rotate while dragging underground pipes: add pipe!

[dalindes]

The idea:

It occurs to me that it would be nice if dragging underground pipes (or underground belts, for that matter! More below) could be a bit more like dragging belt, where if you press 'R' while dragging (or whatever key is bound to rotating), a nice bend will be created that's all connected up.

Background: straight belt

Just in case it's not clear, here's what I'm referring to with regards to straight belt. When dragging along, and moving your cursor away from the line:

belt1.png (1.17 MiB) Viewed 253 times

You then press 'R' (or whatever), and get this:

belt2.png (1.12 MiB) Viewed 253 times

With underground pipes - actual behavior

With underground pipes, things are a bit different. Here's a sequence of actual dragging as it exists today[0]:

actual1.png (1.02 MiB) Viewed 253 times

actual2.png (1.01 MiB) Viewed 253 times

actual3.png (1.01 MiB) Viewed 253 times

actual4.png (1.04 MiB) Viewed 253 times

What I'd like to see:

This is what I'd prefer, instead of that last image:

desired.png (1.09 MiB) Viewed 253 times

Underground Belts:

Incidentally, this is what happens doing the same sort of thing with underground belts. What I find especially odd is that the two undergrounds that get placed after pressing R are facing away from each other:

belt-undergrounds.png (992.64 KiB) Viewed 253 times

Whereas one might hope for:

belt-undergrounds-desired.png (870.4 KiB) Viewed 253 times

Summary:

So, the bottom line is that this is a feature request for having rotation while dragging undergrounds (pipes or belts)[1] do "the logical thing"[2] and add a section of straight pipe (or regular belt) to connect the chain, so that dragging undergrounds (and especially underground pipe) can be more like dragging (non-underground) belt.

Not urgent, but y'all are so good at adding little quality of life fixes, that I figure this might be right up your alley to do.

Much love for 2.0! I'm having fun, and I haven't even gotten into the Space Age stuff yet (though I expect to!)

Footnotes:

[0] factorio --version output:

Code: Select all

Version: 2.0.11 (build 79682, linux64, full)
Version: 64
Map input version: 1.0.0-0
Map output version: 2.0.11-3

[1] This applies to either pipes or belts, really, though the idea came when dragging pipe undergrounds, since dragging straight pipe in a straight line isn't a thing in the same way as it is for belt.

[2] or at least what seems logical to me, though I imagine there might be situations where this might not be desirable??