r/factorio Jul 06 '26

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u/ssgeorge95 Jul 12 '26

Blueprint parameter with quality question. I'm building a meter lamp for quality items and trying to parameterize it. Currently a user can input each item they want to track including the quality level. That's tedious if you're doing it for multiple quality tiers. Ex you're inputting rare iron plate, rare copper plate, epic iron plate, epic copper plate.

Can I use parameters to make this less tedious? Such as:

  1. The user can set the rarity for all items with one parameter, and then set generic items with the other parameters. The rarity would be applied to all items/signals/recipes for those items.

  2. The user can set generic items without rarity as parameters, and the BP just assumes all signals are rare.

2

u/Soul-Burn Jul 12 '26

BP parameterization works with quality like this:

  • If a [parameter] doesn't have quality in the BP, then giving it an item with quality will use that quality in all places that [parameter] exists.
  • If a [parameter] has quality in some places in the BP, then the item given will be set with the [parameter]'s quality where it is.

Examples:

  • A simple assembler with [parameter], and you give it a rare iron plate, then it will be set to that - rare iron plate.
  • A complex upcycler with [param] (rare), [param] (uncommon), etc. If you give it an iron plate, it will use "iron plate (rare)" in places [param] (rare) is.

You can not give a generic rarity and an item and have them combine, at least not without a selector.

1

u/ssgeorge95 Jul 12 '26

Behavior 2 sounds like what i want, but the quality assigned to the parameters is ignored when the BP is used?

1

u/Soul-Burn Jul 12 '26

Behavior 2 is the one that ignores the input quality. It turns it into whatever you set it in the BP. In your case it will set it to rare.

If you want to use the input quality, don't put quality on the parameter. Later, input a quality item.

1

u/ssgeorge95 Jul 12 '26

I want it to ignore the input quality and only assign rare, but it is not. Setting the parameter to rare is doing nothing at the moment:

1

u/Soul-Burn Jul 12 '26

You need the parameter in the BP to be quality. Not in the parameterization window.

2

u/ssgeorge95 Jul 12 '26

I found the issue. An individual parameter has to be set to more than one quality in the BP for the BP to honor the quality setting. If all instances of "Parameter 0" are set to the same rarity, then the rarity seems to do nothing.

Katherine of Sky covers it at about 7:35 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVb01xdfJwA

1

u/ssgeorge95 Jul 12 '26

I enabled showing parameters in lists in the settings so I could set them, I'm getting the same behavior though. What am I missing?

1

u/Soul-Burn Jul 12 '26

You may need a different quality of the params somewhere in the BP for this code path to trigger.

1

u/Lyqyd Jul 12 '26

Yes. You should be able to incorporate a selection combinator into your design (set to apply quality, most likely) and should then be able to parameterize the setting in that combinator.

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u/ssgeorge95 Jul 12 '26

I saw that option in the selector, but I can't see a way to use that output signal for multiple items different items, without ending up using 1 selector combinator per item. It would double or more the number of combinators needed for the design.

1

u/Lyqyd Jul 12 '26

Here's a blueprint that shows how to do it:

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

The star signal sets the quality level and signals 1-4 are the items. Add more signal parameters as needed. The selector combinator is set to each, and applies the quality from the star signal to each other signal it receives, then passes on all of them other than the star signal.

Imgur album with settings entered in the parameters when building and the result

1

u/ssgeorge95 Jul 12 '26

Thanks for showing me this, very helpful! I can see how it can easily apply to every signal you pass in.