Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Allow spidertrons to be included in blueprints, including the configuration that you can currently copy and paste settings between spidertrons.

What ?

I suggest adding support for placement and configuration through blueprints. Currently, spidertron configuration can only be done manually or through shift+right click and shift+left click using a different spidertron.

Why ?

• This feature would make spidertrons more consistent with other configurable entities as those that support copy/pasting of configurations also work in blueprints.

• Adding support for spidertrons in blueprints would allow spidertron copying without manually configuring one first in the world. This reduces tedious manual effort.

• Having various spidertron configurations for different purposes is really interesting, but it currently requires a lot of tedious manual effort. This is especially true if you want to have logistics and for people who play multiplayer or have multiple worlds.

• Spidertrons don't interact with inserters, so the concerns around abuse like with a similar feature for cars and tanks would not apply.

This was discussed in a previous thread a few years ago (viewtopic.php?f=6&t=92442) but the thread wasn't very specific or well structured with the suggestion template.

I think this would be particularly nice because builder spidertrons aren't very useful, or at least not automatable, if you don't set auto trash for every single item type manually, which takes like 30 minutes to do every time (and copy-pasting it to other spidertrons is kinda clunky too). The issue is that otherwise random items will fill up the already limited inventory and never be autotrashed, thus requiring you to frequently check every spidertron and empty them manually.

If you could blueprint the main design you would never have to spend that 30 minutes every time you decide to make a new playthrough.

This has been confirmed as implemented in 2.0