New types of rails (curves, s-curves ...)

[mrvn]

If there will be z axis then not just land bridges (for crossings) will be possible, but also tunels. I enjoyed that a lot in transport tycoon, i will not work with fake elevation we have now, tho’. Although, since we have ug belts, why not ug rails?

Tunnels are different than bridges. Bridges you are supposed to see and walk under. Tunnels are basically just 2 holes in the ground where the train disappears and reappears. And the hole could lead to another surface so you can walk through the tunnel and the train has somewhere to be while in the tunnel.

So we don't need underground rails, we need rails that change surfaces.

but then you will need ground elevators, so you can access those UG surfaces.

or walk into the tunnel. But beware the approaching light

[EstebanLB]

I see that all topics dates back to 2015-2016. Are there any news on this major discussion? We still need better rails!

[brokenshakles]

I'm necroing this thread since there is still demand from those of us who love railworlds for more variety of special track pieces and the devs are looking at rail system changes for 0.18 anyway. Specifically, a tighter single-piece S-curve for making doubled track swtichovers.

[boskid]

I'm necroing this thread since there is still demand from those of us who love railworlds for more variety of special track pieces and the devs are looking at rail system changes for 0.18 anyway. Specifically, a tighter single-piece S-curve for making doubled track swtichovers.

It is not going to happen. To much complication. Lets assume there would be one extra curved long rail piece. If you would place all rail types so one of their end would overlap, there would be a junction with more than 3 possible directions (left, straight, right). This would complicate pathing logic but this is smallest issue of them all. When driving manually you would not be able to choose some directions since you can at most go left (holding left when crossing junction), straight (holding nothing) or right (holding right when crossing junction).

[Koub]

It is not going to happen.

[Koub] Then, moving this to Won't implement.

[brokenshakles]

boskid, presumably you could just treat the two ends as a curve piece of the appropriate direction for the purposes of pathing? It would exclude any identical track of the same type from mating at that location, but that would be an acceptable compromise. Restating this idea: as long as the new piece can only mate up in a left/center/right orientation at the ends, and each "mating" point can only accept one track of each direction, in each direction, it should work with the current system. Furthermore, different curve radii doesn't pose this problem so long as you accept the same constraint.

I will leave rest the matter at this response, thank you for your time and consideration, I will be continuing to expand the factory.

[mrvn]

I'm necroing this thread since there is still demand from those of us who love railworlds for more variety of special track pieces and the devs are looking at rail system changes for 0.18 anyway. Specifically, a tighter single-piece S-curve for making doubled track swtichovers.

It is not going to happen. To much complication. Lets assume there would be one extra curved long rail piece. If you would place all rail types so one of their end would overlap, there would be a junction with more than 3 possible directions (left, straight, right). This would complicate pathing logic but this is smallest issue of them all. When driving manually you would not be able to choose some directions since you can at most go left (holding left when crossing junction), straight (holding nothing) or right (holding right when crossing junction).

For the single piece S-curve the curve would start just like the existing curve. So same path there. Press left and you go left. But then it curves the other way so you get another branch while inside the normal curve. Press right quickly and you go there. Don't like how fast you have to switch keys? Don't build it. I think that's ok there.

As for different curve radii I don't see a good way to make manual driving work there. But the game could always exclude curves with different radii being placed on top of each other where they join a straight. You would want to do that anyway in many cases to reduce the explosion of different crossings that would be possible. Way too many different graphics needed and signals become impossible to place in many cases if you allow just any placement.

[Olacken]

Yes but how do you do those beautifull 6 way junction if you can't place curve rail in top of an other

[SupplyDepoo]

When driving manually you would not be able to choose some directions since you can at most go left (holding left when crossing junction), straight (holding nothing) or right (holding right when crossing junction).

This would be an issue, but honestly a new S-bend would be well worth it. Please consider that there already exists a very similar problem today with some popular intersection designs where a curved rail between a curved rail and a straight rail is almost impossible to enter by manual driving unless you go very slowly. The solution is quite simple: don't design the junction like that.

With a new S-rail, the ambiguity would be easily resolved by offsetting the rail piece by 2 tiles.

In any case manual driving is less important nowadays with temporary waypoints.

Please understand that a new S-rail for narrow switchovers would be AMAZING for those few times when you actually need it due to space constraints (because of cliffs, or having to weave through spaghetti, and for custom scenarios like the Swiss cheese map or non-linear ribbon world), or making compact intersections where signals are difficult to fit, and it would be great simply for aesthetics too.

When driving manually you would not be able to choose some directions since you can at most go left (holding left when crossing junction), straight (holding nothing) or right (holding right when crossing junction).

This would be an issue, but honestly a new S-bend would be well worth it. Please consider that there already exists a very similar problem today with some popular intersection designs where a curved rail between a curved rail and a straight rail is almost impossible to enter by manual driving unless you go very slowly. The solution is quite simple: don't design the junction like that.

I just want to emphasize this point because I just realized how similar these two issue really are: the curved rail vs S-rail ambiguity you speak of WOULD ONLY EXIST IN A 3+ DIRECTION SPLIT because if it was only a curved rail vs S-rail you would simply not press any keys for one of them and the train would continue on the straight(er) track. So the problem you describe is almost exactly the same as the existing problem with tightly spaced splits.

Since this is already a finnicky situation for manual driving and usually avoided, the S-rail would in practice not introduce ambiguity very often.

Picture of what I'm talking about:

tight-splits.png (72.37 KiB) Viewed 3111 times

In a situation like this a new S-rail starting on the same tile as the curved rail would introduce ambiguity for manual driving, but this would easily be resolved by offsetting the rail by one 2x2 tile and that is easily achievable given the overall space savings that S-rails would bring compared to the fanning-out wavy curved rails currently needed for comparable splits.

Please don't let a minor edge case inconvenience be the death of the long-awaited S-rail (since at least FFF #113 7 years ago!)!

You could also simply prevent the player from placing left curved rail and a left S-rail on top of each other like that and the rail planner would seamlessly respect this so most players wouldn't even realize they're being shielded from a manual-driving footgun, while veteran players wouldn't mind it anyway because this configuration would be bad for fitting rail signals!

no-signal-spots.png (393.78 KiB) Viewed 3107 times

As you can well imagine, the S-rail-on-curved-rail situation would be equally bad and undesirable.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

People complaining about the manual driving issue will be far outnumbered by people rejoicing over the new rail piece!

Haters could also make a mod to change manual driving or they could just not use S-rails and continue using only curved rails like they have been, whereas we currently have no way to mod this in. Remember that this would be an additive change.

[FuryoftheStars]

Yeah, I’d have to say it’d be nice to be able to create these tight s-curves for one and two track segment switching. And as mentioned by someone else, you can have these s-curves count as right/left curve tracks, thus preventing having both at the same location, or you can just go ahead and allow it and make it so pressing the directional key gets you onto the curve, and then releasing makes you follow the s-curve (vs continuing to hold makes you continue on the actual curve). I’m not sure that functionally these would be any different than what we can do now, other than it’ll be closer to the initial turn.

[ickputzdirwech]

[ick] Moved to Implemented in 2.0

See https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-377