Hello,

I'd like to try out some blueprints for a space platform, but in the blueprint sandbox I can't place the buildings (pressure too high, gravity too high). Is there a way around this?

Thanks

There is no way around it, for now. Space Platforms themselves cannot be used for cheating reasons; the properties like pressure are possible to change, but it requires me to build a GUI to manage them and take of things that can go wrong. I can do it if the demand is high enough! But just to be sure, you're not talking about having an actual Space Platform, right?

I'm not sure what you meant about an actual space platform. While trying to avoid spoilers, I'm at the point of having launched my first rocket, and I'd like to plan out my space platform a little more. I appreciate it sounds like this would be a difficult technical challenge for a relatively minor gain. I think I can use another mod to achieve this on a backup save/single player and blueprint things there, so this is very much in the 'nice to have' rather than a need for me. Thanks for your work, love the mod.

I see; even as the creator of this mod, I'd recommend to "do" instead of "plan" for this one, for what I'd say are reasons similar to spoilers. By an "actual" Platform I was wondering if you meant only that you could place an engine on the tiles in the sandbox, or whether it would be a new Space Platform with all the mechanics: automatic building, platform tiles, asteroids, and so on.

I haven't completed Space Age yet, but I'm sure that we'll encounter more entities that have requirements about pressure and gravity; for example you cannot place roboports in space for the opposite reasons as the engine, and that means if you can place engines in the sandbox, you cannot place roboports. I'll have to think through exactly how/when those properties should be adjustable. But, I don't think there's a good way to have an "actual" Space Platform, because it means you can "cheat" by interacting with the rest of the universe.

but I'm sure that we'll encounter more entities that have requirements about pressure and gravity

There are; choose a planet in Factoriopedia, and the "exclusive recipes" list will show which recipes can only be crafted on that planet. E.g. each planet has its own science which can only be crafted on that planet.

I feel like the best solution would be to have separate sandboxes that each mimic a different planet + space platform, similar to how it works for Space Exploration where you have separate planetary and orbital sandboxes?

Right; I've already ran into a few of my own yesterday, and I started working on this. I will probably have the update out later today, and I think you'll like it a lot. I just have to wrap up the documentation and test with a few other mods.

OK, I just released that. Let me know what you think!

Well, I'll point out an obvious oversight for the original post: we're still not in "space" so there's other reasons why thrusters cannot be placed. At this point I've solved the "surface conditions" on recipes - all of those messages like "gravity is too low" and "pressure is too high."

I'll have to experiment with the "space" portion to see if I can get the asteroid collectors and/or thrusters to place, if that's still desired. I can see use cases for designing thruster layouts.

There's now a Tile Planner for Empty Space, like there was for all Liquid Tiles; so, you can place that, then Platform Foundation, and you can build/use everything for Platforms (minus their hub, because they're not a real Platform!).

After the update place platform foundations are not deconstructable (i mean the those of ships already build)

I will probably have the update out later today, and I think you'll like it a lot. I just have to wrap up the documentation and test with a few other mods.

Just noticed the surface properties button in Blueprint Sandboxes, and what can I say, I do like it a lot! Thanks for the super quick update!

One thing that we've noticed that is still missing is the ability to build Lightning rods in Blueprint Sandboxes; they can't be built on a surface without lightning.

I've fixed the Space Platform issue by reverting this, for now. I believe that's a Factorio bug: if an item exists that can place Empty Space, all of the Platform Foundation related behaviors stop working. I'll post that, then check on the Lightning Rods next.

This is great, thanks so much. Just a question - is there a way to get the Space Platform Hub? This is the starting/main building of a space ship, and it wont paste in unlike everything else on the blueprint of my spaceship, the building itself is red. I also can't find it to place it through the build menu. Normally it would be created for you using a space platform starter pack.

That is what I mean by this not being an "actual" Space Platform. The Hub is what gives the Platform functionality, like having cargo, logistics, and schedules; none of that is stuff that you can have in a "sandbox" setting like this, within your real world, because it would allow you to affect the non-sandbox portions of the game. Even so, the engine itself seems to be the limiting factor, since it has some special code around copying/pasting Platforms that occurs before mods are able to do anything about it.

Perhaps a dummy chest entity with the same size as the hub, just so we can mess around with platform designs even if they don't work?