Factorio Forums

FactorioBot wrote:Here is a summary of the New features of 0.13

• Changes
  • Exiting vehicles now puts you to the left of the vehicle with respect to the orientation of the vehicle.

I think it would be useful to exit trains to the right side (or the side, where there is no rail): Signals and train stations promote right-hand traffic when there is not enough space to keep between two tracks; so every time I exit the train, I'm standing on the other train track -- waiting to get run over by another train. On the right side there usually is enough space to be safe, because signals make it difficult to place a second rail next to an existing rail:
As far as I tried, it's not that easy (and efficient) to build a uniform and nondiagonal compact train station, where i would actually want to exit to the left:
If the station can be diagonal,placing the signals works, but still needs a lot of space:

Hm. I never built my rails that narrow (of course there are exceptions). Because you have much more options, if you left some space between the rails.

I think also it doesn't look natural. Look at this:


If the distance bar to bar is one, the I estimate the distance between rail to rail is nearly 2. Or in other words: you can lay another rail between two rails.
Then the rails would look like in your pictures.

Summary: It just looks much, much more realistic, if you don't lay the rail such narrow and it is also much easier to play with rails like so, cause you have in general much more options to place rails and signals.

Nevertheless this suggestion is useful.

ssilk wrote:Or in other words: you can lay another rail between two rails.

I hope that never happens in reality... I will certainly stop laying rails that near if factorio makes the train collision boxes wider than the rails themselves, or adds air suction caused train crashes. =D

Well i was thinking about to write the same as ssilk, but everyone can play like he/she want and it's not about me to decide about that.

Just for completeness - this picture shows the rails and the trains with their needed space.
With this, it would be more realistic, if the boundingbox of the Factorio trains are larger then the rail.

The light grey line shows the minimum spacing to all surroundings like signals trees and other trains by law.
Greetings steinio

FactorioBot wrote:

• Changes
  • with respect to the orientation of the vehicle.

Something related: Maybe the (previous -- if standing still --) driving direction is more useful. On the back end of a two-directional train I am always driving "backwards", but when inside a waggon, it's not that easy to see if the waggon is technically facing forwards or backwards.

(I'm usually driving in the head of a train, when I might need to drive manually to avoid waiting in front of a signal, so that doesn't occur that often.)

steinio wrote:Well i was thinking about to write the same as ssilk, but everyone can play like he/she want and it's not about me to decide about that.

Uhm, of course. Everybody should play his style. Completely agreed. I wanted just to show another aspect of building rails, that has the side effect to be even more safe when exiting on rails when you have rails left and right of you.

PS: And yes: I already died many times because of this (overrun by a following train), and at some point you have some kind of insight, that placing rails too tight is just a bad idea.

steinio wrote:Well i was thinking about to write the same as ssilk, but everyone can play like he/she want and it's not about me to decide about that.

Just for completeness - this picture shows the rails and the trains with their needed space.
With this, it would be more realistic, if the boundingbox of the Factorio trains are larger then the rail.

The light grey line shows the minimum spacing to all surroundings like signals trees and other trains by law.

Tunnel_Echterdingen_Querschnitt_mit_Profil[1].png

Greetings steinio

Ahh, German loading gauge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_gauge

Realistically the trains have fixed limits for how large the engines and rolling stock can be, and the track right of way is maintained to give clearance to that size.

Factorio probably should implement similar for the train collision box, as an extra incentive not to put track tight together like that- even though it lets you, there really isn't any good reason to I think.

OdinYggd wrote: Factorio probably should implement similar for the train collision box, as an extra incentive not to put track tight together like that- even though it lets you, there really isn't any good reason to I think.

I don't need it that much since a few weeks, but in early factories I didn't leave much space to add trains afterwards -- and I didn't yet have blueprints to move a big factory out of the way. At the moment, i usually have space for 3 rails (6 blocks) inbetween every two rails; because I wasn't able to get my crossings smaller. I still use it for early unloading stations and when i build parking space for my personal transport shuttle trains into straight rail - to prevent them stopping trains behind them: I think it's useful; and I'd actually prefer being able to build trains as near as the train (not: rail) collission box allows. Larger Collision boxes could be fun; but i think the signals might fail on them. =D

Currently, we only can build rails at positions modulo two; which already sometimes forces me to move some production machines aside by one block, because it's not possible to move the rails aside to the other direction by less than two blocks. Making that four instead of two would be horrible imho; ensuring the spacing like the spacing between signals, still allowing every position, might be okay.

Well, now we get really off topic.
This is the thread you should look into: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=19953 New types of rails (curves, s-curves ...)

ssilk wrote:

steinio wrote:Well i was thinking about to write the same as ssilk, but everyone can play like he/she want and it's not about me to decide about that.

Uhm, of course. Everybody should play his style. Completely agreed. I wanted just to show another aspect of building rails, that has the side effect to be even more safe when exiting on rails when you have rails left and right of you.

PS: And yes: I already died many times because of this (overrun by a following train), and at some point you have some kind of insight, that placing rails too tight is just a bad idea.

First, steinio's image clearly shows how there isn't enough room in between tracks to lay another one. That's why I run two tracks close to each other: it looks more realistic. To *me*, YMMV. An engine driver will rarely exit his engine on the left, since, although you can stand between two trains, you shouldn't attempt to stand between a moving and a standing train, and certainly not between two moving trains.

Second, placing rails like that would not be a bad idea if you'd exit where you're supposed to: one the outside. Oh, and I also noticed that you seem to exit wagons on the *other* side. So, exit engine left, but wagon right.

Your rail laying is OK and I guess it's not the reason for this thread.

The simplest exit strategy would be - exit where the mouse pointer is.

Greetings steinio

One person has trains setup so exiting on the right is preferred, the next has it so exiting on the left is preferred.

There's no perfect answer so I picked a side and that's what it is.

That's clear, the TL;DR of this (lengthily) suggestion is:
If the exit will place the character on rails, it should use the left side as exit.
(Which includes of course, that the left side should not be also on rails, then of course the right. And there are eventually much more rules like that.)

It is in my eyes a useful suggestion, cause it is better than before without increasing game complexity.
Which doesn't mean to be really changed. Of course.

Rseding91 wrote:One person has trains setup so exiting on the right is preferred, the next has it so exiting on the left is preferred.

There's no perfect answer so I picked a side and that's what it is.

Why not have one side be the default and provide a checkbox in the options menu to override it?
That seems easy enough to implement while still giving most users what they need.

The option should be there for the placement of signals on the left or right side of the tracks.

As far as exit sides are concerned, I support this idea:

steinio wrote:The simplest exit strategy would be - exit where the mouse pointer is.

It has be best chance to produce the result an uninformed player would expect.

steinio wrote:The simplest exit strategy would be - exit where the mouse pointer is.

No, that's a bad idea because it's not at all intuitive.
It should either be always on the same side or there should be some simple logic that determines which side.
(For example: always exit left unless it would put the character on a rail.)

Rseding91 wrote:One person has trains setup so exiting on the right is preferred, the next has it so exiting on the left is preferred.

There's no perfect answer so I picked a side and that's what it is.

Hi, is it possible to make a mod that changes exit side at least? I'm very confused exiting to left side of the train

There already is a simple solution to the exit side issue:. Switch to Lefft Hand Drive (LHD) designs.

To explain further:

I always lived in RHD countries, drive my IRL car on the right side of the road, so when I started factorio I naturally designed my rail as RHD. But I noticed two problems... I would always exit on the opposite side of where I wanted to go after exiting the train, and my signals ate an extra block on the outside of my rail.

So, I switched to design my rail as LHD. Problem solved. I now exit trains on the side where my structures are, and signals use the wasted space between rails.

How about exiting on the side you entered?

That would also prevent using trains or rocket silos (with cars in the rockets) to move unimaginable fast across the world (1h till you fall off the end of the world).

mrvn wrote:How about exiting on the side you entered?

That is by far the simplest, most elegant solution I've seen so far.

It wouldn't even require that anyone change their current rail network. Absolutely support.