Allow rail signals closer together

[Deadlock989]

General non-complex use case:

I want to use rail blueprints. Currently, if I put signals at the edge of a rail blueprint, then later when I try to use two blueprints next to each other they might conflict because of adjacent signals.

Then make a different blueprint, that doesn't have rail signals at the edge. Is someone forcing you to make blueprints that don't work very well or something?

[sparr]

It's not obvious while making the blueprint that they won't work well. Is there anywhere else in Factorio where an entity in a blueprint might be red/unplaceable based solely on an adjacent entity that doesn't overlap? This is a weird emergent behavior that doesn't seem to have any serious reason for existing. Not allowing two signals on the same rail tile might be important for some internal rail handling code, but it feels like not allowing two signals on adjacent tiles was just a shortcut way to accomplish that.

[Deadlock989]

Personally, it took me 18 months to "perfect" (I use the term very loosely) my set of rail blueprints. The biggest irritation that I recall was finding out that blueprints with rails in them are limited to an arbitrary 2x2 rail grid that you can't see anywhere else. So sometimes e.g. large power poles or substations in one blueprint won't line up correctly with power poles in another, or even be unplaceable, because the large poles weren't aligned to the same grid in each blueprint. That wasn't "obvious" when I was making the blueprint.

I suppose I could have asked for the game to be changed to suit me and my play style regardless of unexamined internal considerations for it being this way, but instead I changed the blueprints.

[Deadlock989]

Furthermore, I just took a look at the rail signal entity. The absolute width and height of the sprites in pixels is 3 tiles' worth. A good bit of that is empty space of course, partly to account for the diagonal versions, but even the orthogonal versions stripped of empty pixels are a bit bigger than a tile. So they're never going to sit on adjacent tiles without overlapping some. So they'd have to shrink to accommodate you, making them harder to see for everyone else.

[sparr]

Sprite size has nothing to do with entity placement. Collision box is what matters, and signal collision boxes are very small.

[Deadlock989]

Er, it does matter if a bunch of lights overlap with each other and you can't tell what signal is being displayed. Or do you inhabit a universe where space has literally no meaning at all? Sounds comfy.

[sparr]

Perfectly distinguishable, and not colliding or overlapping at all. The game already allows signals on adjacent tiles if they are connected to different rails. Your objection is already contradicted by existing game implementation.

[Deadlock989]

Those aren't facing the same direction, and I was talking about rail signals, which fill the tile, not chain signals, which clearly don't. But I can see I'm wasting my time here, I'll leave you to your two-year-old quest to have the game changed to suit your reluctance to change a couple of blueprints.

[5thHorseman]

General non-complex use case:

I want to use rail blueprints. Currently, if I put signals at the edge of a rail blueprint, then later when I try to use two blueprints next to each other they might conflict because of adjacent signals.

I consider it a feature that I don't have to delete those adjacent signals after placement.

[sparr]

Existing adjacent rail signals, not overlapping, to make Deadlock989 happy:

[sparr]

I consider it a feature that I don't have to delete those adjacent signals after placement.

It's normal to need to delete signals when joining rail blueprints, to make sure exit blocks are long enough for your trains, etc. Where this particular situation is a problem is when you want to know whether or not a blueprint fits. You click and it doesn't place, then you have to look for a tree or stone or whatever that's in the way, or shift+click and hope it works out.

(there's a separate side rant to be had about shift+click being the single modifier to handle both entity-to-be-omitted conflicts and entity-to-be-marked-for-deconstruction conflicts)

[Zavian]

I consider it a feature that I don't have to delete those adjacent signals after placement.

It's normal to need to delete signals when joining rail blueprints, to make sure exit blocks are long enough for your trains, etc.

That really depends on how the blueprints are designed and how they are to be aligned. eg they can include the exit block. They can also be designed to be aligned by overlaying the signals on top of the adjacent blueprint.

[sparr]

If I'm running 2-8 trains, I'm not going to design new rail blueprints with 70-tile exit blocks. Im going to keep using my signal-every-32-tiles blueprints, and just delete 2 signals at each interchange exit. I don't think that's an unusual approach.

[Zavian]

It's not an unusual approach. But when you designed your blueprints in the first place you could have thought of that and designed blueprints that didn't need you to remove signals. (I'm not saying that you should have done this, just that you could have done this).

Below is a blueprint book with 2 blueprints. One is a 60 tile long straight section with signals every 30 tiles (max range of a large electric pole). Note that there is no signal on the approach side of that section, but there is a signal on the exit side. When I tile that straight section (aligning by overlapping the large electric poles) I get a signal every 30 tiles. The other blueprint is a 60x60 tile 4-way junction, with a part of the exit buffer as part of that blueprint. When I tile the junction and the straight section I automatically get an exit buffer big enough for a 2-4 train (or a 1-4-1 train), without removing any signals. (For a 2-8 train I would need to remove one signal, but I don't have any 2-8 trains. You should be able to turn this junction into a 120x120 junction that will tile with the straight track to give a log enough exit buffer for a 2-8 train. Just add 30 tiles of rail every side).

Rail.book.jpg (997.42 KiB) Viewed 3594 times

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[sparr]

You've illustrated my point. You designed for one size train, and have to remove exit block signals if you use larger trains. This is a perfectly normal aspect of factorio rail blueprints. There is no one set of blueprints that's already perfect for every size train.

[Engimage]

General non-complex use case:

I want to use rail blueprints. Currently, if I put signals at the edge of a rail blueprint, then later when I try to use two blueprints next to each other they might conflict because of adjacent signals.

Then just don't put signals at the edge of a blueprint
Problem solved
There is no sense in having signals 1 tile from each other from gameplay standpoint. So I think there is no need in changing this.

[sparr]

There is no sense in having signals 1 tile from each other from gameplay standpoint. So I think there is no need in changing this.

It would allow junction designs that are currently not possible.

[sparr]

Bumping this to hopefully reach new eyes with new perspectives on rail and interchange design.

[Deadlock989]

Nice necro. Still dull though.

[sparr]

Double-necro. With all the rail changes coming in 2.0, including new curves with new signal placement positions including some funky ones, maybe there's a chance...