How Beltworks search works

Beltworks is built for finding the right factory layout quickly—not only scrolling a chronological feed. Search combines free text, Factorio-aware aliases, tags, and entity/recipe indexes extracted from each blueprint string.

Text search

The header search box matches titles and descriptions. Queries are normalized and expanded with common Factorio aliases (for example, everyday phrases that map to rocket-silo style content) so you do not need perfect internal names.

Tips for better text queries:

Prefer concrete nouns: “balancer”, “foundry”, “city block”, “rail stacker”.

Include a constraint word when needed: “botless”, “beacon”, “tileable”.

If the first page is noisy, add a tag exclude (below) instead of inventing longer sentences.

Tags: include and exclude

Tags on cards and print pages are clickable. Choose Include to require that tag, or Exclude to hide matching prints. Include is AND-style across selected includes—great when you need belt + train + 2.0 together. Exclude is the fastest way to drop Space Age-only, train-heavy, or beaconed designs from a mixed result set.

Practical tag patterns

Hunting early game: include belt or power; exclude late-game tags you do not want yet.

Hunting planet builds: include the planet tag when present; exclude other planets.

Cleaning a vague text query: keep the text, exclude the noisy category.

Entities and recipes

Beltworks indexes entities and recipes from each blueprint. Advanced search can target those indexes when you need “something that actually contains foundries” rather than a title that merely mentions them.

This is the difference between marketing titles and build contents. If a design is mislabeled, entity filters still surface the real assemblers, belts, and machines inside the string.

Sorting: Recent vs Top

Recent sorts by update time (new native uploads and freshly imported rows). Top sorts by favorites.

A good habit: start on Top for a problem class (balancers, smelting), then refine with tags/entities. Use Recent when following Beltworks-native authors or fresh Space Age metas.

Clear filters and stuck states

On the search page, Clear all resets query and filters. If results look “empty,” you are usually still excluding a tag or requiring an entity that rare designs contain. Clear, then re-apply one constraint at a time.

Combining with Guides

Search finds builds; guides teach workflows. After you land a candidate, open the print page, skim entities/recipes, then import via the import guide. Favorite promising results so you can compare two balancers later without re-finding them.