Factorio Forums

TL;DR

Add the option to mark a given power pole to only allow manual power connections.

What ?

Provide an option to disable automatic connections to other power poles. The option would be enabled by default, producing the current behavior so when a new pole is placed, it would be able to connect to other enabled poles within connection distance. When a pole is disabled, newly placed poles would not be allowed to connect to the disabled pole.

The option would be similar to the option for overriding the default stack size for inserters.

Why ?

Power switches are powerful tools to control factory power consumption. However, whenever a new power pole is placed, it automatically connects to other poles around it, including poles on the power side of a power switch, thus bypassing the power control.

Having the option to explicitly disable automatic connections would prevent the control from being unintentionally bypassed. It would be more convenient than manually removing the unwanted connections. It would prevent the unwanted connection from being accidentally left in place, leaving the power control useless.

See the discussion in this forum thread: viewtopic.php?p=448797#p448797

Is having the power networks connected long enough to shift-click on the newly-placed power pole really that large enough of an issue?

This nice feature would allow blueprint layouts which are now not possible.
- Compact layouts with switches.
- laser fence with guard tower
some more.


Say yes