Yellow lines on the train tracks

[Mauslag PIngman]

I'm trying to build some train systems. As usual I have problems with signals. I noticed yellow and red lines form on the tracks when I put down signals. I assumed the lines told me that my train would stop in a red line area and proceed with caution in a yellow area, but this is not correct. Trains will go blasting through red and yellow lines on the tracks. What do these lines tell us? Please note that I am not talking about the lights on signals. I'm talking about the lines on the tracks.

I played Open TTD for a couple months and found that experince to be of no help in working on the trains of Factorio. I mention this because I've so often heard it said that "its just like the trains in open TTD". The signals in Open TTD work.

Another question. Why are 98% of instructional videos for factorio posted by australians? Is this the only way to make money in Australia or Is because there is nothing else to do in the deep bush except make gaming vids? Why do Australians see an "i" in the word yes as in "yiss".

[Loewchen]

What you describe are block colours, those show only different blocks, the colours themselves have no meaning. You should try the ingame tutorial for trains, it shows everything you need to know about how signalling works.

[Mauslag PIngman]

That's the first thing I did. It taught me nothing. Perhaps more importantly, it doesn't show me where I'm going wrong or how I should do it. It just maddeningly doesn't do what I want.

I tried making some small track layouts with stops and intersections, but it doesn't work for me. There are a number of things wrong. When you hold a rail signal in your hand you get the yellow, red and blue lines which aren't what I'm interested in at the moment and weren't in TTD. You also get dozens of glowing green things popping up where you can put signals. These things aren't really helpful and they clutter up the screen. If you watch tutorials on the subject they'll tell you to put rail signals before intersections and chain signals after intersections. I've done it and it doesn't work. The game doesn't tell me what I've done wrong. There are lots of videos purporting to tell you the "simple" rules you need to follow. Most of these videos are 20 to 45 minutes long. That's way too long to explain a small fragment of a game. The signals are tiny. They look alike and you have to walk around the whole track putting them down. Its easy to miss some spots but I don't see any way where it tells you what your signals will be telling your trains. I thought the red lines meant that part of the track is closed, but thats not what it means at all. What your supposed to do is lay everything down perfectly and then put your locomotive on the track and then your train won't move and you'll get the "no path" message which is just there to make you crazy. Obviously there is a path. It is obstructed by poor signal layout. The message doesn't help at all. Do they want to aggravate customers? "Well, that's what Microsoft does", thinks all the genius programmers at factorio. Just because Microsoft does something obnoxious like that, that's no reason to put it in your game.

Factorio is a phenomenal game, but if it was just about trains and stations it would be one of the worst games ever made.

[Loewchen]

If you indeed watched youtube explanations, finished the ingame tutorial and still struggle with the basics, I don't really see what else can be done. Maybe try building small setups for now and focus on what the two types of signals do and how to use this to get the behaviour you want, this alone is all there is to signalling in the end.

[Greybeard_LXI]

Here is a tutorial image on rail signals https://imgur.com/a/zG13U#0

The yellow, red and blue lines are designed to help you debug the signals. They show you how big the block is.

If you have a specific question about one of your tracks, post a picture and your question and several of us will try to help. You can also post your entire factory, but that might be overkill for a small problem.

[nosports]

At first it was also confusing for me....

But if you start simple with a one way track you can expand slowly to more sophisticated networks.....

But keep it simple is always a very good thing

The green thinks tell you where you can place signals / stops .....
And as stated the color is not important just a marker what is a block on rail

[Mauslag PIngman]

I am touched, seriously touched to know the community cares. The internet can be a cold, hostile place so its nice....

I couldn't finish the tutorials because the earlier ones didn't teach me what I need to know. Redoing them is tedious but a little helpful.

First sign of progress. I built what I thought was a small, simple track, but it ended up being too big and not that simple because it ended up with 2 way traffic on a single lane of track. Once again this is what the tutorials should cover in greater detail.

I tore all that down and built an oval with one way traffic and 3 stations stacked on sidings. Got that to work smoothly with five locomotives running different stops. For the first time I felt I had some clue as to what the signals were doing. Sometimes I got the "no path" warning, but I always could fix it with better signal placement. Then I built an ugly figure 8 and got 3 trains running without killing each other. I had been afraid of high speed collisions, thinking they'd surely result in total destruction of locomotives and maybe even track destruction but damage is mild in collisions. I even managed to figure out how to keep the crossing intersection clear. These little breakthroughs meant that it was fun to play with RRs instead of just frustrating and bewildering. Its satisfying to watch the trains going round the track, waiting their turn, slowing.