Rail Upkeep
Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2018 7:30 pm
This is something that's bothered me for a while - there's no disadvantage to rail creeps.
Except in the very very very early game when trains have just been researched, I've felt completely unlimited by rails. Once you have a blueprint to lay down two (or later four) lines together, even in vanilla you just sit in a train and let your personal roboport build the rest. There's no ongoing cost to maintaining a rail network, which means there's no disadvantage to running 2 lines to wherever you need them.
In the "real world" maintaining unnecessary track *is expensive* and comes with a cost. If you have a highly trafficked line, it is maintained more often. If you have a very low service, you run one track, not two, with the associated cost of capacity. In my screenshot, the upper branch took much longer to build than the lower branch, as considering train lengths when creating passing places adds decent complexity. Other than the fun of trying to create a longer single track line, there was no advantage in me doing so and I should have just laid down the landfill for my two track blueprint.
I'm not sure exactly how this would work out, but I might like to see some kind of upkeep damage attached to track per time and per train. As rail ages, speeds could be limited to 50%, 25%, 10%? This way, busy areas cost more, and unnecessary extra lines cost more. Making the repair robot based wouldn't make sense as maintaining a continuous roboport coverage along rail lines to mines is silly. Maybe a special rail maintenance wagon which can be attached to a train which automatically slows to repair damaged sections?
I realise nothing else in the game has upkeep of this sort except structures and armour during biter attacks, so making the degradation intuitive might be hard. I'd nevertheless like to put forward this idea for discussion and consideration, in an effort to add some more late game challenge in vanilla.
Except in the very very very early game when trains have just been researched, I've felt completely unlimited by rails. Once you have a blueprint to lay down two (or later four) lines together, even in vanilla you just sit in a train and let your personal roboport build the rest. There's no ongoing cost to maintaining a rail network, which means there's no disadvantage to running 2 lines to wherever you need them.
In the "real world" maintaining unnecessary track *is expensive* and comes with a cost. If you have a highly trafficked line, it is maintained more often. If you have a very low service, you run one track, not two, with the associated cost of capacity. In my screenshot, the upper branch took much longer to build than the lower branch, as considering train lengths when creating passing places adds decent complexity. Other than the fun of trying to create a longer single track line, there was no advantage in me doing so and I should have just laid down the landfill for my two track blueprint.
I'm not sure exactly how this would work out, but I might like to see some kind of upkeep damage attached to track per time and per train. As rail ages, speeds could be limited to 50%, 25%, 10%? This way, busy areas cost more, and unnecessary extra lines cost more. Making the repair robot based wouldn't make sense as maintaining a continuous roboport coverage along rail lines to mines is silly. Maybe a special rail maintenance wagon which can be attached to a train which automatically slows to repair damaged sections?
I realise nothing else in the game has upkeep of this sort except structures and armour during biter attacks, so making the degradation intuitive might be hard. I'd nevertheless like to put forward this idea for discussion and consideration, in an effort to add some more late game challenge in vanilla.