Elegant wiring/piping in the form of plates with embedded wires/pipes.

[Sirisian]

This would probably work better if the game had dynamic plate lengths, but it would work with fixed length segments for the most part.

Currently ship designers run point to point wiring and piping between modules. Many designers attempt to run their wiring along beams or along the floor panels to create a somewhat clean look. This suggestion proposes embedding the wiring/piping into panels as an extra option for designers when running conduit or when polishing a ship before putting it on the market.

The following image shows 24x24 cm panels. It's not supposed to be an exhaustive list of all the combinations (or lengths) of connections, but it shows an ad-hoc design that could be scaled to support various configurations. These could even be ran along the walls, floors, and ceilings in an aesthetic way.

The final connections would presumably still be done with the point to point wiring/piping tool. The panels above that end with a larger square would be cable sockets.

The only other suggestion I'd make would be to allow such panels to connect directly to modules without using the cable sockets. So you could run them right up to a generator or module and it would connect intuitively without running a separate point to point cable.

Other ideas related to cabling:
I was also wondering what it would look like if there was an option to run cables orthogonally (at right angles) from one another. So if you start at a cable socket and were in orthogonal mode you'd go straight out from the surface snapping at 12 cm segments then be able to do 90 degree bends to connect to objects. Basically create a more predictable mode for running tubing.

Edit: Oobfiche in the discord mentioned that using 12x12 tiles would open a lot more flexibility and decrease the number of tiles in the above image. There's probably a design with minimal part counts that covers a lot of use cases.

 

[XenoCow]

Isn't this something that can be manufactured already using the cutting laser? You could poke holes through plates at the ends and intersections of where you want the wiring to go. Then use the pipe tool to lay out these patterns before rebuilding the plate to embed the wires.

I would think that for this player built version you would want to have the wires end just before the edges of the plates so that the person building the ship can cleanly connect the plate pipes together with the pipe tool.

 

[Sirisian]

Isn't this something that can be manufactured already using the cutting laser? You could poke holes through plates at the ends and intersections of where you want the wiring to go. Then use the pipe tool to lay out these patterns before rebuilding the plate to embed the wires.

From what I've seen the cutting laser isn't a precise tool. (Kind of like when people suggested making beams hollow for running cabling). This suggestion is more for a polishing step in ship design where the builder wants to clean up the look up cabling running through the ship.

I would think that for this player built version you would want to have the wires end just before the edges of the plates so that the person building the ship can cleanly connect the plate pipes together with the pipe tool.

That's what the socket panels I described would do. They're the center panels in my image and in the example below. Basically wherever you need to connect using the pipe tools you'd build as much using these panels then create a socket panel and use its cable socket to connect to another cable socket in a cable panel or ship component.

 

[Threeshotgamer]

I might be not understanding this fully but is the suggestion for pre-wired panels to cover long distances and then when you need to attach to something you have a plate with a socket to connect to? If so I like that idea

 

[CalenLoki]

Imo that would be completely unnecessary ui clutter. You can lay very neat straight cables using current method. It needs some work (i.e. impove snapping, prevent excessive clipping, ect.) but it's way more flexible and universal than set plates.
Stop thinking squares - SB is one of the first vehicle-building games that doesn't force you into cubic grid.

Also you can use cargo lock frame and rails for straight cable-less power and signal transfer.