Seems like making the slicer only able to talk to the printer via the cloud was a bad way to do things, where any issue results in “instability felt by all users.”
This is false. After the authorization-related firmware changes last year LAN mode doesn't allow 3rd party slicers to connect.
LAN mode is also abandonware with numerous issues and missing features that they've had no interest in fixing. Orca slicer has had to rely on hacky workarounds in Bambu's buggy networking plugin just to be able to connect to printers in a different subnet.
https://github.com/bambulab/BambuStudio/issues/4512
> I can connect to my P2S in LAN mode with OrcaSlicer just fine (currently using the latest 2.4.0 nightly).
You either haven't updated the firmware or you also enabled "Developer mode" which has its own issues.
> This is a separate issue, I think even Bambu Studio can't connect to printers in LAN mode on a different subnet.
It's not a separate issue, it's a long-standing bug in their proprietary networking plugin that they refuse to fix. Orca slicer has implemented a hacky workaround so it actually works there.
> This is a separate issue, I think even Bambu Studio can't connect to printers in LAN mode on a different subnet.
Yes, that's the point. The nerworking is broken. The issue isn't unique to a specific slicer, their software sucks. Orca ran into the issue because they wanted to make a basic feature that works on every other printer on the market work on a bambu.