[Suggestion] Power lines or the ability to more easily run wire long distances

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• 03 Jan
  T0rch702

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  I don't necessarily need power lines, but I would agree that running water/power lines in the game is quite janky. The max distance per segment makes running long-distance wires quite a hassle, as once you hit max, you can't click to just place it at its max range; you have to back it off a little and then click. I end up just turning on an auto-click macro and running a billion segments all the way to power.
  
  The inability to place segment connectors behind already existing deployables is also quite annoying. I have to cover my walls in pipe and cable to get around all of my workbenches.
  
  The inability to snap existing lines to a deployable is (again) also frustrating. At least just auto delete the cable if I remove the deployable then, otherwise its just mandatory extra work since the line is 100% useless after the thing its connected to is removed.

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• 30 Oct, '25
  Willem

  Yes introduce an electrical pole, maybe even variations like wall mounted. And maybe a more expensive one that is too big for in a base but can run even longer distances

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• 31 Oct, '25
  Iroh

  Please at the very least make it so the "end" of the run is clickable. Running longer distances of wire is extremely frustrating because you have to run to the "end", then step back to place.
  
  Ideally, much longer wires as well - would be willing to trade resources and points for this, such as electrical poles as others have suggested, or a wire spool that costs copper to "refill".

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• 31 Oct, '25
  Mitchell

  Underground is interesting. Not sure how much performance impact there is from wires and pipes but there wouldn't need to be any (at least from rendering) if they were underground unless you have the tool equipped.

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• 31 Dec, '25
  Andre

  Regarding the electrical and plumbing wiring, I believe it could be improved. The "black and blue wires" running through the floor, as they do today, are the most "bugged" thing, visually and sometimes operationally. I believe it could be done like the beams and columns in the game, visually more appealing and organized (remembering that both the electrical and plumbing lines have to run side-by-side). I think you could take a look to see how the electrical part of "SOF" works. It's tied to the trunk – a well-thought-out idea – and in the higher tiers it could be embedded in the wall.

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• 09 Jan
  Fridge

  How about a tier 4 expensive power transmission relay? Like Tesla promised. You get to skip the performance hit of hundreds of new objects AND get to link grids.

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• 28 Jan
  Fred

  The size of a wire should not be so short, AND creation should be automatic until we are not on the new spot.
  For example, connect many electric drills is a full pain.
  Connect some houses is a pure madness (could be done by Tesla mode as Fridge said) like a beacon or stellite reflextor/emitter to cover the map.
  The render of the wire cost too graphically and not really interresting to see.
  Finally, we should be able to see wire on tension/full to detect more easilly unconnected parts sometimes hard to see. And a T4+ walls/floors could be integrate all cable to connect avery component each other without put ugly visible wires in the house (but I unserstand it can by hard to program, I'm a programmer too).
  
  Some games have totally removed the wires to be more easy t play (like Planet Crafter, but it's a bit extrem and not realistic I agree).

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• 26 Mar
  Kazzik

  I use Wood Beams for this purpose now, but the process is slow. If the wire and Wood Beam placement could be merged so you could see the max distance of the wire portion the same way it is now with the wire tool, that would be fantastic. Also should have a mode for all of the tool types (biofuel, water, etc)

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• 01 Apr
  Mr.green

  definitely need some sort of longer variation of power cables or just a structure to connect long distances.
  
  personally I use it for mining the nodes sprinkled about the map and it's a pain to run cable to each node
  mostly because of the length limit and having to step back to place it or just spamming it and having that many cables ran
  can't be good for performance.
  
  I would suggest a power line structure for long distance power connection or having the power system revamped into a radius
  type system to save on performance having to place multiple assets into the world like cables.
  the radius system would detect power sources and power consumers and automatically draw the cables between them as a render
  rather than an asset, it might be ugly depending on how you do it. however if you do something akin to satisfactory's power system it could be maintained better and the player would still have control of how the cables are placed with specific structures for the cables.

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• 08 Apr
  Firethorn

  Simplest change: Allow max-length connections to complete, thus the player can just click and place when it freezes and keep going.
  Next would probably be to enable a "hold down" mode where whenever the length hits the maximum, a node is placed down.
  More difficult would be things like electrified/plumbed floors, long distance power cables, wireless power, etc...
  Even just the simplest change would make most of the player base happy.

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