Factorio Forums

There are a few settings, like Red/Green wires in the combinator, that lock when not being directly connected too. I'm not sure why, this can make things complicated when setting up a combinator before plugging it in.

Is there a technical reason/limitation for this or a setting to turn it off?

Probably a UI reason, don't provide settings that don't do anything.

A common workaround is to place a ghost outside of bot range and connect and configure it, then copy its configuration over to the real one. Or just connect it temporarily to a power pole.

It's possible to enable the wire selectors with a hidden config:

Go to the game menu and CTRL-SHIFT-click Settings, then choose "The rest", then activate circuit-network-selection-always-enabled:
to get:

Tertius wrote: Wed Jun 24, 2026 6:19 pm It's possible to enable the wire selectors with a hidden config:

Go to the game menu and CTRL-SHIFT-click Settings, then choose "The rest", then activate circuit-network-selection-always-enabled:

Thank you so much, that was annoying me since they added this """feature""", I never knew there was a workaround

Tertius wrote: Wed Jun 24, 2026 6:19 pm It's possible to enable the wire selectors with a hidden config:

Go to the game menu and CTRL-SHIFT-click Settings, then choose "The rest", then activate circuit-network-selection-always-enabled:
06-24-2026, 20-19-02.png


to get:
06-24-2026, 20-17-23.png

Thank-you! This is exactly what I needed!

Oh damn, I just realized that doesn't affect entities other than combinators. Really stupid and annoying.