Railroad

[ssilk]

This has already been discussed: If, then this will be underground tubes, cause elevated constructions have the problem, that everything behind them is more or less hidden.

[bobucles]

So? Power poles hide stuff behind them and they work just fine. Just make the sprites have enough transparent pixels to see stuff behind them.

Elevated rail can't be interacted with so it has little use inside the base. It can also stretch for long distances, which is something underground rail can not.

[wwdragon]

So? Power poles hide stuff behind them and they work just fine. Just make the sprites have enough transparent pixels to see stuff behind them.

Elevated rail can't be interacted with so it has little use inside the base. It can also stretch for long distances, which is something underground rail can not.

Also, we could just have a hold button to see above ground and another to see below ground stuff.... just like many minecraft mods that take up the same block.

HOld shift to hide all but above, maybe and hold ctrl to hide all but below... or reverse those keys.

[bobucles]

The alt overlay can also just place important icons where they're needed, so nothing is really hidden.

Another option is to make elevated rail fatter, such that horizontal lengths don't allow hidden stuff behind them. Standard rail is already 2 tiles wide, a little wider isn't going to hurt anything.
One possible perk of elevated rail is the ability to go over water. Of course it has very limited use if the player can't travel on the water himself. One option is to walk on the bridge planting the rail across water, which kills two birds with one stone.

[Farogan]

We are saying everywhere, that the game is inspired by Transport Tycoon.
There is already some proof of concept of trains (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vmp66SmUztQ), but this is still far from transport tycoon.

I believe, that we could use the concept of transport tycoon in this area of the game almost completely.
Player would create stations and specify rout of the train, the train would stop at the station and wait until inserters have nothing to do.

This would help the game a lot for two reasons.
a) I like to play with trains, so I will enjoy the game more, there might be people like me out there
b) The game is missing some late game mechanism to transfer big amounts of resources from distant mining sites.
c) Diversity of logistics.

As a OpenTTD player i would love to see more influences from that game in Factorio. Here some crazy ideas for you guys...

- There could be a different end goal / gamemode. Like colonize the planet... with growing settlements/citys that need to be supplied with resources to grow. It should be probably abstract like in OpenTTD where you do not see any people, just numbers... but that would make your character a bit useless. Like still the lonely guy on a planet But imagine you would build your first star-port where people can arrive and than designate some location for them to settle ( or let the game choose the location ). That would bring some new transportation and meaning into the late game. I know that i can play OpenTTD for days until the whole map turned into a city...
Questions would be: What about a currency in that world? I think we would not need it. You pay with resources and peoples lives. if you do not care for the settlements they would die or fly back to earth.

- to make long railroad projects easier to build there could be tech where you character enters a building from where you than can lay down tracks via "remote" robots or some crazy thing. It could be some sort of Satellite that you launch first from where you view the surface to plan the tracks and some robots are going to lay them for you.

[kiba]

This has already been discussed: If, then this will be underground tubes, cause elevated constructions have the problem, that everything behind them is more or less hidden.

I am already building underground tubes with subsurface mod.

[Alukat]

As a fan of OpenTTD i like train maps too

so i set everything except monsters to:
frequeny: low
size: small
richness: poor

using Dytech Mod and then gambled untill i had desert and about 50k iron ores near start zone. So i had to use trains

- There could be a different end goal / gamemode. Like colonize the planet... with growing settlements/citys that need to be supplied with resources to grow. It should be probably abstract like in OpenTTD where you do not see any people, just numbers... but that would make your character a bit useless. Like still the lonely guy on a planet But imagine you would build your first star-port where people can arrive and than designate some location for them to settle ( or let the game choose the location ). That would bring some new transportation and meaning into the late game. I know that i can play OpenTTD for days until the whole map turned into a city...
Questions would be: What about a currency in that world? I think we would not need it. You pay with resources and peoples lives. if you do not care for the settlements they would die or fly back to earth.

that'd be awesome.
Also wondering if someone's still working on the homeworld mod.

[ssilk]

Please use the Show your Creations board for such posts.

[Farogan]

- to make long railroad projects easier to build there could be tech where you character enters a building from where you than can lay down tracks via "remote" robots or some crazy thing. It could be some sort of Satellite that you launch first from where you view the surface to plan the tracks and some robots are going to lay them for you.

so basically i would be the same view as you would run around with the player. Except the player would not be there and you could scroll faster around and access all train and signal config to make the management easier... exchange of inventory from and to the player would not be possible of course...

[Farogan]

Also wondering if someone's still working on the homeworld mod.

Looks interesting this mod!

[Alukat]

Please use the Show your Creations board for such posts.

ok, sorry

[YayHarry101]

I personally would like to see different train cars (tankers,vehicle transporters, ect.) and possibily even different locomotives like a steam powered one or even an electric one but that is also just my thought

[jarcionek]

Variety of cars and engines would be nice, even if there were two options only. Electric trains would also be a nice addition. I really miss some high power fast locomotive that can haul more than two cars and still achieve 260km/h speed (or maybe higher?).

Electric trains could be implemented with adding only one extra entity (except the locomotive itself) such as electric railway with third rail or traction pole that can be placed similarly to signal/station. It could be even done without any extra entities by just reusing normal electric poles - if the electric locomotive is in range of any electric pole, it can move.

Underground railways would also be very useful. It can be implemented in similar way as underground pipes and belts - only straight tunnels, limited range (10? 20?), underground intersections are ignored. And this requires only one new entity - "tunnel entrance". Overall I think it would be easier to implement, simpler to use and more practical than overground railways (and would add fewer new items to the game).

Things like bridges and building over water is another topic, but also something that the game needs.

[Grey]

The Trains deserve an overhaul, thats for sure, but its hard to decide what to be covered by devs and what to be done by modders.

I would like to see something like the following in vanilla as then it can be Extended by far by modders:
-carts for fluids, this is already confirmed afaik
-when there are carts for fluids it should be no Problem to make locos also hold fluids.
-diesel engine finally requires heavy oil, easy steam engine could take solid fuel and water, and electric Trains could hold a internal Slots for accumulators, which is recharged by poles adjacent to track. The amount of accus would increase the range to be travelled without beeing recharged.

Maybe its possible to make an "empty" Train, and you have to add items to "finish" it. like for the power armor. So you can add a Boiler, steamengine and a tank and chest for a steam engine, engine and tank for a diesel, electric engine and accu for an electric. Which would give huge Options for modders, as you can even do solar or nuclear powered trains. You can modify Trains for your Needs, adding 5 Boilers gives more power but raises fuel consumption by 10, adding more accus would increase range and so on. Same like for power armor there could be different sizes of hulks for Trains.

Apart from the item i would like to see an overhaul of the Train physics. I tend to use Long Trains of about 15 cars, which then are easily stopped by some biters. Here the "momentum" of the Train should get more Impact. So if a 3 cart Train gets stopped an 8 cart Train would easily railkill. Think this could easily be added by simply adding a "mass" property for the rolling stock. Would be nice if the Cargo would get an Impact too, but thats another step.

As multiplayer is getting more important and on our Server Players use Forces, it would be nice to mark tracks as "private/public". So you can use a public track, without Need to worry that your Trains use alternavtive routes through others bases and getting shot. Think that this could be done by using gates. Right now as i write this i am not sure if this is already implemented. Have to check again how Trains behave with other Forces' gates, and how they treat with shortcuts...

[Spaceman_05]

Underground railways would also be very useful. It can be implemented in similar way as underground pipes and belts - only straight tunnels, limited range (10? 20?), underground intersections are ignored. And this requires only one new entity - "tunnel entrance". Overall I think it would be easier to implement, simpler to use and more practical than overground railways (and would add fewer new items to the game).

I think instead of an underground train, it makes more sense to have track that goes above transporter belt/inserter level, but not over building level, such as labs and assemblers, because trains have height and to go underground you need a lot of space.
Maybe they could also be used to cross water, because I often see huge deposits of ore on the other side of rivers and huge lakes

[mariusvollen]

Considering the new signal helper it could be nice if there was a option in the settings that lets you place signals where they would be "illegal". If you really know what you are doing you are allowed to do so. And for new players they still get denied in placing light in illegal places. Simple solution, both parties would be happy

[deareim]

Definitely different wagons types and underground belts.

[mrtux]

Considering the new signal helper it could be nice if there was a option in the settings that lets you place signals where they would be "illegal". If you really know what you are doing you are allowed to do so. And for new players they still get denied in placing light in illegal places. Simple solution, both parties would be happy

+1

[Grimakar]

I would like to have a mechanic that exists in Railroad Tycoon from Sid Meier. Three priority steps: lowest would be general train behaviour as it exists now. middle would be important, so automated trains have higher priority on signals, highest would be the player itself.
And one more thing that would be very helpful would be a GUI list, that shows me information about my actual trains, esp what are there routes. Now I am running around and checking every train and at the actual state of the game I have a lot of trains and they are getting more. Shoo fly don't bother me... Maybe with a chance to reconfigure their routes.

In this case it could be a good idea to give trains a name.

[Killavirus]

Trains could be defended with a Laser carriage that you can fill with batteries. you would then start see'ing massive train layouts as well
My new train setup would be 1231321