Hi somethingtohide,
I'm probably not the first to suggest something like this, but I wanted to propose an idea that bridges the gap between gameplay immersion and the mod's current excellent technical stability.
What if the entry point to the sandbox was a craftable, placeable entity: a "Sandbox Terminal"?
To be absolutely clear: I am not suggesting that players physically walk into a building or that you change the underlying surface-switching algorithms. We all know the headaches and crash risks the old "Blueprint Designer Lab" mod had with inventory and teleportation logic. The terminal would simply act as a physical anchor and a GUI hub in the world.
How it could work:
1. Crafting & Placement: Players craft the Terminal and place it on any valid surface.
2. Terminal GUI: Interacting with the Terminal opens a configuration menu before entering the sandbox. Here, players could select options like:
- Target environment (e.g., Nauvis, Vulcanus, Gleba, or a blank blueprint surface).
- Environmental toggles (Day/Night cycle, enemy spawning, ruins).
3. Entering the Sandbox: Clicking a "Simulate" button in the Terminal GUI triggers your existing, robust surface-switching logic.
4. Exiting: Inside the sandbox, the player would just have a simple, persistent "Exit Simulation" button (or interact with a spawned terminal entity) to return to their main character on the main surface.
Research Tree Integration:
To give this entity progression and purpose (especially fitting the Space Age computation theme), it could be tied to a few new technologies:
- Virtual Prototyping: Unlocks the basic Sandbox Terminal recipe.
- Expanded Simulation Capacity: Increases the maximum allowed build area or chunk generation limit for the sandbox surface (if the API allows dynamic surface size adjustments, or alternatively, optimizes memory for larger blueprints).
- Mock-Grid Protocols: Unlocks the ability to simulate an infinite power grid within the sandbox, removing the need to place power poles or accumulators during testing.
- Virtual Logistics & Fluids: Unlocks "Infinite Provider/Requester Chests" and "Infinite Pipes" specifically for sandbox environments, allowing players to test throughput and ratios without building massive supply chains first.
This approach keeps the mod incredibly stable (since it still relies entirely on your proven surface-switching code) while adding a highly immersive, lore-friendly progression system. It makes the sandbox feel like a genuine piece of engineering equipment rather than just a meta-game hotkey.
