Compact train unloading

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tokenok
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Compact train unloading

Post by tokenok »

Not sure if this has been done before, I've only ever seen a similar 4 lane one, but here are a few compact unloaders I made for 1-4 trains (RHD). I mostly cared that they were narrow, but they also couldn't be too long.

They all have these properties:
  • fully compressed blue belts of output parallel to rail
  • "wagon balanced", all cargo wagons will always empty at the same time (within a 1 or 2 inserter swings)
  • buffered via chests
  • can unload on either side of rail in either direction (mirrored versions exist)
  • has space for rail signals at the end of the train and right after the train stop, as well as some in-between
  • space for inserter + requester chest for fuel
  • width of a multiple of 2 to align with rails
  • very smol
2 lanes out, 2 tiles wide
can't be flipped, has mirrored version
requires some kind of lane balancing it you want the wagons to always unload evenly
show image
4 lanes out, 4 tiles wide, I saw an image of this at some point and tried to recreate it from memory
can be flipped and rotated.
show image
6 lanes out, 8 tiles wide, can't be flipped, has a mirrored version
show image
Would love to see other variations or even smaller versions. Feedback is great too, would love to see my mirrored 6 lane be able to fit that missing splitter, but I'm not sure its possible without moving the balancer part one tile away.

Example of how I use them:
show image

mwls
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Re: Compact train unloading

Post by mwls »

I also have an interest in compact train stations for a project where I'm attempting to make a dense base. I made my own two-wide unloading station for it. It has a few additional advantages:
  • 2 buffer chests per side of wagon, for twice-as-fast unloading
  • Can be scaled down to red belts and lower-level stack inserters
The main disadvantage is that it relies on a combinator clock to get precise item placement on the belts. Which means:
  • Scaling down requires adjusting the combinator clock duration/stack size override
  • Difficult (though not impossible) to use additional conditions for inserter enabling/disabling
  • Requires "Inserter capacity bonus" level 6 (stack size >= 9) for saturation, when two stack inserters ought to be able to saturate a blue belt at level 5 (stack size = 8)
If you want to get rid of the circuits, you can set the second inserter on each lane to have a stack size of 7, which gives you a belt that's approximately 97-98% full, which should be good enough for many use cases.
factorio-station.png
factorio-station.png (497.68 KiB) Viewed 3864 times

BlueTrin
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Re: Compact train unloading

Post by BlueTrin »

That’s really nice, you can plug them to a bus

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