flamecutter, I went to have a look at the HT software. I didn't find anything called "hyperthermcam." Is this something you purchased recently? What I found were 3 different versions (levels) of ProNest, but they don't publish prices so it would not be easy to make comparison with Sheetcam which is about $160 US.
Sheetcam does not have a built-in mechanism to do a separate pierce operation, but it might be possible by putting the initial pierce on a separate layer/operation. The problem I see with this in general is that by doing a separate pierce you are igniting your torch twice as often as you would normally. Every "torch on" operation will cause some level of wear to consumables, at least, that is what I understand.
I've just had a rather lengthy email conversation with Les Newell at Sheetcam and he provided some detailed information about how the "ramp" and "wiggle" leadins work. I haven't had a chance to test these as a viable solution yet, but they seem like promising alternatives.
I remember somewhere reading about a function called "puddle jump" that was designed to overcome this obstacle. It is apparently built into certain torch height controllers. I'm wondering how difficult it would be to simply write a macro routine to perform some sort of maneuver that would "hop" over the slag pile then continue toward the "start-of-cut-path", etc.
