Why does cutter element have global and not local cut direction?

[livinghell]

it cuts in East and West parts, but not into right and left part?
what is the logic behind such limitation?

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Because "left" and "right" change depending on what angle your camera has, while "west" and "east" will not change with camera movement, avoiding a lot of confusion.

[Skipachu]

Shapes don't rotate when they ride a belt around a corner, either. So, no matter which way you orient the cutter or how many turns the shapes ride around, you'll always get the same results from the cut operation. It'd be a nightmare if you're turning machines and belts this way and that to pack more of them into a small space... and then they go all wonky because you rotated them to get them to fit.

[livinghell]

Originally posted by Skipachu:

Shapes don't rotate when they ride a belt around a corner, either. So, no matter which way you orient the cutter or how many turns the shapes ride around, you'll always get the same results from the cut operation. It'd be a nightmare if you're turning machines and belts this way and that to pack more of them into a small space... and then they go all wonky because you rotated them to get them to fit.

actually I wanted to rotate machnies to avoid rotation elements.....

[phillip_lynx]

But it doesnt count in which rotaion you deliver the shapes to the void.

So the west/east is very fine with me. I do not have to think about the rotaion of the map. West is West and East is East.
Left and Rigth changes due to rotation of the map.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

The only instance where the orientation of the shape matters right now is a bug that will be fixed eventually. Everything but those very specific cases (which are entirely optional, endgame shapes,) can be delivered in any orientation without it being invalidated.

[craigbeck]

Originally posted by Kyouko Tsukino:

Because "left" and "right" change depending on what angle your camera has, while "west" and "east" will not change with camera movement, avoiding a lot of confusion.

Yes this led to much confusion for me late game when I had the camera facing south and not taking notice, was trying to create shapes and they were upside down and not accepted by the vortex.

[Burningfeetman]

I've had a couple of newbie thoughts on this very topic - as it stands, I do like the current mechanic, but also ponder what else could be if we had localised orientation.

One building which I think could help and not breach the current status-quo would be a 90° rotator building, so that the input of the rotator building is at a 90° angle to the output. This could be used to simulate rotation on belt corners.