[WIP] Toby

Work in progress, version 0.0.15. Requires Factorio 2.1.20 or later. Includes production planning, blueprint books and a companion drone. Toby chat connects through a Facmandu-managed server.

Click the Toby icon above the game view or use its game shortcut, or press Ctrl+Shift+T, to open the side panel. New chat starts a separate conversation without stopping an existing run. Chat shows recent messages, Activity shows completed tool outcomes, errors and current work. Design shows the latest validated working draft or final blueprint, with warnings and construction costs. Inspections are labeled separately. Tab scroll positions survive progress updates. Status, elapsed time and tool results update while Toby works. Switch conversations while a run continues, or use Steer to add instructions. Press Enter to send or steer. Closing the panel keeps your typed draft. Shortcuts are configurable in Factorio’s Controls settings.

Inspect blueprint uses Factorio's blueprint editor. Press Ctrl+Shift+Enter from the message input, or Ctrl+Shift+B from the game view, to open it with the keyboard. Take blueprint puts the design in your cursor and closes the panel so you can place it. Both preserve your held item through Factorio's clear-cursor operation and refuse when the item cannot be returned to your inventory. Neither supplies construction materials.

Install this mod on the server and every client. Enable the in-game assistant in Facmandu's server settings. The mod contains no model credentials and has no network client. Player GUI events are emitted into the server log; Facmandu checks the connected player and conversation ownership before dispatch. Responses arrive over the existing private RCON connection. Existing force and action permissions apply.

Ambient mode is optional in server settings and requires a connected NeuralWatt account with Clef access. It sends ordinary player chat and recent assistant context to Clef for routing. Bare @, @toby, and @assistant remain direct requests.

Drone (or Ctrl+Shift+D from the game view) controls Toby’s own automatic companion, independently of Entourage. It appears when you join with a character and follows between surfaces. No crafting, equipment, robots, fuel or charging is needed. Construction follows Entourage’s reserve/revive/refund pattern and consumes actual items from Toby’s cargo, your inventory or nearby same-force provider/storage chests. Missing materials leave ghosts untouched. Inventory opens cargo; the legacy grid remains only to preserve equipment from earlier development builds. Follow me and Stay here control movement; the assistant can send Toby to an explored destination within 256 tiles. It pauses when you disconnect without losing cargo. Encoded vehicle items are left intact until their entity-data placement is supported; no research or building materials are granted.

Production planner has its own menu icon and shortcut: Ctrl+R or U. Ctrl+Shift+R toggles compact view, Ctrl+Shift+C opens its calculator, and Ctrl+P toggles planner pause in singleplayer. Toby chat opens separately with its icon or Ctrl+Shift+T. Plan from outputs, available inputs or operating machines. The Planning editor uses the native item/fluid picker for rates, belts, lanes and stack sizes, with exact or maximum supplies and an output to maximize. Shift+Alt+I adds an input, Shift+Alt+O chooses an output, and Shift+Alt+B opens the current block's settings. Ctrl+left-click an ingredient to edit its supply. Used rates appear in the table; hover them for unused supply.

Nested blocks have their own input/output goals. Scale with parent links their proportions to the parent's demand while keeping supply and machine limits absolute; turn it off to keep configured quantities. Machine buttons offer exact or maximum fractional operating counts, Sequential coverage percentages, average/peak solar and reactor neighbor bonuses. Accumulator planning shows watts of night load coverage using the surface day cycle and charge/discharge limits. These settings persist with the plan. Machine and beacon editors apply changes only on Submit and preserve newer edits from Toby. The original MIT, translation and bundled graphics notices remain under planner/.

Factory Planner and Helmod plans can be read through their native APIs. Toby’s embedded planner exposes temporary native simplex calculations without an external planner dependency; the tool catalog reports capabilities of older installed builds. Calculations preserve your plans, preferences and selection. Helmod’s native recipe calculator needs no adapter. Task List requires its separate adapter for shared force tasks. Native sandbox trials let Toby test a saved production module with actual game ticks before placing it. The trial copies current research and surface properties onto a separate test force and disposable lab. Declared item/fluid inputs are rate-limited; output endpoints are drained and measured against targets. Filters, circuit wires and inserter settings use native blueprint construction. Toby receives output rates and machine diagnostics, including ingredient starvation and missing power. The lab is removed after completion or cancellation; no items, research, pollution, player controllers or live factories are changed. Production tests default to 10 game seconds of warmup and 30 seconds of measurement. Robot-deployment fixtures use normal robot supplies and test idle-reserve stopping, busy demand at the population cap, and stopping after demand clears. Busy demand uses temporary circuit signal injection inside the lab; it does not claim real logistic-job throughput. When the server is paused, they wait without changing global pause or speed.

Trials cover compact ground modules up to 128×128 tiles and 1,000 entities. Long world routes still need native placement checks. Ideal test electricity is labeled explicitly; design-power tests use the planned poles and a declared external source. Platform collectors, asteroid spawning and hub logistics need a platform fixture and are not validated by a ground lab. Blueprint Sandboxes remains compatible and unchanged: its existing read/export adapter is separate because 3.3.0 exposes no public trial API.

Referenced items, fluids, recipes and entities have native icon buttons below messages. Click or Alt-click them to open Factoriopedia; technology buttons open Research. Materials use the same controls.

Toby has an original industrial drone body with seven animated screen states. Floating speech reports public work progress near your companion, at most once every ten seconds; it never exposes private model reasoning. Drone shows the current activity, location and number of ghosts built.

Plans are shared with your Factorio force; selections and preferences remain personal. Use Share in the planner to copy a toby://plan/<force>/<id> reference or attach it to Toby’s draft. Toby can create saved plans and read these references when its host tools are connected. Plan edits carry a revision so an old proposal cannot overwrite newer work.

The agent workspace uses a chat sidebar with actual task status and a larger conversation pane. Books keeps validated designs together by conversation in the save, shared with your force. Take Toby book creates an organized book; Update held book appends current designs while preserving existing entries and edits. Drag the resulting book into Factorio’s Game blueprints shelf yourself: the mod API cannot create library records.

Toby can create saved native plans, configure independent blocks, add/move/remove recipe lines, choose solvers, and edit output targets and input supplies. Line edits support machine quality, modules, beacons, fuel, applicable fluid temperatures, coverage percentages and power settings. Saved line IDs remain stable through edits and nesting; every edit checks the latest plan revision. Planning results predict rates and do not authorize construction.

Each conversation keeps its own unfinished message. Switching chats, progress updates and reopening the workspace preserve drafts.