Mystery: why are power wires "insulated"?

[blakemw]

Kindly do not reply to this topic without examining the screenshot below so as to comprehend what I am referring to, I have helpfully vandalized the screenshot with red arrows to point out the unexpected aspect:

Gold Amalgam has a Thermal Conductivity of 2.0, but a wire made of Gold Amalgam has a Thermal Conductivity of 0.1, normally buildings do not have a TC modifier.

There are exceptional buildings that have an expected modifier to thermal conductivity, radiant liquid and gas pipes have a 2x modifier for obvious reasons, and insulated liquid and gas pipes have a 0.03125x modifier, also for obvious reasons. 

But all forms of power wires, that is Wire, Conductive Wire, Heavi-watt Wire and Heavi-watt Conductive Wire, but NOT the wire bridges / join plates and NOT automation wire, have a 0.05x modifier. It would appear that no other buildings have a TC modifier.

But why power wires?! There's no logical in-game reason and it has almost no impact on gameplay since these are 1x1 buildings that don't carry liquid/gas, the only reasonable speculation I have is that once upon a time in the distant past of development it was intended that connected buildings (like wires) would conduct heat between connections, and would become 'heat superhighways" without the insulated property OR wires were intended to have physics based heating depending on wattage and the insulated property was required to make it possible for them to overheat and melt.

Another explanation would be that some dev had the random thought "wires have PVC insulation, right?" and gave it the insulated flag because in the real world it makes sense, though if this were truly deliberated design decision it would also apply to wire bridges and probably a bunch of other buildings. Of course it's also worth humoring the possibility that wires were copy-pasted from insulated pipes and thus inherited the insulated property, though that seems a bit of a stretch.

[Hokaeru]

Even if it doesn't have an actual sense (despite the pvc coating), it somehow allows vacuum seals with heavy wire so I am okay with it. 

I see it like the controversial "1 element per tile" : someone said once on the forum and I liked it (sorry for not giving credits fellow, I forgot your name) that it is the consequence of the topological apocalypse that caused humanity to crash and the world to go from 3d to 2d. 

[troyandabed]

17 hours ago, Hokaeru said:

Even if it doesn't have an actual sense (despite the pvc coating), it somehow allows vacuum seals with heavy wire so I am okay with it. 

I see it like the controversial "1 element per tile" : someone said once on the forum and I liked it (sorry for not giving credits fellow, I forgot your name) that it is the consequence of the topological apocalypse that caused humanity to crash and the world to go from 3d to 2d. 

That's an interesting take. I always assumed the '2D' nature of the game was due to Olivia's fascination with ants and her ant farms, so the dupes are her ants and the base is built on a horizontal vertical plane like an ant farm. Having some ant genetics might also explain why the dupes can carry so much weight.