question about "smart" trains that run on demand requests

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rhynex
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question about "smart" trains that run on demand requests

Post by rhynex »

hello everyone,

I have a question regarding trains that run with "demand". What does this mean? my entire rail network has red wire on it, at every station. stations are of two kind: supplier, demander. every demand station is disabled unless it is low on a resource, iron for example. If station is low on iron, then it will raise a signal "Iron-1" (increment the count). It means there is one station low on iron. Supplier is a huge station and has multiple trains ready to go but waiting unless a demand is active. every train has path of "Supplier->Demand" to the specific resource, two stations only. When a station is low on resource (lets say %25 percent) then supplier releases trains until station is %80 full (SR latch), in other words until the demand is 0 again. supplier stations have chain signals at every track and they connect to main rail network via a single out controlled by a regular train signal (which is controlled by the demand) so trains stay at supplier stations until a demand is active.

This works fine as a concept and I have a working simple example (have not built full system yet and started a new game due to other reasons)

My question/problem starts when I try to add a "second" same resource supplier AND also try to balance the multiple demander inputs.

First I tried to limit the count of trains going to the demand station to balance the suppliers as well (not every train should rush to the demander). But it became meaningless as it takes multiple trains to fill a 48 steel chest station resource (4wagon with double side filling). I assume this is not a problem now.

Second issue: synchronizing the suppliers. I want to do something like both suppliers should send only limited count trains just to make sure supplier does not run out of resource (one train per demander for example). how to count trains that is send out for that resource? is there a way to balance trains of suppliers?

Third issue: a general one actually. assume a second demander station raises a flag. so two stations are demanding iron. how can I balance the trains sent out to the demander stations in a (not perfectly is acceptable) balanced approach? I assume the trains will go to the closest one and wait until the demand station's current train leaves instead of going to the other demander or is it just opposite?

Solution is supposed to be in vanilla circuit network without special mods that add smart trains/stations etc.

Any ideas?

thanks

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