Friday Facts #378 - Trains on another level

[Mr. Tact]

While I like this, I think last week's rail change was a bigger deal. As you indicated train congestion was rarely a major problem. That said, it is cool looking and I'm sure I will have fun with it -- when I finally get to play with it that is...

[tufoed]

Rail bridges is the most wanted feature from TTD, that we waited for in Factorio. And now it becomes real. And even better, than in TTD. Yay!

[funky.bibimbap]

After the previous FFF I was a bit disappointed that the rail overhaul seemed limited to better placement of signals but then... OpenTTD junction vibes intensifies!

There is still something about getting stuck above water that I do not get. Someone copy-pasted a screenshot of the reddit thread, which basically says:

• You cannot walk on elevated tracks
• You cannot exit the train above water
• You can push (albeit very slowly) your train when it runs out of fuel

But that does not seem to cover the case where my train is sandwiched between two other trains, and the train in front is blocked because it ran out of fuel, or because I still managed to create a deadlock somewhere.

[OldFart]

Now, I can't wait for the release!

[FuryoftheStars]

But that does not seem to cover the case where my train is sandwiched between two other trains, and the train in front is blocked because it ran out of fuel, or because I still managed to create a deadlock somewhere.

You do have the ability to tie trains together (without leaving it) so that you can manually push whatever you need to out of the way.

[adam_bise]

Just want to say I think this is absolutely the best update yet, besides the expansion update. This is absolutely a game changer and I cannot wait to try it out.

The graphics look great! You guys really did a great job there!

[blazespinnaker]

Sometimes there are long stretches where I literally have nothing to do except wait.

This explains quite a bit.

Seriously though, if you are curious where some people find factorio 'puzzling', it's often in the 'no waiting' department.

Try launching a rocket in just a few hours without having to memorize keyboard shortcuts and playing particularly fast.

That is quite an interesting puzzle indeed.

Even with the mods I have installed like Space Exploration, which don't really make it more difficult

[PhasmaNL]

Totally awesome! Looking forward to playing with this.

[blazespinnaker]

I'm going to have a gluten overdose because of all the spaghetti this is going to facilitate. Great addition.

Yeah, the spaghetti potential here is a bit crazy. Underground belts hide a lot of the spaghetti, while elevated trains are clearly going to accentuate it.

[spaghetsie]

Man am I getting excited about the expansion! I only wish the upper rails looked a bit more structurally sound. They look like they would bend a lot under weight. Though I would love if we could get animated bendy rails for when a train goes over them.

But who cares about graphics! Gimme my rail bridges already I can't wait a year!

[__Sirius__]

This is an absolutely genius change. It will make gameplay sooo much more fun. Thank you! But I have some questions:
If you want to access a train at an elevated level, how would you do that? Building up there would be easily achievable by just constructing; Factorio guy's reach is insane, so... yeah. But if you want to board a train, how could a person get up there? My idea is to add a kind of ladder to the game. With the ladder, which you can place next to elevated rails and attach it just like rail signals, you can reach the elevated platform and board the trains. Alternatively, you could add a ladder model on top of the rail support, allowing you to climb up there. Another option is to include the jetpack from the jetpack mod, enabling players to fly up there. However, these are just my ideas.

As for the second question: How will Biters handle elevated rails? Will Biters be able to attack them? (Spitters and worms obviously can.) Or will they simply destroy the supports, causing the elevated rails to collapse? And what happens when they collapse? Will the rails damage enemies as well as friendly buildings? Will the trains on them be destroyed? Will the loot from the trains crashing down also be destroyed?

[QuadcoreMissile]

Starting with the good words, I an intrigued with this update and am really happy about it, there is just one little thing about the supports having a different hitbox when rotated from the "straight" ones. it makes sense, that rotating a square by 45° is not going to fit well in a defined grid and- that`s my solution- what if making a base that is always fixed, but a modular top, that rotates according to the direction of the rail? Like having a plate on top that can handle all rail rotations. Adding to it, it's not far fetched to allow one support to handle multiple rails, like in a junction, saving groundspace.

[alarig]

Thanks for that feature, being able to build over water will be so useful, I will test it as soon as I can

[g00ber]

congrats on your train baby

it looks amazing

[bluewilson]

So this means that we can build rails right off from cliffs, or onto cliffs? * evil grin *

[Talguy]

This is revolutionary! Can't wait for 2.0

[Cobaltur]

I love these rails.

But the distances are looking wierd to me.

FactorioTrainsHigh.jpg (30.33 KiB) Viewed 1809 times

[FunMaker]

I am curios: Many said, that congestion is not a problem. I am used to the path finder and train mechanics of openttd and i had man factorio games that i had to abandon because of trains stopping at crossings. The last game i played, i used a giant loop system, so that crossings because of 2 way drive would not happen - that was a great concept to keep trains flowing - but trains had to travel the whole loop to get back to a station that was in front of the starting location. So i feel great with bridges. I hope, that the costs of elevated rails is high, so that the feeling of building is like a great accomplishment.

[IForgotMyName]

Unexpectedly, the introduction of bridges solves one of the first expansion problems noticed by the community

Since the goal was to make the overall expansion experience as good as possible, we have rebalanced the tech tree. This means, that with Space Age enabled, some items that are available in vanilla are unlocked later on some planet. This specifically applies to artillery, cliff explosives (this is the masochist part of me speaking), Spidertron, best tier of modules, and some personal equipment upgrades.

I played too much of the game's demo (about 110 hours) and there were no cliff explosives. Building a railroad because of cliff was the worst thing ever, even though it was primitive. Thanks to the bridges, it will be satisfying even with indestructible cliff. I hope the cliff will also be polished, and at release the collision boxes, as well as the generation of cliff, will be more fair

[jelinekp]

Wow, this is huge! Cannot wait to play it.
In my opinion the elevated rails just look too subtle. I would rather see the red support structure all the way under the rails instead of the fence. Also the ramp looks like a rollercoaster maybe because of the red color I have to get used to it.
But that's just my opinion, I still absolutely love it!