Awesome! Thanks to both of you! The manual version is immediately helpful as a short term solution, but I really appreciate the discussion of the ruby. That might be incredibly helpful in the future. Take care

Perfect solution! Thank you kind stranger.

or someone can write a smart routine/plugin/extension to be used in LO, seeing that the LO SDK is available (LO is written in C++, correct?)

When you position the subcomponents, don't include the containing block's X, Y, or Z attributes in the formulas (firepit!X + the rest of the position formula). If you do, everything displaces the amount that you move plus the additional distance. Try the component in the attached file. BLAH-rev.skp