Please give us "mirrored" Production units

[Krille]

After the "no output to input without belt" nerf, the puzzle-solving became less enjoyable, and more frustrating.

I would really like to be able to "mirror" my machines, in order to create more ways of placing them.

[Jackeea]

Originally posted by khadorian:

After the "no output to input without belt" nerf, the puzzle-solving became less enjoyable, and more frustrating.

I would really like to be able to "mirror" my machines, in order to create more ways of placing them.

Definitely this. I don't think you can easily mod it in, but some way to mirror machines would be perfect. Or, just let us butt (heh, butt) machines up against eachother again.

[Twice Circled]

I'm sorry guys, I don't want you getting your hopes up. The mirror machines thing is never going to happen. Partly due to the technical difficulty in achieving it and partly because it was my design decision to not allow it from the beginning. The difficulty of laying things out is part of the puzzle.

I could potentially allow the butting via a setting in the game files that could be modded. It's not high on my list just now but perhaps in future.

[Ric]

Originally posted by Jackeea:

just let us butt (heh, butt) machines up against eachother again.

This is the way it used to be so not sure if this would change again.

Balancing I would assume :)

Without the shape restrictions, there would be no puzzle element let. It does suck though that dissolvers/isonisers are so easy to work with compared with Eva/Aglo combo but hey-ho, thats life!

[Таушко]

Just sort of leaving my input on the matter.

TL;DR:
Bring back direct machines connectivity as an option that also shrinks rooms a little bit (for balance).

---
Mirrored machines would make it all too easy. Yes, there were a lot of times when I was frustrated because I just really-really wanted that particular dissolved to have swapped input/outputs, but it would be no fun if I had it. Seriously, the satisfaction of cramming 5 production lines with packers, creamers, pill printers into one building is worth a little more time of figuring it all out.

But! There is something I'd like to address: input-to-output connections look so much nicer when you don't have a belt between them. I am of an opinion that back-to-back machines look more like high-tech pharmaceutical production line. I see several chained machines as one, which creates a little bit more of visual variety.
So, on to the proposition:
[x] Enable direct machines connection
Option somewhere in game starting settings, which does 2 things:
> Enables direct connections;
> Slightly reduces size of buildings.

This way it's possible to have neat connections without making a game too easy.