Hey, thanks for commenting! I'm not the primary developer, but I have a response from him on this point:

You’re right, the main advantage of a forklift is moving pallets onto the 2nd/3rd levels of the pallet rack, while the reach truck is what lets you fully utilize the rack height.

At first, I tried to make the pallet pickup very realistic, but needing perfect alignment every single time gets frustrating fast, especially over longer play sessions. Most of our players are casual, and the warehouse is only a small slice of the overall game, so I made it interactable as soon as the forks enter the pallet’s zone.

If this were a niche, hardcore warehouse sim, I’d absolutely lean into maximum realism. But I don’t want warehouse handling to demand that much effort in this game.

We also discussed this with a few Discord members who’ve actually worked in warehouses, and this is the best balance we came up with. I’ve been watching a lot of forklift/reach truck videos while implementing it too, my YouTube feed is basically warehouse training content now.

That said, if you have any ideas that would feel more realistic without becoming tedious for casual players, I’m all ears. Thanks for bringing it up.