Shared Conveyor Faces - Automatic Linking

The problem:

One of the biggest limitations when making a ship functional, not bulky and aesthetically pleasing is getting the conveyor ports to line up properly. For example, the cargo container has two large 3x3 faces on opposing sides, two small 1x1 faces on opposing sided and two faces with no attachment ports. If one wanted a Z tetris block configuration, this would mean that you either have to sacrifice your entire 3x3 conveyor system, or sacrifice the middle two cargo containers for two 90* conveyor tubes. Other functional parts, such as O2-H2 Generators or Refineries have oddly located ports that force specific placements and/or can limit mirroring capabilities.

What I'm proposing (part A):

Rather than have dedicated conveyor areas that require proper lining up, assume that there's an engineer that placed a connection point wherever the two parts overlap. If the surface area is large enough, the parts are considered connected. This would mean that 3x3 cargo containers that overlap on their corners (that is, an offset of 2x2) are considered connected with a 1x1 port. They would only be considered connected with a 3x3 port if they are fully lined up. In effect, all eligible surface areas become potential attachment points (ie. only the bottom 3 front tiles of a cockpit's front, the upper 2x3 being glass are not eligible)

Part 2 - the "Shared Face" mechanic:

Once two cargo containers are lined up 3x3, a third cargo container can be placed on the seam (1x3 and 2x3 respectively) and still be considered 3x3 connected to the conveyor system. So long as the newly added part has a 3x3 area, it is added to the conveyor's system.

Potential Problem and solution:

Sometimes, you may not want a touching part to be connected to the conveyor system, such as when using sorters for one way flow. In such cases, a non-volumetric "conveyor cover" could be placed/painted on the block prior to the second block's placement to avoid undesired automatic links. Normal use of specific conveyor tubes will also help here.