Do your ducts seem old-fashioned? (Presented with apologies to Terry Gilliam.)
I should start by saying that I love pipes. Seriously, I do. But people around here don’t believe me. They think I hate pipes, gears, conveyor belts, and all manner of functional machinery. I love that stuff! I just hate seeing it abused for no good reason. Gears are for doing things, not for slapping to the side of a building just ’cause!
I can say the same thing for what we’ve termed “dynamics lines”. Dynamics are basically fluids or other commodities that are required for tasks that can be either broken up into discrete units (like pails of water) or piped in (like, erm… water pipes). We’ve argued about these a lot. While they’re aesthetically pleasing, if you end up having a giant rat’s nest of pipes for a city, there’s no way you’ll be able to see what’s going on in your settlement. All of the characters become obstructed by a monstrous network of pipes and axles and other means of transmission and you can no longer tell you’re playing a game or where your favorite character is.
This is a problem.
