Schematica is kind of like building gadgets but has better support for machine structures. Recommended by some on Discord. Sounds potentially quite useful.

@eutropius225 you seem to be correct in that it doesn't look like Schematica supports conduits, but this is classed more of a bug. Lunatrius/Schematica#283 Not sure about covers.

Infact a quick glance at the issues list shows that it has frequent issues with mods. Could be a potential stability issue if players start using them outside of just modular machines etc. Plus the author hasn't engaged with the project since 2018 so I'd be nervous about it.

That said, I do wish there was a nice option for placing multiblocks. I wonder if there's a more limited alternative.

There's the same question to ask of the pack's design intention that the Factorio team had when they weren't sure if to add blueprints or not.

It gives the player the option (and perhaps incentive) to not have to solve any of the puzzles that the game presents, as you can crowd source the solutions as imported blueprints.

The Factorio team eventually decided to keep blueprint imports as a difficulty and accessibility decision, I personally agree with them on this, but it's worth considering nonetheless.

Schematica would primarily matter for multiblock structures, and there really are no "puzzles" to solve in that sense.

Copying large sections of other people's factories would also not be possible, since they usually involve configuring of covers, conduits and filters.

I don't think we'd face any of those issues that Factorio faced.

Is Schematica really needed now that all GTCE/MBTweaker multiblocks have in world multiblock previews, and the Draconic Storage core can build itself?

The previews are very helpful, but it's not the same as being able to paste predefined structures. Unfortunately, BuildingGadgets doesn't support TileEntities in 1.12.2. That's why we were contemplating this mod in the first place.

The move to MBTweaker structures means that the casings of the structures are not tile entites anymore, making it easier to copy the structures, besides the controllers and input/output hatches/buses, and maybe some other special blocks like the compressors in the projectors, so the multiblocks are mostly capable of being copied with the copy/paste gadget now.