Connect Pipes/Vents/Wires Without Changing Materials

[Kilyle]

Maybe there's a way to do this that I just haven't figured out yet?  When I make pipes/vents of different types -- chiefly Sandstone for early or temporary, Granite to look nice and Igneous for hot areas -- and I go around disconnecting and reconnecting for various reasons (I realize it's suboptimal, but automation is a bit out of my reach for the moment), I wind up having to cancel a bunch of tasks where the act of connecting them has convinced the game that I really meant to replace that pipe with Sandstone or that vent with Granite or that wire with Gold.

It'd be nice to have a default setting that doesn't change the materials at all, simply connects them.

[Greywanderer]

I have never noticed this problem but when I just tried to test it out, I disconnected and reconnected insulated and radiant pipes and a job was created for a dupe to replace one with the other. I cancelled the job and disconnected the pipes to get screenshots, but this time when I reconnected them no job was created. It's pretty weird.

[SpomJ]

On 2/9/2024 at 10:52 PM, Greywanderer said:

I have never noticed this problem but when I just tried to test it out, I disconnected and reconnected insulated and radiant pipes and a job was created for a dupe to replace one with the other. I cancelled the job and disconnected the pipes to get screenshots, but this time when I reconnected them no job was created. It's pretty weird.

I believe it happens when you use a material that differs from the one pipe is made from, creating a replacement task. It doesn't replace a build order btw, so connecting a to-be-constructed pipe to already constructed is fine when you use the material from the already built one. Where the jank starts to happen is the following. If you have an already built pipe near another that has different type or material, you cannot connect them without creating a replacement order; furthermore, when the game shows the replacement task the pipes are, indeed, connected, but when you cancel it they for some reason disconnect (which makes no sense actually). The second jank comes into play when they are the same type or material, but you don't have that material anymore, and the vanilla game forbids planning anything in that case.

I should also mention that ideally disconnect/connect orders should require labor and switches should not, otherwise switches are utterly useless.

[pnambic]

As far as I can see, there are four use cases for the "build pipe" command:

1. building pipes (d'oh). Works fine for that as-is.
2. replacing pipe materials/types (e.g.replacing regular granite with radiant aluminum for spot cooling, or heavy-watt with heavy-watt conductive). Works fine.
3. reconnecting pipes that were previously cut using pliers. Works as long as there's accessible material. I've been bitten by that in space; I'd say it works otherwise.
4. your case: connecting pipes of different materials without replacing either of them. That kinda-sorta works with a bit of fiddling. If both sides are built, you can connect and then cancel the replacement. If one side isn't built yet or both sides would get replacements, it gets very wonky indeed.

The challenge, now, is to find a UI mechanic that makes case 4 less awkward while not screwing up the first three cases, which are arguably a lot more common. If you have a specific suggestion there, I'm sure the devs would love to hear it.

 

12 hours ago, SpomJ said:

I should also mention that ideally disconnect/connect orders should require labor and switches should not, otherwise switches are utterly useless.

No, they shouldn't. We lived in that world for a long time, then came the pliers mod, and even though it's been integrated into the vanilla game for a year or so now, its various incarnations are still in the top 20 all-time most subscribed mods on Steam.

Also, switches don't require dupe labor (since 2020, I think?), and they're not useless, because you can see their state at a glance without switching to some overlay and tracing pipelines/cables. Before switches were changed, people used to use atmo sensors to manually toggle device enable inputs, power shutoffs, etc.; same result, less immersive. You're probably thinking of valves?

[SpomJ]

17 hours ago, pnambic said:

No, they shouldn't. We lived in that world for a long time, then came the pliers mod, and even though it's been integrated into the vanilla game for a year or so now, its various incarnations are still in the top 20 all-time most subscribed mods on Steam.

I think the main point of pliers was to allow disconnecting pipes without deconstructing them, not getting rid of dupe labor

And yes, i'm aware that switches don't require dupe labor, i just emphasized that it's the only main reason for one to actually build one

[pnambic]

3 hours ago, SpomJ said:

I think the main point of pliers was to allow disconnecting pipes without deconstructing them, not getting rid of dupe labor

I think it was primarily about symmetry - you could always connect pipes without dupe involvement, so allowing the inverse operation just made sense. The big thing for me about disconnecting pipes without deconstructing them, though, is that they need not be reachable by dupes to do that. Making it cost labor would mean reintroducing the dupe access requirement, and that's a hard "no" from me. It makes so many things so much more complicated and punishing, and I see no gain in terms of fun.

Unless you can think of a way to decouple those aspects? A central "plumbing and wiring" station that needs to be manned to enable instant dis-/reconnections? Doesn't sound very entertaining to me, but there might be better ways.