Upgrade techs for trains and belts

[hitzu]

I think the game miss some branches in the technology list. We can upgrade inserters and have two techs for upgrading bots capacity. It seems unfair for other transportation modes. I would like to see belt speed upgrade and locomotive power/speed upgrade as well, and possibly wagon size capacity upgrade. That would be nice

[Deadly-Bagel]

Belt speed is influenced by Logistics research, however as certain things do need to run at slower speeds (burner inserters can't pick up items moving on a red belt) you have to upgrade belts to see their faster speeds.

I assume storage, such as trains and chests, isn't upgraded so that it remains consistent through the game. For example you might have a wooden chest to act as a buffer for your circuits, if you were to upgrade it you would suddenly have a much larger buffer than you require. A basic example but could potentially break certain setups. Trains are worse as you can set filtered slots so increasing cargo size is a nono.

Trains IMO need a bit of updating, always bugged me the "diesel locomotive" is powered by coal, and we could do with an electric train.

[hitzu]

Belt speed is influenced by Logistics research, however as certain things do need to run at slower speeds (burner inserters can't pick up items moving on a red belt) you have to upgrade belts to see their faster speeds.

You have to manually replace all belts though. Wiring could help to artifically reduce the belt speed.

I assume storage, such as trains and chests, isn't upgraded so that it remains consistent through the game. For example you might have a wooden chest to act as a buffer for your circuits, if you were to upgrade it you would suddenly have a much larger buffer than you require. A basic example but could potentially break certain setups. Trains are worse as you can set filtered slots so increasing cargo size is a nono.

We upgrade our personal inventory and logistic slots, so why not wagons? In order to now screwing up filters, wagons should be upgraded with limiting slots in the same time, so the current setups would be fine — you could leave them as is or you could manually remove limits.

[Deadly-Bagel]

The storage size one is preference, personally I would find it a bit weird to have a research that doesn't do anything immediately and forces me to go around all my trains and fix the cargo restriction. Why not just have a better wagon to replace it with? At least I'd be able to see the difference like with chests.

The problem would be worse with belts, first of all they are MUCH more numerous so whatever way you go it's going to be tedious work. Also the option would need to be available before the upgrade is complete so as to not break any setups that rely on the belt speed.

What exactly would be the benefits of having it your way?

[hitzu]

I must admit that increasing the cargo size might be not the best idea. Well, at least if made right I think it wouldn't harm. My suggestion comes along with 0.15 addition of infinite upgrades. One can't increase cargo size endlessly, so it's not that good as it was in my mind before verbalizing it.

As for belt speed I think it's not the best gameplay choice of fixed parameters. I think it would be better if there was no fixed best layouts and fixed ratios. It's boring. This tech would eliminate it giving more meaningful choices for players.

From the perspective of ruining some layouts, that rely on belt speed, and player's habits with this update I think it's not a big deal. After all the game isn't finished yet and it happened many times before.

[Grimtongue]

I think the game miss some branches in the technology list. We can upgrade inserters and have two techs for upgrading bots capacity. It seems unfair for other transportation modes. I would like to see belt speed upgrade and locomotive power/speed upgrade as well, and possibly wagon size capacity upgrade. That would be nice

It doesn't make sense to me that researching a technology magically improves all of the existing infrastructure. The current system of technology requires us to build the newer, improved versions of things, such as:
Assembler 1 > 2 >3
Belts Yellow > Red > Blue
Inserter Burner > Yellow > Blue
Chests wooden > iron > steel

What I would love to see is a mark2 version of the train and cargo wagon; not a magical upgrade, but something you have to build just like with everything else. For example, a recipe might be an existing train along with advanced circuits, gears, and lubricant.

I seem to recall one of the devs mentioning a mark2 train at some point...

[hitzu]

It doesn't make sense to me that researching a technology magically improves all of the existing infrastructure.

But that's just how turrets, bots, labs, inserters, guns and ammo already work.

What I would love to see is a mark2 version of the train and cargo wagon

That would be a tedious task to replace the stock of for example 20 and more trains. This would just force players to skip entierly the mk1 trains and fast forward to the mk2, or at least they would restrict themselves building a large rail network so the replacement process would be much simpler. The same would apply to rail track upgrade.

[Deadly-Bagel]

It doesn't make sense to me that researching a technology magically improves all of the existing infrastructure.-

I like to think of these as software updates that can be pushed out remotely. They improve accuracy and target weak points for additional damage, and fine tune to the environment or something to improve shooting speed. You can kind of understand the first turrets are built in something of a rush just so the engineer has some defences on the field.

I assume this is the case for games such as the Wahammer 40k: Dawn of War series. Seems kind of odd all these races at the pinnacle of their technology still have stuff to research right? Well I put that down to their technology being incredibly sensitive so they have to research the environment to tweak their structures and software to adapt accordingly.

[Mehve]

Trains IMO need a bit of updating, always bugged me the "diesel locomotive" is powered by coal, and we could do with an electric train.

I can't count the number of times, during remote field tests of trains, I've resorted to just throwing a handful of wooden boxes or power poles in, just to get the thing to move to where I want it

That said, I really would like a Mk2 train. As said above, let the recipe use the Mk1 train to avoid any useless train stockpiles. For that matter, let the rest of the recipe be as expensive as hell, and let it guzzle fuel obscenely, to the point where the economic solution is still to run multiple Mk1 trains.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Why would you even want a MK2 train? The MK1 is pretty damn fast. The advantages of an electric train wouldn't be max speed, but acceleration and power.

My suggestion in another topic was to have them require Batteries. Rather than refuel the train, you replace the dead batteries and load them into a charging station which prepares them for the next train. No more tedious fuel supply and keeps the trains moving, just make sure you have power.

[ssilk]

Belts: You cannot simply upgrade belt speed, cause that would destroy some rare but useful belt-tweaks, where the speed of the belts plays a role. If you speed all belts up by factor X you need also the reduce the size of the items on the belts by factor X to keep everything going exactly as before... (Edit: hm, when I think again: Perhaps this is not true. But I keep my post now like it is). Same is with suggestion, that automatically upgrade belts.

Trains: A faster train than 250 km/h would look simply ridiculous in curves. In my opinion it already is ridiculous.

[hitzu]

Belts: You cannot simply upgrade belt speed, cause that would destroy some rare but useful belt-tweaks, where the speed of the belts plays a role.

Please name them. I remember much more whining on the change of the belt corners mechanics.

If you speed all belts up by factor X you need also the reduce the size of the items on the belts by factor X to keep everything going exactly as before...

I don't really get this point.

Why would you even want a MK2 train? The MK1 is pretty damn fast.

Trains: A faster train than 250 km/h would look simply ridiculous in curves. In my opinion it already is ridiculous.

It's not the same if you like and use long trains. I don't want trains would run faster, I want them to be more powerful and able to pull more wagons.

[Mehve]

I'm always a little surprised that trains don't slow down in curves - a missed opportunity for optimization vs compactness, I would think. And personally, it's not more top speed that I want, it's more acceleration and braking power, which speeds up the I/O for queues, and reduces the time penalty when multiple trains are yielding around each other at busy intersections. Even a 1:2 ratio between locomotives and wagons is a little mediocre when things start to get busy.

[ssilk]

Belts: You cannot simply upgrade belt speed, cause that would destroy some rare but useful belt-tweaks, where the speed of the belts plays a role.

Please name them. I remember much more whining on the change of the belt corners mechanics.

I don't wine any tears to the belt corners.

As example I had this construction in mind:

Screen Shot 2016-11-07 at 21.22.56.png (542.98 KiB) Viewed 5512 times

Feed basic belt into express belt.
In this construction no item is stocking at any time, meaning: Both lanes of the basic lanes are feed into the fast belt. But before you answer: this isn't a prove of anything, please read further!

If you speed all belts up by factor X you need also the reduce the size of the items on the belts by factor X to keep everything going exactly as before...

I don't really get this point.

I calculated it now exactly through and in short: Forget that idea. If you increase the speed of all belts with the same factor the belts will behave exactly the same as before.

BUT (!)

It is not possible to increase the speed in fractions (as needed for this suggestion). This is because the belt-physiscs is bound to tick-rates and slots per belt. See viewtopic.php?f=18&t=33685&hilit=belts+pipes to understand the edge of this problem.
A belt has 32 "slots". An item on that belt takes 9 of that slots and is moved one slot per tick (on a basic belt). You cannot move it just 1.1 slots per tick. It must be an integer. That's the reason why the ratios between the 3 types of belts are exactly 1:2:3.

Trains: A faster train than 250 km/h would look simply ridiculous in curves. In my opinion it already is ridiculous.

It's not the same if you like and use long trains. I don't want trains would run faster, I want them to be more powerful and able to pull more wagons.

Hm, that is basically a balancing question, not a suggestion. If you don't mind repeat this request in Balancing board.

[hitzu]

Damned descrete logic! It ruins everything!

As for trains, I think adding a technology that looks like "+1 wagon without power losses" would be cool.

[Deadly-Bagel]

Electric trains, I'm telling you. MUCH faster acceleration and more pull power.

[hitzu]

Electric trains, I'm telling you. MUCH faster acceleration and more pull power.

I've downloaded Atomic Locomotives by GotLag and love them a lot more than any electric train mod. They are a lot more managable in large quantities than conventional diesel trains.