Lower trainstation priority. Possible?

[ESI85]

I have let’s say 10 stations providing 25 loads of copper plates and 20 stations requesting 49 loads. All provider stations have the same name and all requester stations have the same name.
Out of the 20 requester stations I want to downprioritize let’s say 5 stations. Because I want all other copper requester stations to be prioritized first.
Is this possible?

[MeduSalem]

Well, you could temporarily disable the train stop you want to down-prioritize using a circuit network condition. If you unload the train into a bunch of chests; you can connect the chests to the train stop; if they are still full enough you could make the train stop condition such that it prevents more trains from going there. ^^

At least that will help skipping stops that are already stocked up enough. But it obviously will not help with stops that desperately need to be served first.


For the latter if you really want to prioritize stops based on how desperately you want a train to go there you will need to wait for the Factorio 2.0 update; because then you will be able to set the train stop priority ranging anywhere from 0 to 255 (50 being default). Or set it using circuit network.

Dynamically setting the train stop priority is something I am looking forward to in 2.0; because I will do that both for providing & requesting ends to balance the train distribution better.

[ESI85]

Yeah I thought so. Guess I’ll live with it and wait till 2.0

[Illiander42]

For the latter if you really want to prioritize stops based on how desperately you want a train to go there you will need to wait for the Factorio 2.0 update; because then you will be able to set the train stop priority ranging anywhere from 0 to 255 (50 being default). Or set it using circuit network.

Dynamically setting the train stop priority is something I am looking forward to in 2.0; because I will do that both for providing & requesting ends to balance the train distribution better.

They really are getting almost all of LTN ascended, aren't they?

[MeduSalem]

They really are getting almost all of LTN ascended, aren't they?

Yea. Factorio 2.0 even without Space Age feels like a best-of mod pack. ^^

[boredlynx]

You could put an extra train stop that doesnt do anything in front of the copper requester station that you want to set as low priority, in a way that forces the train to go past it to enter the station. Trains avoid passing through train stops not on their schedule, so the train would avoid those stations if there are others available.

[Kyralessa]

If you're using train limits, you might try using supply-based limits on the high-priority stations and lower or hard-coded limits on the low-priority stations.

For example, to set up a station to only be serviced when it has full loads available:

Arithmetic combinator
- Input: Total ore in chests
- Operation: divide by 2000 (or by [2000 * number of freight cars])
- Output: L
Then link that to the train stop and use it to set the train limit. Now you'll get a limit of 1, 2, 3, etc. based on the number of full train loads available.

To deprioritize a station, you could simply set a hard-coded limit of 1, so no matter how much ore there is, no more than one train will stop there at a time.

Or you could divide by a larger number, say 4000 or 6000, so trains will only go to those stations half or one-third as often as to other stations.

[SoShootMe]

Out of the 20 requester stations I want to downprioritize let’s say 5 stations. Because I want all other copper requester stations to be prioritized first.
Is this possible?

The simplest answer may be to increase supply so the desire to reduce priority goes away.

That aside, since your screenshot seems to imply you have a global circuit network, you could change the low priority stops to output their demand on another signal, or not output it at all. Then you can read the demand signal instead and force the train limit to zero if there is (high priority) demand elsewhere.

Trains avoid passing through train stops not on their schedule

Passing through such stops is not absolutely avoided but rather treated as an additional cost of taking that path. So a destination stop that requires a path through another stop will still be picked over an alternative destination stop that is sufficiently far away.

[boredlynx]

Passing through such stops is not absolutely avoided but rather treated as an additional cost of taking that path. So a destination stop that requires a path through another stop will still be picked over an alternative destination stop that is sufficiently far away.

Exactly. The penalty for passing through such a stop is equivalent to 2000 grid units, so for this purpose it should be fine. If the other stations are too distant, you can always add more superfluous stops! "Keep it simple, stupid!" is always a good rule to follow.

The simplest answer may be to increase supply so the desire to reduce priority goes away.

You are probably right. Adding priorities is useful, but if the reason you want to add priorities is because the important stations are not getting enough materials, then the optimal solution would be to increase supply.