Hit management game Factorio has finally added a feature that its developers held off on for years because they considered it "too hardcore."
That feature would be Parameterized Blueprints. In a new Factorio development blog, lead designer and original studio founder Michal Kovařík got pretty candid about the new feature, writing that he was "thinking about this idea for years already," and that he "always thought the feature is too hardcore to be included."
What changed his mind? Kovařík has since realized it is "usually a mistake to underestimate the players," and so decided to share the Parameterized Blueprints feature straight away.
So what does the "hardcore" new feature actually do for Factorio diehards? Basically, it lets the player completely experiment with blueprints by customizing a predetermined set of parameters and then fill out those preset parameters whenever they want to construct something specific, saving time overall.
Kovařík gives the example of an unloading station, a crucial means of moving goods in Factorio. Typically you'd need rails, a station, and special inserters designated to correctly unload set cargo from trains. However, when you want to reconfigure the target cargo, you need to manually reassign all the inserters so they know what to look for.
What Kovařík wanted was a "blueprint which doesn't have a specific item configuration, but rather is generic, and allows you to configure it differently each time you build it." Enter Parameterized Blueprints: with these, you can assign the parameters you want for a building or combination of buildings whenever you want, and you can also set them up to be dependent on other parameters for consistency.
So, if the target cargo coming into an unloading station changes, the unloading station can change the cargo it's assigned to automatically, without you having to do anything extra. Previously you would've had to go into every unloading station and change the target cargo manually, but Parameterized Blueprints let you link the two together.
It's a lot to parse, and Kovařík "would love to hear your feedback about this feature" via the "usual channels." He acknowledges the way Factorio logic is compared to programming and says these blueprints are "just another part of the analogy" in the way they mirror "the compile time function execution versus runtime function execution." A lot to parse, indeed.
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