Factorio Forums

Current behavior: an underground pipe set is crafted from 5 iron plates and 10 iron pipes and can span a gap between exits from 0 to 9 tiles.

Suggestion: What if the iron pipes were not needed in the craft, and you just crafted 2 underground pipe exits from 5 iron plates, and when you placed the exits, pipes were consumed from your inventory equivalent to the underground connection distance?

Not going to happen.
1/ What if you build pipe to ground in place where there already exists underground pipe in between of pipe-to-grounds - would this mean pipes would be returned?
2/ Since placing pipe-to-ground ghost is able to cut underground, would it mean by placing such ghost you would get pipes in return?
3/ What if you would use deconstruction planner to remove such ghost and you have no pipes, would it mean deconstruction is going to be rejected?
4/ How would robots build it?
5/ Which robot would be decided to take extra payload since it is going to complete underground pair when none of the pipes are placed?
6/ What if you would place pair of underground pipe-to-ground ghosts, at which stage pipes would be consumed?
7/ What if biters would destroy pipe-to-ground, should this spill pipes around or give them to biters?

boskid wrote: ↑Sat May 16, 2020 6:06 am ...
7/ What if biters would destroy pipe-to-ground, should this ... pipes ... give them to biters?

lol

hmm, I think it would just be treated like other games where buildings are constructed in place rather than the entire thing being pre-made. In this case the "construction cost" would be 2 entrances + n pipes.

But that really isn't the factorio way of doing things, nothing is built like that. So it is verging on "a different game".

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If it were, just consider how various other games do it for structures, leaving the only a couple edge cases. "ghosts" basically become "buildings under construction", and deconstruction the opposite. Depending on bot/player inventory size, multiple trips might be needed to "deliver" all the items to complete the task.

As for edge cases, I think it is really only when placing/removing a pipe to ground or underground belt in-between two others. That could possibly just be disallowed, they are always "built" in pairs with appropriate cost, and destroying/removing one end destroys the other.

For example many games have bridges, tunnels, etc., and many of them have the entire length be an all-or-nothing upfront deal. Changing the length basically meaning destroying the original and starting over.