Friday Facts #378 - Trains on another level

[iamgod77]

OMFG. Don't have words for this. Those Eiffel-like aesthetics are a work of art, and fits strangely good. what an addition.

[kitt159]

Can we walk on the bridges?

You can't. biters also can't walk it.

If you cant walk on the rails dont bother doing hand rail graphics , thay make it look too cluttered anyway

I think that without these "handrails", it would be hard to visually differentiate elevated rails from normal rails (especially when zoomed out, and you will need to zoom out when you want to observe your intersection). These handrails helps with visual clarity.

On a different note, I'm curious if entities (chests, belts... or even visually identical ground-floor rails?) can be placed beneath (behind) the rail sprite.

It would probably be better to remove the handrail and add some supports under the tracks instead. They seem pretty fragile.

[kitt159]

I am quite interested in how you solved the rail planning. There must be a lot of possible combinations. What algorithm do you use to find the route?

[Illiander42]

I just noticed that the elivated rails still have wooden sleepers.

Hopefully that will change?

[fishforfuture]

Super nice update,
What i really miss though is a tight 90° curved ramp with the same curve radius as the rails, so that you could build nice (horizontal) ground level stations served off a vertical elevated track.

[Ohz]

Ok I thought it would be visually horrible to do, but you guys are pure genius. Reading those pictures are total crystal clear.

[fishforfuture]

I just noticed that the elivated rails still have wooden sleepers.

Hopefully that will change?

Yeah, and not having wood as an ingredient for the rail recipe?!?

[coppercoil]

Yeah, and not having wood as an ingredient for the rail recipe?!?

I thought these are golden ones. Expected for gold ore

[Joe Black]

Das sieht immer mehr nach dem besten Spiel des jetzigen und des nächsten Jahrzehntes aus

This is looking more and more like the best game of the current and next decade

[BrutusMaximus]

Factorio updates never fail to amaze.

I know you've already scrolled down to see the ramps instead of reading this but it just felt weird not to put a paragraph here.

Oh c'mon now

[thermomug]

The expansion is gonna be absolutely awesome, and it will be the first time in my life that I will take a two week vacation just to play this game.

I am wondering if the train physics now account for the elevation change? Do trains roll down ramps driven by gravity? Do they have reversing locks? Is there a difference in manual/automatic mode?

[boskid]

I am wondering if the train physics now account for the elevation change? Do trains roll down ramps driven by gravity? Do they have reversing locks? Is there a difference in manual/automatic mode?

No, i decided it would not be fun mechanic and it would have its own performance impact for all trains running in all cases since i would have to scan entire train if each rolling stock is on a slope to compute some additional forces acting on a train, so i just skipped it. There are also some internal assumptions like a train on automatic must never go backward (it can only consume its path to destination, never revert) so if a train would go out of fuel and would start moving backward the game would have to handle that case as well. I am ok with performance impact if something is fun to play but Factorio is not about realizm, its about fun and this would not be fun.

[fusionfan]

This looks interesting. Although factorio will lose some of its 2D charm (OK, OK, we have underground pipes and underground belts already). Tho I never felt I had throughput issues on the train system, even on big megabases, there were always methods to solve it in 2D. Still, this is interesting. Bonus points for the Roller Coaster Tycoon memories!

Oh and btw - the elevated rails look super awesome.

[MrBadDragon]

As we can’t walk on the bridges what happens if for example a train runs out of fuel on elevated tracks over water?

Land fill path to the train....

[Cerberus]

Would an elevated artillery train be invulnerable?

This is an important question that needs answering.

Also, an elevated arty train over a lake.

It doesn't look like you can elevate stations, and artillery trains don't fire when stopped at signals.

You could landfill yourself a tiny island though, and make the artillery wagon train stop there. The aliens have no way to attack the artillery wagon, if the water distance to the island is longer than the spitter projectile distance. This is maybe a bit overpowered similarly to the jetpack in Space Exploration mod. I hope there will be a solution to even the playing field again, even if this "problem" exists only where there are big lakes. Because it is much easier to setup an island for your artillery gun than creating an outpost dedicated to artillery fire on land which has to replenish itself. Same problem for regular artillery now that the player can traverse water using elevated rails, doesn't necessarily have to be a wagon. You can just put artillery on an island and replenish it with a train.

Someone mentioned there might be flying and water aliens, but I don't know if they will exist on every planet, or might only turn up much later than artillery is available. If they exist on every planet, that would also drastically change the gameplay because you can not use water as natural defence wall anymore then.

[valneq]

Looking at these previews makes me dizzy. And I love it!
Cannot wait to play with this

[Cerberus]

Q: in what way do big connection poles collide? Only the entities or do the wires collide as well?

Only the entities. You can see power cables intersecting with the elevated railway tracks in one (or more) of the screenshots in the FF blog post.

[Blacky007]

will there be switch in the settings or screen to hide all the higher trainssystem to work on the base that is below the trainbridges?
I think that you can mess up a bit to work on the factory and you can not see under all this hig elevated Traintracks.
Greetings

[SkerrittT]

really enjoying your Friday Facts newsletters. Got to say the elevated rails is very exciting. So appreciative of your efforts. Thank you.

[Saphira123456]

There are a couple of changes I would ask for here, one being that this become a vanilla thing, so that you could play using these elevated tracks without requiring the DLC in order to use the mod. That feels like an unfair advantage to people who have the DLC as elevated rails, quality and other mechanics are game-changing, capable of radically altering the way one plays the game.

As for the aesthetics, I would also ask that they have different ones as I agree with some other people here. The current ones you have pictured feel roller coaster-y and not like an actual railroad bridge. if the aesthetics were changed to something like a trestle or an A-Frame bridge then that would work better. Those that don't think so because it would be hard to differentiate between rails on different levels if you used trestles, need to remember that Satisfactory is not a top-down game, it's more of an isometric view. This means that the sides of a trestle, if modeled, could be used to differentiate the two levels of track.

I do like the aesthetics of the ramps, though as with the bridges I feel as if they would be better served as trestles rather than how they are now.

I would also like to echo the calls for elevated stations and appropriate methods of loading and unloading some kinds of elevated trains instead of requiring them to come down from the elevated line to a station on the ground. Having a hopper or silo would work for loose loads like coal and ores, gear wheels, wire, etcetera. Not for other items though.

I had another idea for this as well: Moving unloads. When approaching a station with moving unloads enabled, the train slows down to a crawl and unloads directly into the silo or hopper as the train moves over it, perhaps triggering dust particles and other effects as the wagons move across and unload. This would be enabled in the station menu, would not require inserters, and would keep the trains rolling instead of having them stop. It's much more efficient that way, but again it would only work for loose loads like coal, ores, gears, etcetera.