Factorio Forums

Current rail system is very flexible, but sometimes I want rails to me more smooth. I propose three new pieces just like in SimCity4's Network Addon Mod FAR pieces. The 72 degree 2x3* straight piece, the orthogonal to 72 degree curve 2x6 part and the 72 degree to 45 degree curve 4x5 segment. Including the rotation there are 20 pieces in total.
What they give is the ablity to build very smooth curves and long 2:3 ratio straights. The 90 degree turn would have the radius of 15 current straight units. Also two 2x6 curve parts could provide a switch to a parallel track with one unit next to the current one instead of 2 units gap in vanilla game. Similar effect could be achieved with 72 degree parallel tracks. Well, only three new pieces could provide a massive amount of new combinations and layouts.
What do you think?

*1 unit equals 2 in game squares.

Sorry this is not possible. From the looks of it there's only 2 types of track we can make, Straight or the in-game curved one.

Edit: OK on second thought theirs a chance its possible, if you play around with the collision boxes, But i cant promise anything.

ludsoe wrote:Edit: OK on second thought theirs a chance its possible, if you play around with the collision boxes, But i cant promise anything.

I think they could be just modified curved vanilla pieces, no?

Work in progress.
What's a pity that i have no source hi-res pics.

Three vertical pieces are ready (except for broken variants). Also here an example of narrow crossover.
If anyone can and want to code, feel free to ask here - I'll give all needed pieces.

I like that the crossover layout looks like a reasonable design IRL.
Factorio's rails always have seemed abnormally sharp in the shifts and turns.

How will the train models that runs over those rails look like?

SHiRKiT wrote:How will the train models that runs over those rails look like?

I assumed it was the normal train that would use the,

Yeah, but those graphics only makes sense in 0º 45º 90º 135º 180º 225º 270º 315º. If you place one of those graphics it will look funky on one of those new rails, at least that's how I imagine it.

At the very least I would like to see smother/wider curves and 3 rail-tile wide S-curves (for making narrower passing sidings and crossovers)

Morofry wrote:At the very least I would like to see smother/wider curves and 3 rail-tile wide S-curves (for making narrower passing sidings and crossovers)

Well they'd have to be 4 tiles wide because straight track is two tiles wide but yes I agree. Narrow s-bends would be great.

I was under the impression that the sprites already had the necessary intermediate positions because they rotate rather smoothly as they transition from straight to curved.

Im actually in agreement here about the engines and cars, I bet you could easily make this work and it not looking funny. I assume that because of how the current engines turn, curve around the current rails. Stop the train and reverse it mid curve. The turning is rather slight and smooth.

On a similar note, I was also (slowly, oh so slowly) actually working on modding in new track, locomotives, and other equipment/signals/ect for a railway lover like me to enjoy.

katyal wrote:I was under the impression that the sprites already had the necessary intermediate positions because they rotate rather smoothly as they transition from straight to curved.

I guess you are actually correct.

I move this to suggestions and leave a link here, because I'm sure, this is not good enough modable yet.