Factorio should have DLC.

[rldml]

or send trains to multiple simultaneously.

we surround the problem, step by step.

This is exactly what i described in my example...

Greetings, Ronny

[Jap2.0]

or send trains to multiple simultaneously.

we surround the problem, step by step.

This is exactly what i described in my example...

Greetings, Ronny

The only ways I can think of to do this currently are to have seprately named stations, have trains on completely seperate sections of rail so that they could not path to the other station (which would have the same consequences and probably even more difficulty than renaming them), or forcing the second train to repath after the first train reaches the station, which would require at least a slight (although probably not overly proablematic, unless you're going megabase size) delay, and the repathing would cause a delay that could be even larger than waiting for the first train to arrive before sending the second train.

[rldml]

The only ways I can think of to do this currently are to have seprately named stations, have trains on completely seperate sections of rail so that they could not path to the other station (which would have the same consequences and probably even more difficulty than renaming them), or forcing the second train to repath after the first train reaches the station, which would require at least a slight (although probably not overly proablematic, unless you're going megabase size) delay, and the repathing would cause a delay that could be even larger than waiting for the first train to arrive before sending the second train.

So, you agree with me, that there is no good solution possible for this scenario in vanilla (especially if there are more than two "StationB")? Only bad working workarounds, where you have to do stuff permantly with your hands or you loose the efficiency bonus of using trains in general?

Would you agree, that this is the opposite of "automate everything"?

That is the reason we need something to fill this gap, even if is used only by 1% of the community

[steinio]

For this is LTN https://mods.factorio.com/mod/LogisticTrainNetwork

[Deadlock989]

The only ways I can think of to do this currently are to have seprately named stations, have trains on completely seperate sections of rail so that they could not path to the other station (which would have the same consequences and probably even more difficulty than renaming them), or forcing the second train to repath after the first train reaches the station, which would require at least a slight (although probably not overly proablematic, unless you're going megabase size) delay, and the repathing would cause a delay that could be even larger than waiting for the first train to arrive before sending the second train.

So, you agree with me, that there is no good solution possible for this scenario in vanilla (especially if there are more than two "StationB")? Only bad working workarounds, where you have to do stuff permantly with your hands or you loose the efficiency bonus of using trains in general?

Would you agree, that this is the opposite of "automate everything"?

That is the reason we need something to fill this gap, even if is used only by 1% of the community

The way I do it, each mining outpost has its own mini-stacker (4 or 6 bays). If the bays are all full (count the number of red lights in the stacker) then the mining outpost's station is disabled. With 48+ trains on the network, trains departing their depot then automatically don't go to a mining outpost if its queue is full but go to the next nearest instead. Mining outposts also deactivate themselves when they have less than a trainload of ore in stock, so any train in an outpost-stacker will automatically skip to the next outpost if the stocks were drained while it was waiting.

This probably isn't precisely what you want but it does the job.

[rldml]

So, i can summarize, there are three types of people:

Most people simply don't understand the problem i want to get solved.

Some people, who gets a rough idea of my problem, suggest LTN as alternative (it isn't an alternative for me, because of reasons i explained more than one time)

The last sort of people might understand my problem, but don't care enough about automating train schedules by themself.

Thx @all for this discussion, it was some kind of informative

Greetings, Ronny

[Deadlock989]

There are two kinds of people: people who put other people into convenient but inaccurate boxes and people who don't.

[Aeternus]

To clarify: you want one train to go to each available station, which will be turned off after the train is there and are arbitrarily turned on again?

I want, that a train get his next target based on circuit network conditions instead of a hard coded scheduling.

Or to stay in my example: I want a way to tell a train, it has to target the 1000 tiles "StationB", even when there is another "StationB", which is possibly nearer.

I understand the problem, but with the current scheduling involved, this will never work. The game will, once a train wants to go to the next station find the lowest cost path to that station, and the train will keep to this path unless a recalculation is forced by an interuption in the path. If the station is disabled by the time the train gets there it'll then repath to the next nearest station with that name online. On huge rail nets that can send trains all over the place, which is problematic. The only way to force a train to go to a specific station is to disable all other stations with the same name. That can be done (along with reactivating the station right before the train is there) but requires an uninterrupted circuit signal across the entire rail network. Good luck keeping biters away from the power poles...

My preferred way to deal with a very wide area rail network with multiple mines is to have one or two trains dedicated to each mine, and use stackers at the ore dumps to deal with a backlog of arriving trains. The stacker needs to be large enough to handle all the possible trains arriving (it'd surprise me if you'd send more then 20 trains to any ore dump - if so, make longer trains to get the same amount of ore transferred at a lower frequency). If a mine is exhausted, send the trains to a rail depot where the last scraps are unloaded - from there you can reassign them to a new mine at will.

[olafthecat]

DLC for factorio is frankly idiotic.
You are aware that they talked about this on April fools day for the ios joke
Besides, if they want more money, they could just make 3d version.
I would love that.

[Sir3n]

Imagine you are trying to buy a car and they tell you you have to pay extra for the paint or else you get one without paint, still works fine, 200 km/h and such, just less shiny.

That's how DLCs feel to me. Cancerous.

[Tekky]

Besides, if they want more money, they could just make 3d version.
I would love that.

Yes, a 3D version of Factorio would be nice, like FortressCraft, just higher quality.

[Tolham]

With the upcoming price increase, I think it would be a little scummy to start charging extra for DLC. Any new content they want to add should just be free updates.

[bobucles]

That's not thinking like a proper, blue blooded capitalist! It is the seller's duty to charge whatever the market will bear. Unfortunately the nature of DLC places it in direct competition with the modding community who do it for FREE.

That doesn't mean the market still doesn't have many consumers who thirst for their horse power armor and shiny steel pickaxe DLC. Sometimes people just want to give the devs more money. There's no legitimate reason to say they absolutely can't.

[rldml]

Unfortunately the nature of DLC places it in direct competition with the modding community who do it for FREE.

I just want to add the hint, that some stuff is nearly unmoddable (or only with performance penalties) but easy to implement within the source code of the game. In my terms it's mandatory for a "you have to pay for it"-DLC, that the content is not easy moddable like a better axe, a faster assembly or something else. Instead it should implement additional core features and more possibilities for modders.

[Deadlock989]

Yes, a 3D version of Factorio would be nice, like FortressCraft, just higher quality.

No need to set the bar quite that low ...

[maraaaa]

I would buy another copy to support development...

[SirLANsalot]

What would a DLC even look like for Factorio? The game itself is nearly perfect, there is very little they could add without doing something un-necessary.

However two ideas do come to mind. Space and Underground addons. After factorio 1.0 (and some updates after) I would like to see a DLC that first adds caves (I know a mod sort of does this already) or adds an entire cave map, thus adding a whole different level of difficulty to the game. Underground maps would be like a massive cave system, with lots of tunnels spidering out, so rather then a massive open map, your space is heavily limited, having to build in "pockets". End game would be to build a drill to the surface.
Space would be the end of a normal open map, launching into space and having to build on platforms up above and send the white packs back down.

Both would be optional maps, but if you owned both, and started underground, you could build from underground, to the surface, to space all in one game.

Just spitballing ideas....kind of a non-professional dev, so I have fun spinning ideas like this out at games

[Hannu]

What would a DLC even look like for Factorio? The game itself is nearly perfect, there is very little they could add without doing something un-necessary.

There are many possibilities. In addition to your idea about separate layers for example:

Environmental physics. There could be weather effects and seasonal effects and they could be different in different biomes. There could be couple of variables, like temperature and humidity, and they would affect to machines and living creatures. Some processes could be possible only in certain conditions and some resources would exist only certain biomes. Player could begin in temperate biome but end game needs resources and operations in all biomes.

Warfare. Defense would not have to be "build wall around everything and forget enemies". There could be programmable military robots, many classes and tiers. Guards could walk around base and if they detected enemies they alarmed assault robots. Something enemies could defeat guards and make surprising attack. Scouts could explore map and find resources and enemy nests. Player should organize automatic production of military units, ammunition and other consumables. Enemies could also be more clever and make distractions, traps and behave more naturally than insane numbers of them spawn from vacuum and they just stupidly run to certain death.

[rldml]

Because some people thought, you could fiance Wube mainly with merchandise and this post fits into this thread too:

viewtopic.php?f=38&t=59206&start=100#p357546

Factorio might benefit from some merchandise instead. T-shirts are a nice start, but a Factorio toolbox/bag of hard hat come to mind as well. The game itself, even with the price hike, has a fair price I feel for the content it provides.

So far the income from all the merchandise we have sold is an order of magnitude lower than even a single week of selling the game,
Not to mention it has far higher costs (Costs for the goods, administrative workload/labour etc.)

Merchandise will just frankly not work to supplement the company revenue in any significant way

[Deadlock989]

Is Factorio in some kind of financial trouble? Or are people just inventing a problem so they can claim to have solved it?

Can we not just have one single good game that is free of all this DLC / lootcrate / microtransaction squeezing-blood-from-a-stone pox? If you want to split a community into haves and have-nots, that's your call, but I'd prefer it wasn't this one.

I've sworn off Early Access because I've been burned so many times, but with these guys, I would pre-order Factorio 2 if they announced it today for EA release in 2020. Or whatever Wube do next, even if it's some completely different kind of game.