AE2 Unofficial Extended Life

AE2 Unofficial Extended Life

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Formation Plane patterning

doniascion opened this issue · 0 comments

commented

Allow formation planes to accept patterns in order to allow patterning of in-world crafts without involving the usual subnet method, where you put the formation plane on a subnet and pattern an interface to insert items into that subnet.

Describe the feature
Formation planes get an interface which, like interfaces, has 9 slots expandable to 36. It runs patterns like an interface, but instead of outputting to an inventory it outputs the items into the world as a formation plane normally would.

Additionally this would require some way of disabling the plane's regular functionality as a network storage location, for example by having a toggle between storage mode and pattern mode. The plane could also automatically do this if there is a pattern in it.

Reasons why it should be considered
Simplifies automation of in-world crafting using more intuitive mechanics, which is relevant in many packs featuring for example Atomic Reconstructors or Botania elven trading, to mention a couple out of the many instances of in-world crafting. This makes these mechanics more accessible and improves their feel, especially in simpler packs where subnetting is foreign to new players. It allows for cleaner automation and removes unnecessary complexity.

This does not enable any new techniques, it is just a simplification and QoL improvement.

Additional Context
Atomic Reconstructor crafting has been greatly improved by the Reconstruction Chamber in NAE2 which is a superior solution to the usual in-world crafting, but this addition would improve QoL for in-world crafting with items across the board for all other mechanics in any pack using AE2-UEL.

Optional addition: Blocking mode to disable outputting of items if there are items in the blockspace in front of the formation plane. Can be implemented using item detectors, but this would simplify it greatly.