Train's CTRL-click Temporary Stop behavior

[MisterFister]

Hi there. I use trains very heavily, particularly when expanding to a cityblock system as the starter mainbus base gets dismantled slowly. I use LTN which requires all trainstops to be uniquely named, and I have a lot of trainstops for a lot of different cityblock types or outpost types. I use a very organized naming convention which identifies the station's location, usage (loader or unloader / what cargo type), and I make it a point to create a PAX station at every location.

My system is generally built to be able to accomodate trains of at least 6 or 7 wagon-lengths in total, but all of my automated LTN trains are LCCC. I tend to do all of my own personal traveling throughout the base with a personal builder train of LCCCC (five-wagon-length) and I also use the Vehicle Wagon mod that allows me to carry my car or tank on a special flatbed car that, when I use it, gets tacked on as a caboose at the end of the LCCCC personal train.

Basically, I use the train as an ongoing extension of my character inventory.

I would make more use of the right-click-and-go behavior for Temporary Stop locations, but it bugs me that upon arriving, I have five seconds to either exit the train and intentionally allow it to leave; or I have to remember to reach into the GUI and set it to manual after stopping; or I can remember while en route to modify the departure condition to be to wait for a nonexistent signal condition; or the train leaves with me still onboard because I either took a pee break or I failed to notice we'd arrived because I was working in the mapview of the game while the train was rolling me toward my next destination; or I step out and the train sneaks away from me after leaving money on the nightstand without saying "I love you" and refuses to accept my calls or texts the following weekend like it was a damned Tinder date gone bad.

Is there any possibility that we could see a future version where we have the ability to change the auto-populated departure condition for temp-stop itineraries? I would be willing to set it on a per savefile basis, or on a per locomotive basis, or even have it be gated behind a research unlock or a special piece of equipment in similar fashion as the Vehicle Wagon mod's winch / artillery pointer? If the answer is no, then I won't whine, but I really suspect that I'm not the only one who gets frustrated by that vanilla default behavior. Thanks.

[Baruk]

Hi,

I am really frustrated as well about the condition regarding temporary train stops too.

As far as I see this, temporary train stops are always handmade and not for automated schedules.
So why back to normal just after arriving. Doesn't make sense to me. I try to add a circuit condition and delete the 5 secs wait condition.
I call or ride a train on purpose and seldom I hijack a regular train, but even regular trains are called on purpose and I want controll over it.

I would also appreciate some kind of setting up a standard condition.

Hope we get an ear to the devs.

Cheers

[Grenadith]

I would love to see this as well- just an option to set the default "Temporary Stop Wait Condition" to something like "wait 5 seconds AND passenger present". Temp stops are already easier than it used to be, but I would still love to see it more refined now that we have it.

[wobbycarly]

+1 Even just having the train switch to manual when arriving at a temp stop would simplify things, IMO.

[mmmPI]

When i don't want the train to leave to the next destination after a temporary stop, i don't give it a next destination

Before my taxi train used to have several PAX station scheduled in memory, so it was fast to select them as destination. But the train sneaking away a few times after temporary stop because of those station made me quit the previous system, now taxi train has nothing in schedule and i only use temporary stop, in the middle of nowhere or in the main PAX station, it's always a temporary stop, untill i manually tell it to go elsewhere.

That's how i organised to avoid the thing happening to me again because yes, it's frustrating

[Squelch]

or I step out and the train sneaks away from me after leaving money on the nightstand without saying "I love you" and refuses to accept my calls or texts the following weekend like it was a damned Tinder date gone bad.

Lucy?

Seriously, the addition of temporary stops is welcome, but the default wait condition is a pain for all of the reasons you list. A player settable default would be an excellent improvement.

[Freddie Chopin]

Same here. In 100% of possible cases I have to either delete this wait condition or change it to something else or just switch the train to manual when I arrive. Never ever did I found the default to be appropriate.

[Olacken]

Yes but it's still better than nothing and in most case at least for me good enough( meaning than I can change it easly if it's not what I wan't)

And it won't break anything if I forget that I pulled a train 20 min ago in a far oupost that just hapen to be able to block one of my iron outpost and create a big jam that halt my production for 1h (Note that being able to change the default setting wouldn't help unless you change it to passenger not present but it unpractical in most case)

And all other setting would either be able to produce a jam or result in the train quitting instantly upon arriving (well apart from inactivity but that doesn't really make a diference)

[Freddie Chopin]

Yes but it's still better than nothing and in most case at least for me good enough( meaning than I can change it easly if it's not what I wan't)

How is it better than nothing? With "nothing" instead of changing current condition I could simply just add one - less clicking, less time.

[Olacken]

In the case where you go 2 m forward it would go forward and instantly remove the waypoint also i'm almost certain it was the default behavior before and people complaind about it so it was changed

[Freddie Chopin]

If I would like to go 2 meters forward I would just press "W" and then "S" (;

[Olacken]

I don't wan't to go 2 meter forward I wan't the train to do it I may not be near it

[steinio]

If I use a train previous in manual I would like to see it stop in manuel again and not counting down to depart.

[Olacken]

If I use a train previous in manual I would like to see it stop in manuel again and not counting down to depart.

That's a good sugestion
And could probably be made as it's own thread since it's not exactly the same idea?

[urza99814]

Same here. In 100% of possible cases I have to either delete this wait condition or change it to something else or just switch the train to manual when I arrive. Never ever did I found the default to be appropriate.

I use the default frequently. It's the Factorio version of a paradrop IMO. You drop in, the train runs off to safety, and you take care of business. When you're done, you either recall it from your base or just grab whatever train is passing by to get you back.

I haven't gone around building personal transport stations since they added that feature, but that also means that EVERY time I use the personal transit train it ends up blocking active tracks. So I have a garage station at base, and that's the only stop my personal train has. That does mean that if I'm not paying attention I end up back home... But the alternate is I block the rails and bring my entire base to a halt, so returning home is generally the safer option if I've gone AFK. My most common use case is fixing rails between my artillery outposts, so I'll rush out on my train, let it go away so it doesn't end up in the middle of combat, and once the rails are fixed I hop on the next outpost train which takes me back to base. Or I'll let it drop me off, spend some time building a mine, and when the mine is done it'll call a mining train that I can ride back on.

If I need it to stick around longer I can throw it in manual, but usually I don't, usually I'm only using that train one way. And I finally always know where my freakin train is...

[MisterFister]

When i don't want the train to leave to the next destination after a temporary stop, i don't give it a next destination

Before my taxi train used to have several PAX station scheduled in memory, so it was fast to select them as destination. But the train sneaking away a few times after temporary stop because of those station made me quit the previous system, now taxi train has nothing in schedule and i only use temporary stop, in the middle of nowhere or in the main PAX station, it's always a temporary stop, untill i manually tell it to go elsewhere.

That's how i organised to avoid the thing happening to me again because yes, it's frustrating

I respect that you replied here with constructive feedback that added to the discussion, and I thank you for NOT making your reply into a snarky one by simply telling me that my usage-scenario is off, or other similarly unhelpful replies that this discussion might have generated the previous times I brought it up in discord / on the subreddit / elsewhere. Thus, I ask that you recognize similarly that my add-on here is not intended to come across as defensive or unhelpful on my own part;

But you might not realize that you hit the nail about as squarely on the head as I could've hoped. Your solution is to frustrate the automation-of-departure by intentionally undoing the automation-of-arrival. I refer you to my OP at the top of this thread -- I have numerous hundreds of uniquely-named individual trainstop locations, all across numerous dozens of individual cityblocks / outposts / areas of interest on my map, whereupon I make it a specific point to design an individually named PAX stop at every location alongside other LTN-enabled loaders and unloaders. (Incidentally, I am in the process of tinkering with a much-larger cityblock design that in all likelihood would end up making it much more beneficial to have 2 or even 3 PAX locations within any given individual cityblock (i.e., "Iron Smelt 4 PAX A", "Heavy to Lube PAX B," etc.)

That means that, first of all, there is almost no difference in ease-of-use between either: A) Manually scrolling within the train-GUI mapview to manually select a new Temp Stop location across a very widely sprawled and developed map, particularly a map intentionally designed around modular cityblock designs where some locations might be initially indistinguishable or identical-seeming from mapview; or B) Scrolling through a very long and well-organized list of PAX stops on a per-trip basis, deleting every station departed. I ask you, respectfully, can you not see how that's a pain in the tuchus? First of all, I often need to periodically re-visit any given location, be that because I needed to resupply / drop off at my mall, or because I was called away by a pressing concern (biters, LTN deliveries timing out due to a single missing tile of rail or a single reversed underneathy, etc.) and once that pressing concern is resolved, I need to be able to go back to what I was doing. Isn't it an almost-meme how with this game it's so easy to forget what you'd been so worried about twenty minutes ago? Why am I being asked (by the game's default behavior, not being asked "of you" with your reply) to forcibly disallow myself from the ability to keep track of where I was by the list of stops in my train itinerary? For that matter, maybe my task is to update the constant-combinator settings of all of a certain sub-type of requester station (particularly when the changes need to be made at cityblock locations that are belt-based and not bot-enabled). Why should I be asked, in a game that is literally about efficiency, to forego the option of pre-determining an entire route of stops, in a certain useful sequence, just because I'm unable to easily control my train's default-behavior?

Your decision, which you have the right to make, has been to forego those conveniences entirely. If your base has a lower actual physical quantity of locations you want to be able to keep track of, that's fine. But...?

Same here. In 100% of possible cases I have to either delete this wait condition or change it to something else or just switch the train to manual when I arrive. Never ever did I found the default to be appropriate.

Oh dear christ, THIS! ^^

Yes but it's still better than nothing and in most case at least for me good enough( meaning than I can change it easly if it's not what I wan't)

And it won't break anything if I forget that I pulled a train 20 min ago in a far oupost that just hapen to be able to block one of my iron outpost and create a big jam that halt my production for 1h (Note that being able to change the default setting wouldn't help unless you change it to passenger not present but it unpractical in most case)

And all other setting would either be able to produce a jam or result in the train quitting instantly upon arriving (well apart from inactivity but that doesn't really make a diference)

I honestly think you might be misconstruing my suggestion. I recognize that just "stop here on the mainline" temp stops is something that, if done frequently enough, will absolutely lead to traffic issues and logjams. Hence.... (read my OP) that's why I have numerous dozens of individually named PAX stops, thereby eliminating any need for me to necessarily want to have a locomotive wait for me while fouling a mainline track segment. No, I want to be able to set a default behavior once (again, maybe once per savefile, or once per locomotive used, I don't care which) so that I can specify a PAX location as my destination, without the additional four or five clicks to then ensure that the train waits for my go-ahead to proceed anywhere else whensoever I might ask the train to proceed elsewhere without me, or to proceed elsewhere with myself aboard.

I'm asking for the ability to set-destination-to-PAX-station with a single click, and the train ALWAYS behaves at each stop the way I want to set its default behavior. Which is 99.3% of the time to "sit here, shut up, and wait for me to hop in the train and manually decide when to depart, so that I can spend a brief time at the location, a long time at the location, a brief time working in my inventory and mapview while seated in a stationary train, or a long time working in my inventory and mapview while seated in a train that is rolling to my next destination and would then wait patiently for me to realize that I've arrived instead of punishing me by departing the location before I realized we'd arrived."

Same here. In 100% of possible cases I have to either delete this wait condition or change it to something else or just switch the train to manual when I arrive. Never ever did I found the default to be appropriate.

I use the default frequently. It's the Factorio version of a paradrop IMO. You drop in, the train runs off to safety, and you take care of business. When you're done, you either recall it from your base or just grab whatever train is passing by to get you back.

I haven't gone around building personal transport stations since they added that feature, but that also means that EVERY time I use the personal transit train it ends up blocking active tracks. So I have a garage station at base, and that's the only stop my personal train has. That does mean that if I'm not paying attention I end up back home... But the alternate is I block the rails and bring my entire base to a halt, so returning home is generally the safer option if I've gone AFK. My most common use case is fixing rails between my artillery outposts, so I'll rush out on my train, let it go away so it doesn't end up in the middle of combat, and once the rails are fixed I hop on the next outpost train which takes me back to base. Or I'll let it drop me off, spend some time building a mine, and when the mine is done it'll call a mining train that I can ride back on.

If I need it to stick around longer I can throw it in manual, but usually I don't, usually I'm only using that train one way. And I finally always know where my freakin train is...

Ok. So you patently refuse, for your own purposes, to design your provider and requester stations (even if you don't use LTN) with PAX stations available.

You can do that. But if you design a single siding of track, with a single trainstop for PAX, then your train would have a place to sit without fouling the mainline. That is not a modification of default-behavior for the trains, that's a modification of your station design habits. Even if you did modify your stations to include PAX stops, this default-behavior of the train to leave-without-you-unless-you-specifically-engage-in-lots-of-manual-clicking inside the train gui, FOR EVERY LOCATION YOU VISIT, EVERY TIME YOU VISIT ANY LOCATION, you'd still be left wondering why the default-behavior of the trains is the way it is.

[mmmPI]

Your decision, which you have the right to make, has been to forego those conveniences entirely. If your base has a lower actual physical quantity of locations you want to be able to keep track of, that's fine. But...?

I apologize for not responding earlier, i don't remember why, thanks to ssilk linking to this thread from this one :viewtopic.php?f=6&t=104363&start=20 which is is related , it made me realize/remember.

Time has passed since then and my playing habits have changed a little, i should have answered that i am using the research bar in the train GUI to find a PAX station which is only a partial fix, because that doesn't account for the time i ask a train to temporarily stop somewhere ( not at PAX station), and other cases developped in the other thread that may explain why that since my previous comment on this thread made my position is not so categoric.

For the precise case of PAX station in city blocks, this is where i found too that scrolling in the list of the schedule is annoying ( due to many many stations 100% agree) and i tend to use the research in such case as they would have unique name ( but more often time now i'm using the train limit settings and have many stations name the same).

It is possible to make the PAX station include a train signal turned red by the presence of an item in a chest near the train stop, which would make the passenger train wait at every PAX selected as temporary stop with the current default behavior unless the player pick up and put back an item in a chest, but really most of the time i don't have those PAX station and the train is called to stop in the middle of nowhere, because i developped the habit of using tempory stops for material supply train.

It is also possible to have a fire and forget behavior if you change the condition of the train after you clicked for a temporary stop to something that doesn't trigger, which is something i HAVE to do when i use the research thing to add temporary stop, or click a random rail in the map for it, otherwise my train loop back, because in case of supply trains, they have a "base station" where they load their material, and the default 5sec waiting behavior is making me miss the moment when the train waits for me to pick up material often time.

In the case of "forgetting what i was doing 20 min ago before that biter attack"/ personnal train, it would be, from the idea of a blank schedule, adding temporary stops, with never met conditions, which can be done on rails or train stop, and one could move the new temporary stop in between others, to have a "temporary schedule" similar to a list of "mostly/recently" used stations. This is often how my practice end up being.

The suggestion to be able to configure the default behavior of ctrl click on a per locomotive would/could answer many of those points. I was only explaining "what i do", which may help others because it solve their problem or give ideas,sometimes it helps me too because someone explain to me i was doing it wrong, i haven't changed my mind about the current state being a bit frustrating, i have changed how i organised my playstyle to adapt the current state, the research is a powerful feature,to avoid scrolling a long list of stations in case you have unique name so i'm still using the empty schedule + modification of default condition thing quite often, even for supply train. ( as it also work for temporary stop not at a station ).

I was made to realize in the other thread that my way of modifying the default condition when doing this was unecessarily using too many clicks but even with that newly acquired knowledge the ability to configure the default behavior on a "per locomotive" basis for temporary stops would be the best option for me, as this way only my PAX or dedicated supply train would be set up this way, which would still allow me to hop on any train as my taxi train using temporary stop detour, and/or more generally keep the current forgiving behavior of the system that return to normal if you forget instead of blocking as default.

[FuryoftheStars]

Hmm, yeah, if this was on a per train basis, that would be useful and good. I'm not sure how useful a per save basis would be and as such have no opinion either way. I wouldn't want the current global default behavior changed, though.

[xBolivarx]

+1 Even just having the train switch to manual when arriving at a temp stop would simplify things, IMO.

Adding onto this for trains with players it might be possible to simply have WUBE add a dummy condition that you have to remove by hand while trains that do not contain a player have the default condition "wait 5s". This way we can manually rerout our trains like we are used to while also enabeling us to have a "default / restock" station on our personal trains scedule - I belive somebody called it a Taxi in this threat.
It would be the same as switching it to manual but might be easyer to implement / understand for people not knowing the (change) of this feature.

In any case I would love for something in the general direction mentioned in this thread to be implemented.

Edit: There seems to be a mod doing exactly what wobbycarly suggested: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/TemporaryStations_X_c

[sarge945]

Here's what I would to to improve trains:

- If a train is switched to manual, it can still set temp stations with CTRL-Click. It will temporarily switch to auto, go to the station, then switch back to manual.
- If a train is given a temp stop when in Auto mode, the default is changed from 5 seconds to 30 seconds, to give the player some time to respond.
- When setting a new temp stop, the old one is removed rather than adding a new one afterwards.

I feel like this would be much simpler and easier to use.