Factorio Forums

While holding over a train you can see its cargo content.

I assumed (wrongly) that the train station can output cargo content to the circuit network. I'd like this very much, so my inserters can decide if it's a good idea to empty my trains or not in my wip omni-ore offload station

Agreed. As it stands, it's still frustratingly difficult to properly load a maintenance-restocking train. A separate inserter for each item, and carefully-set slot filtering on the cargo car.

MindChanger and XKnight (along with others in this thread have come up with a smart loader for trains. I'm using XKnight's design in my factory to load my engineering train (one on each side to provide 20 different items).

Moved from General to suggestions

alternatively filter inserters with filters as a variable. (If x = y then filter z) etc..

Having Stations report a trains inventory to circuit network would open a lot of possibilities for smarter train loading.

The inventory should include fuel slots as well. It's rather easy to subtract it from normal cargo in case of a train carrying fuel and would allow for on demand requester chests to fuel engines without having 1-3 stacks of coal sitting in the requester chest in case a train needs fuel.

That's still not a thing with 0.13?

I admit I haven't touched my train system with circuit network yet since I updated from 0.12, but I thought that it was a thing now...

If not then it should be one of the top priorities for one of the next circuit network expansions.

MeduSalem wrote:If not then it should be one of the top priorities for one of the next circuit network expansions.

Same opinion. If I have to choose, which device should be added circuit network next, then the train stop/train-content etc.

Fixed title according to that. Hope Twinsen sees it.

Optera wrote:Having Stations report a trains inventory to circuit network would open a lot of possibilities for smarter train loading.

This one could be pretty hard to do anyway. I mean you would have problems with loading the train anyway (as you don't know how many free slots wagon have).
Also if it is connected to the train then all wagons would count in. It would be problematic to create system that works for any number of wagons properly for custom player's setups.

MindChanger wrote:This one could be pretty hard to do anyway. I mean you would have problems with loading the train anyway (as you don't know how many free slots wagon have).
Also if it is connected to the train then all wagons would count in. It would be problematic to create system that works for any number of wagons properly for custom player's setups.

But it's already done - when you hover over the locomotive, you can see cargo wagon content pretty clearly. The devs only need to add this as an option to the train station.

DevilXD wrote:

MindChanger wrote:This one could be pretty hard to do anyway. I mean you would have problems with loading the train anyway (as you don't know how many free slots wagon have).
Also if it is connected to the train then all wagons would count in. It would be problematic to create system that works for any number of wagons properly for custom player's setups.

But it's already done - when you hover over the locomotive, you can see cargo wagon content pretty clearly. The devs only need to add this as an option to the train station.

I talked about getting info into circuit network

MindChanger wrote:I talked about getting info into circuit network

You said that getting the cargo wagon content into circuit network would be hard. I showed you that the cargo wagon content is already available, only the train stop can't read those values

DevilXD wrote:

MindChanger wrote:I talked about getting info into circuit network

You said that getting the cargo wagon content into circuit network would be hard. I showed you that the cargo wagon content is already available, only the train stop can't read those values

But how can I get this data into circuit network fo example to let know inserter to stop inserting special item type? Maybe I don't know something

MindChanger wrote:But how can I get this data into circuit network fo example to let know inserter to stop inserting special item type? Maybe I don't know something

I said that earlier:

DevilXD wrote:The devs only need to add this as an option to the train station.

You connect the train station with a red or green wire and set it to 'Get train content' instead of 'Send to train'

DevilXD wrote: You connect the train station with a red or green wire and set it to 'Get train content' instead of 'Send to train'

But I was asking about single wagon. Your way will get contents from all wagons, which is not what I asked for

MindChanger wrote:But I was asking about single wagon. Your way will get contents from all wagons, which is not what I asked for

But, why do you want to read the content of a single wagon ? I would be really happy if I could read at least the content of the whole train itself

DevilXD wrote:[
But, why do you want to read the content of a single wagon ? I would be really happy if I could read at least the content of the whole train itself

For example to know how much items more to put into wagon without using filters in train where it is no needed (to allow wagon to have different kinds of items).

MindChanger wrote:For example to know how much items more to put into wagon without using filters in train where it is no needed (to allow wagon to have different kinds of items).

And why couldn't this be achieved using the whole train contents?

If you for example want to load Coal into the 3 third wagon you will surely have inserters there that are able to grab coal anyways... so if there is no coal in that wagon you basically just check if Coal amount of train is smaller than 40*2400 or something like that. And the inserter only works then if it is smaller.

MeduSalem wrote:

MindChanger wrote:For example to know how much items more to put into wagon without using filters in train where it is no needed (to allow wagon to have different kinds of items).

And why couldn't this be achieved using the whole train contents?

If you for example want to load Coal into the 3 third wagon you will surely have inserters there that are able to grab coal anyways... so if there is no coal in that wagon you basically just check if Coal amount of train is smaller than 40*2400 or something like that. And the inserter only works then if it is smaller.

What if I want to have balanced amount of specified materials across my all wagons? (It is not often situation to customize slots like that, but is possible).
Can't do that just using train content reader.

I had so more ideas, but don't remember them yet

But well, those are really rare situations, so I think reading content from whole train is enough.

Many people have already seen that the problem with this is that the holding cargo of the whole train isn't as useful as a single wagon's cargo.

This is why I think it shouldn't be a train-station thing but a rail block thing. I'd like to be able to connect a rail to the circuit network. The rail should be able to read the contents of the wagon directly above it (either wagon or locomotive). Maybe make it only able to read if train is at full stop.