Express/Priority Trains

[s001911]

TL;DR

Flag a train as express/priority to give it pathing preference.

What?

It's my understanding that once a trains' "ready" condition is met it try's to path and if not it jumps in a queue of sorts and wait's until it's turn and/or a path is open.
My proposal is a switch to make some trains "express" to attempt to guarantee that they'll leave to conduct their route ASAP. Effectively it will jump it to the top of the stack, or potentially introduce a new "priority" stack that does the same logic as the "normal" stack, but first.

This could even be to the point where it can force/overwrite current signals instead of waiting patiently for a currently running "low priority" train to complete its journey.

Why?

This could potentially mean something low priority leaves (yet more uranium) whilst your factory hits a standstill cause your iron train is delayed. Or perhaps you wish to make your "science" trains have a higher priority so you're always researching.

Obviously, this has the potential to jam your entire system if you do not manage it well (just like the current signals system), but this style of management is common in IRL train systems around the world.

[Vegemeister]

I think if this would actually make a difference for production, your train tracks are too congested already. But it would be useful to give higher priority to trains that are being used by the player interactively (passenger trains, exploration trains, trains bringing supplies to build new outposts, etc,).

[Tekky]

Instead of assigning trains a fixed priority, I believe it would be better if the circuit network were able to handle all of this. That way, the player would have full flexibility.

For example, it should be possible for the circuit network to read the status of trains on the track and give one train priority by forcing the signal of the low priority train to red. It is already possible to force signals to red, but, in order for the circuit network to read trains on the track, the following two suggestions would have to be implemented:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=47541 track signals should send Train-ID (and also cargo contents) to circuit network
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=46969 Constant Combinator for Locomotive

[Tekky]

On second thought, there are many things that the circuit network will not be able to do. Therefore, having some kind of built-in train priority handling in the game could be useful, for example by priority trains reserving a larger distance ahead of them (instead of only braking distance).