My parts are freezing

In the first step towards overhauling the building game mechanic to make it easier to use, I have changed the controls a bit.  Now, you have to “freeze” a construction before you can attach other parts to it.  You do this by holding shift and left clicking, either when highlighting a construction with the cursor, or when a construction is selected (i.e. picked up).  In either case, it gets frozen in place (with a blinking highlight to indicate that it’s currently frozen).  Shift + left click again will unfreeze, as will selecting it.

Because you can pick up a construction and then freeze it, it can be frozen in any position & orientation, making it easier to modify less accessible areas, as in this example:-

In addition, when a construction is frozen, any parts that freely rotate with respect to each other (e.g. blocks and axles) are reset to a default orientation that realigns everything within the construction.  For example, you can see in the image above moving parts such as the wheels, gears, and steering beam are all aligned at right angles to the rest of the construction.

Right now, the main benefit is that it prevents stuff rolling away while you’re trying to build!  However, the plan is that it will also allow me to improve the part snap-to behaviour and make positioning & orientating parts easier.  More on this soon hopefully!