Trains vs conveyors?

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starxplor
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by starxplor »

Ethribin wrote: Also, I am hoping for maybe an electric engine?^^ (I use the solid fuel that I make from spare light or heavy oil to power the engine) As a person who likes to experiment with solar power and as little pollution as possible and a fan of electric trains anyway, an electric would be awesome XD
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by Shaymes »

trains are more fun :)
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by MaanooAk »

Shaymes wrote:trains are more fun :)
much more!!

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Pigeon039
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by Pigeon039 »

Trains are fun till you get ran over

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

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Edit: accidential double post
Last edited by Pigeon039 on Fri Jun 27, 2014 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by Rahjital »

If it's you and not the biters that get run over, you need more practice. :)

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by bulldog98 »

Pigeon039 wrote:Trains are fun till you get ran over
Try using rail signal every x tiles, so when you zoom out a bit, you'll be able to see if a train is coming or not.

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by Shaymes »

Pigeon039 wrote:Trains are fun till you get ran over
my dad every says - do not play on the tracks :P
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Nova
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by Nova »

To be honest: I use trains because they are cool and fun, but a fast conveyor would be cheaper and easier to build and fully sufficient. I never had too much items to transport with one belt. Maybe i well need more ore in my next game, but until then i never needed more than one belt.
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by Zourin »

Trains are for linking separate factory assemblies together over long distances. This additionally lets you 'take a ride' out to outposts that require attention. Bots are terrible at long distances and bulk goods. That leaves conveyors and trains. Trains are faster than belts and offer better logistic control as you go between logistic networks. Belts simply take forever, and you may wind up with a lot of asset tied up with simply being 'in transit'. I personally see items sitting on a belt as a non-routable waste. It's someplace the logistic network can't handle. Backed up belts can be a good thing for buffer space, but long belts are just inefficient.

Conveyor belts are best for working within an automated facility for bulk goods. transporting ore, plates, circuit boards, etc over short or medium distances. Bots can help make links for end products of one chain move to where they're needed within the local network, especially if it's completely impractical to route a belt for the job.

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by ssilk »

@Zourin: that was nice. I updated this page with some of your quotes: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... ch_case%3F
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Zourin
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

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ssilk wrote:@Zourin: that was nice. I updated this page with some of your quotes: https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... ch_case%3F
Poked through the site, although it kinda misses the point that belts have the best short-distance throughput for continuous, direct-to-factory transportation. Bots, while great at moving sparse items with slow production speeds, are a very costly thing to integrate with high-volume affairs like mining/smelting because they need frequent breaks to recharge.

The exception is the incredible benefit they offer to train stations because of the space/logistical challenge of routing and load-balancing belts around the train tracks, especially since it isn't necessarily 'constant flow', offering them time to recharge.

A personal pro-tip of mine: Smelt ore locally and ship the plates via train, you can double your wagon capacity and route directly to a storage yard or factory.

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

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Added, https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... did=111109

Even if I would wish that a wiki is edited by everybody... :)
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by starxplor »

Zourin wrote:A personal pro-tip of mine: Smelt ore locally and ship the plates via train, you can double your wagon capacity and route directly to a storage yard or factory.
How does smelting at the site of mining double wagon capacity? At 'best', you get one plate per ore, and if you use modules, you could have more plates per ore.

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by Zourin »

starxplor wrote:
Zourin wrote:A personal pro-tip of mine: Smelt ore locally and ship the plates via train, you can double your wagon capacity and route directly to a storage yard or factory.
How does smelting at the site of mining double wagon capacity? At 'best', you get one plate per ore, and if you use modules, you could have more plates per ore.
Unless things have changed with the new stack sizes, you can stack plates to 100, but ore only to 50. Thus, if you smelt on site, you can fit more iron on the wagon.


ssilk wrote:Added, https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... did=111109

Even if I would wish that a wiki is edited by everybody... :)
I clicked the link and my brain melted just a little bit.

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by starxplor »

Zourin wrote:
starxplor wrote:
Zourin wrote:A personal pro-tip of mine: Smelt ore locally and ship the plates via train, you can double your wagon capacity and route directly to a storage yard or factory.
How does smelting at the site of mining double wagon capacity? At 'best', you get one plate per ore, and if you use modules, you could have more plates per ore.
Unless things have changed with the new stack sizes, you can stack plates to 100, but ore only to 50. Thus, if you smelt on site, you can fit more iron on the wagon.

Oh, I see, the difference between 64 ore and 128 plates... Never noticed that, heh.

I still find having a centralized processing facility, for all ores is much less complicated and involves much less work to maintain. I do not have to move smelting facilities when a patch runs dry. I just pick up the minors, add some rail, and move on. Trains are fast enough that I am not worried about what the maximum ore a train can carry is.

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by ssilk »

@ Zourin: hehe, reading diffs is matter of practice. Nothing special here. :)

@ starxplor: I don't see much problems... You have blueprints and programmable wagons. One train, which brings the needed materials into the outpost. Once you have created a roboport there, you can create a train station within minutes for unloading, program the train to bring more and unload automatic, build solar fields/accus, build mines from blueprint and electrical furnaces, make a second train station for loading, program a second train to bring that home.
If everything is depleted you take the deconstructor and the robots make their job.
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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by generalmek »

ssilk wrote:In my opinion it depends on the game-setting. If you always play with full rich resources etc. then forget about trains. But I think that game is boring.

In my opinion the interesting game begins, when you need to go outside. To explore the surrounding. This begins with about 400 tiles distances. That's two ranges of radar. And that is also the border, where train comes really into the game, cause with that distance you wont place belts after belts. It takes much too long, until some new resources are in your factory. It is boring to do everything by car. And many more reasons.

In my eyes - I repeated that now several times - the really, really interesting game begins in a distance of 1000 tiles from the base. Here you are suddenly alone again. No tech in reach.

What, if this is the distances, in which we normally find new resources? What, if the game forces us to expand 5 times the scan-range of radar, before we find enough resources? I mean there is a lot of needed game mechanics missing to do that for now. But the question, if you want to use belts or train is then no longer a question, it's just stupid to have so many belts over that distance. :)
seriously? when you get 1000 you finish the game - all that you say its philosophy. game too short until you make defence. laser turrets to cheap. if dev make researh speed control to very slow maybe its will be interesting. i use belts and power line near for robo ports, and laser turrets walls, walls, in main way, main way. on base i transport resourses at outposts transport empty barels and repair packs, walls.
play on max bitters with low rare resourses. trains no needed
for me game is very easy then i get laser turrets. because i know i complete this game< borring. but i cant survive on very low resourses and max bitter, withouth water as barrier. tired

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by LuckyStar »

Ah, yes. The question of "why should i build a train system" Wow, you sure are original for asking this

As others have said, you can't beat the train in terms of high throughput over long distances. And if you're not very keen on using pumps for tons of pipes, Oil (and other liquids if im correct) will loose throughput over long distances. This can be solved with train transport of oil barrels.

Also, once you get a bit later into the game, blueprints are your best friends for reusing unloading/loading train stations.

Not to mention that using train systems is about 100 times more cool

https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... ch_case%3F

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Re: Trains vs conveyors?

Post by Frightning »

LuckyStar wrote:Ah, yes. The question of "why should i build a train system" Wow, you sure are original for asking this

As others have said, you can't beat the train in terms of high throughput over long distances. And if you're not very keen on using pumps for tons of pipes, Oil (and other liquids if im correct) will loose throughput over long distances. This can be solved with train transport of oil barrels.

Also, once you get a bit later into the game, blueprints are your best friends for reusing unloading/loading train stations.

Not to mention that using train systems is about 100 times more cool

https://wiki.factorio.com/index.php?tit ... ch_case%3F
Why necro a 2-year old thread?

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