Game Mechanics Tradable Construction Blueprints - Instant build from templates

Teh Manticore

Terrarian
As 1.4 may be the last major update to Terraria, it'd be wonderful if they left us with the means for storing and sharing buildings we make in the form of Blueprints.
Blank Blueprints can be bought for 1 Platinum and allow you to copy the object data from a selected area and then use that Complete Blueprint to construct copies of the original as if you were placing furniture. So long as you have a Complete Blueprint and all the materials in your inventory that makes up the original area, you can recreate small regions of your build again and again, or even give to other players for their use in their own worlds. This would be the foundation for a new mode of build creation and sharing amongst the Terraria community.

Here's the mechanics:
- Using a Blank Blueprint object, click and drag a box over an area. All the foreground, background, and wire objects (including paint) is recorded to the blueprint object, including their positions.
- Mouse over the blueprint in your inventory to see a list of all the objects needed to copy the construction (a blueprint can never copy more objects than you can store in your inventory/chest).
- When you've got all the materials in your inventory that was recorded in the blueprint, select the blueprint in your toolbar. A transparent copy of the original area appears at your mouse cursor (like when you place furniture). If you don't have enough materials, then either a red x appears, or a list of all the things you're missing.
- If the area occupied by the copy is completely empty, hold the use button down until the construction is replicated at your mouse cursor. The construction takes x seconds per y materials needed in the build (I dunno what would be a fair amount of time? It'd be influenced by block placement speed/builder potion, etc).
- If the area is partially occupied with objects, but those parts 100% match the template, then the remaining space can be completed with the Blueprint.
- Otherwise, if the area is obstructed with objects that don't match the Blueprint, then they show as red, like when placing overlapping furniture.

An advanced addition to this mechanic is for Re-Logic to implement an in-built, online marketplace or "Blueprint Library" for blueprint trading among online players. It'd enable players that aren't sharing multiplayer worlds, and those in single-player worlds, to create and share blueprints of unique constructions they like. Most would be given free I'm sure, but some players might want to request the trade of an in-game object (like stacks of shroomite or luminite bars, or such), or even have links to their own donate pages. This could all be done whether the other player is online or not, and would mean very popular templates could be shared to lots of people. It would also make some of our greatest creations live on as legacies in other people's worlds, whether they modify and add to them or keep them unchanged.

Blueprint areas would of course need to be limited in size. I don't know how data heavy it would be to copy chunks of world maps into tradable object data, but the clearest limitation is not exceeding more materials needed to build it than you can hold in inventory. For an online marketplace or library, there may need to be limited number of blueprints a member can post for free before needing to buy extra blueprint storage slots in bundles of 5 or 10 or whatever. That way the online marketplace remains sustainable into the future and members are encouraged to only post their most valued templates.
 
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This has been done in the form of the Boxinator Mod. It allows you to craft some pre-set "houses" that are placed where you stand. However, I'm not sure how the mechanic would translate when used with more complex builds.
 
This has been done in the form of the Boxinator Mod. It allows you to craft some pre-set "houses" that are placed where you stand. However, I'm not sure how the mechanic would translate when used with more complex builds.
That's a sweet looking mod! Boxinator is very similar to this suggestion. It'd be nice to see this in the vanilla version, but being able to easily make your own templates using a click and select interface, and the core part of having the community of players making and sharing their blueprints with each other. A blueprint system would also mean that very large builds of many areas could be split across a series of blueprints that people could reconstruct in order.

I forgot to add that this would be VERY useful for people that just want to move a section of their base to another area, or even just a few tiles away. It's a much more forgiving way of handling those little measurement mistakes we all make that can ruin entire plans.

Also, it's a cute way of being able to copy your bases from world to world. So long as you can get all the materials, you can generate and move to new worlds without losing all the design work you've put in to your home.
 
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