Factorio Forums

Summary

Modern logistic systems heavily use intermodal containers in all stages. It allows near instant loading and unloading of trains, trucks and ships to free up the train as fast as possible. It also could simplify train logistics and make the same as logistics chest by making the entire train station be analog to a single chest. The goal is to have a modern train station, which is easy to setup, that has a versatile container yard which can be connected to the factory in versatile ways, and allow for quick train loading and unloading with slow container loading and unloading, resultin in a much more realistic logistic system.

Suggested implementation

• Train waggons are now called containers and has a more standard rectangular shape for tiling, likely being around 1X4 tiles

• Containers can be attached to cars (integrates well with automated cars mods)

• Containers can be inserted into ships, if a ship mod is setup

• Containers can be detached from trains and placed in set locations for slow unloading/loading

• Containers are moved by a crane which covers a certain area

• Container receivers, buffers and providers are parking spots for containers and behave exacly like logistic chests

• Container spots can have several containers on top of eachother

• Cranes will automatically relocate any container on it's range to the appropriate spot

• Train stations can be configured as providers, requesters or buffers just like the container parking spots

• If the train stagion is long enough and in range of the crane, several containers can be added to the train

• Train stations with logitics will consider all items in range of it's crane as it's inventory

• Logistic rules could be applied to the empty trains, allowing for easy train depot creation and for trains to proactively wait for cargo

• Ship ports behave exactly like train stations

• Cranes can be linked together epanding the area of influence

• Cranes can be a tower with an arm with a circular area, or a 4 pillar set with a square area

• Cranes can be linked directly to train stations to avoid conflict with nearby stations

• Other storage systems such as boxes can also be moved by cranes, but they don't attach to trains

This suggestion is one among many ways to achieve this goal, and has several optional elements like the improvements to logistics.

Notes

• The suggestion is not focused in the possibility of having multiple types of item in the same container. You just need to keep in mind that if you fill your container in strange ways you might end up transporting garbage around the factory and ending up with garbage where it shouldn't. The logistic system could basically not care about other items in the container as a way to simplify things. Alternatively it can ignore containers which has uneeded items inside it. This second approach allows for multiple item types to be packed into a single container and be shipped to a location that wants all those items

• I understand that this suggestion has been made before, however, the previous suggestions had no integration with logistic systems, which I think is important for the management of the cargo yard, and the potential of integrating the yard into a broader logistic system

• Other posts suggest an empty train car to put the container on top. However, as a way to simplify, I'm thinking of treating the entire car as the container, which just happens to have wheels compatible with rail and road without preventing stacking. This empty car is an interesting alternative as a way to increase realism and complexity

You can kind of do this via mod or use existing mods to do it.

Simply have actual containers that you can fill and empty like deadlocks crates and then load the crates onto trains. Note that this adds a new logistic challenge. While you can unload crates very quickly from a trains and then empty them a leisure you now have the new problem that you have to ship back the empty crates. And you can transport crates with belts, insterters, bots. Build your own cranes.

Or use the Bluck Rail Loaders