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Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 7:32 pm
by ludsoe
They suprize me with how smart the logic behind them can be.

After i was complaining about how my train stations kept jamming and such. My friend asked why my trains were so short (A engine and 2 cars)
I told him it was because trains got slower the heavier you made them, he went on and said why not add more engines? And Then I sat and thought about it.
After some science i made the long train! This baby is unstoppable and can pull a metric carp ton of cars no problem. I accidentally plowed through one of my short trains with this.
LongTrain
After the success with the long train I then tried out a PushMePullMe Style train. And again with success! It even paths properly! Amazing.
Pushmepullme
The developer's of this game are awesome.

So guys what crazy trains have you made?

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 8:58 pm
by ray4ever
Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:04 pm
by AlexPhoenix
ray4ever wrote:Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?
yes

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2014 9:48 pm
by rk84
This was pretty crazy. Its all one train.
Image

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 6:21 am
by slpwnd
ray4ever wrote:Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?
This didn't come for free and we had to spend quite some time to make this work. Maybe we should "advertise it better" in a way of tips and tricks or something.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 6:41 am
by SilverWarior
And I thought my 360 cargo vagon train with just one locomotive was awsome :lol:
BTW don't try so many cargo-vagons and one locomotive unles you are preapared to wait for eternety for it to go from one station to another. Ttook about a minute before it even started to visually move :lol: :D :lol:

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 8:19 am
by ludsoe
slpwnd wrote:
ray4ever wrote:Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?
This didn't come for free and we had to spend quite some time to make this work. Maybe we should "advertise it better" in a way of tips and tricks or something.
Please use it in the new trailer somehow. That type of train should be common knowledge because of how useful it is. My next game will use trains like this.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:40 am
by Zourin
Shuttle trains (push&pull) are pretty useful early on, although maintaining their fuel does take a little extra work. Usually good for moving ores back and forth. Overlapping them on common rails, however, can be problematic if not carefully planned.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 9:59 am
by slay_mithos
Push&Pull trains are really nice for when you only have one train and usually short distances.

When you start mixing it with signals, multiple destinations with the same name, loops and other trains, it starts giving the 'no path' quite often.

Well, I'm not really one to talk, as I tend to mostly use trains for long distance transportations, or simple ore transportation, but I found this type of train to mostly be useful when your network is clean and simple.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:06 am
by slpwnd
ludsoe wrote:
Please use it in the new trailer somehow. That type of train should be common knowledge because of how useful it is. My next game will use trains like this.
Hmm there are two main train scenes in the new trailer. I suppose one could use the push-pull design.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 10:07 am
by ray4ever
slpwnd wrote:
ray4ever wrote:Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?
This didn't come for free and we had to spend quite some time to make this work. Maybe we should "advertise it better" in a way of tips and tricks or something.
Yeah, some more tips and tricks for such things would be really helpful!

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 11:36 am
by jeroon
Whaddayamean trains are bad?! How can trains be bad??

a few things on ridiculously long trains:

- put auto-save on one minute, i've had a crash while trying to create a long train, and you will destroy some locs/wagons in the process :D
- running while placing locs on the rail places loc on top of the previous loc. Trying to drive the train destroyes half the locs, or might crash the game (happened once, can't reproduce..)
- in a same way, placing wagons this way will place every wagon on top of the back of the previous wagon, destroying the first one when you drive away, leaving the rest behind
- while driving a long train yourself: acceleration power is insane, breaking however, is just as bad as while driving just a single loc. You will crash. :mrgreen:

No more single tracks! This train was once one, before the front of the train plowed through the middle :P

Image

since my game is bugged till .9.3 i will test some more :D

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 1:49 pm
by ssilk
slpwnd wrote:
ray4ever wrote:Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?
This didn't come for free and we had to spend quite some time to make this work. Maybe we should "advertise it better" in a way of tips and tricks or something.
I point back to the idea of "training levels". https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=2507

And to make my vague tellings more clear: Make maps about one theme (in this case railway), with some kind of free-play and some kind of tasks/lessons/stations.

Solving it helps to understand the abilities. And the free-play helps to create new ideas.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 4:08 pm
by jeroon
rk84 wrote:This was pretty crazy. Its all one train.
how do you get these stats?

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 4:24 pm
by ludsoe
ssilk wrote:
slpwnd wrote:
ray4ever wrote:Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?
This didn't come for free and we had to spend quite some time to make this work. Maybe we should "advertise it better" in a way of tips and tricks or something.
I point back to the idea of "training levels". https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... f=6&t=2507

And to make my vague tellings more clear: Make maps about one theme (in this case railway), with some kind of free-play and some kind of tasks/lessons/stations.

Solving it helps to understand the abilities. And the free-play helps to create new ideas.
"So and so factory needs a constant supply of resources! Design a station so the cargo trains can deliver the required goods!" And your given a medium plot of land to design a station for the incoming trains to pick up goods that are shipped to you from a off screen factory.(Just spawned and moved into the map via belts or bots.)
Or maybe a mission where you have to connect two factory's with a train system that you have to build entirely. Just some train based "training level" ideas. Also I might drop by your thread and dump some mission ideas off.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 4:30 pm
by jeroon
jeroon wrote: - running while placing locs on the rail places loc on top of the previous loc. Trying to drive the train destroyes half the locs, or might crash the game (happened once, can't reproduce..)
I found a nice way around this: have two parallel tracks with a loop at the end, with the front of the train on one track, while the back still goes the other way. While driving (slowly), you can place the wagons to the back of the train by just keeping the mouse button pressed, and the wagons will just be added.

Image

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 1:01 am
by immibis
slpwnd wrote:
ray4ever wrote:Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?
This didn't come for free and we had to spend quite some time to make this work. Maybe we should "advertise it better" in a way of tips and tricks or something.
I vote to leave it for people to discover. It's more fun to accidentally (or deliberately) find something like this than to learn about it at the start.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Thu Mar 13, 2014 1:37 am
by ludsoe
immibis wrote:
slpwnd wrote:
ray4ever wrote:Wow, great! So the PushMePull train is actually reversing its direction after a train stop so you don't need track loops to turn the train around?
This didn't come for free and we had to spend quite some time to make this work. Maybe we should "advertise it better" in a way of tips and tricks or something.
I vote to leave it for people to discover. It's more fun to accidentally (or deliberately) find something like this than to learn about it at the start.
We just need a tip to let players know you can have multiple engines per train, they can do the rest.

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2014 7:39 pm
by jeroon
rk84 wrote:This was pretty crazy. Its all one train.
I take your 600 and raise it with 1000 :P

This train (save file added at the end of the post) has about 80 locs and 1600 wagons (the numbers are a rough guess, don't know how to get the numbers on the screen like you had). Started out with 8 parallel tracks, but that wasn't nearly enough, so i just re-used my existing track to get some more wagons in :mrgreen:

Half the wagons are loaded with coal, because i had a loading platform for the locs, but every time the train stopped unexpectedly, wagons were filled instead ;)

Top speed is 0.22 , top fps is 14 fps :D

The start:

Image

Completed, the train just started driving from the furthest point back to the loading station:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/whh31r7xy850y ... 0wagon.zip

Re: Just when I thought trains were Bad.....

Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2014 7:01 pm
by Malacodor
I don't see a good reason why locomotives can't drive backwards in automatic mode, and I don't see a good reason why they have to be slower when driving backwards.