[2.0.14] Can connect wall ghosts to circuit networks, but not real walls

[Coconutcoo]

A ghost wall's circuit connection behaviour is different to that of a real wall.

This is replicated on Nauvis in the attached save file. You can place a ghost wall, connect a wire to it, then have bots build that wall and the circuit connection persists. You cannot attach to a real wall (or even remove an existing connection).

I would expect either to allow real walls to be connected (as a relay on space platforms perhaps?) or the ghost to also not allow being connected (as splitters do currently).

This does have some practical usage, I was trying to connect two asteroid collectors via a circuit wire that were too far away, and used a wall ghost as a convenient "relay" on a space platform. After the wall was built, and the asteroid collector later destroyed and replaced, the circuit connection ended up missing as the wall was now "real".

[boskid]

Thanks for the report. I am going to move this to Not a bug.

Primary reason why it is possible to connect wire to a wall is because if there is a Gate next to a Wall, then wall is the entity which has the "open gate" circuit condition as well as the sensor output. As for why ghosts allow circuit wires, i am not 100% sure but this avoids quite a lot of corner cases related to building blueprints before walls connect to gates or before they are revived.

[Mmarss]

I've just observed this same behaviour, also while trying to connect distant asteroid collectors and using a wall as an intermediate wire connector.

I don't mind this being intended behaviour either, but it introduces a number of inconsistencies. A blueprint with wired walls can be constructed somewhere as blueprinted, but pasting the blueprint over an existing wall doesn't keep the circuit connection. The circuit text "Closed by circuit network" is also a little confusing when there's no gate nearby. I'd welcome a bit more consistency, if the behaviour remains.