Train blueprints

[GabeTeuton]

(if you don't care for introductions you may read from the underlined subtitle)
Hey! I'm Gabe! Been playing Factorio for a long time now, on and off since .15. I'm not an efficient player, i play like i was, but i'm not, and that amuses me... I usually never finish the game in my normal playthroughs i take too long, love to leave the game afk instead of actually fixing my production shortcomings, etc... kind of a casual player if you will, i take like 12 to 24 hours to get to robots, and then another 12 to 24 to actually get to using them...
Any way, i always use blueprints, usually not mine, 'cause i can't be bothered to design them, though i usually modify whatever i find anywhere to suit my needs...

This topic is about train networks, i love trains, (that's one of the main reasons why i love factorio), since i found it i'm using MojoD's blueprint book, which provides a lovely grid aligned rail segments so that you can connect anywhere to anyotherwhere "seamlessly" without having to check if your positioning of a part of the network will align and without having to do some strange oddly-shaped curve at the meeting point. Once i get to that point in the game i love to paste a beautiful and long rail network which i probably use at some point (spoiler alert: that point never arrives).

It always bugged me (in a way) the fact that the book is made the english way, driving on the left, i have nothing against that, i use it, and it works fine... but every once in a while i find this problem: i'm used to right hand drive and i design the stations based on that (on intuition) and whenever i have to connect the station to the network the crossings look bad (they work fine), but they look bad...

I know i could just paste every blueprint and change the direction of the signals and that would be that...

PAST INTRODUCTION:
However i always wanted to make my own book with my own blueprints for personal use, everytime i tried i have failed, i don't get how to get all of them to align properly. I kind of understand what the numbers do when i modify them (snap to grid numbers i mean), that little flag moves i understand that, +1 right/up, -1 left/down, the size of the snapping box, but i have so much trouble that it's time for me to accept that fact that i don't understand how it conceptually works and i believe that's stopping me from succeding...

I did try to understad it on my own, studing MojoD's blueprints, but can't figure it out, i need help. I also looked for an explanation on youtube/google, though i couldn't find one, because there's none of because i'm not looking the correct terms...

Thanks in advanced for any kind of help which will be very much appreciated!
Gabe

Edit: the thing is i want to design a set of pieces that will align into a nice train network, but i can't make all the pieces align at the same time, if i align 2, the third won't align (even though 1 and 3 did match, if i match 2 and 3, then i break 1 and 3, and so on)

[Tertius]

It's difficult to explain how to design grid-aligned blueprints in a forum post. I will not try in vain, but I have some information that might have slipped you:

• the red flag of a blueprint is the center of the blueprint. By moving it, you change the x/y offset of the grid alignment. If you don't activate the function to snap to grid, the flag has no actual use.
• by activating snap to grid, you create an invisible grid on the map where the blueprint snaps into. The grid size you define is the spacing from one blueprint place on the map to the next possible place. The grid size is visualized by the green dotted rectangle in the blueprint editor to give you an idea where the blueprint ends and the next blueprint would start.
• an easy way to design a universal blueprint is to make the blueprint so that it can be mirrored and is the same after mirroring. Or it can be rotated 2 times and is still the same. Such a blueprint needs the red flag exactly at the center.
• for blueprints that contain rail tracks, keep in mind rails have an internal fixed grid size of 2, that means they cannot be placed on odd offsets. They can only be moved by a multiple of 2 tiles. You cannot move it 1 or 3 tiles, only 2, 4, 6... tiles.
• left hand drive and right hand drive is not purely cosmetic. The crucial difference between right hand drive and left hand drive for rail tracks is that the rail signals are placed on the outside for right hand drive and on the inside for left hand drive. This becomes relevant on intersections, because there is not always a space available on each side. There are intersections that can be left hand drive but not right hand drive due to missing signal locations. So it's usually not possible to change lhd blueprints to rhd just by moving the signals to the other side. The other side might not always provide a location for the signal on curves and intersections. Such intersections have to be explicitly designed for the other hand by making some curves more wide to make space for a signal.

[GabeTeuton]

I believe this helps! I'm open to more replies obviously.
I will try again asap with those rules you provided (the train signal things i can work with and luckily i already took the time to learn that but it's anyway appreciated!)

Thanks! ♥

[wobbycarly]

You may or not may not be aware of the debug feature (<F4> by default) that can enable the map grid-lines. The dark grid-lines are the "chunks" (32 x 32 squares), so one approach is if you make all your blueprints to take up and fit in full chunks (1x1, 1x2, 1x3, 2x2, etc), then you know can always have them align. Alternatively, you can find another square size that suits you (eg, 20x20) and make all your blueprints the same size, with rails always entering/exiting on the same co-ordinates, and these will also always line up. Not saying this is the "only" way, but it is something to consider that might help.

[SoShootMe]

First of all, since it hasn't been mentioned: I recommend working in editor mode (/editor), with lab tiles so there are no obstructions.

If you don't want to align to the chunk grid, I think the main "trick" to getting alignment is to build on top of and/or next to existing pieces that you place on the grid, and blueprint the result (excluding any "next to" parts). You will often need to set the absolute grid size but for the most part, I think offsets are most easily set by moving the flag rather than tweaking the numbers.

For some reason that escapes me now I found it essential, or at least beneficial, for the grid size to be a multiple of four.

[Tertius]

I created a little (silent) video how creating a 2 track blueprint series could be approached and be made to match each other. I created the 2 most simple parts from scratch: a straight line and a 90° curve, in map editor.

Anchor and defining size is the maximum distance of the large power pole we usually put in the center of all rail blueprints to distribute power to all parts of the map along with the rail tracks. It's 30 tiles, and in the video I created blueprints with double that size (60x60). And I chose a spacing of 4 tiles between the two tracks. That's not completely arbitrary but the minimum distance for not too difficult intersections and other things (not shown here).

I also added simple signaling - one rail block per blueprint without intersections. Notice how I made everything to rotate and mirror correctly.

[GabeTeuton]

Okay... now i believe i get it, it feels like i have the conceptual tools i was missing, i'll get to it... thanks to all, certainly i'm open to receiving more input!

[GabeTeuton]

I created a little (silent) video how creating a 2 track blueprint series could be approached and be made to match each other. I created the 2 most simple parts from scratch: a straight line and a 90° curve, in map editor.

Anchor and defining size is the maximum distance of the large power pole we usually put in the center of all rail blueprints to distribute power to all parts of the map along with the rail tracks. It's 30 tiles, and in the video I created blueprints with double that size (60x60). And I chose a spacing of 4 tiles between the two tracks. That's not completely arbitrary but the minimum distance for not too difficult intersections and other things (not shown here).

I also added simple signaling - one rail block per blueprint without intersections. Notice how I made everything to rotate and mirror correctly.

Very nice example... if you know what you are doing it seems to simple...
I'm taking the advice received... actually found out there's a blueprint grid option in the debug menu... i discovered it after after painting the ground, however the grid only appears while you have a blueprint on hand, so the tilled paint helps.

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edit: having the grid painted helps A LOT, i made a x1 with 28x28, and a x3 with 28x28, but they were not aligning, having the painted tiles helped a lot, i had to offset the absolute position of the larger one to match the smaller one, even though the larger was just 3 smaller pasted next to one another, now those 2 blueprints works seamlessly, this is awesome!

[Tertius]

Very nice example... if you know what you are doing it seems to simple...

This is the result of practice and probably too many hours playing the game. I reproduced what I am using on a daily basis, but the decisions I singlehandely made for the video (positioning, spacing, rotating etc.) are the result of making it wrong first, using the blueprint, observe issues, then correct these issues. Creating a rail blueprint book is work in progress for a long time and you will be permanently fixing and updating.

Peeking at other people's rail blueprint books will help, because you get inspiration and ideas you might not come up with yourself. You don't need to copy these books, only look how they solved some issue you have, then fix this issue in your blueprint as it was fixed in that other blueprint.

In the end, all matured rail blueprint books will look very similar to each other and only differ in details.

[SoShootMe]

I created a little (silent) video how creating a 2 track blueprint series could be approached and be made to match each other.

Nice one, that demonstrates the "trick" I was trying to describe but better than words probably ever could .

[GabeTeuton]

Can you believe it???? it just works...
I mean i'm not sure about the quality of the network "per-se", but all those separated instances connect just like that, grab the blueprint and you are done... still have to make some other blueprints, like turns from straight to diagonal, but i'm amazed.
THANKS! (and the answers came so quickly... thanks again!)

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