It's my impression that currently, there's very little physics involved in how Trains are handled. All locomotives have the same pulling power, and all wagons weigh the same.
Even if there are no plans to add aditional wagon types to the vanilla game, beyond the one wagon type that exists (the cargo wagon), modders might very well want to add more wagons (I already know of the Tanker Wagon, for moving fluids), and so Locomotives should be rated for pulling power, and Wagons for weight, and arithmetic (or, if necessary, mathematics) used to calculate how quickly a given Locomotive can pull a combination of Wagon weights, and how much energy it costs.
Even better, Wagons containing cargo (such as Wagons containing items, or a Tanker Wagon containing a fluid) should have more or less weight based on how full they are. Exact calculations would probably be CPU-heavy, so a simplified solution of empty_weight for under 25% full (# of slots, or in a Tanker under 25% of capacity), light_weight for between 25% and 50% full, med_weight for between 50% and 75% full, and heavy_weight for over 75% full.
It'd also be good to see support for half-length Wagons, since some modders might want to add Gun-Carriage Wagons, and those should probably be smaller than the existing Wagons. Just adding a half-size option is enough, I don't think 3/4 size is necessary, and 1 1/2 size might create funky glithces.
Add physics to Trains, and support for more Wagon options
Moderator: ickputzdirwech
Re: Add physics to Trains, and support for more Wagon options
What about a smaller, weaker, slightly slower shunter locomotive, which would be accessible maybe a little earlier, so that one could start to build a railroad a little bit sooner. It should become significantly slower if pulling more than two wagons.
A Köf-lookalike would also fit well into the theme of a factory.
The stronger, faster locomotive could then be more expensive and require additional research.
A third locomotive model, a fireless steam locomotive could also become useful. They are steam locomotives without an internal boiler, they are periodically refilled with hot steam from an external source. In real life, they are useful in highly explosive environments, like inside of oil refineries or factories handling explosive products, where the sparks from other locomotive types could become dangerous.
In Factorio, such a locomotive should be refilled from a hot water source (boilers), and would produce no pollution at all (the pollution should be produced only at the boiler). This could be useful when driving across a territory which needs to be pollution-free, and could be even more useful if future development or mods would introduce buildings whose production would be significantly harmed by pollution.
A Köf-lookalike would also fit well into the theme of a factory.
The stronger, faster locomotive could then be more expensive and require additional research.
A third locomotive model, a fireless steam locomotive could also become useful. They are steam locomotives without an internal boiler, they are periodically refilled with hot steam from an external source. In real life, they are useful in highly explosive environments, like inside of oil refineries or factories handling explosive products, where the sparks from other locomotive types could become dangerous.
In Factorio, such a locomotive should be refilled from a hot water source (boilers), and would produce no pollution at all (the pollution should be produced only at the boiler). This could be useful when driving across a territory which needs to be pollution-free, and could be even more useful if future development or mods would introduce buildings whose production would be significantly harmed by pollution.