Copper wire automatic connection

[CzBuCHi]

TL;DR

When placing power pole connect it to nearby power poles with restriction, that new copper wire will not cross already placed copper wire connections.

What ?

I never like look of copper wires crossing each other, so every time when game decides to create one of these (see image) im manually rewiring all "wrong" connections to clean them up,

Why ?

Because of my (in)sanity? Also im not only one player with OCD.

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Also automatic connections should work only for poles od same type - connection poles of different type would need to be done manually.
This probably requres to also implement Save copper wire configurations in blueprints

[eradicator]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/power-grid-comb
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/rewire

[Tekky]

I also find it annoying when cables behave that way.

However, I don't see any way to prevent this from happening, since the game has no way of knowing in advance whether more poles will be placed that will cause wires to cross, unless you are constructing from blueprints.

The following thread is also related to saving wire connections in blueprints:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47949 Electric network cable connections saved in the blueprint

[CzBuCHi]

game has no way of knowing in advance whether more poles will be placed

that true ... but game knows all currently existing pole locations so it can use that:

when new pole is added game try to connect it horizontaly or vertically to other poles (which handles almost all cases) and only no pole was found then search for any other connection that will not cross already existing one. (basically poles on same x/y axis takes precedence over all others and when found others arent connected at all)

there really slight chance, that two poles near each other will be added exactly at the same time - so they cannot be processed in parallel...

EDIT: sorry for necro posting

[Zavian]

that true ... but game knows all currently existing pole locations so it can use that:

when new pole is added game try to connect it horizontaly or vertically to other poles (which handles almost all cases) and only no pole was found then search for any other connection

That sounds like a reasonable approach.

[darkfrei]

that true ... but game knows all currently existing pole locations so it can use that:

when new pole is added game try to connect it horizontaly or vertically to other poles (which handles almost all cases) and only no pole was found then search for any other connection

That sounds like a reasonable approach.

here is max 5 copper cables per pole, so you lost at least one diagonal connection

[CzBuCHi]

that true ... but game knows all currently existing pole locations so it can use that:

when new pole is added game try to connect it horizontaly or vertically to other poles (which handles almost all cases) and only no pole was found then search for any other connection

That sounds like a reasonable approach.

here is max 5 copper cables per pole, so you lost at least one diagonal connection

not sue what u mean ... basically ideal wires would look like this: (any pole will have max 4 wires attached to it)

Code: Select all

* ----- * ----- *
|       |       |
|       |       |
* ----- * ----- *
|       |       |
* ----- * ----- *

in current setup it will probably look more like this: (unwanted diagonals, missing horizontals and verticals, just a mess ...)

Code: Select all

* ----- *      *
| \ _     \ /  |
|     \   / \  |
*       *      *
|   X   |  X   |
* ----- * -----* 

( * = pole, | / - \ X = wires)

EDIT: try write monospace code on non-monospace font on first time

[Hyenna]

I wish it would simply save copper wire connections in blueprints.
The auto connection always mess up my power switch built from blueprint.
Just think about when you have larger blueprints with multiple power switches controlled by wirenetwork and you have to fix all of them manually.

Power Switch.jpg (133.54 KiB) Viewed 3672 times