I Haven't Seen Any Bigger Train Base Than This One...

[Graiver]

Have you ever come to a point when playing Factorio where you find yourself not having a challenge any longer? I did with my previous save.

The Begining: Treebranch
This was before the rocket silo came out so it was just the normal rocket defense system. I had set up my factory treebranch style following the videos/ tutorials by MangledPork Gaming (Bentham) on Youtube.
It is a fine way of setting up a starting factory but I noticed that in end game playing production was very limited due to the capacity of tier 3 belts. This bothered me and I wanted to take things to a next level.

Map Image:


Save File: Below

The Learning Curve: Westland-Saart
By way of new challenge I set all of the Oil settings in the World Generator to the absolute least as to promote far away base building and the necessity to work with trains. Eventualy the 'treebranch' factory hit
its production ceiling and also due to the 'standard' richness of both Iron and Copper they where both instantly drained of all ores. As soon as I set up one new mine another ran out. So onto a new save I said to myself
although I had learned a huge lot of this save.

Map Image:

Save File: Below

Arpal-Frints: My Biggest Creation
The next challenge I set for myself was by far the most daring. Following Bentham's idea for factorio towns I told myself no base was allowed to make more than two items (A bit more extreme than the MangledPork
series). This would result in several small bases each making their own items. For example there is one huge base for smelting Iron and only Iron. Every base that needs its own Iron i.e. the Steel smeltery has to send
its own train to pick up the needed items. I realise that I am by far not the first to do this. However I also put upon myself the limitation of not using belts. Anywhere. I am appointed to trains and logistic bots only
and frankly it works WAY better than any belt system I've ever seen. Again I put the Oil settings to the bare minimum, but this time I put the size and richness of Iron and Copper deposits slightly higher as to not
having to set up new mining outposts all the time. Making as much Modules per minute as possible was the next goal and for the moment my production, as measured by production of copper wire, peaks at 47.7k/min.

Map Image:

Save File: Below

The factory uses about 1.0 GW provided by 28k solar panels and 25k accumulators. The train network occasionally suffers from gridlocks wich I have to clear out manualy. This is my greatest concern and I wonder if
anyone has found a permanent solution to this. By use of Productivity Modules and Efficienty Modules I have increased the oil processing throughput (from Crude Oil to Plastics) by 57.12% without increasing polution/ energy
consumption. With only 69 active Pump Jacks I am able to produce 77 Crude Oil Barrels/min due to the extensive use of Beacons and Speed Modules. The number of active trains I have running must approach 200
though I am still working in 0.12.35 so there is no way of telling really. I am frightened to update to 0.13.1 because I think all of my systems would get wrecked because the changes in length and capacity of trains.

I sincerely hope I get answers or questions. In all my time browsing the interwebs I haven't encountered any bigger train based base. I am confronted by several problems in optimising production (i.e. the gridlocks) and
I'm hoping you guys can help me out some. Also I'm wondering if there are others like me with an endless love for trains and their possibilities. Please feel free to answer/ ask and I will try and reply asap.

Sorry for any linguistic mistakes I may have written, English isn't my mother tongue.
As always I greet you fellow addicts!
Graiver

[Zeblote]

What is this? Where is the save file!?

[Graiver]

A piece of my life Tips/ Tricks?

[Nexela]

That is a lot of trains! My next world will also be something like this too. When I do trains I use a lot of chain signals to control when my trains can leave and use fewer chain signals inside intersections. This will lower train throughput some but the trade off is less babysitting trains and signals to make sure that one wrong placed signal doesn't mess things up. Also good luck with .13 upgrade.

[hoho]

I believe that the problem with train gridlocks is mostly due to using roundabouts and possibly having too many trains waiting behind other trains so that their queue ends up growing long enough to block off other intersections.

I haven't downloaded your save but are you using presignals? I think with them it is possible to have roundabouts without deadlocks, though they won't be as efficient in terms of throughput as regular intersections.

For the "too many trains waiting", there is no "magical" cure besides having several parallel lines running so that trains that are waiting won't be blocking those that want to travel in same direction.

[Graiver]

Roundabouts are b*tches. Usefull at first, worthless towards the end. I started with using them everywhere and soon realised my mistake. By that time I had placed about 150-200 of em so replacing them all wasn't an option.
I tried replacing the bussiest intersections with 'normal' crossroads and started working on parallel tracksto increase capacity. It helped tormendously in avoiding gridlocks although sometimes two trains would enter a cross-
section at the exact same time resluting in the two of them crashing in to each other. This is a bit of a weird problem since logically it isn't allowed to happen... Maybe the devs could be seduced to develop some sort of
train tunnel/bridge? Also, when replacing roundabouts with crossroads you lose the ability to turn your trains around at a certain point resulting in trains take HUGE detours where a simpel roundabout could have prevented
such inefficiency. Even when using presignals gridlocks occur, though a lot less.

[Leveller]

What the previous people said.

If you do some quick googling for OTTD different kind of ... nevermind here is the link:

https://wiki.openttd.org/Railway_station

Here you have some good examples of great trainstationing. I find terminal stations the most useful, also had huge problems with loops in factorio. Gridlocks. Everywhere.

Terminal or ro-ro is the way to go-go. ;D

[Graiver]

I don't see how terminal stations are usefull in Factorio. Wouldn't they immediatly jam up your system due to face-off gridlocks? And even without, this implies two way trains wich
are a mess in keeping fueled or loading/ unloading due to the veriable length (one waggon/two waggon trains) I use Ro-Ro all the time, wich works best with my left-hand side,
one way traffic system.

By the way does anyone know a permanent solution to a train based oil delivery system? Due to my constant expansion of oil outposts I have to automate barrel production. This
eventualy leads to my Crude Oil Barrel -> Barrel + Oil Factories being jammed up by overload of barrels and chests being full. I temporarily solved this by placing active provider
chests as receivers for the converted barrels and a large row of passive storage chests as buffer wich I then need to empty from time to time. I hate the way this is set up but I can't
think of anything better...

Last but not least, does anyone know a decent capacity upgrade for railways in general? Adding more parallel tracks obviously, but how would they be connected to each other? And
what about intersections then?

As always, thanks for the replies!

Graiver

[siggboy]

You're hereby appointed to test my train scheduler/logistic network when I have updated it for 0.13

[siggboy]

I sincerely hope I get answers or questions. In all my time browsing the interwebs I haven't encountered any bigger train based base. I am confronted by several problems in optimising production (i.e. the gridlocks) and
I'm hoping you guys can help me out some. Also I'm wondering if there are others like me with an endless love for trains and their possibilities. Please feel free to answer/ ask and I will try and reply asap.

You should search for "One Minute Rocket Defense" by DaveMcW... that's even bigger than yours and he runs 216 trains. That base is just staggering, it's the biggest I've ever seen, even Xeteth's and ColWill's base looks a bit laughable in comparison. It's also perfectly planned.

I have endless love for trains and their possibilities, maybe you want to check my scheduler, it could really beef up your game as well (and I need others testing it in large maps). I'm pretty sure you could run your distributed base with way, way fewer trains if you use my scheduler (I'm currently running a 0.3 rockets/minute base with only 20 trains, so I'm guessing 1 rocket/minute with 60ish trains could be possible). My base is also heavily distributed, just for the giggles, but I didn't take it as far as you have. My system would be perfect though for what you've attempted.

[siggboy]

I don't see how terminal stations are usefull in Factorio.

If you have two-way trains it's a bit easier to setup the stations (terminals are easier to layout than RoRo). I personally hate the two-way trains because they are ass slow. In my current game I'm running LL-CCCC, with one locomotive at the back and one at the front, but both of them pushing. That gives good performance and the trains are not so long as to cause deadlocks all the time. (Well, you should not have deadlocks because that usually means your railroad is crap, but it's even harder to avoid them if your trains are 8 wagons long..)

By the way does anyone know a permanent solution to a train based oil delivery system? Due to my constant expansion of oil outposts I have to automate barrel production.

I'm using the simplified (light) version of my scheduler to handle oil. The oil outposts request empty barrels when they run low. The trains (that run on a single line out of a central depot) deliver one wagon of empty barrels (never less) to the requesting station and pick up any full barrels they can get. The total count of barrels (empty + full) per outpost is capped at 300. Trains can't leave the depot unless they have 300 empty barrels.

When I create a new oil outpost I craft and additional 300 barrels, so there are always enough barrels to have 300 total at each outpost.

Problem solved.

Oh, by the way, all of this requires the SmartTrains mod, but the actual scheduling is done with combinators. In 0.13 more stuff can be done with Vanilla, but you still need SmartTrains for the logical train lines.

Last but not least, does anyone know a decent capacity upgrade for railways in general? Adding more parallel tracks obviously, but how would they be connected to each other? And
what about intersections then?

I'm not an expert on this, but it's really difficult to find good information. The only way is to watch streamers who run these kinds of maps and get your hands on a savefile for a megabase.

But in the super mega base that DaveMcW created, he only uses two lanes and he doesn't even use crossing junctions. It's all loop based. Simplicity beats flashy setups any day if done right.

Here's a good image gallery that helped me with creating high performance junctions: https://imgur.com/a/CxXxd

Probably you should only run 4-tracks where you really have a lot of traffic, maybe the main north-south and east-west directions, and around the heavy choke points.

[Graiver]

I think Dave's base looks awesome! And as for the throughput, well no one can argue with that now can we? I'd never plan nor make my bases in that way though, both because of the loss of romance and expandability.
Just looking at the use of belts sends shivers up my spine :p Planning, creating and maintaining a huge train network for the purpose of limitless mass production was the key goal here and although I don't think nor aspire
to tip-toe with a high end base like Dave's, I like the look of my map better than his

I haven't started using mods with factorio (although I've been playing it for 'bout one and a half years now) so your scheduler, 'tis a mod I presume? If so what does it add to the game? Beware, I do not have the neccesary
balls of steel yet to update to 0.13 so if 0.12.35 isn't good enough... :p

in the super mega base that DaveMcW created, he only uses two lanes and he doesn't even use crossing junctions. It's all loop based.

Would that I could but 1 loop-based railway system for my base isn't an option. Trains requiring to go from A -> Z have to go trough B -> Y for absolutely no reason. Their coal supply would run out before they reach their
destination ;p (not entirely true but it would mean a HUGE waste of precious Coal)
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication" ~ Leonardo da Vinci; True but in this case simplicity means waste and inefficienty :p

Also what are the benefits of LL-CCCC vs. L-CC? A lot of my outposts (i.e. the Roboport Factory) have no use for large capacity trains as they needend be used a lot so there I simply use L-C, but maintain the option
for it to be expanded easily to L-CC by addition of another wagon. I can see the advantage in bulk transport though, might become a future adaptment to the base.

Thanks a lot, I really feel like these discussions in the forums help me learn as much about factorio as the game itself. And have only people like you to thank for it

Graiver

[Graiver]

By the way, you mentioned gridlocks being impossible when having a decent railway set-up. Any chance I get to see your own gridlock-free designs because I'm having gridlocks with only 3 car long trains

[siggboy]

I haven't started using mods with factorio (although I've been playing it for 'bout one and a half years now) so your scheduler, 'tis a mod I presume? If so what does it add to the game? Beware, I do not have the neccesary
balls of steel yet to update to 0.13 so if 0.12.35 isn't good enough... :p

My scheduler is a complex combinator setup that does the heavy lifting. The mod (SmartTrains) is required to be able to put all the trains on a single line and assign numbers to the stations -- so you can send trains to specific stations by number, which are output by the combinator circuit.

Check the link in my signature, it's all explained there and plenty of discussion.

It's not ready yet for 0.13.

Would that I could but 1 loop-based railway system for my base isn't an option. Trains requiring to go from A -> Z have to go trough B -> Y for absolutely no reason.

Dave actually created 4 separate loop-based railroads; he also made sure that there are plenty of U-turns, so the train won't have to take long detours. If you look at the map closely you'll see how it's done.

Somebody else has commented on the save and said that the train scheduling on that map is flawless (I guess it has to be if you want to support such a massive factory).

Also what are the benefits of LL-CCCC vs. L-CC?

Sometimes smaller trains are better, but since an LL-CCCC is not much slower than an L-CC, you can simply move around much more material per minute with longer trains. Also keep in mind that I use a single depot that launches all the trains, so it's better to have fewer trains that carry more, than many small trains that will eventually clog up at the exit and entrance of the depot.

By the way, you mentioned gridlocks being impossible when having a decent railway set-up. Any chance I get to see your own gridlock-free designs because I'm having gridlocks with only 3 car long trains

It's explained very well in this thread: viewtopic.php?t=18621

What it boils down to is: don't put junctions to close to each other; signal carefully (that's not easy); have enough waiting bays; make sure incoming trains can't block outgoing trains (from and to a station).

[Graiver]

Once I start using 0.13 I'll try and imply mods such as smart trains etc. I'll gladly use your combinator magick then, once updated Not knowing the first thing about combinators, I might learn a thing or two. (I never use anything without understanding it.) Thanks for the link, it's a lot to process but I'll get there eventually. Once I have a new 0.13 map improvements shall be made! Promised!

Thanks for the help!

Graiver

[walljaik]

something Reverend and I started in .12 but with all the updates there's is too much work to do, and the server where we played is now down.

the main idea is a mega factory working with trains to move items between factory modules.

[Frightning]

I don't see how terminal stations are usefull in Factorio. Wouldn't they immediatly jam up your system due to face-off gridlocks? And even without, this implies two way trains wich
are a mess in keeping fueled or loading/ unloading due to the veriable length (one waggon/two waggon trains) I use Ro-Ro all the time, wich works best with my left-hand side,
one way traffic system.

By the way does anyone know a permanent solution to a train based oil delivery system? Due to my constant expansion of oil outposts I have to automate barrel production. This
eventualy leads to my Crude Oil Barrel -> Barrel + Oil Factories being jammed up by overload of barrels and chests being full. I temporarily solved this by placing active provider
chests as receivers for the converted barrels and a large row of passive storage chests as buffer wich I then need to empty from time to time. I hate the way this is set up but I can't
think of anything better...

Last but not least, does anyone know a decent capacity upgrade for railways in general? Adding more parallel tracks obviously, but how would they be connected to each other? And
what about intersections then?

As always, thanks for the replies!
Graiver

For issue in bold:
I had to deal w/ this same problem in logibot based kilobase, the solution is the make sure the barrel factory offloads fresh barrels into a passive provider, while the empty barrels from the unbarreling factory are offloaded into an active provider, hence they will always have priority over the barrels from the passive provider. Moreover, although barrels from the active provider can end up in storage if the empty barrel requestors are full, the bots will always prioritize unloading the barrels from storage over taking fresh barrels from the barrel making factory, hence you avoid the possibility of clogging up your storage chests with tons of unnecessary barrels (in my experience you can expect a few to end up in storage sporadically). This is completely hassle free in its scaling: You can add more trains and Oil outposts are will with zero issues (and it's especially nice w/ 0.13 train leave conditions, where you can make sure the train stays until it has a full load of barrels; and at the unloading station, has also succeeded in unloading all of its filled barrels).

For the issue in italics:
This is always caused by too many trains, specifically too many trains trying to use the same parts of the rail network, so the solution is to find a way to decrease the number of trains needing to use the same parts of the network. For my kilobase (which is not a towns style base, but a central base fed by ore trains and oil trains), I will address this issue when it arrives in the following manner:
Rather than continue having all my ore trains bring their ores directly to the main base, once I start having too many trains trying to unload at the main base, I will establish a few regional hubs, where I will collect all the resources being mined in that region in a central place (mostly brought in by short 1-2-0 trains). I will then run a few much longer trains from the hub to the main base (these might easily become as large as 2-20-0). What does this accomplish? By using long trains, I can cut down on how many of trains need to make use of my main base's unloading stations at the same time for a given throughput, moreover, because these trains are longer, each train has a much higher inserter throughput (more wagons=more sets of 12 unloading stack inserters unloading the train), thus for a given number of trains stations at my main, throughput is increased. This of course required me to consider my layout carefully (I've left the side from which trains enter wide open so I can expand the length of my unloading stations later as needed.

Another useful feature of this strategy is that you can actually iterate this process, having a two-staged system with smaller hubs feeding major distribution centers (and even longer trains), hence it is, in theory, completely scalable to a practically unlimited degree. Of course, in a towns system, you have a large number of smaller bases, each of which must be served by trains from a number of different towns, hence you have considerable cross-traffic (and thus a high number of trains on your network; and the attendant traffic issues).