Friday Facts #133 - The train struggle

[bobingabout]

The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.

Agreed.

[Klonan]

The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.

Agreed.

Yep, a gameplay inconsistency is far more serious than a graphical one

[RobertTerwilliger]

any object that is smaller than 4x4 can hide the inconsistency, try using a mod that uses 6x6 ie the warehouse mod and everything will become apparent to you.

Rocket silo is 9x9 or so. Works well in any direction though.

They also often hide it by including the height of the building in the height of the grid. Look at the roboport, the base of the structure is actually 4x3, but it still takes a 4x4 tile spacing.

So what? It works, looks nice enough. Who needs more? Even what is "more" actually? 32x23 grid? Real 3d? No way. Maybe in Factorio2, but not earlier.
When strategies were 2d (and not only strategies) they all used "height included in size" trick, and it was not so long ago, and no one had trouble with that.
Anyway it's only visual, but trains have physical inconsistency, which is different.

The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.

Amen.

[ratchetfreak]

any object that is smaller than 4x4 can hide the inconsistency, try using a mod that uses 6x6 ie the warehouse mod and everything will become apparent to you.

Rocket silo is 9x9 or so. Works well in any direction though.

They also often hide it by including the height of the building in the height of the grid. Look at the roboport, the base of the structure is actually 4x3, but it still takes a 4x4 tile spacing.

So what? It works, looks nice enough. Who needs more? Even what is "more" actually? 32x23 grid? Real 3d? No way. Maybe in Factorio2, but not earlier.
When strategies were 2d (and not only strategies) they all used "height included in size" trick, and it was not so long ago, and no one had trouble with that.
Anyway it's only visual, but trains have physical inconsistency, which is different.

The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.

Amen.

Factorio also would never have had any problems with it if they never included trains. However the trains show exactly why including the height of buildings in the tile footprint is a hack.

[RobertTerwilliger]

Factorio also would never have had any problems with it if they never included trains. However the trains show exactly why including the height of buildings in the tile footprint is a hack.

Factorio won't have this problem, since it is being solved right now, so not a big deal.

[alan2here]

... You can easily win without even going through the extra trouble of ...

There is a win condition of launching the rocket, but you also "win" Factorio when your factory design in perfect, as well as conforming perfectly your sense of aesthetics and whatever you want to do with this factory, and you have fully explored all of the games systems. This, and I use the last word of this sentence literally, takes forever.

Also Factorio is far better than a AAA title

[tehroach]

I use the warehousing mod a lot, and I have no problems with it, it's always 6x6. Sure, the topmost inserters on the side look like they are above the building, but you get used to that. Most importantly, I just blueprint designs around it and plop em down.

I use the warehousing mod in all my games and personally think that it should be made part of vanilla,
However the problem that I wanted to point out is not with the warehouse, just that the current problem involving the 45 view angle of Factorio is easily spotted there.

They also often hide it by including the height of the building in the height of the grid.
Look at the roboport, the base of the structure is actually 4x3, but it still takes a 4x4 tile spacing.

This highlights my point that the problem of different V to H sizes is inherent to every thing in Factorio,
The Roboport is a good example of how the smaller objects are not as susceptible to the error translating into a placement issue.

Rocket silo is 9x9 or so. Works well in any direction though.

Rocket silo is another good example of how this hide fools people; as they can be perceived to be mostly underground their height can therefore be easily hidden.

[Hicsy]

Even lengths or granular placement of train stations to enable bi-directional train stations:

Images

[bobingabout]

Even lengths or granular placement of train stations to enable bi-directional train stations:

It would do that too, yes. the reason for so many smart inserters in the station is clearly to illustrate the fact that they can't be lined up.
Also, the current plan of wagon length is 6, plus a 1 tile coupling... kind of makes the length 7, meaning.... a train with an... even number of cargo wagons still wouldn't line up when entering the station from the other end... This "Forced to a 2x2 grid" thing is quite annoying.
Even because, 6 + 1 + 6 + 1 + 6 + 1 + 6 (assuming the engine is 6 too, moot point for this example) adds up to an odd length, and therefore doesn't fit on the forced multiple of 2 grid.

[tehroach]

The graphical weirdness of warehouses and roboports is aesthetically unpleasant, but contrary to non-integer and non-constant train sizes it is completely trivial.

Agreed.

Yep, a gameplay inconsistency is far more serious than a graphical one

But is introducing a graphical inconsistency worth it, especially when it only solves a small sub-set of problems that relate to the train-stations

[Kotu]

I prefer the heavy inserter to the loader, I was thinking of posting a similar idea a while ago. Rather than being a heavy inserter, i would prefer it if the stack size upgrades applied to all the inserters. This would give each inserter a mini storage of whatever the stack size is upgraded to and would allow the inserter to work like a shovel whereby it either lets its cargo slide onto the belt or it scoops up whatever is on the belt.

You already get something similar today with pick and place machines where surface mounted components are routed through the arm meaning it can continuously place without having to do a pickup.

[RobertTerwilliger]

You already get something similar today with pick and place machines where surface mounted components are routed through the arm meaning it can continuously place without having to do a pickup.

I think picture attached may give a good idea for devs how to make graphics for it

[Kotu]

not quite the same as what I wrote, but a similar idea for speeding up the inserter process:

video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8qkaTsr2_o gives an idea.

This is for SMT, but a scaled up idea would work too i think, something like the inserter as it is now, but the end of each arm would have multiple fingers (each finger would be a stack size upgrade) that can do independent pickups meaning less time moving back and forth.

[darkfrei]

fff133:

The first solution we thought about, was to just stretch the train secretly as it is rotated. But as the difference is 41%, it would really not be hideable and it would make it look like it was made of rubber.

For this picture: https://eu3.factorio.com/assets//img/bl ... n-test.gif




First car have factorio deformation 1.41, another two have correction for perspective deformation. What looks better?

Can you try to make in-game vehicles with this solution? viewtopic.php?f=135&t=26190

[AlexTheNotsogreat]

I think measuring the train model by the base of the train is what you should've done. You would measure by the base, and keep that at 8 blocks length, then place the whole model on top. Try that when you can, and see how it works

[darkfrei]

I think measuring the train model by the base of the train is what you should've done. You would measure by the base, and keep that at 8 blocks length, then place the whole model on top. Try that when you can, and see how it works

Collision box of this car have no deformation (but in vanilla), why cargo-wagon have problem with this? It's easy to make some rotation square with permanent equal sides of it.

link