More switches + frustrating UI fix

[DWeird]

The basic switch is great for being able to turn on or shut down equipment in non-duplicant friendly environments, but there is a lot machinery that works on long sequences that you currently need to monitor manually, where the game in my eyes seems to be all about creating needlessly complicated semi-autonomous Rube Goldberg life support machines.

The thermal switch is a step in the right direction in that regard, but the game can easily do with more of the same - specifically, I'm thinking of a pressure switch, which can have all sorts of cool applications in terms of mass insanity, and a photosensitive switch - light is not the most interesting thing in this game, but it's on/off nature can help create links between related pieces of machinery on different power grids.

Relatedly, the UI for valves and switches is a bit of a pain. If you're even a little bit OCD (and you guys are making a colony management sim, so you that's a good part of the crowd), having the throughput of a valve be 1012g/s when you want a kilogram is raw pain. Either allow us to enter the value manually, or have buttons that allow you to change the value to a greater degree of precision. Perhaps something like this?

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01.012 kg/s
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[Cassandradreams]

I would like to add, that a simple "real" swich or lever would be gorgious... Like not only to disable or enable a power grid, but to open or close doors for instance. Maybe set a change-option into the door to be affected by switches, so they do not turn off power, but instead close or open the door. That way you could use it for quite a nice airlock, if you don't want any bad gases in the base for instance or if you want to prevent them from entering a bad environment but need to open or close a barrier of doors set up inside. Having good clothing for that is one way, yet the lack of ability to control a specific unit for harvest or activate prevents that sometimes.

Maybe some kind of auto switch that activates on contact, like a pressure plate could be nice aswell.

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Either allow us to enter the value manually, or have buttons that allow you to change the value to a greater degree of precision. Perhaps something like this?

I can only agree, it is very finicky to always set up valuse with the slides.

 

- to make it specific, some pictures of my current base and the way i would like it to work there:

If someone were to open the doors above, they would get flooded with hot water and propably get burned pretty hard, and they need to get out again, maybe even let out some of the good water into the polluted on the right... having a switch outside to open them remotely helps a lot here.

I had the Idea for a safety-lock, that pumps out the bad gases and sorts them into the right containers or machinery. In order to do that, it is way faster for the gas to spread, if all the doors are open. Since there are at least 4 doors to open, it would help a lot to do it all at once with a simple flick of a switch, not to mention the safety aspect again. It would also be 1 action instead of 4, so the dupes can do more stuff meanwhile.