Include Train Fuel Info into Train Stops

[spacedestructor]

TL;DR
Train Fuel as Train Stop Condition and Logic Network Value to setup Conditions for the Train based on its Fuel Level.

What ?
im Suggesting to Include in the Train Stop Conditions and the Information a Logic Network can read out from a Train Stop so Players can tell there Train to get a refuel if its running out or to tell there Train to not leave the Train Stop in the Schedule with less then a set a mount of Fuel.

Why ?
Because im getting very frustrated at the Idea of having a Belt or Logistic Bots move the Fuel to one of the Train Stop and cheat the refuel by telling it to wait for Cargo Condition and inactivity which would mean the Train cant Load more Cargo and can not refuel any more. Instead i want the Option to tell my Train how much fuel it has to keep in the Fuel Inventory before running the Schedule so i dont have to use a workaround that just happens to give the same result and being able to set this would also mean i get to set how much exactly instead of using idle time and hope after x Seconds it has to have enough loaded otherwise i gotta run after all my Trains and refuel them manually if they get stranded.

[ssilk]

Why don’t you just request enough fuel? IMHO I made this error only once.

[spacedestructor]

because I dont have Bots yet and therefore not a Logistic chest i could use to request fuel. The way i do it at the moment is putting long belt systems everywhere to fill chests with fuel and have the train wait at one of the loading Stops for the cargo and idle time condition to be correct so i can make sure the train doesnt drive off after one of the two is done. This Feels wrong to me tho no matter if i use belts or Bots because the Trains where Supposed to move everything around so i can avoid having to use Belts or Bots for long Distance Transport and also because technically im not telling the train to refuel. I have in my save a fuel Train Stop set up that was supposed to be used by the train whenever its low on Fuel but because i cant set a condition for the amount of Fuel the Train would have to go every cycle of the Schedule there and fill up completely to prevent the Train getting Stranded and in the process block other Trains that would need to do the same for the Same reason. That would be so inefficient that after 2 or 3 Trains i would need a new Stop while with a Fuel Management i would probably be able to fit 10 Trains in to using 1 Stop just when they need it. Sure there is ways to do it without having the option but having the fine control over the timing when and the amounts they load would help a lot at managing the Train Network.

[coppercoil]

Why don’t you just request enough fuel? IMHO I made this error only once.

Because fueling everywhere does not look nice . I'd like to have single fuel-dedicated station.

[spacedestructor]

Why don’t you just request enough fuel? IMHO I made this error only once.

Because fueling everywhere does not look nice . I'd like to have single fuel-dedicated station.

Thats exactly the same Setup im going for, i got one Production line for Fuel thats efficient enough to Support all Trains and convenient placed so i want to be able to tell the trains to go there if they are low on fuel instead of filling up full every time they load cargo just in case.

[mrvn]

Why don’t you just request enough fuel? IMHO I made this error only once.

Because fueling everywhere does not look nice . I'd like to have single fuel-dedicated station.

Can't really have that until we have dynamic schedules. No way to send a train to refuel when low even if you could read the fuel level.

[mrvn]

The suggestion is (at the moment) pointless.

Assume you could read the fuel level and you see the train is low on fuel. Now what? There is no way to send it to the refuel station. And no way to skip the fuel station if a train has enough fuel. For this to be of any use first one of the many dynamic schedules for trains ideas need to be implemented. Currently trains need to always go to the fuel stop making the idea of having just one impossible.

Next the fuel condition for the schedule: While it could be used to have trains wait at a fuel stop till they have a certain amount of fuel that is only useful in a corner case when you do not have enough fuel to fill all trains. With for example nuclear fuel it makes sense to only load 1 nuclear fuel per train since it lasts so long. But as your fuel supply builds up having 3 nuclear fuel in each train becomes a non issue. Overall it's not that much of a resource.

You can set the conditions for the fuel stop to wait for fuel to be in the buffer chest and 5s inactivity. That way trains will always wait till they are fully fueled. It doesn't allow for partially fueling trains but is probably good enough.

And since you can't just have one fuel stop it makes more sense to fuel the trains in one of their regular stops. One which will have the train load or unload items for some time each stop, so you can skip the inactivity condition. And unless you are worried about running out of fuel skip the fuel present check too. Just load fuel whenever a train comes to load/unload. I always fuel trains at the smelter, that takes care of all ore and plate trains. If you build gears and green circuits at the smelter you can fuel those trains there too. That's probably the majority of your trains already dealt with. Maybe for the rest you can make refuel stops.

PS: There are mods to send trains to refuel when low on fuel and I think the train inventory sensor can read fuel.

[spacedestructor]

The suggestion is (at the moment) pointless.

Assume you could read the fuel level and you see the train is low on fuel. Now what? There is no way to send it to the refuel station. And no way to skip the fuel station if a train has enough fuel. For this to be of any use first one of the many dynamic schedules for trains ideas need to be implemented. Currently trains need to always go to the fuel stop making the idea of having just one impossible.

Next the fuel condition for the schedule: While it could be used to have trains wait at a fuel stop till they have a certain amount of fuel that is only useful in a corner case when you do not have enough fuel to fill all trains. With for example nuclear fuel it makes sense to only load 1 nuclear fuel per train since it lasts so long. But as your fuel supply builds up having 3 nuclear fuel in each train becomes a non issue. Overall it's not that much of a resource.

You can set the conditions for the fuel stop to wait for fuel to be in the buffer chest and 5s inactivity. That way trains will always wait till they are fully fueled. It doesn't allow for partially fueling trains but is probably good enough.

And since you can't just have one fuel stop it makes more sense to fuel the trains in one of their regular stops. One which will have the train load or unload items for some time each stop, so you can skip the inactivity condition. And unless you are worried about running out of fuel skip the fuel present check too. Just load fuel whenever a train comes to load/unload. I always fuel trains at the smelter, that takes care of all ore and plate trains. If you build gears and green circuits at the smelter you can fuel those trains there too. That's probably the majority of your trains already dealt with. Maybe for the rest you can make refuel stops.

PS: There are mods to send trains to refuel when low on fuel and I think the train inventory sensor can read fuel.

Its not pointless because if you could use the amount of Fuel you could say if its below Number x then refuel, similar like you could set up item count in the Schedule. that way whenever its at a specific stop in the Schedule you could tell it to make sure it has always enough to make it to the whole Schedule and back to that stop.
Dynamic Schedules would make it more Efficient as then it would not Drive through the Train Stop if its not necessary, thats true but it would still be a lot more Efficient having it go there always and just dont stop if its enough then having to set an idle timer wich forces to load up full even if the train is not going to use it all and you could use some of that fuel somewhere else that needs it.
Since you can use a Train Stop in Groups by giving them the same name i can whenever i need to fuel more then 1 at a time just extend the row of fuel stops by another one. I dont use nuclear fuel but solid fuel as i said instead which is parcial because i prefer using infinite resources like oil first then finite ones like ores and i also dont have the research done yet to make nuclear fuel nor any infrastructure but already need to use trains if i dont want extrem long belts across the map.
Might only be with certain play styles a big problem and if you play with Mods that change how much resources you can afford to spend but if you care any amounts of how efficient your using your Trains it would be good to have the option and at least when i use Trains in Factorio it gives me a headache dealing with fuel that would be solved by that addition, it would probably take a while until its implemented anyways so im fine if it comes together with Dynamic Schedules.
Please do send me a Link to the Mod you Mentioned that allows me to do that. I wasnt aware that there is a Mod thats able to do something like that.

[mrvn]

The suggestion is (at the moment) pointless.

Assume you could read the fuel level and you see the train is low on fuel. Now what? There is no way to send it to the refuel station. And no way to skip the fuel station if a train has enough fuel. For this to be of any use first one of the many dynamic schedules for trains ideas need to be implemented. Currently trains need to always go to the fuel stop making the idea of having just one impossible.

Next the fuel condition for the schedule: While it could be used to have trains wait at a fuel stop till they have a certain amount of fuel that is only useful in a corner case when you do not have enough fuel to fill all trains. With for example nuclear fuel it makes sense to only load 1 nuclear fuel per train since it lasts so long. But as your fuel supply builds up having 3 nuclear fuel in each train becomes a non issue. Overall it's not that much of a resource.

You can set the conditions for the fuel stop to wait for fuel to be in the buffer chest and 5s inactivity. That way trains will always wait till they are fully fueled. It doesn't allow for partially fueling trains but is probably good enough.

And since you can't just have one fuel stop it makes more sense to fuel the trains in one of their regular stops. One which will have the train load or unload items for some time each stop, so you can skip the inactivity condition. And unless you are worried about running out of fuel skip the fuel present check too. Just load fuel whenever a train comes to load/unload. I always fuel trains at the smelter, that takes care of all ore and plate trains. If you build gears and green circuits at the smelter you can fuel those trains there too. That's probably the majority of your trains already dealt with. Maybe for the rest you can make refuel stops.

PS: There are mods to send trains to refuel when low on fuel and I think the train inventory sensor can read fuel.

Its not pointless because if you could use the amount of Fuel you could say if its below Number x then refuel, similar like you could set up item count in the Schedule. that way whenever its at a specific stop in the Schedule you could tell it to make sure it has always enough to make it to the whole Schedule and back to that stop.
Dynamic Schedules would make it more Efficient as then it would not Drive through the Train Stop if its not necessary, thats true but it would still be a lot more Efficient having it go there always and just dont stop if its enough then having to set an idle timer wich forces to load up full even if the train is not going to use it all and you could use some of that fuel somewhere else that needs it.

As soon as a stop has a condition the train will always stop there. With a fuel condition you could then make it leave directly instead of on "inactivity 2s". So you gain 2 seconds. Practically that's not going to make a difference. Loading the train full instead of only up to some point also makes no difference in the long run. Once filled you only load as much as was consumed since the last stop. A fuel condition would save a bit of fuel at the start but that's all.

Since you can use a Train Stop in Groups by giving them the same name i can whenever i need to fuel more then 1 at a time just extend the row of fuel stops by another one. I dont use nuclear fuel but solid fuel as i said instead which is parcial because i prefer using infinite resources like oil first then finite ones like ores and i also dont have the research done yet to make nuclear fuel nor any infrastructure but already need to use trains if i dont want extrem long belts across the map.
Might only be with certain play styles a big problem and if you play with Mods that change how much resources you can afford to spend but if you care any amounts of how efficient your using your Trains it would be good to have the option and at least when i use Trains in Factorio it gives me a headache dealing with fuel that would be solved by that addition, it would probably take a while until its implemented anyways so im fine if it comes together with Dynamic Schedules.
Please do send me a Link to the Mod you Mentioned that allows me to do that. I wasnt aware that there is a Mod thats able to do something like that.

You imply this feature would solve the problem but all I see is saving a bit of fuel per train initially. It needs a form of dynamic schedule first before a fuel condition / reading fuel level would actually make a real difference to the game.

Try https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FuelTrainStop

[Koub]

Train Fuel as Train Stop Condition and Logic Network Value to setup Conditions for the Train based on its Fuel Level.

There are so many existing variations of this suggestion in this subforum that I don't even know which ones to merge

[FuryoftheStars]

PS: There are mods to send trains to refuel when low on fuel and I think the train inventory sensor can read fuel.

Please do send me a Link to the Mod you Mentioned that allows me to do that. I wasnt aware that there is a Mod thats able to do something like that.

Try https://mods.factorio.com/mod/FuelTrainStop

Just to give more options:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/TrainRefuelStation

Or, for a solution that does even more:
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/SmartTrains
https://mods.factorio.com/mod/LogisticTrainNetwork (Technically, I believe this one does not handle refueling, but when in full use, it has a central depot that all trains wait at for their orders and refueling can be done universally here. Also, it seems as though the other refuel stop mods may still work with this one anyway.)

The suggestion is (at the moment) pointless.

Assume you could read the fuel level and you see the train is low on fuel. Now what? There is no way to send it to the refuel station. And no way to skip the fuel station if a train has enough fuel. For this to be of any use first one of the many dynamic schedules for trains ideas need to be implemented. Currently trains need to always go to the fuel stop making the idea of having just one impossible.

While I suppose this is technically correct, even if the devs implement a dynamic schedule system, there's no guarantee that they'll add the fuel reading, etc mechanics. As such, I see no harm in getting this suggestion out there as a separate suggestion.

------------------------------

With that said:

Train Fuel as Train Stop Condition and Logic Network Value to setup Conditions for the Train based on its Fuel Level.

+1

[ssilk]

There are so many existing variations of this suggestion in this subforum that I don't even know which ones to merge

LOL. I hope this gets implemented somehow because of that.
Hm.
This would make much sense in combination with this jump idea from here
viewtopic.php?p=555330#p555330
Instead of fuel-items, it might propagate the kilowatts of fuel in the train, which would make calculations much simpler…

Both could be implemented as mod so far.

[mrvn]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/LogisticTrainNetwork (Technically, I believe this one does not handle refueling, but when in full use, it has a central depot that all trains wait at for their orders and refueling can be done universally here. Also, it seems as though the other refuel stop mods may still work with this one anyway.)

LTN users should fuel trains in depots. But that is still a lot of stops where you need to set up fueling trains.

So I extended ltn-cleanup to introduce refueling stops on top of the cleanup stops it adds. See https://github.com/keombre/factorio-ltn-cleanup/pull/2 for the patch. Hopefully it will get added soon.

It's especially helpful for mods where train fuel has a burn result, like empty canisters that need to be refilled. A single factory to refill them can refuel a lot of trains from tons of depots.

[FuryoftheStars]

https://mods.factorio.com/mod/LogisticTrainNetwork (Technically, I believe this one does not handle refueling, but when in full use, it has a central depot that all trains wait at for their orders and refueling can be done universally here. Also, it seems as though the other refuel stop mods may still work with this one anyway.)

LTN users should fuel trains in depots. But that is still a lot of stops where you need to set up fueling trains.

So I extended ltn-cleanup to introduce refueling stops on top of the cleanup stops it adds. See https://github.com/keombre/factorio-ltn-cleanup/pull/2 for the patch. Hopefully it will get added soon.

It's especially helpful for mods where train fuel has a burn result, like empty canisters that need to be refilled. A single factory to refill them can refuel a lot of trains from tons of depots.

Thanks for the info. I don't use LTN myself (tried it out a few years back, but found it fairly complex to understand at the time), so was just going off from what I've seen posted.

[mmmPI]

What ?
im Suggesting to Include in the Train Stop Conditions and the Information a Logic Network can read out from a Train Stop so Players can tell there Train to get a refuel if its running out or to tell there Train to not leave the Train Stop in the Schedule with less then a set a mount of Fuel.

There are (complex) ways to do smart refueling stations in the game like this one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52i6IkF6IKI

It would make it easier to read the train fuel from each train.

I understand for Train Stop Conditions "fuel >= or =< number" in the schedule, it reads how much fuel are in the locomotives.

But how do you tell the difference between 10 rocket fuel in the locomotive or 10 rocket fuel in the cargo wagon in the circuit network from a train stop ?

The train stop can only connect with 2 wires 1 red 1 green. If you add a little option "read train fuel", and you have "read train content", then you need to find a solution so the signals don't get added. ( you don't want to read 20 rocket fuel in a wire if there is 10 in cargo and 10 in locomotives)

It's especially helpful for mods where train fuel has a burn result, like empty canisters that need to be refilled. A single factory to refill them can refuel a lot of trains from tons of depots.

In this case it's easy to use a maintenance train to gather the empty canisters from all LTN-depot. When one depot has enough to justify a maintenance-train trip, enable the local depot's maintenance train stop, so a train can carry all the empty canister to the common refilling area.

Similar as using a special train to bring fuel to every depot except the other way around.

[mrvn]

What ?
im Suggesting to Include in the Train Stop Conditions and the Information a Logic Network can read out from a Train Stop so Players can tell there Train to get a refuel if its running out or to tell there Train to not leave the Train Stop in the Schedule with less then a set a mount of Fuel.

There are (complex) ways to do smart refueling stations in the game like this one : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52i6IkF6IKI

It would make it easier to read the train fuel from each train.

Ingenious but also very fragile. With multiple detectors and trains it becomes random which station the trains target next.

I understand for Train Stop Conditions "fuel >= or =< number" in the schedule, it reads how much fuel are in the locomotives.

But how do you tell the difference between 10 rocket fuel in the locomotive or 10 rocket fuel in the cargo wagon in the circuit network from a train stop ?

The train stop can only connect with 2 wires 1 red 1 green. If you add a little option "read train fuel", and you have "read train content", then you need to find a solution so the signals don't get added. ( you don't want to read 20 rocket fuel in a wire if there is 10 in cargo and 10 in locomotives)

Past suggestion have been to output the fuel value and not the item count of the fuel. That way you can
a) pick a virtual signal to output
b) include the partially used fuel

You can then refuel the train when it's below 300MJ or something. Unless you want to load a specific mix of fuel types you don't need to bother with the item counts themself.

It's especially helpful for mods where train fuel has a burn result, like empty canisters that need to be refilled. A single factory to refill them can refuel a lot of trains from tons of depots.

In this case it's easy to use a maintenance train to gather the empty canisters from all LTN-depot. When one depot has enough to justify a maintenance-train trip, enable the local depot's maintenance train stop, so a train can carry all the empty canister to the common refilling area.

Similar as using a special train to bring fuel to every depot except the other way around.

Sure. But it's 2 extra trains driving around moving fuel and spend fuel and extra stations at every depot with belts and filter inserters across all stops in the depot. And having enough fuel to justify a maintenance-train trip buffered in every depot is an annoyance too.

[mmmPI]

Sure. But it's 2 extra trains driving around moving fuel and spend fuel and extra stations at every depot with belts and filter inserters across all stops in the depot. And having enough fuel to justify a maintenance-train trip buffered in every depot is an annoyance too.

The bald part is wrong ! : It's "Refuel station" that generate extra traffic and not "using-a-train-to-deliver-fuel-at-depot" :

Each wagon carries 40 stack, each train refuel is roughly 2 or 3 stack. If your fuel-carrying-train has 2 wagon, that's 80 stack worth of fuel, for roughly 30 to 40 refuel.

The other solution of using a refuel station would force 40 TRIPS, 1 PER TRAIN , and this in order to reload only 2 or 3 stack of fuel per trip. ( train moving empty !).

You reduce the amount of total trip from all trains by having a special train dedicated to carry fuel .

If "Refuel Station" is more efficient in something it is space/footprint, definitly not throughput or reducing congestion, but it is not what interest me in the suggestion.

I would agree with part of the original TL;DR but for different reasons.

Train Fuel as Train Stop Condition

This part i think make sense to solve the problem :

tell there Train to not leave the Train Stop in the Schedule with less then a set a mount of Fuel.

Having a condition on the schedule such as : "empty cargo" AND "Fuel>=100MJ" could do

Or something like having "time passed 30 sec" AND "Fuel-Solid Fuel >= 50" where instead of "cargo" or "circuit" there would be a category "fuel" and you can choose a signal, logically amongst coal, solid fuel, rocket fuel, wood, nuclear fuel and then a quantity.

Simpler than having the station output a signal. Immediate and foreseeable gain after (potential) implementation.

Wether this can be used and hacked to make a refuel station or simili conditional scheduling and if not what would be required is another topic that has many variations some that i've read already

even if the devs implement a dynamic schedule system, there's no guarantee that they'll add the fuel reading, etc mechanics. As such, I see no harm in getting this suggestion out there as a separate suggestion.

This but the other way around for my personnal view : even if dynamic schedule system is too complicated or not priority or not desired for the devs, fuel reading mechanism on its own would be fun to play with and maybe less of a detour to please the nit-picking public than a fully functionning dynamic schedule .

[mrvn]

People want to read the fuel level. That's what the signal is for. And if you have that signal then you can send it to the train too and use it as circuit condition. So there wouldn't have to be any new fuel condition.

But either way the issue needs a lot more thought. Because trains can have more than one locomotive and then things get complicated. Do you output the sum of all fuel? Or the minimum of any locomotive? Do you output forward and backward facing separately? Lots of decisions to make.

Last night I had a train stall with no fuel because the forward facing locomotives run dry while the backward facing locomotives still had more fuel then the trigger for refueling them. Something I need to fix in ltn-cleanup to handle smarter.

The inventory sensor (mod) is probably a more flexible solution and does everything asked for here.

[mmmPI]

This is your opinion on something that is not the original suggestion which if you read the TL;DR and the "WHY" refers to adding a new schedule condition instead of "cargo" "circuit" "inactivity" there would be "fuel".

1) It doesn't require outputing a signal to have some use.

(same as you don't have a signal for inactivity or time passed)


2) It doesn't care about the number of locomotives and their direction.

( same as "cargo" schedule condition doesn't care about the number of wagon )

[mrvn]

This is your opinion on something that is not the original suggestion which if you read the TL;DR and the "WHY" refers to adding a new schedule condition instead of "cargo" "circuit" "inactivity" there would be "fuel".

1) It doesn't require outputing a signal to have some use.

(same as you don't have a signal for inactivity or time passed)


2) It doesn't care about the number of locomotives and their direction.

( same as "cargo" schedule condition doesn't care about the number of wagon )

Again with your selective reading:

im Suggesting to Include in the Train Stop Conditions and the Information a Logic Network can read out from a Train Stop ...

With the second part of the original suggestion the first part isn't even needed was my point.

And your 2) is exactly my argument. It should care because otherwise it becomes fragile and will end with trains out of fuel or greatly reduced acceleration.

But arguing with you is pointless so I'm not going to.