Discussing the (missing?) 4th type of transport!

[chris13524]

Yeah, I agree that rockets should have levels and get better and more expensive.

I still like my quadcopter idea though, what do you guys think of that?

[Koub]

It's not that I don't like quadcopters, but the feel of them is too much like "logistic robots, but bigger"

[kiba]

It's not that I don't like quadcopters, but the feel of them is too much like "logistic robots, but bigger"

Quadcopters don't scale. That's what a regular helicopter is for.

[ssilk]

A quadcopter is just a big bot, or a small helicopter.

[chris13524]

Hmm, nobody likes my idea; what other options do we have? Guess it's just the rockets and helicopter?

[ssilk]

Hmm, nobody likes my idea

Ok, I get now a bit off-topic:

The ideas of
- planes
- helicopter, quadcopter or even long range bots
- self-driving carts, trucks or whatever

can be seem as a basic concept, which I would like to call in general "self moving stack". Because it can transport a stack (or two, but not more than 10) full of something with "moderate high speed". With "moderate high speed" I mean: lower than 250 tiles/sec (900 km/h - which is for normal planes normally the maximum). Which is in my eyes - with starting and landing - still too slow for the idea, that a player needs to have somehow "immediately". For 10,000 tiles it needs 40 seconds in minimum. It should be much faster, cause the loading, unloading, deliver etc. must be included.

It has also the disadvantage, that the source and target needs to be defined before it can transport anything.

what other options do we have? Guess it's just the rockets and helicopter?

Helicopter ist just a bigger quadcopter. Or a small Zeppelin.

Rockets are different, cause they can be seen as "use once" item (later may can be reused).

The concept of rockets makes it also easy to implement the concept of "pre-filling", or "storage priorities": You put something into a storage, and then it is available immediately. A concept like plane, quadcopter etc. should work like a train: the items needs to be filled into the stacks inside of the entity. The rockets idea don't need that, it is available or not. It is of course possible to make that also for planes, quadcopter etc. but that is in my eyes a bit of break in the game: Why should trains be filled, but a plane not? I mean a game must not be realistic, but logical.

[chris13524]

@ssilk I agree, a game should be logical but not necessarily realistic.

For all these types of transportation, I think it should still be possible to load both ways:

• On demand with inserters, etc.
  Pre-loaded, like a kit

According to this article, http://www.migflug.com/jetflights/the-1 ... world.html, the fastest plane in the world can go 2.35 mach (2.35 x the speed of sound), that converted is 2,900 kph. That's a little under 3 times the speed of a commercial jet (and the one you speak of). I think in Factorio, planes could go faster than this, up to 3,000 kilometres per hour. That's 30 million tiles per hour, 50 thousand tiles per minute, and approximately 833 tiles per second. I haven't build that many big maps, but that seems like a lot to me.

Maybe making an audible *bang* throughout the whole map when breaking the sound barrier?

For starting and landing locations, it can launch from a airport/rocket silo, and do a fly over, dropping a parachute with it's cargo. This can be upgraded to have more accurate drones dropping to target the player better.

[ssilk]

833 tiles per second is 13.8 tiles per tick. Which means you will just see some annoying plane-like-looking "flashes" on screen. Even with 250 tiles/sec this can get quite annoying.

For rockets there is after some speed no need to be seen. They are "too high".

[Tardan]

a really interesting thread with many good ideas! i don't have new ideas, so i want to share my requirements for transport that i miss in game.

what i miss in game is:
1. fast emergency transport:
- order items in an outpost, no mass transport, only one time
- minimum four times faster than vanilla train

2. automated long range logistic network
- automated transport off small amounts of resupply items (repair tools, repair/logistic bots, walls, turret, ammo)
- easy to handle (like requester/provider chest for long range).

resolutions:
for one: rocket or something like a space shuttle with massive rocket boost? there are many good ideas about this in the thread
for two: a helicopter, airplane, quadro copter network sounds nice. i know i can use trains, but i want a mechanism that the vehicles start to transport only when they needed. so only a bot logistic network in an other scale.

[chris13524]

@ssilk I think the rendering of the entity flying across the screen is beyond the scope of this discussion, just the fact that a plane couldn't be seen very well when it cross the screen shouldn't be the reason for not implementing it.

We don't know how heights will be implemented, planes could operate on their own layer not able to seen from the normal screen. Hundreds of miles in the air doesn't make sense to be seen from the ground, nor rendered.

[ssilk]

2. automated long range logistic network
- automated transport off small amounts of resupply items (repair tools, repair/logistic bots, walls, turret, ammo)
- easy to handle (like requester/provider chest for long range).

That could be indeed planes.

@ssilk I think the rendering of the entity flying across the screen is beyond the scope of this discussion, just the fact that a plane couldn't be seen very well when it cross the screen shouldn't be the reason for not implementing it.

It is not about the rendering, but how it will be looking. And I'm very sure, that it won't look good.

[chris13524]

@ssilk Any method of transport travelling 3,000 kph will not look good when it passes by. Planes should intentionally not be rendered to avoid "not looking good".

[Klonan]

Planes are just like Trains... but with no rails and bigger stations, which will leave trains obsolete. I mean sure you'd still use trains in the mid-game, but as soon as you unlock planes, there would be no reason to keep laying new rail when you can just throw down a runway somewhere and have aeroplanes land with no investment other than in the plane themselves.

[ArceeR]

Planes are just like Trains... but with no rails and bigger stations, which will leave trains obsolete. I mean sure you'd still use trains in the mid-game, but as soon as you unlock planes, there would be no reason to keep laying new rail when you can just throw down a runway somewhere and have aeroplanes land with no investment other than in the plane themselves.

Unless the cost of infrastructure for the planes (runways, fuel, components, etc...) outweighed the cost of a train route covering the same distance. Trains could still be viable within a couple hundred blocks or so, with planes being more viable ouside of that (somewhat arbitrary) range.

[chris13524]

Planes are just like Trains... but with no rails and bigger stations, which will leave trains obsolete. I mean sure you'd still use trains in the mid-game, but as soon as you unlock planes, there would be no reason to keep laying new rail when you can just throw down a runway somewhere and have aeroplanes land with no investment other than in the plane themselves.

Laying train track, signals, and power poles is definitely one of the most daunting tasks. I would like something like the FARL in vanilla to lay tracks. If something like that was introduced, I think it would balance it much more for trains and make them easier to use.

Planes would only be able to bring a few stacks of items. I think that a train car should be able to carry a lot more than they can right now, it doesn't make sense for a player to be able to carry more cargo than two train cars. If the train car space was increased, and planes only carried 4 stacks, I think players would still stick to trains for ore transport.

Planes could also require air traffic control towers every so often to avoid planes crashing into one another, it would add another limit to planes.

[Killtyrant]

Planes are just like Trains... but with no rails and bigger stations, which will leave trains obsolete. I mean sure you'd still use trains in the mid-game, but as soon as you unlock planes, there would be no reason to keep laying new rail when you can just throw down a runway somewhere and have aeroplanes land with no investment other than in the plane themselves.

Hello everyone. first time poster, long time reader here. I saw and read this topic a couple days ago and i was actually interested in posting a possible idea into the mix but i didnt have anything viable to add. However after reading the above quoted statement. It got my creative juices flowing. Im not satisfied i can run trains on just coal alone. I often thought what if instead of 3 slots for burnables, that it would be 3 separate consumables to keep the train moving. Such as lubricant to keep it moving smoothly and things of the like. Maybe completely removing the burning fuel aspect altogether and being able to electrify the tracks. So now to tie this thought into this topic. Higher tiered train. Think of something like a bullet train. You cant add carts onto it and using the aforementioned changes i thought for the vanilla train (ie, lubricant needed and such) will keep current vanilla train relavent in late game and you will gain access to a high speed train that can cover large distances in a shorter time while not breaking the game by giving the player tech that will render all previous tech obsolete. Now i understand you guys were looking for something that doesnt require infrastructure to be in place where you need the items. So im sorry for not contributing to that thought process. However, i think that avenue at the moment is exhuasted. When you are on the green hat idea of strapping your precious advanced circuits to a one use rocket and have it parabolically fly at you. Perhaps something different should be looked at.

Small aside. If there are typos or my idea(s) and statement(s) seems to be fragmented. im currently at work, typing this on a cell phone and ive been writing this over the course of 3 hours. Please just bare those facts in mind. Feedback is appreciated and ill clarify if needed.

[ssilk]

@ssilk Any method of transport travelling 3,000 kph will not look good when it passes by. Planes should intentionally not be rendered to avoid "not looking good".

Hm. O. K. I think you don't see the game from every aspect, like me. I try to explain it differently: If you know about the Fat Controller mod, or other games like OpenTTD for example, you know, that you can change your view "into" an entity. The vehicle is then like the character fixed in the center of your view and the map around you is moving.

Rockets can make that exception, cause once fired nothing can interact with them. Planes should be interacted and therefore they need to be visible. They need to interact with the rest of the world, cause I can remove for example the target airport, while they are in the air. Rockets don't need to interact, cause the surface is a non-removable resource in the game.

For planes driving so fast, this view doesn't make any sense then. For rockets this view isn't needed nor possible, cause you cannot interact with them. Once started, they can work like an event in the future, like "Parachuted cargobox containing Z appears at coordinatex X,Y in tick 8652374837".

Ok, you can now say, "A plain can do that either"? Just disapearing when it is above a certain speed.

But again: I think you can either jump into a plane or at minimum change the game view from your character to the plane (open a new window with the plane in the center). I cannot logically explain, why the view of a plane should suddenly get black and then reappears. The logic of the game forbids behavior like "I can jump into the train, but not into the plain".

But I think most player will accept this with rockets: "O. K. it makes no sense to have a view on a little rocket, that can be used once."

And in the end this behavior disables also cheating: Think to some big lake. Player A goes around this lake and on the other side he builts up a new base, while Player B builds up something up on an island in the center of the lake - just because B researched ships and A not. If A could just send planes to the other side, to supply the other base, he would also be able to explore everything between - I mean it would be a little bit unfair to have such endless flying planes. (The range needs to be limited, the planes can only go from airport to airport.)

Im not satisfied i can run trains on just coal alone. I often thought what if instead of 3 slots for burnables, that it would be 3 separate consumables to keep the train moving.

Like fuel, water and lubricant for steam engines?
I think this is a nice idea, but it sounds complicated to built that. On the other hand it would add the need to have something like an support-center for trains, where you can built trains, automatically bringing them onto rails and refuel them. And they automatically drive to such a center, if one of those is below a certain point.

... something like a bullet train. You cant add carts onto it and using the aforementioned changes i thought for the vanilla train.

Bullet train is too slow, too much afford and not reliable enough:
- Rails needs to be built before you can order stuff.
- As explained above the speed needs to be "game-realistic", cause otherwise it looks ridiculous.
- For trains the maximum speed for curves is already reached (in my eyes already too fast). More speed in curves will look also ridiculous.
- if the train network is jammed nothing will come, it doesn't matter, how fast the train is then.

Especially the last one is for me also a reason, to say, that a new type of transport needs to be lock-free. Which means, it is either non-blocking (like belts, every item on a belt has the same speed), or separate (like logistic bots).

[Lupoviridae]

@ssilk, I'm not certain if my concept of "planes" is unclear, as I don't really understand your qualms, so I will address each individually.

Animation: This seems to be your main objection, and I suppose it is a matter of opinion. Personally I think if you take the logistics robot model, blow up the size 10x, and send it whizzing across the screen it would look fine. If you're far out from your base you won't see 95% of it's flight path anyway.

Replacing trains: If each flight of the "plane" requires direct player input, it cannot be automated by it's very nature, meaning it would be impossible to replace trains.

Cheating: you would need to physically run to the location you want to call the "plane" to, so I'm not sure I understand this at all.

Side notes:
The player would not be able to ride the plane, it would be more like a mobile roboport (that also carries items)

Personally I think the idea of a "plane" (aka a flying roboport) would work perfectly for building outposts outside of the range of your logic network. For personal resupplying I can see rockets being useful, but they don't work for any sort of large transfer.

[Killtyrant]

.

Like fuel, water and lubricant for steam engines?
I think this is a nice idea, but it sounds complicated to built that. On the other hand it would add the need to have something like an support-center for trains, where you can built trains, automatically bringing them onto rails and refuel them. And they automatically drive to such a center, if one of those is below a certain point

Personally I think you shouldnt be able to craft trains in your backpocket to some sort of infrastructure to manufacture and maintain trains is needed.

Bullet train is too slow, too much afford and not reliable enough:
- Rails needs to be built before you can order stuff.
- As explained above the speed needs to be "game-realistic", cause otherwise it looks ridiculous.
- For trains the maximum speed for curves is already reached (in my eyes already too fast). More speed in curves will look also ridiculous.
- if the train network is jammed nothing will come, it doesn't matter, how fast the train is then.

Especially the last one is for me also a reason, to say, that a new type of transport needs to be lock-free. Which means, it is either non-blocking (like belts, every item on a belt has the same speed), or separate (like logistic bots).

I suppose if you are looking for something that can travel at speed in excess of 3000 kph then yes, I suppose something like a bullet train is slow. However, to clarify I was using the bullet train as an example because you cant add carts to it. It comes manufactured together as a whole. And the price tag for such a piece of tech would still keep lower "tiered" engines relevant. Poor track design by the player shouldnt count as a strike against the idea otherwise trains would have never been introduced because of all the poor layouts by newer players.

I understand what you are trying to imply as you stated in your conclusion. You want something that no matter how busy your base is, this tech is either given priority thus everything else ceases to allow it to function properly or somehow doesnt interact with anything else other then the player entity and the potential structure that houses it. Well Ill toss a random idea out there although I know it probably falls out of the scope of being game-realistic but your guy can hold 3000+ of iron plates so maybe it isnt. Pocket portals. When you manufacture this item you get a pair of them and they are linked together by some sort of frequency. There would be a structure that charges the items up (cost of use would be power as well as items needed to make it) when it is fully charged, perhaps there is a special chest you place one of the pocket portals in that is covered by your logistics network so when you are in a pinch, thousands of tiles away, you can request what ever items you need (the chest only has 4-6 slots) and after X amount of time, you activate your pocket portal and grab the items and discharge all of its energy thus making it a single use.
Im sure there are major issues with this idea but im sort of thinking them up on the spot. Ill let you find the flaws and shoot em down

[chris13524]

@ssilk

But again: I think you can either jump into a plane or at minimum change the game view from your character to the plane (open a new window with the plane in the center). I cannot logically explain, why the view of a plane should suddenly get black and then reappears. The logic of the game forbids behavior like "I can jump into the train, but not into the plain".

As said above, I think players should be able to fly planes. So they way things render can be different depending on the speeds (at least they can be made that way). If a player is on the ground, not moving, they when a plane passes over (depending on the speed) it might not be rendered. If a player is riding a plane, they the plane could be rendered, because the delta between the player and the plane is 0. Now if the plane was flying very slow over head and the player on the ground, then the plane should still be rendered.

And in the end this behavior disables also cheating: Think to some big lake. Player A goes around this lake and on the other side he builts up a new base, while Player B builds up something up on an island in the center of the lake - just because B researched ships and A not. If A could just send planes to the other side, to supply the other base, he would also be able to explore everything between - I mean it would be a little bit unfair to have such endless flying planes. (The range needs to be limited, the planes can only go from airport to airport.)

I think that players should be able to fly the plane themselves like a car. If one player can fly over a lake because they made a plane, well so what? That player researched more and spend the materials to build a plane. They still couldn't land unless they had an airport. And if running out of fuel, they crash, and kill the player (if riding), that makes the most sense.

Because planes are flying (at their max speed) 3000 kph, a plane would need some sort of radar screen. There could be many levels of planes, biplane for beginners, then maybe a small plane, then a jet, then a "super-fast" jet. Biplanes would go relatively slow, so therefore, don't need radar. But once you get into very fast planes, the land would be wizzing by so fast, they would need some sort of radar to see where they are going. This would be different from the map because the map doesn't move with the player. It might not be exploring fast enough for the player to see where he is going. Airports would be built out of an air traffic control thing and then a bunch of run way tiles. Different numbers of tiles would be needed for how fast the plane would be incoming. A biplane, 1 stack, a small plane 2, then a jet, 5, then the "super=fast" jet, 4.

I propose that all planes would have variable speeds, just because. But bigger planes would have to have their minimum speeds be higher to support all the weight.

This doesn't replace rockets, rockets have a different purpose. Going from point A->B very fast in emergencies. Where as planes would be similar to trains.

Planes would have a similar mechanic to trains (which I guess might be a bad thing?) You have air ports instead of train stations, and a plane can have a schedule. It would fly around to all the different airports.

To produce a plane (it would be relatively different depending on the plane), you would need a few parts. The wings, then engines, the the rest of the aircraft. Biplanes would need a different type of wing then a jet for example. Air traffic control centers could require 25 processing units, and "super-fast" jets, 50. Biplanes 5. So why not make a "super-fast" jet and then just use that instead of a biplane? Well it's stall point is much lower than a jet so it can be used for inspections of biter bases, etc.

What also might be cool is smaller planes can make tighter turns.

So your question is, "What stops the player from making a bunch of planes to replace trains?" Well as stated in a previous post, vanilla needs a FARL. Planes are much more expensive then a train, they hold much less, use much more fuel (well is that true? Would a train hauling 5 stacks of items across the country (irl) use less fuel then a plane doing it?), and you can only have a few planes on the runway at a time.

Biplanes could be special, not require landing on air strips. They could land on flat ground, free of rocks and trees. Although biplanes have much less air time. And are much slower.

Yes, the animations need some work, but I think that planes and rockets are the way to go!