Factorio Forums

Hi, can anyone explain to me what is happening here?
This happened 3 times now in the same outpost. It looks like the train missed the trainstop? Its in automatic mode ,set to "empty inventory+5sec inactivity". And it doesnt go, because its taking the train fuel in the waggons lol.
BTW it continues when i remove the fuel from the waggon.

Are you automatically controlling the stations? It looks like you are shutting the stations off under some condition. When that happens the train will get confused and park wrong.

In general you don't really need circuit controlled stations. They do strange things to train behavior and don't accomplish much over running a dedicated number of trains for each area.

one thing i suggest is setting filters on the cargo wagon (middle click) so at least they don't take on fuel.

Middle clicking all those trains is a lot of work. You can copy a cargo car's filter settings just like any other setting by shift+right clicking to copy and shift+left click to paste.

Train filtering is a potential solution but it's more of a band aid fix to a bigger problem. It's better if the trains don't do silly things in the first place. I don't know enough about circuit controlled train stops to comment much further, but you'll find tons of train material by researching ShredGuy99, Exterminator, ColonelWill and KatherineofSky.

yeah thanks. copy and pasting is much faster. should have mentioned that.
i know it's not a solution to the train going past the stop. the wagons should still be filtered.

bobucles wrote:Are you automatically controlling the stations? It looks like you are shutting the stations off under some condition. When that happens the train will get confused and park wrong.

In general you don't really need circuit controlled stations. They do strange things to train behavior and don't accomplish much over running a dedicated number of trains for each area.

When I shut off stations trains immediately path to the next one. I've never seen something like this happen (could be that it has, just that I haven't seen it).

I noticed the other day when I switched a train from Manual to Auto it shifted forward a few pixels - could this be due to disabling the Train Station for like 1 tick? Or a few ticks? Might allow the train to creep forward.

Having a save to observe the problem would help if you can upload it.

Hi, you can fix that problem, by deactivating the Inserters in case that there is no train parked at the station.

-> Read Train Signal from Station -> If Train ID not "0" than activate the Inserters.
In your example, the train might also stop in a wired way, but the inserters don´t fill your cargo wagons with fuel.....

obidan wrote:Hi, you can fix that problem, by deactivating the Inserters in case that there is no train parked at the station.

-> Read Train Signal from Station -> If Train ID not "0" than activate the Inserters.
In you example, the train might also stop in a wired way, but the inserters don´t fill you cargo wagons with fuel.....

first post helping someone out. i like it.
welcome to the forums.

This can happen if you deactivate the station while the train is committed to the rail leading to it, then reactivate the station (and deactivate it's new target) while the train was not slowing to stop at the deactivated station. Setting a train to manual while arriving at a station then setting automatic shortly in front of it gives the same result.
You've probably got something set up so that the bay with the lowest cargo currently present is active. Better option is to recalculate only after a train stops at a station, or change the logic to "station is active unless it cannot receive a full cargoload". Both will prevent this.

Yea im deactivating the trainstop on condition. Weird that of all times it happened it was at this outpost, but then again its the busiest with this condition logic. The cargo filter seems my best bet until later

As long as supply exceeds demand and you have at least as many trains as train stations, you typically shouldn't need to enable/disable train stops. Even if it's unbalanced to start with, the stops getting more trains will fill up faster, when full it'll hold a train and prevent any more trains from stopping there so the additional throughput goes to the other stations. If you don't want to tie up a train you can do as Aeternus said and just have a simple condition to disable the stop until ready - however, rather than disable the stop I'd disable the Rail Signal leading to the stop, otherwise what happens when you disable ALL stops? I think the trains will head back to their mining outposts to wait there until a stop becomes available.

The exception (to not needing to disable stops) is if you don't have at least as many trains as stations, and have separate train stops for different destinations - for example unloading Iron Ore, you might have one stop to turn it into Iron Plates and another to turn it into Steel. Allowing trains to manage themselves could leave all the trains tied up unloading for Iron Plates while you run out of Steel.

Deadly-Bagel wrote:As long as supply exceeds demand and you have at least as many trains as train stations, you typically shouldn't need to enable/disable train stops. Even if it's unbalanced to start with, the stops getting more trains will fill up faster, when full it'll hold a train and prevent any more trains from stopping there so the additional throughput goes to the other stations. If you don't want to tie up a train you can do as Aeternus said and just have a simple condition to disable the stop until ready - however, rather than disable the stop I'd disable the Rail Signal leading to the stop, otherwise what happens when you disable ALL stops? I think the trains will head back to their mining outposts to wait there until a stop becomes available.

They do. If there are no bays available (all deactivated) then all trains in the stacker will path back to their mine with a full cargo. If you want to fully utilize this kind of setup you can do the following:

Train stop order:
Mining base (Load) - Stacker exit waypoint (wait 0 sec) - Unloading station (Empty.

A simple waypoint station at the exit of the stacker prevents trains from re-homing back to their mine if there are no receiving bays available. Have a circuit controlled signal in front of the waypoint station that switches red if there are no receiving bays available to receive trains. Also have a normal signal in front of that, this prevents trains ignoring the circuit controlled signal by flagging it yellow right after a train has passed it and is still heading for the unloading bay.

My solution is an additional "fake" Station with the same name, that is always active, but always blocked by a red signal (constant combinator). The train stays in the stacker, because there is always this station available.
I like to deactivate stations because you can see it on the map, which gives a very nice overview over the whole train situation.

I'd rather change my logic so it doesnt flicker as often. Because i like shutting down a trainstop for several reasons. I maybe got this problem solved temporarily in oil unload, because of the shaky oil levels the flicker was bad.

I also think the system is essential for my supply trains, because each of my supply stations have the same name. Makes the train only pick what is active. So i have supply trains for Ammo, Fuel, Trash, Random Outpost Stuff, Bots whatevs. And the stops all flicker at times. Or at least potentially switch in the wrong moment. If that is what caused my issue then its hard to avoid 100% unless its fixed internally.

Its not a base with 10 trains but with 300 or so.

I like the fake station

Better idea would be to check the cause of the flickering. It suggests that you either do not buffer or assign slow effects based on fast changes, which... to be honest is just a design error.

I've got similar supply trains running, but those stations -never- flicker on my systems. Trash collection is the only possible exception, as it's possible for a base section to dump deconstructed items into the trash storage chests, then pick it up again for reconstruction.

I suspect you have most fluctuations because you read the available resources in the robogrid, then switch to reading the chests you unload into instead. Since there should only ever be items going out of those, rather then put back in, that should prevent flickering.