Trains should wait when they have no fuel

[JamesOFarrell]

Just an idea, trains shouldn't move onto there next scheduled station until that have at least one piece of fuel in them (even with stored energy left over). This small change allows us to automate train deliveries with the current system by unloading and reloading fuel into the locomotive.

[perkel]

I concur.
With little changes

Train shouldn't leave station unless it has sufficient amount of fuel to reach other station or even better to reach depot (which would be refuel station mostly in mainbase)

This could also be part of upgrade to train. As an upgrade you can buy for train logic system which gives you few tricks like delaying leave of train, calculating fuel used x amount of time/days etc.

[ssilk]

Maybe it should work like the bots: If they have no energy, they reduce the speed to 20%.
So with the train, but only 1%.

[JamesOFarrell]

Maybe it should work like the bots: If they have no energy, they reduce the speed to 20%.
So with the train, but only 1%.

This would fix the issue of trains running out of fuel between station but would break this suggestion. The idea was to add train automation without adding a new mechanic (like smart stations). Basically this would allow you to pull all fuel out of a train when it arrives at a station and then have it wait unit a red/green/logistics network condition is met and feed in the fuel again. This allow you to only run your resource trains when you can handle the influx or only run oil trains when they are full. It also doesn't add any new parts or make the train system any less accessible. The trains already flash no fuel when there is no fuel left in their inventory so the notifications don't even need to change.

[ssilk]

I have experimented with that idea, it ain't gonna work, cause you always have some energy left in the burner, when arriving. Enough energy for 100 tiles and more.

And I think it isn't a good idea to control a train by giving it fuel or not. Pumps and many other things work like so, but vehicles not and that has many reasons.

No, for the automated vehicles we really need signals/train stops, which can be controlled by the circuit network.

[JamesOFarrell]

I have experimented with that idea, it ain't gonna work, cause you always have some energy left in the burner, when arriving

Hence the suggestion that they don't move on to the next station in their schedule until that have at least one item of fuel, no matter if they have some energy in the burner

[Bleda]

the idea is good, but connecting train stops to the network directly is even better, I think.

[ssilk]

I would prefer my way, because that prevents the whole rail system to be blocked. This can happen if you have a very huge train-system and you forgot one train to be send to a station to be filled. It doesn't matter, if it is on a train station or not. Like so the train can go to the next double-rail-part or train station with more than one rail and the following trains can pass, which prevents, that everything is blocked by one simple mistake. This happened to me now two times and it is really a mess.

Perhaps 1% of maximum speed is too slow, but not more than 10%. I want a warning, if a train needs too long to come from one station to another (perhaps 10 times of the air-line?).

I also point to my suggestion for rising the need for coal of the trains much: https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 705#p27389
I mean they should need one coal per about 100 tiles (about 10 times more then yet).