Assembly machine auto-rotate towards adjacent pipes - QOL

Severenger · Post by **Severenger** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 5:53 am

TL;DR

When assigning a recipe which requires a liquid to an assembly machine, the assembly machine should detect nearby pipes and automatically face its input pipe towards them.

What ?

[Left] The default assembly machine rotation. Note the input pipe is always facing north.
[Right] My suggestion. When the assembly machine is assigned a recipe requiring a liquid, it will first check each adjacent tile, rotating the input if either a pipe or underground pipe end is found. If multiple pipes are found, it checks the liquid contents of the pipe, favouring the required liquid for the assigned recipe.

: 20170606152514_1.jpg (355.78 KiB) Viewed 1747 times

Why ?

When you have a large number of assembly machines, having to rotate each assembly machine a couple of times becomes tedious.

bobingabout · Post by **bobingabout** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:21 am

I think the biggest problem with this is actually just down to the fact that you can't tell where the pipe connects until you've selected the recipe.
if you could see the pipe connections when placing the entity, you'd know you need to rotate it while still in your hand, which is far easier than rotating it afterwards.

Severenger · Post by **Severenger** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:59 am

The issue with that is you now have the pipe showing at all times, which adds clutter and a level of confusion for new players, especially for recipes that don't take liquids.

Edit: Oh, unless you're saying only the ghost/placement preview has the pipe connection visible, but the pipe is only displayed when a liquid input is required? That could be cool. Possibly still a little confusing for newer players, but not quite as confusing as it always being visible on all assembly machines.

bobingabout · Post by **bobingabout** » Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:32 am

Severenger wrote:The issue with that is you now have the pipe showing at all times, which adds clutter and a level of confusion for new players, especially for recipes that don't take liquids.

Edit: Oh, unless you're saying only the ghost/placement preview has the pipe connection visible, but the pipe is only displayed when a liquid input is required? That could be cool. Possibly still a little confusing for newer players, but not quite as confusing as it always being visible on all assembly machines.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. when it's in your hand it could have the pipes showing, which disappears when placed, and only shows again when you select a recipe with a fluid.

I mean, by comparison when placing a chemical plant which has pipes, you take care to place it the correct way around, right? It could be the same situation for the assembling machine.

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