Factorio Forums

When backing up a train engine, you use "S" and "D" to turn right, but in a rail car you use "S" and "A". Is this a bug or feature?

I discovered this in my stream earlier today. I've a link to where can view my video on YouTube when I discovered this bug/feature - https://youtu.be/KdAmCOAsJG4?t=1h4m56s

I believe it depends on the orientation of the engine and or wagon you're sitting in.

Presuming the keys for movement are W forward, A left, S back and D right.

If I'm using the S key to move a train, it is backing, right? Therefore A is used to make a left turn (IE my viewpoint is the position of my feet before me (if I were in a car)) and D for a right turn.

Think of being in that car, you steer the same way to turn right, forward and backwards. I get that perhaps it is the engine facing the back car that could be throwing things off, and I'd be fine with that if it was the W key to be moving "forward" then the A key would make sense, but I was using the S key, therefore in my mind I'm backing up, and want the D key.

A wagon has an orientation? Of course, now that you say that, I know that an artillery car does have an orientation, because of which direction its gun faces. So I could guess that all cars have orientations, but I'd hope from steering them that the same keys for driving apply no matter the orientation.

trains behave like they should

draw and arrow in direction of locomotive head

A turns left, D turns right
arrow doesn't change orientation, when you drive backwards, it still points same direction, so even if you going "back" it still A for left, in terms of where is locomotive oriented.
and no, you cannot argue that for doubleheaded train, you will need to change your driving seat to other locomotive to have your orientation changed.

btw. ever drive a car? in what direction you turn streering wheel, when you want to turn "right" (in terms of movement direction and then in direction where car front is) when driving backwards?

GREEN is train orientation, that doesn't change when you go forward or backwards
BLUE is driving back, RED driving forward

left and right is respective to train orientation, not movement.

mexmer next time read the post and supporting material before replying. We're not talking about driving the train from within the engine, but from within a rail car. Though it is nice to have the picture to support what I was attempting to write.

Add a rail car behind your engine, and I was having to press "A" to move in the "D" direction when using "S" to accelerate the train.

If you moved it to "not a bug" please return it.

Dune wrote:mexmer next time read the post and supporting material before replying. We're not talking about driving the train from within the engine, but from within a rail car. Though it is nice to have the picture to support what I was attempting to write.

Add a rail car behind your engine, and I was having to press "A" to move in the "D" direction when using "S" to accelerate the train.

If you moved it to "not a bug" please return it.

ah, now i get it, i tested that with artilery, because that is only non engine unit in basegame that you can drive

i added picture, this looks like a bug, you are right, or at least it's inconsistent, for artillery A/D is dependant on movement orientation, not train orientation.

BLUE is when driving from locomotive
PINK when driving from artilery vagon (orientation of artilery doesn't matter)

That should only be the case if you have a double header train (aka the bottom one in the other direction)

lovely_santa wrote:That should only be the case if you have a double header train (aka the bottom one in the other direction)

no, id does it with single headed, i just added second locomotive facing same direction as top one, to be more "obvious", it's not consistent.

if you remove bottom locomotive, it will still drive as on picture, if you remove top one (and leave bottom one), also.

so yes, "mountable" vagon (eg. one you can ride), does have altered A/D according to movement direction, although S/W is according to locomotive (train direction).

tbh. i never thought you can actually drive train from vagon. until now i never tested it.
i always thought, you can drive train in locomotive only and "ride" in vagon as passenger.

Thanks for the report, it is fixed for 0.16.47 now.

kovarex wrote:Thanks for the report, it is fixed for 0.16.47 now.

hmm, i wonder, how it will act for doubleheaded trains

any hint?

When you are sitting in a locomotive, you control it from the perspective of the locomotive.
When you sit in a non-locomotive, you control it as if you were sitting in the primary locomotive.

The train always has internally a direction, so with 2 headed trains with the same amount of locomotives on both sides, if you control it from the rolling stock, it will just use the internal direction of the train.

Thanks for the fix. I'm looking forward to it. And, I'm always glad to post reports. You all have fixed so far four of my reports.

Now if I can just get my suggestion put to the front of the pile, a color picker based on entity.

kovarex wrote:When you are sitting in a locomotive, you control it from the perspective of the locomotive.
When you sit in a non-locomotive, you control it as if you were sitting in the primary locomotive.

The train always has internally a direction, so with 2 headed trains with the same amount of locomotives on both sides, if you control it from the rolling stock, it will just use the internal direction of the train.

i thought, that will be the case, just question is, what is primary direction? and how we know it?

sorry, to bother you with questions, just want to expand my knowledge

mexmer wrote:

kovarex wrote:When you are sitting in a locomotive, you control it from the perspective of the locomotive.
When you sit in a non-locomotive, you control it as if you were sitting in the primary locomotive.

The train always has internally a direction, so with 2 headed trains with the same amount of locomotives on both sides, if you control it from the rolling stock, it will just use the internal direction of the train.

i thought, that will be the case, just question is, what is primary direction? and how we know it?

sorry, to bother you with questions, just want to expand my knowledge

It is semi-randomly selected when the train object is being constructed. There is really no indication of it until you enter non-locomotive and start manually riding it.

One indicator i found for determining primary direction of double headed trains is red and blue light on locomotives when stopped at stations in automatic mode.

Optera wrote:One indicator i found for determining primary direction of double headed trains is red and blue light on locomotives when stopped at stations in automatic mode.

Right, I forgot about this.
But still, it is very minor thing as it is always more intuitive to just use the locomotive to ride the train.

kovarex wrote:

Optera wrote:One indicator i found for determining primary direction of double headed trains is red and blue light on locomotives when stopped at stations in automatic mode.

Right, I forgot about this.
But still, it is very minor thing as it is always more intuitive to just use the locomotive to ride the train.

It is rare for sure, but these things are helpful bits. I'm glad the feature is available.

As seen in my video I used the rollingstock to connect to another rollingstock, and ...

In the case of moving an artillery outpost, since artillery shells take up so much space and thus require so many rollingstock. I've had to use rollingstock when the train was so long that the locomotives were off the screen and I was trying to get rollingstock to line up with inserters.