Remove Train Stop research, add Train Stop to first "Railway" research

[imTheSupremeOne]

I believe that "Automated rail transportation" that provide you with a Train Stops is an unnecessary research to have, and that Train Stops should be given with a first "Railway" research that provide you with Rail, Train and Cargo Wagon... Because without Train Stops, Trains-Rails are completely useless as you can't use them for automation and you already have a car as a vehicle.

[Silfir]

You don't need train stops right away. You first need access to rails so you can produce them and have a train network. By the time you're done with that - even if you start right away - automated rail transportation research will be done, too.

It's daunting enough for new players just to figure out how to build rail networks in the first place!

For experienced players, there is no benefit in combining the two techs. They've just queued them up right after another in the first place.

[imTheSupremeOne]

You don't need train stops right away. You first need access to rails so you can produce them and have a train network. By the time you're done with that - even if you start right away - automated rail transportation research will be done, too.

It's daunting enough for new players just to figure out how to build rail networks in the first place!

For experienced players, there is no benefit in combining the two techs. They've just queued them up right after another in the first place.

You anyway will have them after like 5 minutes of research, it's very "cheap" even for a new player. So it's not like you will learn much about rails before you get to the station.

Personally I, if I could place myself at the place of a new player would prefer to have Trains, Rails and Stops at the same time — so I could place a Train Stop and just see what is it and how it would be, and then figuring out how it will be connected...

[Silfir]

You anyway will have them after like 5 minutes of research

Good point! Why did you create this thread, then?

Anyway, having more technologies is not a negative, you know. Each researched technology comes with a satisfying sound effect and a motivational boost for the player. It's more satisfying to research two 75 pack technologies compared to one that costs 150, or even one that costs 75 - as long as it makes sense logically. Nobody is looking to cut technologies from the game because they're "unnecessary", if anything, effort was put in to distribute items over as many technologies as possible. If there's a logical step in complexity introduced by a new item, it should be a new technology. Locomotive -> Self-Driving Locomotive is such a step - just because your labs have uncovered the secret behind locomotives doesn't mean they also know how to automate locomotives.

It's not the only "unnecessary" tech of this type. Some are "worse". Electronics only has Automation as a prerequisite and doesn't give you anything. Plastics don't do anything until you research Advanced Electronics and make advanced circuits out of plastic bars. And so on.

What really doesn't make any sense is that you don't have to have researched Automation in order to research Automated Rail Transportation. It's right there in the name!

[imTheSupremeOne]

Good point! Why did you create this thread, then?

Anyway, having more technologies is not a negative, you know. Each researched technology comes with a satisfying sound effect and a motivational boost for the player. It's more satisfying to research two 75 pack technologies compared to one that costs 150, or even one that costs 75 - as long as it makes sense logically. Nobody is looking to cut technologies from the game because they're "unnecessary", if anything, effort was put in to distribute items over as many technologies as possible. If there's a logical step in complexity introduced by a new item, it should be a new technology. Locomotive -> Self-Driving Locomotive is such a step - just because your labs have uncovered the secret behind locomotives doesn't mean they also know how to automate locomotives.

It's not the only "unnecessary" tech of this type. Some are "worse". Electronics only has Automation as a prerequisite and doesn't give you anything. Plastics don't do anything until you research Advanced Electronics and make advanced circuits out of plastic bars. And so on.

What really doesn't make any sense is that you don't have to have researched Automation in order to research Automated Rail Transportation. It's right there in the name!

Idk... I just saw that and got a scratching thought in my head — "why"...

I would disagree that the effort was to distribute items to as much researches as possible — devs were shrinking it by combining many researches together. With this logic the train, can be another separate research aswell, and a cargo wagon, and Roboport separated from robots and chests... but personally I would say that this would be like Minecraft modpacks with "1,000+ quests", from which something like quarter is to force player make every piece of armor because with changed recipes so armor is only upgradable from another armor, except the most basic leather.

[CheeseMcBurger]

It's daunting enough for new players just to figure out how to build rail networks in the first place!

Combining those two techs does not make it more daunting. And to help new players to figure out rail networks, there is a vey good tutorial.

+1 for OP. Splitting up Railway and Automated Rail Transportation makes Railways useless on its own.

[5thHorseman]

I don't think I have once laid a single rail without having already researched signals. They research so fast by the time I've set up my rail assemblers I've blown through all three.

I truly don't think it matters if there's one research for them all or each item is it's own node, so long as the cost is roughly the same, in total.

And the queue is available of course

[ssilk]

Well both sights are right. The reason for splitting up the research was to have a slow learning curve. But it is currently really, really cheap so that a not so much beginner player will research it within minutes.

There is no good, but there are some solutions. Another solution to this problem would be to make the research more expensive.

[Xeorm]

Disagree. Having basic trains as a beginning tech lets a new player experiment with the trains first, and there is a fair bit to experiment with. Such as building the tracks and train and learning how to pilot the train, how it moves, etc. Train stops are useful only after that training period when you're thinking of how to automate the trains, and are what I'd consider a different thing entirely to learning the basics.

[foamy]

There's a lot of techs that have no reason to exist, and 'automated railway' is one of them. If nothing else, though, the stop itself should be moved to the basic beginning tech as even if all you're doing is manually bringing a single train to-and-fro with the summon button on a signal free network, it's still absolutely crucial to being able to position it properly for loading or unloading.

[Yoyobuae]

Exactly. For example, fluid wagon research depends on Railway (and Fluid handling) but not on Automated Rail Transportation, yet it is nearly impossible to manually align a train with fluid wagons so that pumps can connect to it.

[ssilk]

It makes a lot of sense to have trains and rush to simple train transport. But for fluids your need a refinery and oil research. Which is lot more expensive. What I mean is: It just makes no sense to play so, that you have trains and oil, ... but still no stations, signals etc.

[berggen]

I'm currently playing a 100x research cost play through. I'm really happy that these are separate smaller techs in this case because I'll be running a manual train network for a while while the automated rails tech researches. For basic vanilla, I think it's nice to be able to build a train while researching the automated tech.