Collapsing/expanding keyframe sets
An action recorder is, as I understand it, one fat keyframe holding many values for the settings it affects over time. Which makes it very efficient both on wire count and "things" thermo. But it comes with being a lot less precise to animate with, moving things live by hand.
As they are so similar, "collapsing" a set of keyframes (a row of adjacent keyframes on a timeline) down to a single action recorder could be possible--re-encoding the data or moving it around, and replacing the keyframes with the new action recorder gadget. This would give us the precision of keyframed animation, but allow us to optimise such animations down to a single gadget and a handful of wires.
(Quick note: an "action recorder timeline" which edits an action recorder directly would work just as well for this, and have some advantages. So if that would work better, awesome! Maybe have a conversion button between keyframes and an action recorder and the rest could work the same.)
Expanding an action recorder may also be possible--turning the action recorder back into a keyframe set (if thermo allows). Or even expanding an action recorder that was created live in the usual way, to adjust a point, or remove some points to smooth it out after recording.
This could make using the action recorder a lot more feasible for creators who want precision. If they have a certain action in mind that's quick to prototype live, they can use an action recorder for that. Then expand it out and finesse it however they like, add parts, take parts out, etc.
For example, if I want to make a moving platform that moves from one piece of land to another, over an obstacle in the middle, I could use an action recorder to get the general shape down. Then go in and delete whole groups of keyframes to simplify--saving shared data thermo--and smooth out the result. Done in 30 seconds.
Compared to going in with keyframes from the start and trying to get the shape I want, and make sure it doesn't clip, etc. which could take longer because I don't have a simple starting point.
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This would indeed make the Action Recorder a viable solution for many more creators - its lack of precision is the exact reason why I avoid using it at present.
To address the thermo issues, conversion between Keyframes and Action Recorder in either direction could have a "resolution" slider. For example, if you have a Keyframe set spanning 2 seconds, conversion to Action Recorder at 50% resolution would give you an Action Recorder with 30 samples and 50% playback speed instead of an Action Recorder with 60 samples and 100% playback speed. In the other direction, converting an Action Recorder with 60 samples at 50% resolution would give you 30 Keyframes instead of 60 Keyframes.
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