Large poles should automatically connect Red&Green wires

[ssilk]

Do you have an example of where auto-connecting red/green wires between large poles would have caused a significant problem? I'm now curious.

That would lead to absolute chaos on any of my worlds.

E.g. I have a big lab-part. If it doesn’t consume science packs, it turns off itself (power switch) after a while. I put the measurement of pack-consumption away from the timer/switch. Used a big pole for that.

And many, many more examples, and I’m sure for others, too.

@mrvn: click&drag: how would you connect one part with another, 1000 tiles away? I don’t think that’s practical and dangerous if there is already such a route in between, that you would accidentally connect.

[shopt]

Wouldn't you just disconnect it though? Just like when auto-connecting copper wire bypasses your switch?

[mrvn]

@mrvn: click&drag: how would you connect one part with another, 1000 tiles away? I don’t think that’s practical and dangerous if there is already such a route in between, that you would accidentally connect.

You start at one end where a power pole has red/green wires. Click and hold and then run the 1000 tiles to the other side to place all the poles with wires. Then a the end you have to connect the last pole to whatever needs the signal. Nothing would accidentally connect as only the new poles would be connected to the one where you started the click&drag. Nothing would connect to poles you pass by.

Think of it as click&drag of the red/green wires instead of the pole.

PS: This would work with any pole type. The trigger is you click at a pole with wires and drag with a pole type.

[ssilk]

@mrvn: click&drag: how would you connect one part with another, 1000 tiles away? I don’t think that’s practical and dangerous if there is already such a route in between, that you would accidentally connect.

You start at one end where a power pole has red/green wires. Click and hold and then run the 1000 tiles to the other side to place all the poles with wires. Then a the end you have to connect the last pole to whatever needs the signal. Nothing would accidentally connect as only the new poles would be connected to the one where you started the click&drag. Nothing would connect to poles you pass by.

Agreed. This would would be more or less useful. Less, because nobody says, that if you click on a pole, that is connected with wires, that the next pole needs to be connected also with wires. I fear this will lead after a while to every pole is connected with red/green wires, which is useless. And it leaves out the situation where I just want to connect existing poles - because I almost never know where to lay the wires, before I have power.

When I compare this to how the handling is with the https://mods.factorio.com/mod/WireShortcuts mod: I press alt-f or alt-g to have
Red or green wires in hand, then drag from pole to pole. What’s missing is a third shortcut (e.g. alt-h) to have red and green wires in hand, so you drag both types at once. Seems much more practical for me.

And as said, for longer connections (more than 5 poles) I prefer meanwhile using the https://mods.factorio.com/mod/shortwave_fix

I don’t think it’s cheating because this is just what you can do by connecting poles, but it spares players a lot of work and adds the flexibility to cross different networks without fearing to accidentally connect/disconnect other networks..

IMHO The circuits network has a very strong local character. As player I always want to put as many circuits together, which leads automatically to concentrations of combinators with a more or less big gap between then. There is no sense to force the player to fill this gaps. Tools, that make filling these gaps easier are just a makeshift/compromise.

[mrvn]

@mrvn: click&drag: how would you connect one part with another, 1000 tiles away? I don’t think that’s practical and dangerous if there is already such a route in between, that you would accidentally connect.

You start at one end where a power pole has red/green wires. Click and hold and then run the 1000 tiles to the other side to place all the poles with wires. Then a the end you have to connect the last pole to whatever needs the signal. Nothing would accidentally connect as only the new poles would be connected to the one where you started the click&drag. Nothing would connect to poles you pass by.

Agreed. This would would be more or less useful. Less, because nobody says, that if you click on a pole, that is connected with wires, that the next pole needs to be connected also with wires. I fear this will lead after a while to every pole is connected with red/green wires, which is useless. And it leaves out the situation where I just want to connect existing poles - because I almost never know where to lay the wires, before I have power.

If you don't want to connect the poles with wires then don't first click on an existing pole. Instead click where you want to add the first pole and then drag. Or click on a pole without wires connected. I think it would be simple to choose wires or no wires that way but one really has to test that to get a feel for it.

Note: click&drag with wires could be a modifier. I actually would love to have that for copper wires. Press modifier, click&drag from an existing pole and it only connects the copper wires to that pole (or more precise that power network ID). That way you can drag your power lines for separate power networks without them connecting to everything you cross. It's annoying to cut all the copper wires when you have multiple power networks.

Note: For already existing poles I could imagine that if you click&drag over the existing poles it should leave the poles as is but connect red&green wires.

When I compare this to how the handling is with the https://mods.factorio.com/mod/WireShortcuts mod: I press alt-f or alt-g to have
Red or green wires in hand, then drag from pole to pole. What’s missing is a third shortcut (e.g. alt-h) to have red and green wires in hand, so you drag both types at once. Seems much more practical for me.

And as said, for longer connections (more than 5 poles) I prefer meanwhile using the https://mods.factorio.com/mod/shortwave_fix

I don’t think it’s cheating because this is just what you can do by connecting poles, but it spares players a lot of work and adds the flexibility to cross different networks without fearing to accidentally connect/disconnect other networks..

IMHO The circuits network has a very strong local character. As player I always want to put as many circuits together, which leads automatically to concentrations of combinators with a more or less big gap between then. There is no sense to force the player to fill this gaps. Tools, that make filling these gaps easier are just a makeshift/compromise.

I used WireShortcuts before and found it very useful. I always feel cheated by the game that I don't get the red/green wire back on destruction so I don't feel like cheating creating them magically in turn. Got to reinstall that mod, forgot about it. Didn't know you could drag the wires. How does that work? Lots of LUA magic or did factorio add dragging wires in vanilla?

[ssilk]

Well, mrvn, I think you cannot convince me, that there is a big need for placing wires over long distances, when there would be some “wireless wires” and free cables/wires as a tool. Long distance: longer than maybe 5 to 10 poles. With the combination of these two mods I mentioned it makes no sense to add extra dragging mechanism. From the gameplay value perspective that direction has objectively a higher value.

—

Dragging: as far as I remember dragging was always part of Factorio’s wire handling. For the two wires and the copper cable: drag once places a wire/cable drag another time removes it.

Place a pole with shift pressed: don’t connect pole automatically with others. There are good tutorials inside Factorio.

Get wires back: there is no gameplay-value left anymore by needing to craft wires. When they decided to add this unfair rule, that wires/cables are not longer returned and have no cost if made by blueprints, but still needs to be made when I hate it the most (when I’m planning something) I decided to use that mod. It allows me to think about complex combinator wiring, not about if I have enough wires left.

—

Btw: there is also https://mods.factorio.com/mod/freenetworkwiring and https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FreeCable , but as far as I can see they don’t remove the wire items as https://mods.factorio.com/mod/WireShortcuts does. Which make WireShortcuts the much better gameplay-value. What’s missing is some better graphical interface for the wires, because currently you need to know the keyboard shortcuts or need to put it into the shortcut-bar.

[mrvn]

Dragging: as far as I remember dragging was always part of Factorio’s wire handling. For the two wires and the copper cable: drag once places a wire/cable drag another time removes it.

I'm trying this in vanilla sandbox. First I place a bunch of power poles with click&drag and the copper cable connects as expected. Now I take the green wires, click on the first pole and drag it along the line of poles. I see the green wires connected to the first pole but nothing connects. Next I click once on the first pole, then click on the second pole and drag it along the line of poles. The green wire connects the first and second pole but nothing else.

So in vanilla dragging red/green wires certainly does not work. If it works for you then it must come from a mod.

While click&drag for pole+wire would be nice I agree that click&drag for red/green wire over existing poles would be useful too.

On the other hand this might be even better with a mod that auto routes wires. Activate the tool, click the start, click the end. The tool then tries to find poles from start to end to place the wires without connecting to other networks. If it can't it could place additional poles (ghosts, no cheating automatically.

[ssilk]

Ah, no it doesn’t work for me, too.

I know why this doesn’t work at all, because you can connect red/green wire to entities. So if you drag it, it might connect to the wrong thing. And that makes a lot of sense for me.

A tool that automatically connects: well as said quite low gameplay value.

[Koub]

I guess the moment where people need to do massively that sort of things (Auto red/green cable connect poles while dragging), they have access to robots, and with blueprints, this becomes a non issue ?

[mrvn]

I guess the moment where people need to do massively that sort of things (Auto red/green cable connect poles while dragging), they have access to robots, and with blueprints, this becomes a non issue ?

Not really. Blueprints only work for long distance lines where the poles are in a known regular spacing. Also you don't need any bots to put up wires with blueprints. Simply place the power poles by hand and then blueprint the wires over it. Which is another reason it makes so little sense that connecting wires actually costs a wire. You only ever need to put up one wire and make a blueprint (ctrl-c/ctrl-v always works) for every situation. But who wants to have all those blueprints?

My concern is with wiring inside a factory complex where pole placement will be more chaotic. The pole positions change pattern because there is a pipe in the way, a belt, an inserter or an assembler.

Massive is relative. Even having to put up wires over 6 poles becomes bothersome. Run the distance to place 6 poles, walk back to put up green wire, walk back again to put up red wire. Takes more than twice as long to put up the wires than the poles. It all adds up.

[ssilk]

My concern is with wiring inside a factory complex where pole placement will be more chaotic. The pole positions change pattern because there is a pipe in the way, a belt, an inserter or an assembler.

One more reason to use radio transmissions in this situations.

Massive is relative. Even having to put up wires over 6 poles becomes bothersome. Run the distance to place 6 poles, walk back to put up green wire, walk back again to put up red wire. Takes more than twice as long to put up the wires than the poles. It all adds up.

The good question here is, how often will you do this during a game, and how much percentage of the game-time do you need to build such lines. Versa how much more complicated will the game become if you introduce a new mechanism to build wires (while we are the common opinion, that the current need to build wires is stupid, unfair and useless).

[I keep my counter suggestion:
- remove the need to build wires/cables (a tool/shortcuts instead)
- add a way to transmit wire-signals wireless over endless distances in a surface.]

[mrvn]

My concern is with wiring inside a factory complex where pole placement will be more chaotic. The pole positions change pattern because there is a pipe in the way, a belt, an inserter or an assembler.

One more reason to use radio transmissions in this situations.

Massive is relative. Even having to put up wires over 6 poles becomes bothersome. Run the distance to place 6 poles, walk back to put up green wire, walk back again to put up red wire. Takes more than twice as long to put up the wires than the poles. It all adds up.

The good question here is, how often will you do this during a game, and how much percentage of the game-time do you need to build such lines. Versa how much more complicated will the game become if you introduce a new mechanism to build wires (while we are the common opinion, that the current need to build wires is stupid, unfair and useless).

[I keep my counter suggestion:
- remove the need to build wires/cables (a tool/shortcuts instead)
- add a way to transmit wire-signals wireless over endless distances in a surface.]

How often do I put up wires in the game? Actually quite a lot. Every train station I build has lots of wires. While I have blueprints for the common designs there are often extra cases to consider that need that little bit extra.

Another frequent choice is between using one of two recipes. So if there is an excess of sand in the system then use the recipe with extra sand. Otherwise use the recipe without. So I need to connect the belts at the input of the factory to the long distance poles carrying the global signals. And yes, a wireless receiver would do the job here, but no such thing in vanilla.

Another point: If wires/cables are free there is less of an incentive to use a wireless sender/receiver that you have to construct first. It also takes extra space. So I would think people would use more wires in factories rather than less. Using wireless for short distances isn't free either. You have to build the sender and receiver, place them, power them, configure them, connect them with wires to where you actually have/need the signal. If I need to turn on a pump when a tank 60m away is near full then I'm not going to use wireless.

Are the wires the most annoying thing in the game? Probably not. Unless you just spend your last wire connecting something wrong and have to drive 2000 miles to get more wires. In that moment it's the most annoying thing. I'm totally for having free wires. But I think that's is a different issue irrelevant to this suggestion.

If you read the start of the suggestion it wasn't about the cost of the wires but the tedium of placing them. For long distances the wireless way would be great but the tedium for shorter distances would remain.