help with trains

[piggy2]

for some reason even if i build a round track its always says no path why?

[Boogieman14]

You're probably placing the rail stops on the wrong side of the track.

Check out MangledPork's tutorial, this very problem is discussed starting from around 16 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSGYSbEPpbM

(if that isn't it, you'll need to supply more information )

[safan]

have you checked that there are arrows on every piece of rail? For a full round you need to put a straigth piece between every curve.

please provide a picture if you don't find it.

[DaCyclops]

Some things to note:

• As mentioned above, missing a single piece of rail could cause it not to link up when expected.
  
• And it is even harder to notice when its a diagonal link
  
• While a normal train can move forward and (slowly) backwards when you control it, automated trains can ONLY move forward relative to their engines. This will still apply if the train has engines on both ends, and it will use whichever engine will get it to its destination.
  
  Note that it cant change engines between stations. It needs to make it to a station on a single engine.
• Train stations have a direction. You can see this when placing the station. Trains will only be allowed to "enter" from one side.
• Signals also have a direction. A train will ignore all signals if traveling the opposite direction to the signals.
• You can check the pathing on rails by hovering your mouse over a piece of it. It will show you the valid paths within a short distance.
  
  This also works with Stations you have already placed.
  

[InsufferableBubbles]

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I've also got a train question/problem.

I set up a station that would quickly load four train cars full of ore. It's 30 units long (not including the station stop). I made a blueprint of it (including the station stop), and pasted it elsewhere. However, it doesn't seem to align right. The original runs west-to-east and completely covers the sides of the four cars with inserters without gaps or any hanging off the end. The copy is rotated to run south-to-north and the train stops well north of the target and even when eased back so that the front of the first cargo car is aligned with the first inserter, 5-6 inserters at the end are far behind the last car. It's as if the train is foreshortened in perspective when traveling north/south instead of east/west.

Has anyone else had this issue? I can try to post pictures if it helps.

Also, is there a way to persuade trains to use one route over another? I've run into issues of trains opting to try to take a "shortcut" through a siding with a busy station rather than use the main thoroughfare with the result that instead of them speeding along on the open highway, they take an offramp and get stuck behind heavy traffic waiting to load/unload. I would think the rail signals would give them enough information to avoid that sort of path, and I don't think the alternate route is shorter (though I could be wrong, but if it is, it's only very slightly so).

[FishSandwich]

Yeah, trains are longer horizontally than they are vertically. I believe this is a known issue.

[ssilk]

Some things to note:

• As mentioned above, missing a single piece of rail could cause it not to link up when expected.
  

There is an easy way to see this:
https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... Debug_mode
--> Turn on "show_rail_connections"

I set up a station that would quickly load four train cars full of ore. It's 30 units long (not including the station stop). I made a blueprint of it (including the station stop), and pasted it elsewhere. However, it doesn't seem to align right. The original runs west-to-east and completely covers the sides of the four cars with inserters without gaps or any hanging off the end. The copy is rotated to run south-to-north and the train stops well north of the target and even when eased back so that the front of the first cargo car is aligned with the first inserter, 5-6 inserters at the end are far behind the last car. It's as if the train is foreshortened in perspective when traveling north/south instead of east/west.

Has anyone else had this issue? I can try to post pictures if it helps.

Yes: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... =23&t=4083

Also, is there a way to persuade trains to use one route over another? I've run into issues of trains opting to try to take a "shortcut" through a siding with a busy station rather than use the main thoroughfare with the result that instead of them speeding along on the open highway, they take an offramp and get stuck behind heavy traffic waiting to load/unload. I would think the rail signals would give them enough information to avoid that sort of path, and I don't think the alternate route is shorter (though I could be wrong, but if it is, it's only very slightly so).

No, sorry, I really would like something like that (this is normally made with other types of signals, see OpenTTD), but there is currently no good way: The train decides the path depending if the way before him is free or not. The current block signals and the routing are in many ways "non-optimal"; they work in the planned manner, but you can end up in serious deadlocks (ever tried to solve a deadlock with containing 14 trains, every with 2 loks and 6 wagons, where you won't delete a train, cause of the complex station-program and wagon filter settings you made? ), they make useless long ways around the target.

You can create more than a train stop with the same name to solve such jam-situations https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... stop-trick
My experience with that: like in the real world you need SOME long rails before and after your train stations/stops, so that the incoming trains can wait and the others can pass the free way. The point where a train can "choose" between two (or more) train stops (paths) needs to be a signal long enough BEFORE the switch (1-2 tiles!), cause when you place it too near, the train has already choosen the switch before he halts and he cannot redecide. (that is how I explain that to me)

Well. The trains are working, they are alpha and I think (hope) they will be completely reprogrammed at some time before going steam.