Factorio Forums

Building train bridge by manufacturing and putting different (stone/iron/steel) parts together to span any size body of water

I like this one. Trains could use more flexibility and this sounds fitting.

In addition to a train bridge what about trains being to go underground for a limited distance the same way pipes do.

Yes and no.

Yes, because train is big and sometimes things are in the way which can't be simply mined. Yes, because as OpenTTD shows, there are tricks in train routing, which enable more traffic, but need underground. No, because different to pipes and underground belt I cannot imagine how that could be looking. To look more or less realistic, it should need 4-8 tiles for the entry into underground and this long distance shrinks the usage very hard.

Well, looking back at transport tycoon, adding a bridge would add something to the game since factorio also has water. The addition of an underground rail on the other hand doesn't make sense. In transport tycoon you had mountains for which the tunnels where used, but since whe don't have any hight differances in the game, the addition of a tunnel would't add anything.

I agree, tunnels don't serve the same purpose as in OTTD, unless you planning a huge railnetwork which you won't need in 95% of the playthroughs. Bridges on the other hand, would fit very good. I always remember those pesky little "swamps" that i have to build around becuase of a few 2-6 tile wide mini lakes. Bridges would solve that easily and could help making railtraportation more viable.

On the other hand, bridges obscure view. If only allowed to be built over water this is irrelevant. If not, it becomes a problem. A use for underground tunnels may be a path into a fortified area that does not require a break in walls. And yes, it is quite fitting that both bridge and tunnel start/end points be rather large.

Actually, in OpenTTD, there is a patch that allows building underwater tunnels - in the end, it makes sense.



We might also have a neat transparent tube effect for it, so you could visually see the trains passing underwater. From code side of things, it would basically be a simple track build on water with a partially transparent alpha layer for stuff that's on it.

Might be a bit of an issue if you plan on having boats and ships, but... What do I know.

I don't think underwater, or underground would work for trains in this game as it currently is... over water bridges, as the original post says, would be a very good idea.

Drury wrote:Might be a bit of an issue if you plan on having boats and ships, but... What do I know.

It would be fascinating if we can use ships and ports to transport items someday

I'm all on board for this one! I actually had thought about this recently from the idea that the ONLY bridges you could make were train bridges. Not necessarily... logical, but I don't know for some reason it seems like have some degree of limitation on bridges is a good idea.

bobingabout wrote:I don't think underwater, or underground would work for trains in this game as it currently is... over water bridges, as the original post says, would be a very good idea.

I think a length limitation would be fair though. I can already see the lakes becoming the next train highways. Why build overland when you can use the useless lakes?

The problem I see here is that water is right now the only kind of impassable terrain, and i guess some of the functionality of lakes is exactly that: It's in the way, and you can't go over it, only around. Also, i don't want to use the water as train highways as someone else said; i think it's fine that you have to build around bodies of water and they hinder your expansion a bit.

Also, I don't know about boats. The nice thing with trains is: it's pretty calculable. A train needs a exact time from A to B, while that is difficult to realize with ships and ship routes. You could set up an exact route for your ferries, but I don't know if that works so well or even is much fun. If you've played Railroad Tycoon (or Transport Tycoon) you may know what I mean. Ships didn't work very well in that game, trains are more reliable. And after all, Factorio is kind of an exact mathematical calculation without that many random numbers (biters, maybe), and i don't think ships are easy to integrate into that.

I am not totally against some form of bridges though, if done correctly.