Sometimes I need to reconfigure a machine's inventory, e.g. changing the locked inputs for an Assembler, or swapping out locked items in a Configurable Chest. When the machine in question is already installed and part of my base's network, this can be very tricky to do.

Currently, I would need to unlock the slot, remove the item stack currently in that slot, and then quickly lock it to air, so that the connected item pipes don't feed more items into the slot I just emptied. Sometimes this takes multiple tries, as I'm not that fast with a mouse 😓

Alternatively, I could use my Wrench to disconnect any pipes currently inputting items. This works OK for fluid pipes, but for item pipes I then have to manually restore its filter items when I want to reconnect it to the machine later, which can be quite a pain, especially if the item pipe had a lot of items in its filter before I disconnected it.

It would be super helpful if there were some way to temporarily prevent a machine from taking items from connected item pipes, so that I can reconfigure the machine at my own pace, and then turn inputs back on when I am finished.

Interesting suggestion! But maybe something like "empty slot to inventory, and lock the slot to air" would work for you? Then you could drag the new items from REI.

Personally I have had issues with this approach-- since it's already connected to the item pipe network, it sometimes gets more items before you can lock it to air.

Interesting suggestion! But maybe something like "empty slot to inventory, and lock the slot to air" would work for you? Then you could drag the new items from REI.

Interesting suggestion! But maybe something like "empty slot to inventory, and lock the slot to air" would work for you? Then you could drag the new items from REI.

Good call; I think that would solve the problem quite neatly.

My idea was indeed to add a feature to do both in one click.

I'm also going to change the title/description for this issue, as I see that I have fallen victim to the xy problem 😅

Interesting suggestion! But maybe something like "empty slot to inventory, and lock the slot to air" would work for you? Then you could drag the new items from REI.

Personally I have had issues with this approach-- since it's already connected to the item pipe network, it sometimes gets more items before you can lock it to air.

Ahh, I misunderstood @Technici4n's response; I thought that they were suggesting to add a feature to do both in one click. Yes, I agree with you @Shylie it can be really hard to time this right, even for a player who is fast with the mouse (I'm not 😅).

Whilst rewriting my OP to focus on the problem rather than potential solutions, I thought of another workaround (see, I told you 😹), which is to use the wrench to disconnect 2 item pipes somewhere in the middle, so that the item pipe's connection to the machine is still intact, but there's no longer a path for items to reach it.

E.g.,:

Chest >---------> Machine
           ^    ^
           |    |
           |    Don't disconnect here
           |
           Disconnect here instead

This could disrupt other parts of the base – i.e., if the only accesible/viable place to disconnect item pipes also cuts off other machines, not just the one the player wants to reconfigure – so I think would still be nice if there were an easier / more intuitive way to disconnect individual machines from their inputs.

Will be in the next release. First time is without shift, second time is with shift:
https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/13494793/172058929-b86effc5-8e80-4ce4-b8d2-714da6f5e15a.mp4