TL;DR
When drag-placing belts and crossing obstacles which the belts don't make it across, the game should use higher level belts if available.What ?
When dragging to place belts (or ghost belts), and an obstacle is reached which the current undergrounds cannot make it under, a higher level of belt should be used if it can make it, and is available. Example case: What you get: What you want: This can get much worse in modded playthroughs where many lengths of belt are available, and will likely get worse with quality adding longer undergrounds: So, the conditions to use a better underground should be:- The previous underground went straight into an obstacle, or couldn't reach at all
- The better belt is available for use (in the inventory of the player if placing, or in the network if ghost-placing)
Why ?
When trying to route difficult belts, dragging is almost perfect, as it normally gets around obstacles, however, when obstacles are too long or complex, it cannot do it - this is expected, as of course many paths are impossible without more complex reworking, however, having to switch to a better belt type for a long underground section is not uncommon, particularly when that belt type is still relatively rare/undermanufactured, so using it universally is wasteful and irritating.The action of having to switch to a better belt type to do an underground section is repetitive and doesn't add interesting gameplay challenges.
This feature would be particularly useful when building a new outpost (on a new planet even) where resources for expensive belts are limited, but can be used where necessary.
Also, if quality introduces longer undergrounds, those belts will get very expensive, so using them should be restricted to when necessary, and building entire belt routes in higher quality would be pointless. So the player would have to switch between belt qualities to do long underground lengths.