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
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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 18918 times
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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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aberro
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Re: Compact train unloading

Post by aberro »

But 6 lanes version is obviously not balanced. There's 3 lanes full of uranium, one lane each full of iron, copper and steel.
Upd.:
10-26-2024, 15-14-07.png
10-26-2024, 15-14-07.png (933.64 KiB) Viewed 11542 times
this is the most compact truly balanced 6 crates per wagon 4 belts unloading station I could come up with. When output belts are overloaded, all 6 crates unloaded evenly. This can't be flipped, but easily modifiable for the flipped version, by flipping and shifting only the balancers section one tile to the right while leaving the row next to inserters unchanged, like so:
10-26-2024, 15-21-01.png
10-26-2024, 15-21-01.png (682.66 KiB) Viewed 11540 times
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