I would like to request a feature for the "Blueprint Sandboxes" mod that would greatly enhance the sandbox experience for players who prefer a more challenging and realistic environment.

Proposed Features:

Disable Cheaty Items: Please add an option at the start of the sandbox (near the pollution settings) to disable "cheaty" items such as infinite pipes, infinite chests, loaders, and so on. The infinite battery could be left enabled, as it helps prevent the annoying "no power" flashing icons. However, it would be great if there was an option to allow only one infinite battery per map, which cannot be removed or duplicated.

Resource Source Restrictions: Additionally, I would appreciate it if you could remove the ability to place resource sources (such as ores, oil, fluorite, meteorites, trees, etc.) in this mode. Essentially, I am asking for a sandbox that feels "unplayable" in the traditional sense.

Reason for Request:
Your mod is incredibly helpful for designing blueprints, but as a perfectionist who dislikes cheating, I find the ability to gather resources in the sandbox somewhat distracting. Implementing these features would allow players like me to focus solely on blueprint design without the temptation of resource gathering.

I don't fully understand the problem here, or where the line would be drawn. Truly, almost every feature within this mod is a "cheat" for the same reasons you've described so it's unclear where or why to draw a line and stop disabling functionality. The way I see it, at that point you're simply not using this mod anymore. You should make a scenario in the map editor, or play the game's sandbox scenario.

More interesting to me is that this mod is not forcing you to cheat, and it makes large attempts, sometimes at the detriment of other potential features, to prevent cheating. You already noted that some of what you considered cheating is quite helpful because it would be hard or impossible to use without it. We still have to define what "cheating" means though, because I don't think of it the same as you do. Why would you want to gather resources within the Sandbox? What purpose does that serve? Given the "sandbox," and that there is no cheating outside of it, what does it mean to cheat within it? Its purpose is to safely contain.

I feel like there's a hard path to convincing me here; fundamentally, "challenging and realistic" is not within the goals or scope of this mod - it's almost the opposite. Without this mod, you would either be full-realism by only being able to work within your world and its resources, or a full-editor with unlimited potential. This bridges a gap: helpful tools to quickly design and experiment during your game, but sandboxed away from it at the same time.

What I meant by referring to resource gathering as "cheating" is that having access to unlimited resources in the sandbox removes the challenge and sense of accomplishment that comes from building and designing. The ability to obtain resources out of thin air undermines the challenge of creating effective designs, as it eliminates the question of whether a design will work or not.

I’m looking for a tool that allows for efficient blueprint creation while still providing a sense of challenge. The current setup makes it too easy to design blueprints

I will take that as a compliment, since you described the purpose of this mod and that it has effectively solved the problem it intended to solve. What about the base game or its sandbox scenario does not fit your needs? What you keep describing sounds like playing the base game, and you haven't said it but my guess is that the main things you've liked about this mod's sandbox is that it's filled with lab tiles and has no enemy pressure. If so, you can do that with the map editor and/or map settings.

I don't understand why this is needed tho. The purpose of this mod is to create blueprints, not play in it. Don't want cheaty items - design your blueprints outside of sandbox
"The current setup makes it too easy to design blueprints". Yeah, that's the point.