Game Mechanics Wire terminus

[Teh Manticore]

I just recently finished a teleportation hub and really craved being able to make a wire end where I wanted and not connect to adjacent wires. For example, if I had two lots of four wires going into each side of the teleporter, I wanted to be able to run a third wire into the center cell without connecting to the adjacent wires. There were other occasions where I had to reconfigure a whole wiring layout because the end of my wire that connected to a switch also connected to an adjacent network.
One way to do it is by having a set of masking tape items, one for each colour. When you click on a wire that has only 1 adjacent wire it is connected to it becomes a wire terminus, which means it won't connect to any other wires next to it. If you click on an empty space that has only one adjacent wire, then it places a wire terminus there. You could combine four into one master roll like the multi-wrench, and then optionally combine the master roll and multi-wrench into a super item that has the place, cut, and tape functions in one.

From my noob understanding, I think the wire data is stored as a separate dataset for each wire colour? Perhaps it's too much to create another four datasets for each wire colour's wire terminals. But then, as there's so few places that wire terminals would be needed, perhaps it doesn't need such large data storage and it could be handled in a more confined way?

 

[Lord Garak]

I'm confused, is the whole point of wire colors and bridges not to avoid this problem?

 

[Teh Manticore]

I'm confused, is the whole point of wire colors and bridges not to avoid this problem?

Yes, you're right, though colours also help you run different circuits through the same tile (which is a brilliant time saver when you use the multi-wrench to place more than one colour at a time). Also, wire colours allow two different circuits to travel along side each other for not just one tile but as many as you need without connecting them. A wire terminus is a single point that only connects to one adjacent wire of the same colour. That means it can only go on the end of circuits rather than anywhere along their path, and helps solve those tricky situations where you've laid out your complex wire circuits of all colours and can't move the switches/actuators/traps/TP to stop same coloured wires connecting at the end point.

What is a wire bridge though? I've seen this mentioned before but couldn't find any examples other than drawbridges. Wire junctions are great if you don't mind placing a foreground object, but it still connects wires on 2 or 4 sides and can't be placed over a switch/trap/TP.

Maybe another way of solving it is by moving Wire Junctions to the wire layer like actuators, and having a different type for each configuration (cross, each diagonal, terminus and a bridge junction that connects two opposite wires) . It would be a pain to have to carry around that many junction objects when you're laying out your circuit. Then again, if you had a tool like the multi-wrench where you could right click to bring up a selector to change the type of junction you placed, it used a generic wire junction object as "ammo"/fuel, and the junction worked for ALL wires it was placed on, then that might solve the problem altogether AND add some extra functionality.
Also, it'd make wire junctions invisible! That'd be a very nice visual improvement than having foreground wire junctions always showing whereever they are, and sometimes needing a tile removed from some nice stone or woodwork to be placed.