Greetings dear Forum members,
today I will present a suggestion that came to my mind when I saw the new (h)-Hauling menu.
It often bothered me that you can't see which Lever is linked to what and when I noticed that you have a line showing up when highlighting route stops in the Hauling menu, I thought this would fit perfectly for displaying Mechanical Links, too.
So why a new Noble ?
Someone has to keep an overview over all those links and it requires some record keeping. In contrast to Minecart stops, which are always connected by tracks visible to everyone, mechanical links do not require that. Therefore I thought it should be appropriate to appoint someone to do this, since it would be necessary to keep records because those Links are "hidden" to everyone besides the one who built them.
How exactly would that change the game ?
1. New Nobles position in the nobles menu "Chief Mechanic"
2. Appointing one causes the dwarf to do "updating Link records" Job. Works like the record keeper, but with linked buildings.
3. New menu item in the main interface "M - Linked buildings"
4. New menu "Linked buildings"
The "Linked Buildings" Menu would look like this:
Upper part (Link List):
Granite Lever
linked to Iron Bridge
linked to Granite Floodgate
Microcline Lever
linked to Iron Bridge
Microcline Pressure Plate
Upright Spear Trap (and so on)
Lower part(Controls):
z: Zoom to building
x: Unlink building (removes Mechanisms from building and Lever without deconstruction of Lever)
X: Unlink Lever (removes Mechanisms from all connected buildings and Lever without deconstruction of Lever)
n: New Link (adds marked Buildings via Cursor+Enter directly to the upper List. Shown in red as long the triggered Linking Job isn't done)
Esc: Done
Also, as long as you are in the "Linked buildings" menu, Lines will show the highlighted Links as the Hauling menu shows Lines which connect the route stops to give a better overview. Highlighting a Lever/Pressure Plate shows Lines to all connected buildings, while highlighting buildings would only show the Line between the corresponding Building and lever.
In short, I want to add a new noble which gives access to advanced overview and control of mechanics.
I hope you like this suggestion and I would love to get some feedback on this