So, I have finished my first big production line exploiting teleporters so I decided to blueprint it and actually use it outside of The Lab.

But when I pasted it, this happened:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1812068009
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1812068211

As you can see, there is only the actual machine, but there is nothing where the buffer chest is supposed to be. (My pointer is right where it would normally be in the second screenshot.) And bots won't build it.

What's even more interesting is that in the same blueprint, I have another set of this exact setup, and both dematerializers on that side were built without an issue. What's more… Take a look at that: 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1812072213

Even in the blueprint, for some reason, the number of buffer chests and machines don't match. I tried blueprinting it again, and the same issue arose.

That was the first, detailled, issue I encountered. Now the second:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1812074647

After encountering the first issue, this one makes a bit more sense than it did at first. Basically, I was using The Lab, where cheat mode is enabled - so constructions are instant. I suppose that what happened is the same thing as in the first issue, except that it actually got built thanks to the cheat mode.

However, I have absolutely no way to destroy/unbuild it. Hell, even undo or an artillery bombardment won't do the trick!

Yes. I tried.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1812076648

I have actually no idea of HOW it ended up like that in my blueprint library. I mean, the blueprint literally looks like that and I never placed these three buggy teleporters at these locations. They just… appeared here somehow.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1812078314

So, here's the string for the blueprint:

https://pastebin.com/rMjQShh0

And a save that I uploaded yesterday for an issue with another mod. I don't believe I had Bulk Teleporters yet though so you'll have to activate it manually if you want to try.

https://mega.nz/#!eQcWHaCZ!Q1e3Qmdh4MKNipLceJ2IAmtHHmXovVCVjZJnlE-4xjY

And… that's it.

Yes, blueprints need both materializer and buffer entities for each teleporter. The materializer controls the graphics sprites and energy consumption, and the buffer the circuit network connections and inventory.

In a normal non-cheat-mode game the materializer entities are not minable, destructible or selectable with the pipette tool; everything is done by handling the buffer entity and the Lua control code handles adding and removing materializers when buffers are created or destroyed.

In cheat mode you can duplicate the materializer without the buffer using the pipette tool, but normally you still can't place it -- you just end up with some extra items in your inventory that normally are impossible to pick up.

I'm not familiar with The Lab. If it's just a sandbox with cheat mode then I'm very interested to see how you got blueprints like this. Is it possible an early blueprint or copy/paste had just a materializer, and that propagated elsewhere via further copy/paste?

0.1.21 might help prevent these issues, or at minimum alert the player if an existing broken blueprint is used.

Indeed, The Lab is basically a sandbox surface with cheat mode. (And incidentally, a button to clear The Lab, which is the only thing that worked to remove these glitched rematerializers.)

So I just tested what you said, for good measure. And it's indeed possible to pipette the materializer only, but not to use it. What I did then was to go a step further and try with copying the materializer instead of pipetting it. I tried to get only the materializer, without the buffer but that wasn't possible. So I tried with only the buffer, and with both.

And that's where it gets weird. I did that multiple times, and then tried to blueprint the thing to see how it went. And in one case, with a materializer + buffer copy, I got 3 output buffers for one materializer. And it was copied the same way as a few before, which didn't share this issue.

Anyway, back to the last issue. I seriously don't know how it happened… I tried to reproduce it, but since I don't know how it happened to begin with, that was a vain pursuit. I didn't actually notice right away what happened to the blueprint. What I remember doing was:

— Build the thing with only the four lower meterializers
— Export the blueprint to the blueprint library
— Load a save from a few minutes before
— Try to use the blueprint, which somehow got glitchy with these three new materializers overlapping with those beacons.

So… given that it should not be possible to copy only the materializers (unless I missed something with these copy testings) I doubt that it would be the cause. Same with pipetting since, just as you said, it's not possible to place it.

TL;DR: nope. Not a single clue about what happened but that might be related to some extent to cheat mode. (Though it doesn't explain the unequal number of buffers/materializers that seems to happen randomly.)

Edit: welp, time to update.

0.1.22 should be more robust when cheat mode is on.

Alright, I'll keep you updated if I encounter something like that again - but I didn't since 0.1.21. Though I got the new error message after pipetting a dematerializer once or twice. (Never happened out of cheat mode as far as I know, though.)