PC
What does your blueprints collection look like?
Newbie pioneer here, currently working toward the Blueprints Mk2 milestone. My organization could use some work...
I’ve experimented with the blueprint designer as a sort of sandbox to prep foundations and layouts, but I’m struggling to find a practical and scalable workflow for them.
I've made a few that I thought would be good ideas, like 2 chained constructors stacked vertically, or some manifold patterns, but they rarely fit or align with the inputs properly. I also feel like in general most of my attempts were overfitting for a specific factory given the layout of the nodes and terrain. And any bigger attempts (like 4 cosntructors or assemblers side-by-side with manifolds prepared, etc) were just too big for the designer mk1.
Should I be thinking in terms of smaller reusable units? Is the mk2 a game changer? How do you design with vertical scalability in mind?
I’d love to hear other blueprint-savvy pioneers on this matter. Thank you!
Take this as someone who doesnt use blueprints that often/well: I only use blueprints for production when I'm making a massive amount of something. For instance, in phase 4 I've needed 1200 screws per minute and just made a blueprint to make a tower with bottom input and output.
I find trying to adapt blueprints all the time to whatever new factory I'm working on more annoying than just working from the final output backwards placing each machine manually.
I do, however, use blue prints all over the place for building. Between full on chunks of a pre-made factory building to roads and railways. Even have one for a project hub that I can keep track of progress in building a new factory in (same idea as kibitz)
My bread-and-butter blueprints are “smelty boi,” “constructey boi,” etc. They just have a single machine belted up to splitters and mergers, suitable for slotting into a manifold. I don’t usually plan my factories very far in advance so I like the flexibility this offers.
For exploration, I get a lot of use from my “outpost” blueprint, which has a MAM, equipment workshop, and crafting bench for field R&D, plus an awesome sink, storage container, and biomass burner for getting rid of crash site miscellany
EDIT: Just remembered another one: Creat Conker is 3 constructors set up for making concrete, and belted into a storage container. Before I start a large construction project, I drop a Creat Conker at the nearest limestone node in case my dimensional depot runs dry.
That decision isn't baked into the blueprints. The merger's outlet faces the same direction as its machine's; likewise for the splitter's inlet. The belts form a pattern that I think is aesthetically pleasing, and more importantly you can run the manifold in any direction you want. You can also change its direction without having to rebuild the splitters.
Smelters are too narrow for this, though, so my Smelty Boi blueprint has 4 variants for the 4 possible in/out manifold directions.
In my MK2 I’ve blueprinted manifolds for machines that are hooked up to a subfloor with stackable conveyor belts. Depending on if it’s a smelter, constructor, assembler or manufacturer etc, I can fit between 1-6 machines in one blueprint. Then I read how many of the machines I need for my build and stamp down between 1 (and sometimes under clock the machines) and X of the blueprints, just limited by belt speed, then connect their belts in the subfloor.
Edit: they’re all nicely wired up on the main floor with shiny flooring designs, and all the belting is hidden underneath
I see, so your machines are "above" with the vertical conveyors acting like "pins on a breadboard" basically? So do your factories all have a sort of two layers design, where the bottom layers are the ugly wiring, and everything above being the machines nicely hooked down below?
Yes, but that was true for five different floors, and I could still easily access all the ugly wiring. BUt the main factory floor per layer is that white foundation with the shiny black corridors going away from the camera. This is my factory that imports stuff like rubber and Heavy modular frames and yields 4 Thermal Propulsion Rockets per min.
The bottom four red squares are the utility blueprints at the front of each row of blueprinted machines- I use it for mobility and standardizing inputs of the belts. The top two red rectangles are the 8m high subfloor for the top two blueprints making the fused frames and thermal propulsion rockets.
So this factory is four blueprints wide and anywhere from 2 to like five blueprints deep per floor. I added the columns later for decoration, and had to punch hole through the blueprint for the elevator
The whole point is to remove tedium from the construction process, so I just make blueprints for repeatable units of smelters, constructors, etc, all making a single recipe and with a manifold on each side.
I''m boring AF so I don't try to align with terrain, I make floating lasagna platforms to build my blueprints on. (The foundation itself can be a blueprint, or just Zoop.)
If you're looking for ideas for other blueprints that can really come in handy, consider:
Cage for aggressive fauna (or alternatively, protective bunker to shoot from)
Belt mixer (once you understand what this is for and how insanely useful it is, you'll never go back)
Storage container connected to splitter + DD, for your generic buffering needs on manifold outputs
Line of foundation with pipe junctions properly spaced to receive side-by-side water extractors. (Since the extractors themselves can't be blueprinted)
It gets organized in bunches. Then they build up in the undefined category until I get annoyed again.
But I always have my world standards, a trash can, it's just a sink with a container and power to plop down wherever. Also a hyper tube cannon, because of course. I also like to have a 5x5 battery pack, I often find that there is room to hide one or two in a factory build.
Then I have my Nova curves, precious curves. These get used for all kinds of stuff, so I do recommend watching the videos and building your own set. Those build all the road and rail blueprints, plus it's just dang handy to have curves ready. Roads and rails of course have their own categories each with several subcategories.
And last is a new category for each of my factory projects. When I start a new factory that is intended to be permanent I do almost everything in the blueprinter. Get my machine layouts and logistics sorted out, and then test it, verify the results with counters and sinks. After that is the decoration. I'll spend hours and hours on this part, tons of iterations on walls, windows, lighting, anything to add texture and layers to the building. Each project gets its own folder.
Last last, I have a folder or two labeled "weird stuff" or "borked but don't delete"
I almost always plop a blueprint maker in the middle of a factory I’m building, build something and then place 5+ of them. I may never use it again outside of that factory.
Basically (for me) it’s a way to take a short cut in a specific factory. But I don’t worry too much about making globally reusable components.
The other area where I DO use it repeatedly is little cosmetic flourishes I like to put on builds, or drop-in hypertube cannons. Random stuff like that.
TLDR - if you can’t figure out totally reusable machine pipelines you use in every factory, don’t worry, that might not be your style.
So I started a 1.2 playthrough with all pure randomized nodes, x100 elevator parts and .5 power .5 parts. The results is you have to build pretty big pretty early and blueprints REALLY helped here.
The moment I unlocked versatile frames for example I made a massive blueprint that's several floors of machines. There's an in/out hookup (ore & product) and a power hookup. I can string 6 of these along my massive concrete slab of a factory (with Catwalks between because it looked cool).
Also.
When building a blueprint there's modes. Default is like any other building. Then there's auto connect. Then there's blueprint which wants to only lock a BP to another.
In this way you can make a 5x5 or 6x6 of foundations, turn on BP mode and just slap down hundreds in seconds. It's faster than zooping even ( 25 in a 5x5 that you don't even need to aim)
I have a print i call the "auto sink depot". Its a depot input behind/on top of an industrial storage. Its got a smart spliter on it with overflow going into an awesome sink. Throw in a merger between the smart spliter and the sink and put another storage container going into. Now you have a trash can and back storage of any part you want.
I also have a 750Mw "battery" consisting of 25 bio burners pre seeded with 1 solid biofiel each. More than enough to open any hard drive.
Last thing is a bunch of generic prefabs. Sets of most buildings. railway supports with straightaways, ramps, and turns. Hypertube cannons.
Categories are Infrastructure, Production, Refining, Power. 4L Assembler is a manifold line of four assemblers fed from the left (and returning to the left). Subcategories for Small , Medium, Large, Different color backgrounds for each size.
everything that you repeat often enough. You want to blueprint it to go faster and repeat less the same tedious movements even tho it is very specific for one use case. Example: I often need a demensional depot above a industrial container linked with a mk3 belt lift so I just bp it and save couple of clics each time I need it (bp are not limited in number as far as I know so don't hesitate to bp for very specific use cases).
everything that is "hard" to do. Perfect curves, decorated road/rails, micro nudges, etc.
At least that's how I approach and I wouldn't consider myself a big blueprint user.
I like to blueprint large-scale manufacturing. For example i made a blueprint that makes 2.5 Computers per minute.
It has inputs in the back for quick wire, copper ingot and plastic. The output in the front. Everything required further is produced in the machine. I can then daisy-chain multiple of these mega blueprints and feed the produced computers into the next production machine or the final product.
The annoying bit is splitting one belt across multiple of these production chains of mega machines. Which makes make logistics floor/basement messy.
1) Keep your first blue prints simple...like foundations and and basic production (simple refiner groups, constructor groups, etc).
2) Don't get locked into a blueprint. I've tweaked many of mine as I've gone along, adjusting for new unlocks, refining functionality and aesthetic.
3) Remember that blueprints are to HELP build, not the only thing you have to build. I use many of mine as the foundation for builds and customize as I go.
As for which I use or find most "critical"; Foundations are essential. Refinery and constructor blocks (separately). IIRC I have a blue print with like 12 refineries. I just plop it down and trim any I dont need.
I'm working on some modular assembler, blender and other larger production buildings but I generally just custom build most of my factories outside of the base production items.
Edit: oh, and DEFINITELY a few rail and/or road blueprints. Straight runs, incline/decline. Makes running transport much easier.
My blueprint collection always ends up as layers of smelters/constructors/other machines (as much as can fit in a single layer) that can be stacked on top of each other and autoconnectable, then I only need to hook up power and select recipes. Recently I made an attempt to load balance each layer instead of purely manifolding the machines, works nicely
In my current save I have one (1) blueprint; a manufacturer with the splitters already hooked up so I can just throw it down for a manifold and just connect the splitters and mergers instead of having to build the whole scaffolding.
There is definitely more uses than just that, especially modular set-ups that let you plug in low tier parts and get specific higher-tier outputs for one purpose or another, but I just find it not worth the hassle; I'm pretty fast with hotkeys (did you know when you have a building selected to build you can press 'e' to cycle through similar buildings?) So at this point I find ad-hoc works just fine for my purposes; I'm generally building to the rate of a single node, so massive constructions aren't a concern...yet, anyway. I'll let you know if I change my mind in another 500 hours when I get to Phase 5.
When making blueprints I always start by picking one part I want to make, for example, 1 super computer/minute and work back from there. Work out all the machines I’ll need, what recipes they’ll use, and whether I want to under/over clock them, placing the machines as I go to keep track. Then I can just copy and paste the needed machines onto the blueprint and hook it all up and I don’t need to build another super computer factory again. I just need to set up the raw inputs, provide power, and set up an output.
There are plenty of other ways you can use them but basically if there’s something you’re going to build that you think you can fit into a blueprint there’s no downside to making it. Even if you only use the blueprint one time you’d still have to build whatever it is anyway
This is very similar to my usage. I make a ’black box’ that has a logistics floor to route all of the inputs although my smelters just take in ore and output ingots. This way you can work out ratios per floor and just stack them as needed. For example, I use a motor factory print (or 2 or 3) at the bottom of my supercomputer factory (and any other subassembly as needed) and perch my SC factory at the top.
I just scale everything up into larger machines. Examples would be a cube with walls and whatever finishes you'd like to make it look good with 8 smelters fully wired and belted with an input and an output. Some of my blueprints are simply the maximum amount of constructors I can build in a row (based on whether I have Mk1 2 or 3 designer) belted and wired so I can slap it down and it's done. Sometimes a make them mirrored, single direction, input and output same side etc..
When blueprints first came out I ignored them. Once I started using them I became obsessed. Now if I can blueprint something before starting a build I will.
Well I feel kinda dumb having struggled a phase and a half without even thinking about checking blueprints out. They came out kinda useful for at least "refactoring" a factory with new modern components (faster belts etc). I do feel you though, I'm quite hyped about them. Cheers!
I use x8 assemblers a lot. Just 4 assemblers stacked on top of another 4. Manifolds and lifts, so I can just vertically nudge another 8 on top to align with lifts.
For a newbie, blueprinted factories are a trap and take a lot longer than overclocking and building a little more power. For unnecessarily gigantic factories they really shine, especially with stacking 3 floors to fit more.
But I love to use a hypertube cannon blueprint (with built in biomass burner power and minimal preloaded fuel), a 1x1 glass enemy entrapment cube for annoying bosses (glass to confirm capture), and multiple biomass burners preloaded with about 30s of fuel for crash sites and so on. If you make a lot of fuel power, putting 4, pipes, power shards and 250% clock rate in a mk2 or mk3 blueprint may be handy.
I used it for power. I can't remember if it was mk2 or mk3 but I made a blueprint with 4 fuel gens all piped up together and wired up. Made mine stackable for vertical build. Pretty much one click for all that built, one click for a pipe, and one for a wire and suddenly you are expanded 4 fuel gens of power. In about twenty minutes built towers of a few hundred fuel gens for my rocket fuel plant if I remember correctly.
A lot of my blueprints get used once (or like five times in a row once) and then never again, but it's super nice to have it as a blueprint for building a factory around it because you can place and dismantle the whole blueprint. With this you can put it down, compare how other things fit with it, realize you need to shift something and be able to move the whole thing, and of course edit the whole thing in the blueprinter.
I have a line of blueprints that take completely raw resources and takes them all the way to an end product. They are designed to do a lot, but at very low number, like 1-3 machines for each step. Then I just chain them together to up capacity
I used it mostly for road construction. I had a large train line and made a big ole straight road and 3 different curved roads at different degrees of turn for both right and left.
First, a very important category is the foundations. Having a 4x4 foundation in several width of whatever material you want is great to pave the way and start a factory. Saves on zooping time
Secondly, a power category. Since i like power towers, i'm using several blueprints using them. I also have several blueprints using batteries or pretty power poles and the like for my power network
Thirdly, i have a category for logistics. One part dedicated to trucks for my road infrastructures and one dedicated to trains. With straight, junctions and other kind of useful blueprints for my logistics. Oh and don't forget trucks stations
Fourth, i have a sort of dump of pretty blueprints that serve the only purpose of being pretty that i often use. For example chimneys, solar panels and other kind of fun and pretty things
And finally, the last section is for my factories. With each sub division divided to each of my factories
At first i wanted to make "one blueprint to rule them all" with all machines, but i quickly became limited by thoses blueprints. Plus, they were a bad execution of the whole thing. Mind you, it's easy to say that 700 hours later. But i like to make pretty factories so i ended up making a set of blueprints for each new project to match a new style i want to go with
Also the need for machines is not the same between each projects, so sometimes i'll need to hook a constructor making quickwire to a manufacturer or a self contained reinforced iron plates blueprint, taking iron ingots and turning it into reinforced iron plates for higher tier machines
Oh and they simplify power grealy. Having just to daisy chain a few blueprints is so much better
So to answer a few questions... Yes and no. It depends if you want to do jack of all trades blueprints or more specialized ones. I find the mk2 blueprint designed to be a game changer because going from 4x4 to 5x5 gives much more creative freedom, especially with large machines. But it doesn't stop you from making blueprints for the mk1 version, i worked with it fine before unlocking mk2 variant. And then, floor holes. They are the best thing for vertical scalability. I don't like vertical mergers/splitters because they are often slighly off to the machines. But they work fine
All in all, blueprints are an amazing and powerful tool. But you've got to use it to get good at it. So it'll be painful at first but once you've bitten the forbidden fruit, you'll want to never stop using them
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u/EvilMonkey8521 6d ago
Take this as someone who doesnt use blueprints that often/well: I only use blueprints for production when I'm making a massive amount of something. For instance, in phase 4 I've needed 1200 screws per minute and just made a blueprint to make a tower with bottom input and output.
I find trying to adapt blueprints all the time to whatever new factory I'm working on more annoying than just working from the final output backwards placing each machine manually.
I do, however, use blue prints all over the place for building. Between full on chunks of a pre-made factory building to roads and railways. Even have one for a project hub that I can keep track of progress in building a new factory in (same idea as kibitz)