Factorio Forums

Hi,

I wish to create some kind of rail signal, but which could be controlled by some signal (as it is the case for lamps, etc...)
Is there a method/member of rail signal entity types to control the said signal state ?

Thanks for your answers and help

At the moment, you are out of luck.

You can read signal_state of an entity (that entity must be a rail signal), but it is a read only property.

Yup, found this too while looking through the wiki. That's sad

I'll try something else, but I first have to find how to open a GUI when left clicking an entity which does not have a default GUI.
I still did not get any info about how to do this on the wiki/forums.

Still nothing... does anyone konw how to do that / if that's possible ?

No, but it is generally not a good idea to post another question to in the thread of an already existing question, as people won't read that.

Tbh I don't think that direct signal control is feasible - added complexity seems tricky.

It creates very tricky pathfinder cases if signal on the route can suddenly switch. And switching to anything else then red would lead to potential collisions.

There is a mod that simply removes the rail but it abuses a bit the fact that even full speed train will simply stop in place when it encounters end of rail. If there was a damage from this or some kind of derailment - mod would also have a risk of damaging your rolling stock.

What would be nice is being able to reserve a path with signals

In other word when a circuit signal is active on a train signal it will turn the other signals red and prevent a train from going through them (those that can't stop can still barrel through)

having a sensor to detect if a block is taken would also be nice/needed.

For that kind of pathing control of trains, you'll have to put your hopes up for 0.13, though I doubt that will be in there.

While tighter control over train scheduling/routing allows for much more optimized control, I am not sure that this will ever be the focus of the devs.
Yes, everyone loves OpenTTD, but Factorio's trains are only a comparatively small part (albeit a lovely one) to the overall production automation theme. Trains as they are now are already "good enough" (safe for some usability issues)

Yes, I think that controlling the schedules would be the best thing to do for my case.
I downloaded a mod which enables LUA combinators, I can use them to control the schedules.

Otherwhise, I thought about creating a new type of "special" stations, with an additionnal GUI. The GUI could control train schedules depending on input signals for the trains that stop there.

In that case, checkout Choumiko's Smart Trains mod: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 97&t=14432
I do not think it does exactly what you want, but it is very close - so might be better to built off that.