combination locomotive + freight car

[Sneaker2]

Hi,

would it be possible to combine a locomotive with a freight car?

My I idea and intention is to use this instead of bots (cause it feels like cheating) for the short range and quick transport of few needed items. The problem with trains is that they use alot of space and this would be the least space consuming variant of a small train system. I alread use a system with just 1 lokomotive and 1 car, but I wonder what it would take to make this consist even shorter (because it just looks silly, 1 giant loko for 1 car; although the acceleration is awesome)

of course there could be ways to balance this, so this doesnt get all the benefits of both loco and car (fewer freight space and/or less acceleration)

what would you think about this as a mod (if such isn't already out there, in that case please point me to it)?

best regards, Sneaker2

[Aeternus]

Instead of trains, try the AAV mod. It features programmable vehicles that can fill this role.

[steinio]

I wonder if the API provides a modable loco with freight space.

Problem could be refueling. Overflowing burnables go into the cargo bay.

Yuokis railways provide small locos and small wagons. Maybe you like these.

[Sneaker2]

@steinio,

I thought about the fuel problem as well. I wonder if it is possible to give a loco 2 different properties > we all know that loco and car work perfectly on their own.

The loco and the freight car cover an area of about 2 x 6 tiles each. So I was wondering if it was possible to create a rail vehicle with the standart loco/car size ( 2 X 6), but give the front
2 x 2 section the properties of a locomotive and the 2 x 4 rear section the properties of a freight car. Like that we could place inserters for fuel and cargo handling according to the stop at the station

here is a little montage of my idea:

Factorio freight cart suggestion.png (2.31 MiB) Viewed 2412 times

[Aeternus]

Creative idea. That could work.

[steinio]

Then you can simply add 2 new entities, one half loco and one half wagon and change couple spacing to 0.

Also the half loco can be used for two direction locos.

[bobingabout]

I don't think there's any real provision for the locomotive entity to carry freight, so you'd have to do a compound entity (a cargo wagon on top of a locomotive) created via scripting, or just a mini locomotive and cargo wagon coupled together.

[mrvn]

Then you can simply add 2 new entities, one half loco and one half wagon and change couple spacing to 0.

Also the half loco can be used for two direction locos.

Maybe make them extensible. So you put down a half loco, a half wagon and a half loco and you get a 1 normal wagon sized bi-directional train. Put down a half loco, 5 half wagons and a half loco and you get a 2 normal wagon sized bi-directional train with a much larger cargo size.

The important part here would be that the 5 half wagons would combine into a single 5 times larger cargo space, not 5 individual cargo compartments.