Originally thought as too hardcore, the lead developer of the management game says, “It is usually a mistake to underestimate the players”
Factorio, the popular management game, has finally added a feature that its developers resisted for years because it was “too hardcore.”
Parameterized Blueprints are that feature. Michal Kovak, the lead designer and original studio founder, got pretty candid about the new feature in a new Factorio development blog, writing that he had been “thinking about this idea for years already,” and that he “always thought the feature is too hardcore to be included.”
What caused him to reconsider? Kovak has since realized that “underestimating the players is usually a mistake,” and has decided to share the Parameterized Blueprints feature right away.
So, what exactly does the “hardcore” new feature do for Factorio diehards? Essentially, it allows the player to completely experiment with blueprints by customizing a predetermined set of parameters and then filling out those predetermined parameters whenever they want to construct something specific, saving time in the long run.
Kovak uses an unloading station as an example of a critical means of moving goods in Factorio. Rails, a station, and special inserters designed to correctly unload set cargo from trains are typically required. When you want to reconfigure the target cargo, however, you must manually reassign all the inserters so they know what to look for.
Kovak desired 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 whatever parameters you want to a building or group of buildings whenever you want, and you can also set them up to be dependent on other parameters for consistency.
As a result, if the target cargo arriving at an unloading station changes, the unloading station can automatically change the cargo it’s assigned to without your intervention. Previously, you would have had to manually change the target cargo at each unloading station, but Parameterized Blueprints allow you to connect the two.
It’s a lot to take in, and Kovak “would love to hear your feedback about this feature” through the “usual channels.” He acknowledges the comparison of Factorio logic to programming and claims that these blueprints are “just another part of the analogy” because they mirror “the compile time function execution versus runtime function execution.” There’s a lot to unpack here.