Disable stations by circuit control

[GotLag]

Simple suggestion (no doubt correspondingly complex implementation):
Allow circuit-connection train stations to be given a condition, and while that condition is not met then that station will be treated as if it does not exist - that is to say any train that is not already en-route to it will skip over it entirely and path directly to the next station on its list.

This would facilitate resupply trains that only visit outposts actually in need of resupply, for example. More efficient than passing through every station with a momentary pause.

I'm sure people will think of other exciting uses for this as well.

[ssilk]

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=139 Enemy Variations / Enemy Variety / New Enemies / Boss

[mattj256]

Added to viewtopic.php?f=80&t=139 Enemy Variations / Enemy Variety / New Enemies / Boss

Ssilk I don't see how this thread belongs in that category.

Here's a different thread that's closely related:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=25944&start=10

[ssilk]

Hm. Seems, that I mixed something, sorry. I will make a list of suggestions for this topic.

[hitzu]

This would facilitate resupply trains that only visit outposts actually in need of resupply, for example. More efficient than passing through every station with a momentary pause.

It would be very useful for serving many small outposts with low output rate such as depleted oil wells — the train will come only when there is a given amount of goods to transport.

[mattj256]

Hm. Seems, that I mixed something, sorry. I will make a list of suggestions for this topic.

Thanks ssilk.

[Engimage]

I see many uses for this feature. Like on-demand supply, load balancing multistop stations etc. Thumbs up. Simple to implement and has many uses.

[ssilk]

Now this is the right thread I added it to: viewtopic.php?f=80&t=30189 Ideas Around Conncetion of Railway and Circuits

[Vykromod]

I support this idea. Exactly the kind of stuff I'm hoping for to be implemented! I myself also thought up an idea of a resupply train, but as of now it's undoable without making your train constantly visiting all of your stations, wasting large amounts of fuel in the process. Instead, I have to resort to making all of my trains/i] resupply outposts they visit, but that requires sacrificing some of the inventory of the cargo wagons for the supplies, and also needs some tedious configuring.

Another use is efficient transport of oil from the aforementioned depleted oil well outposts.

[British_Petroleum]

This would be nice

[chris13524]

I was trying to do something like this just now, I tried making two stations with the same name ("A"), and added it to the schedule of the train. I added a signal in front of one of the stations (that the train goes to) and made it red. Even with the other station accessible, the train preferred to travel to the blocked one. With this in mind, maybe it could be implemented that trains would target stations that are accessible?

On the topic of a resupply train... Say you have it set so the train doesn't visit if there is a limited supply of resources to be picked up (by disabling the station). Now, the resupply train will not come, even if it needs items. Of course you could make two stations, one for resupply, and one for resource pickup, but this is something to consider.

Another thought would be programming a train to target specific stations. You could have a circuit network, and outposts would send a signal when they need a train to come. When the train goes to the drop off location, it would be programmed with a new schedule. This could be a single station, or many. Maybe algorithms could be thought up to make the most efficient train route to fill the train.

[TheSkiGeek]

There was a "smart trains" mod for 0.12 that did a bunch of those things. Not sure if it's been upgraded for 0.13.

The problem right now is that signals that are forced red by the circuit network are not treated the same way as signals that are forced red because of another train being in the way. This is fine for things like "safe crossings" where you want to temporarily block a line when the player is nearby, but not for forcing trains to go to a subset of a group of identically-named stations.

[golfmiketango]

+1, playing with vanilla trains I've wanted this also.

[Nexela]

There was a "smart trains" mod for 0.12 that did a bunch of those things. Not sure if it's been upgraded for 0.13.

https://github.com/Choumiko/SmartTrains/releases

[chakrit]

I just tried building a wall resupply route and really needed this.

One way to do this would be to allow connecting the rail track itself to the circuit network so we can enable/disable tracks depending on circuit condition. Then the path finding algorithm could be set to ignore tracks that are "disabled"

[GotLag]

Signals can be circuit-controlled and I may be mistaken but I think trains now retry pathfinding if blocked by a circuit-set signal.

But that's still not the same as (and not as good as) being able to disable a station outright so trains just skip it.

[Twinsen]

This was implemented in 0.15.0. Just wait patiently for the next experimental major version
You can disable a station and the train will skip disabled stations in it's schedule. If there is only one station enabled in the schedule, it will wait at that station.

[chris13524]

This was implemented in 0.15.0. Just wait patiently for the next experimental major version
You can disable a station and the train will skip disabled stations in it's schedule. If there is only one station enabled in the schedule, it will wait at that station.

Thanks so much!

[Guttenflax]

Great! That's the proposal I was about to do myself.
It would help me to setup wall train stops on demand and call the train (always waiting in a standby/refueling station) to the station whose network is giving a certain signal when ammo has been used by its firing turret.
An alternative would be a complete redesign of the train programming including the chance of going to a station under a condition (es. IF circuit network signal A=41 go to station "Turret 41") and not just following a fixed list of stations like it's at the moment.