Mod Idea: Train propulsion by linear induction motor
Posted: Mon May 11, 2020 7:35 am
The general idea is to add a new type of locomotive that use rapidly accelerates or decelerates on launch tracks and passively coasts along on regular track. This would allow trains to get in and out of stations & busy junctions much more quickly, make railroads substantially more complex & hazardous, and would create extreme power demand spikes (or catastrophic failures).
I was thinking about proposing this as a game improvement, but it looks like the devs would prefer to leave the train system alone. So I'm thinking about it instead as something to try to hack together through the modding interface.
After a bit of API documentation review and testing, I found at enough functionality to maybe do a hackish implementation (train state events, listing of rails in a path, ability to manipulate train speed, and a few useful attributes in the locomotive prototype).
It is expected to require a per-tick update for each moving train (unless the devs are willing to modify the train signalling system to accept sometimes-wrong per-segment script-generated expected braking force values). Said updates can be reduced a lot if braking comes solely from the LIM system (in which case, predictions about launch track arrivals can be used to keep per-tick operations down).
I was thinking about proposing this as a game improvement, but it looks like the devs would prefer to leave the train system alone. So I'm thinking about it instead as something to try to hack together through the modding interface.
After a bit of API documentation review and testing, I found at enough functionality to maybe do a hackish implementation (train state events, listing of rails in a path, ability to manipulate train speed, and a few useful attributes in the locomotive prototype).
It is expected to require a per-tick update for each moving train (unless the devs are willing to modify the train signalling system to accept sometimes-wrong per-segment script-generated expected braking force values). Said updates can be reduced a lot if braking comes solely from the LIM system (in which case, predictions about launch track arrivals can be used to keep per-tick operations down).