Railway maintenance and repair

[Oblivifrek]

Just had an idea that could keep you focused on making more resources (This may not just apply to just railways but I'm just going to keep it simple). Train tracks should be vulnerable to wear and tear of normal train tracks. Where the track break if not repaired in time and if it breaks it will make you need to produce train tracks. how the system should work is that a track has a life span / life cycle of like 65000 runs or it depends on how you want the game to be balance so that the tracks don't break too fast but don't break too slow. Just an opinion like I say This may apply to other items in the game.

[bobingabout]

Or in simple terms...
every time a train passes over a track, it loses 1 health.
The damage must be repaired before it is destroyed from overuse.

Eh... to be honest, the game is about automation, you don't want to repair things manually, therefore, you'd be forced to have a robot logistics network span your entire train line, just so construction robots could repair it constantly. the result would be that every single outpost would be connected to each other with a single roboport network, rendering trains themselves useless, because bots would constantly be flying from one base to another anyway... and running out of power constantly, and dying from flying over biter nests....

[IhanaMies]

Send a slow moving track repair robot to fix the damaged parts. It would take a considerable amount of time due to the complex nature of the rail bot. It could be timed or improved to be fully automated. Having a backup rail could be a must

[Oblivifrek]

Or in simple terms...
every time a train passes over a track, it loses 1 health.
The damage must be repaired before it is destroyed from overuse.

Eh... to be honest, the game is about automation, you don't want to repair things manually, therefore, you'd be forced to have a robot logistics network span your entire train line, just so construction robots could repair it constantly. the result would be that every single outpost would be connected to each other with a single roboport network, rendering trains themselves useless, because bots would constantly be flying from one base to another anyway... and running out of power constantly, and dying from flying over biter nests....

To Me it would be good as a way to make it harder to get to the end game and also have different grade of track similar to belts yellow, red and blue.

[ssilk]

Tracks loose health and you need a robot, that repairs it or you need to do it yourself.

What a game this? Where's the fun in this?

This suggestion makes only sense, if it won't be limited to railway only. And is much more random. Think for example to solar panels.
It changes game-mechanics in a way, that you always see, how your factory gets old. But even then it is questionable, if that change is useful for the game-play, cause - as said in the OP - repair must be automated and all you need to do then is produce some more repair packs and repair-robots/repair-trains/whatever.

In other words: Just repair without another reason than to have a target (or no target) is an ugly game.

[zytukin]

Does make sense, but what would it accomplish besides just having another use for repair packs?

[Drunkennewbie]

It would add durability to tracks and make it slightly more annoyance/difficult. I think this would be better as a mod that players can install. Also with the mod add a repair train of a sort or something if you want that.

I think base game shouldn't add it cause like they mentioned it's annoyance and not really any value besides another thing to track.

[ssilk]

I really like that the trains in OpenTTD can break in the middle of the track. That brings a lot of fun into that game.
But they repair themselves after some seconds.

Now for Factorio this doesn't work, cause of the distances: A train just cannot repair himself, nor the track. Don't say now: "Why not, let's have trains, that can repair!".
Well, that is eventually a way. But I need to think a bit more about it, I'm not sure, if that way is really good, cause my stomach says no.

[RailLord]

Hey, RailLord here. Excuse me for inserting myself into the topic, being new, and all that stuff, but ssilk has a valid point. In OpenTTD, yes, vehicles do occasionally break down, along with its age deteriorating its reliability. But what the game does in my point of view is that it so-says "simulates" the vehicle getting towed, pushed, or pulled into a depot, being fixed there, and resuming its course, with the passengers, mail, or freight having to be on something else. And yes, I know that OpenTTD doesn't go that far.

In Factorio, one might be able to implement the whole repair/re-service system into the game, as obviously self-repairing trains just doesn't make any sense in it, just like what ssilk said. I chalk it up to "video game logic". What could possibly happen is that when a train breaks down, the nearest locomotive on thunderbird (British term for locomotive on standby at a key/strategic local) duty goes over and couples onto the train. It then takes the train to the next destination, where it will uncouple the stricken locomotive and place it on an empty track. The thunderbird then becomes the train's main engine, replacing the stricken locomotive entirely. Then, what could happen is that a free locomotive or an empty train could take the loco over to another track where the stricken locomotive can be repaired. This is pretty much what happens in real life. And yes, I know there might have to be a lot of re-wiring in the game itself for this to, as this is could be a major gameplay mechanic.

[Oblivifrek]

Hey, RailLord here. Excuse me for inserting myself into the topic, being new, and all that stuff, but ssilk has a valid point. In OpenTTD, yes, vehicles do occasionally break down, along with its age deteriorating its reliability. But what the game does in my point of view is that it so-says "simulates" the vehicle getting towed, pushed, or pulled into a depot, being fixed there, and resuming its course, with the passengers, mail, or freight having to be on something else. And yes, I know that OpenTTD doesn't go that far.

In Factorio, one might be able to implement the whole repair/re-service system into the game, as obviously self-repairing trains just doesn't make any sense in it, just like what ssilk said. I chalk it up to "video game logic". What could possibly happen is that when a train breaks down, the nearest locomotive on thunderbird (British term for locomotive on standby at a key/strategic local) duty goes over and couples onto the train. It then takes the train to the next destination, where it will uncouple the stricken locomotive and place it on an empty track. The thunderbird then becomes the train's main engine, replacing the stricken locomotive entirely. Then, what could happen is that a free locomotive or an empty train could take the loco over to another track where the stricken locomotive can be repaired. This is pretty much what happens in real life. And yes, I know there might have to be a lot of re-wiring in the game itself for this to, as this is could be a major gameplay mechanic.

yeah in terms of the gameplay logic it will make the play design redundancy in to there system like you would do in your power grid as well so that the system can still run if a track or a train breaks down and of cause this extra mechanic could add new items to the tech tree like more advanced trains and tracks so that you are still working towards full automation. Which is the end goal.

[ssilk]

I thought a bit about it. This suggestion makes sense only, if everything (not only trains and tracks) can get old and will finally break down, so that "interesting stuff" can and will happen on unpredictable times and spaces, cause the device, which was thought to be super reliable isn't. In the best case it takes some seconds to fix this, in the worst a minute or so.

In other words: for Factorio it needs to be so that
A) no matter how good and fast you repair and/or service the stuff - it will fail sometimes. That's how it works in games like OpenTTD. So why not also here?
B) you simply cannot repair/service everything, as player you need to decide which is most important and have priorities. This works in many strategy games, best played in conjunction with experience points. If you wait too long you will otherwise risk the destruction of that entity.

Arguments against A: the distances. I've somewhere calculated, that Factorio is about 50 times more granular than OpenTTD. Which means in consequence about 50 times more time is needed for transport/travel.
So you need either to
- distribute (repair packs, repair robots, repair depots or whatever) to reduce that time, cause for Factorio it doesn't make sense that the entities repair themselves automagically.
- or to be able to replace the broken devices/entity. Which is more or less the same problem: the distances are too high to make this fast.

Now think to this situation: you finally managed to build a train, just before your iron ore in your base drained out. The first train is on the way and you really need the stuff for ammunition. Your plan look as it might work. And then the train failed. First you wonder why it takes so long. Then you search for it. 15 (!) minutes later you repaired the train (cause you didn't have enough repair packs). At that time you also don't have magazines in some turrets, biters will come and after another 15 minutes you find, that you lost. I swear I would never play Factorio again, cause it is such unfair repair mechanics.

So as some kind of learning from this: before Factorio could have such kind of repair/maintenance it needs some really fast transport, so that the repair takes in maximum a minute or so.



Otherwise the unpredictable things won't happen.

[steinio]

If there is really a need for self damaging trains and tracks the easiest way would be to slow the train down. I see a lot of this track parts in my city which are called slow driving section because of bad rail conditions.

[Koub]

I'm not fond of the "items wearing out" thing. I prefer the automation of the production to the automation of the repairs.
The more upkeep is added (in any form), the less new outposts will be profitable, up to a point where there will be no ROI on building new outposts.