Ever wondered if you could make a 'belt' out of a train?

[hypnobunny]

Hey guys,

This is an X-post from the Factorio subreddit. I generally don't do this but the build generated a lot of discussion over there so I thought the community over here might get a kick out of it as well. The link is here: https://youtu.be/NRcs498i63o

Basically it is a continuous train. This is to say that it stretches so far that it can be loading from one station while simultaneously unloading at another. This sounds completely ridiculous (and it is) but it actually works for short-medium distances and can easily move 8+ blue belts worth of goods with minimal buffering.

[Neotix]

I tried that long ago but that system is hard to expand or change. Setting filters in so many wagons was the worst thing I ever encounter in this game.

[sckuzzle]

What advantage does this provide over normal train station usage? Surely having four trains each with four cargo wagons would provide exactly the same throughput.

[ratchetfreak]

What advantage does this provide over normal train station usage? Surely having four trains each with four cargo wagons would provide exactly the same throughput.

The resulting output would be a lot more bursty and would have less throughput as each train needs to clear the station completely before the next one can enter to get (un)loaded

[sckuzzle]

The resulting output would be a lot more bursty and would have less throughput as each train needs to clear the station completely before the next one can enter to get (un)loaded

While it is true that the exiting and entering trains won't accelerate at the same time, the trains would also accelerate much more quickly, as the ratio of trains to cargo wagons is better.

Speaking from experience, I'm able to saturate 2 blue belts for each cargo wagon at a train station. The bottleneck is actually the inserters placing items onto the belts, not the unloading of the train. This is the same amount as you demonstrate here. If I used bots, 16 blue belts from 4 cargo wagons should be possible.

[ratchetfreak]

The resulting output would be a lot more bursty and would have less throughput as each train needs to clear the station completely before the next one can enter to get (un)loaded

While it is true that the exiting and entering trains won't accelerate at the same time, the trains would also accelerate much more quickly, as the ratio of trains to cargo wagons is better.

Speaking from experience, I'm able to saturate 2 blue belts for each cargo wagon at a train station. The bottleneck is actually the inserters placing items onto the belts, not the unloading of the train. This is the same amount as you demonstrate here. If I used bots, 16 blue belts from 4 cargo wagons should be possible.

you can get around the acceleration issue by making the train 2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-...

[hypnobunny]

I tried that long ago but that system is hard to expand or change. Setting filters in so many wagons was the worst thing I ever encounter in this game.

I would probably just use this for one or two goods and you can copy/paste train cars if you want to expand filters.

The resulting output would be a lot more bursty and would have less throughput as each train needs to clear the station completely before the next one can enter to get (un)loaded

While it is true that the exiting and entering trains won't accelerate at the same time, the trains would also accelerate much more quickly, as the ratio of trains to cargo wagons is better.

Speaking from experience, I'm able to saturate 2 blue belts for each cargo wagon at a train station. The bottleneck is actually the inserters placing items onto the belts, not the unloading of the train. This is the same amount as you demonstrate here. If I used bots, 16 blue belts from 4 cargo wagons should be possible.

you can get around the acceleration issue by making the train 2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-...

To be completely honest, you could probably reach close to the same output level using the correct number of 2-4 trains (although I haven't tested this and it wouldn't be nearly as cool). I do think that this could be scaled up by using more locomotives and larger stations (i.e. 6 locomotives and stations that could accommodate 6 wagons). As for saturating 4 blue belts with 1 cargo wagon? I'm not sure about this. I was unloading wagons with 8 inserters/side and using bots to load the belts with 10 inserters per side (well, 5 per side loading two belts and then those belts combined into 1) and this setup was pretty much hitting 8 belts perfectly. I'm not sure if it could be optimized to double throughput (but would love to be shown I am wrong).

[mooklepticon]

What advantage does this provide over normal train station usage? Surely having four trains each with four cargo wagons would provide exactly the same throughput.

It's way more hilarious than normal train usage.

[Happiej]

I tried that long ago but that system is hard to expand or change. Setting filters in so many wagons was the worst thing I ever encounter in this game.

I would probably just use this for one or two goods and you can copy/paste train cars if you want to expand filters.

The resulting output would be a lot more bursty and would have less throughput as each train needs to clear the station completely before the next one can enter to get (un)loaded

While it is true that the exiting and entering trains won't accelerate at the same time, the trains would also accelerate much more quickly, as the ratio of trains to cargo wagons is better.

Speaking from experience, I'm able to saturate 2 blue belts for each cargo wagon at a train station. The bottleneck is actually the inserters placing items onto the belts, not the unloading of the train. This is the same amount as you demonstrate here. If I used bots, 16 blue belts from 4 cargo wagons should be possible.

you can get around the acceleration issue by making the train 2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-2-4-...

To be completely honest, you could probably reach close to the same output level using the correct number of 2-4 trains (although I haven't tested this and it wouldn't be nearly as cool). I do think that this could be scaled up by using more locomotives and larger stations (i.e. 6 locomotives and stations that could accommodate 6 wagons). As for saturating 4 blue belts with 1 cargo wagon? I'm not sure about this. I was unloading wagons with 8 inserters/side and using bots to load the belts with 10 inserters per side (well, 5 per side loading two belts and then those belts combined into 1) and this setup was pretty much hitting 8 belts perfectly. I'm not sure if it could be optimized to double throughput (but would love to be shown I am wrong).

Personally, I would like to see a test with this exact same setup with 'normal' trains running on it. Same idea though. Just as many train as you can get on the track. Then compare the troughput for as far that's possible.

[sckuzzle]

What advantage does this provide over normal train station usage? Surely having four trains each with four cargo wagons would provide exactly the same throughput.

It's way more hilarious than normal train usage.

Well I certainly can't argue with that!

To be completely honest, you could probably reach close to the same output level using the correct number of 2-4 trains (although I haven't tested this and it wouldn't be nearly as cool). I do think that this could be scaled up by using more locomotives and larger stations (i.e. 6 locomotives and stations that could accommodate 6 wagons). As for saturating 4 blue belts with 1 cargo wagon? I'm not sure about this. I was unloading wagons with 8 inserters/side and using bots to load the belts with 10 inserters per side (well, 5 per side loading two belts and then those belts combined into 1) and this setup was pretty much hitting 8 belts perfectly. I'm not sure if it could be optimized to double throughput (but would love to be shown I am wrong).

I miss-remembered - I only get one blue belt per cargo wagon when unloading directly to belts. However, I decided to test out how much I could achieve with bots anyway (having never used bot unloading before). Here is the result:

14.png (3.83 MiB) Viewed 4896 times

I managed just shy of 14 (you can see some belts aren't quite fully compressed) blue belts here. Going down to 13 starts accumulating resources on the right quite quickly. It is worth noting that I AM using the 8L train project mod, so am able to get 31 inserters active per side from a 4-length train. I also did a fair amount of optimization.

[hypnobunny]

Thanks for the test and the screenshot...I might need to revisit my own test to check it out again.