[0.17.79] Please please please let electric poles be rotated

[JasonC]

Can we pretty please finally have the ability to rotate electric poles? I remember wanting this way back in like, 0.10.

Stuff like this is just silly:

wirecross.png (4.22 MiB) Viewed 5430 times

I mean, with all due respect, the automatic pole orientation algorithm kind of ... sucks. It always has. There's so much awesome in this game but the pole orientations and crossed wires is not part of that awesome!

Saving electrical network connection state while you're at it, too, so we don't have to keep using mods to clean up messy blueprints and pastes, or disconnecting copper wires to keep separate electrical grids wired correctly when I drive into poles with the buggy (*ahem* not that I do that often, I'm a great driver... )

I skipped a ton of versions and all the new stuff in 0.17 since the last time I played is freakin' awesome, but the lack of improvement in pole wiring is one of the biggest bummers...

[ptx0]

inb4 spaghetti screenshot is referenced by ssilk and mentioned that devs thought messy makes a good game.

so predictable.

[JasonC]

(Btw they don't even need to rotate through every orientation for real; if the "rotate" keyboard shortcut just effectively swapped the red and green connection points that'd take care of like 95% of cases. Dunno if that is interesting, but just pointing out that that behavior would also be "good enough", even if not perfect, fwiw.)

inb4 spaghetti screenshot is referenced by ssilk and mentioned that devs thought messy makes a good game.

so predictable.

Heh; or b4 ssilk tells us all how (s)he designs their factories and how we should all build ours exactly the same way... <3

[ssilk]

inb4 spaghetti screenshot is referenced by ssilk and mentioned that devs thought messy makes a good game.

so predictable.

Erm? Really, I don’t like how poles connect together. I sometimes sit there, look at the mess and think “this was simple and now it’s a knot.”

There is also this bit of uncertainty, that drives you crazy, if a working blueprint doesn’t work, because the poles where placed in a tiny bit wrong order, so that the whole stuff gets no power. That would be avoided if the network would try to optimize the connections to an optimum between number of connections and total length of needed wire. I think....

[ptx0]

inb4 spaghetti screenshot is referenced by ssilk and mentioned that devs thought messy makes a good game.

so predictable.

Erm? Really, I don’t like how poles connect together. I sometimes sit there, look at the mess and think “this was simple and now it’s a knot.”

There is also this bit of uncertainty, that drives you crazy, if a working blueprint doesn’t work, because the poles where placed in a tiny bit wrong order, so that the whole stuff gets no power. That would be avoided if the network would try to optimize the connections to an optimum between number of connections and total length of needed wire. I think....

oh yeah, that's because it is only going to connect to 3 (copper? is there a limit for others?) wires at a time?

[Squelch]

This appears to be a duplicate of switch green/red wire position on substation which is the root cause of the crossing wires.

[JasonC]

This appears to be a duplicate of switch green/red wire position on substation which is the root cause of the crossing wires.

Thanks.

Kind of, and I used to think substations were the only culprit, too, but there's a chain of crossed wires along medium poles in my screenshot which sort of throws a wrench into the otherwise-reasonable "substations cause all our problems" theory. I get it in segments of large poles, too, sometimes, depending on the branching and the order that wires are connected.

The substation could certainly be indirectly affecting the orientation of the medium pole right below it, but it shouldn't be contributing to the next two medium poles below that one, and the last crossed wire segment. (FYI, not in screenshot, but the wires going left from the bottom-most pole in that shot are connected to another chain of medium poles, no more substations over there).

Also, an important difference, is that I don't think just blanket switching all wire positions on substations (or any pole type for that matter) would solve all the issues. I don't really have any desire to fully rely on algorithmic decisions here; I'm not sure if an algorithm for this will ever be perfect and I'd really just rather be able to manually rotate poles as needed, that's mostly what this request is about: Adding a human component to the pole orientation decisions (as opposed to improving the automatic process).

If I had manual control over the pole orientations I could just fix ugly wiring case-by-case and we could finally wash our hands of this,

[Optera]

+1
Being able to rotate poles would fix the substation and weirdness on multiple connections between the same pole type.

[Squelch]

Thanks.

Kind of, and I used to think substations were the only culprit, too, but there's a chain of crossed wires along medium poles in my screenshot which sort of throws a wrench into the otherwise-reasonable "substations cause all our problems" theory. I get it in segments of large poles, too, sometimes, depending on the branching and the order that wires are connected.

...

Good point, and that seems to make the case for being able to rotate power entities quite strong. This is an aesthetic flaw however, and I would hazard a guess that it may fall low on the priorities. That said, for entirely aesthetic reasons, I too would like to see the ability to rotate power entities for this reason and for when they pop out of line when they automatically rotate on connection.

[ssilk]

oh yeah, that's because it is only going to connect to 3 (copper? is there a limit for others?) wires at a time?

The limit is 5. (I hope I remembered correctly)

[Oktokolo]

Another way to fix it might be to make all power poles always align the same. They would all look the same then and red/green wire terminals would always be on the same side of each pole.

[ssilk]

Hm. I think that would look boring. It is just really difficult to make it so, that everybody likes it.

[darkfrei]

Another way to fix it might be to make all power poles always align the same. They would all look the same then and red/green wire terminals would always be on the same side of each pole.

There is mod for it No Rotation For Electric Poles

[tamanous]

When trying to replicate this, I found that it the crossing is caused by the substation alone.

Only if the substation connects as a middle part in a vertical alignment, it rotates in a way that leads to red/green wire crossing.

[Oktokolo]

Another way to fix it might be to make all power poles always align the same. They would all look the same then and red/green wire terminals would always be on the same side of each pole.

There is mod for it No Rotation For Electric Poles

That mod clearly features the wrong orientation. One of the 45° ones would obviously be much better suited for players who prefer orderly grid-like circuit networks. Clearly, the mod author has no OCD!

[JasonC]

Hm. I think that would look boring.

100% boring.

---

So I want to focus this thread a little.

One of the tricky parts of allowing players to rotate poles is how it would interact with the automatic orientation. If this change were made it would need to give players control over orientation (that's the point) but also not force players to orient every pole manually.

Let's talk about that.

Here's my idea:

• When poles are placed from inventory, they assume automatic orientation, like they currently do.
• When wires are (dis)connected on the pole (be it manually or by placing/removing a nearby pole), the pole automatically reorients, as it currently does.
• Pole orientation is saved in blueprints (and copy+paste) and the saved orientation is used when they are built, except poles that gain new wire connections to existing things outside the blueprint/paste should be automatically reoriented.
• The user can select any pole and rotate it, in 45 degree increments (sort of like old school train tracks).

So I know those rules look weird but I think they integrate with the current behavior as smoothly as possible, and while they don't provide complete control (there will definitely be times when you have to fix a pole you've already fixed previously; specifically, when its wire connections are changed), they provide enough control that you can rotate things after you've got most of the wiring up and not have to come back to it.

Essentially my idea here is to let you rotate poles, but new wire connections still apply automatic orientation, so in those cases, you'd just have to do it again. Easy enough to get used to, imho. Actually it's kind of the same process as putting up electrical wires (i.e. the game always automatically does its thing and you fix it afterwards if the game breaks it), so we're already conditioned to this kind of workflow, I guess.

A problem with this, I guess, is how messed up electrical wiring is in general; specifically the fact that electrical wiring state has never really been preserved like circuit network wiring is -- electrical wire connections are just mercilessly recreated on the fly when placing blueprints or pasting. So I wonder if there's no way for the game to preserve orientation in blueprint poles while still automatically orienting poles on new wire connections if every pole in a blueprint generates "new wire connections" when the blueprint is placed. I'm sure we all have some ideas here but that's a dev problem, not a problem for users to solve.

Thoughts?

Edited: Added note "(be it manually or by placing/removing a nearby pole)" to clarify after reading next post.

[tamanous]

When placing/removing new/existing poles or connections via wire, when necessary in the current internatal logic, other neighbour poles re-align(=rotate) themselves when connecting to the new/remaining connections. This should be considered, too.

=> By adding/removing one pole, you sometimes realign many others.

[Nemo4809]

Maybe someone can make a mod to turn off the default wire graphics and replace them with simple, straight, and grid aligned (at least the end points) wires that sort of float over the game in a UI fashion.

I can’t be the only one who has trouble seeing what connects to what with the wire jungle, right?

[darkfrei]

Vertical pole and all connection points go from top to bottom: red, yellow (copper), green. No orientation makes it wrong.

[JasonC]

Vertical pole and all connection points go from top to bottom: red, yellow (copper), green. No orientation makes it wrong.

Any option that involves every pole having the same orientation will obscure wiring when wires also go in that direction.

If the connection points are vertically aligned, then if you make red, green, and copper wires going vertically too, you won't be able to see all three types since they'll all be drawn on the same line.

No algorithm (even "all poles are the same orientation" is an algorithm, albeit a simple one) will cover all the cases. Letting users rotate electric poles on their own to suit their needs is the only option, really.