Not quite sure what happened here. My first time playing the campaign I didn't have this problem, but I decided to replay it to see if I could handle that biter rush at the end any more smoothly, and now it looks like I'm stuck.
I need to place a small electric pole to power my first normal assembling machine, but strangely I'm locked out of hand-crafting the poles. What's going on here?
[0.17] Did I get the campaign into an unwinnable state somehow?
Re: [0.17] Did I get the campaign into an unwinnable state somehow?
Can't you change the assembly machine recipe and drop in the ingredients by hand?
Re: [0.17] Did I get the campaign into an unwinnable state somehow?
I could... but it wouldn't do anything because it wouldn't have power... since I don't have any small power poles to connect it with.
It certainly does, but that alone doesn't explain this. As you can see in the screenshot, I've got 5 copper cables, which should be enough to make 4 poles, but the pole recipe itself is locked.
Re: [0.17] Did I get the campaign into an unwinnable state somehow?
Well, there you have the real issue: you must have used your provided copper cables for something else. The game does hand you some starting resources, but then it doesn't actively prevent you from using them on the "wrong" thing. Maybe check the wreckage and see if there are any copper cables you didn't pick up? I don't think there are any (I seem to recall them just being gears and solid fuel), but maybe.
EDIT:
Wait, what? That doesn't make sense. Bug report it. Ignore my other explanations.
Re: [0.17] Did I get the campaign into an unwinnable state somehow?
Alright, done. I was starting to suspect a bug, but I had a hard to believing no one else had encountered this before, since I really can't think of anything overly strange I did that could have caused it. Anyway thanks for confirming that it's not normal.