in the blueprint, which is a little weird for paste-based blocks.

So basically, this is great for building little setups comprised of stuff you're likely to have in storage anyway, but for anything building-sized, this is probably not the best solution.

This is a really cool idea, but man, it is NOT suited to building large, complex structures, like entire multi-level rooms. I had a nice hydroponics building that I wanted to move, but it had a pretty intricate design, so I tried to use this mod to capture a blueprint and then move it elsewhere, but what isn't clear from the description is that the builder is literally a single FALCOR that delivers a single block at a time, at the same speed as regular FALCORs. You can add more builders, but they're pretty dang expensive, especially when compared against similar mods like Paste Builders, and the additional builders have to be touching the original builder from a certain orientation, which means you've got to move your entire builder setup AND provide rail access to anywhere you want to build.

continued in next comment ^^^

THis mods is great! It works on a server but to get new blueprints you need to rejoin the server, not too bad as a trade off for this awesome mod! :-D

Quick addition for anybody that has the same problems:
There is a mod Teleporter Logistics. With that mod its possible to link to the Blueprint Builder as well.
Yay ;)

Atlan

Ok, thanks for taking a look anyway.
I use the mod carts only because the vanilla ones are not available to the public yet. As soon as the DLC is finally out I will buy it ;)

Thanks for the mods anyway

Atlan

I had a chance to look at this but unfortunately don't have a good answer. The interface is technically under a different name now so it won't see the mod carts anymore. I don't have a way to easily support both. A change would inevitably break something for someone. I have to stick to supporting the latest build and content.

Hmm, ok will have a look. If it's an easy fix I'll push an update but as the mod carts are no longer officially supported I can't make any promises.

I updated the screebshots. Could you take a look?

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561197960396502/screenshots/

Thanks
Atlan

It'll show the connection in the freight goods menu.

Where should it show that? In the youtube video I see a different text in the Freightcart station, I dont have that:

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/profiles/76561197960396502/screenshots/

I tried basically everything, building the station first, then the builder, and the other way round, then in all angles etc.
If I replace the station by a hopper and put stuff in there: it instantly starts building.

Thanks
Atlan

I think it should work fine for both. They both use the same interface. Does the station show that it registers the connection to the blueprint builder?

Hi Steveman,
first thanks to your amazing mods, I use nearly all of them ;) Especially the frightcart mod as I cant get my hands on the "official" ones before they are released to the public.

Now I am trying to get the blueprint builder to work with your frightcart mod, but the station just doesnt ask for building material. Everything else is fine, it works perfect with a hopper, but not with the frightcart stations.
I read in the comments down below that you adapted the code to work with the beta /patreon vailla frightcarts.

Did that maybe break the code for your own mod?

Thanks
Atlan

The output.txt log file is in the game directory under the folder appropriate to the exe you're running either.

Sometimes when i break the main blueprint builder, the game crashes.
Where i can find the log to post here?
Awesome mod BTW

What an EPIC mod ... this will really help me to scale up my factories! :-D

No plans to change it. The machine is incredibly complex and trying to separate out features would be a lot of work for something that can be done with other markers and mod tools.

Hey, would it be a idea to split the bluiprint builder into two machines, one makes the hololences and the other build it. So you can give the ability to layout your base very early (and cheap) with the hololences but you have to wait a bit until you're furture in the game to automatically build them by the 'robots' like in Factorio and how i understand the room builder work :-) Just a idea, i probably could never done anything like you and your amazing mods! :-)

Perfect, thanks. https://github.com/steveman0/BlueprintBuilder/blob/master/Blueprint.cs#L175 is what I was looking for (in case anyone else is reading this).

The source for blueprint builders is posted on my github includimg the full blueprint serialization scheme.

What do the 5 bytes per block represent? I'd like to replace specific blocks in the file, so I can have different variants of my blueprints without having to build each manually.

Damage from the turbine comes from the game object that is instantiated. It has nothing to do with the blueprint data.

How do I edit blueprints? It seems the file starts with the name of the blueprint, followed by dimensions (32bit). Followed by some kinda translation table for block names (?). Lastly there seem to be blocks each described by a 4 byte id and a null termination. I guess there can be more information for some blocks? I must be missing some things as I don't see how this would encode information such as a running jet engine.

Nope, no machine settings are stored. Only the block types themselves.

Turns out filter and hopper settings aren't stored in the blueprint :(

I suppose having a running jet engine in your blueprint isn't the idea anyway. It'd be more than good enough to have a jet engine without it being fueled already. Knowing which states to save (filter settings and such) and which not to save (fuel percentage) sounds like a pain to implement though, and I don't think it's all that important. I should just try to make more sensible blueprints.

Hmm, I'd have to look at how the damage is applied. Turning that off may be difficult.

Btw, it would be nice if those "hologram" jet engines wouldn't kill you so fast.

Either way, I can see this being a great time saver for expanding my factory. Thanks for making the mod!

I still haven't decided on a paste block I like, so I'm using different rocks instead. Caves are the best looking thing in FCE for me :|

Either way, it works now that I'm using uncoloured, manually placed rock in the blueprints.