A working line

The inserter became a little gantry crane. Four legs, a rail with a stop at each end, a trolley running along it and a claw on a line that pays out as it lowers. It goes down, grabs, lifts, rides across, lowers and lets go, one motion after the other. For that I rebuilt the animation system so each moving part can pause and carry on by itself, and hand over to the next part when it reaches the end of its travel.

The cutter grew to three tiles. A hopper at the back where goods drop in, the saw in the middle, and an exit tray at the front where the finished planks wait. Machines don’t have to be small, and a bigger footprint makes laying out a factory more interesting.

Building got friendlier:

• A blueprint of the piece follows your cursor: blue where it fits, red where it doesn’t, with an arrow on the floor for the way it faces.
• Dragging belts never overwrites belts already there, and starting a drag on an existing belt turns it into a corner.
• Whatever you pick stays selected, so you can place a row without clicking the button each time.
• A free-flying camera, the same one as the model gallery.
• The window can be resized, Alt+Enter goes fullscreen, and both are remembered.

And the old 2D view is gone for good.