Train station skipping conditions

[mrvn]

Yeah, thanks RoddyVR for this summary.

[quote="RoddyVR"For those that disaggree that its not enough, simple case of two Iron trains that go through all 10 iron mines then deliver back to base, shows that with just turning off stations, you will never make a schedule that follows 3 simple (and intuitive rules):
1. a train only delivers iron to base when it is full. (base is most likely place of gridlock, half empty trains causing trafic is bad)
2. a train does not go to a mine if it (the train) is already full or the mine is empty (run out). (waste of time/fuel and everything else)
3. a train does not skip a mine if the train isnt full and the mine has iron.
[/quote]

That pretty much brings it to a point.

And while I totally agree that setting trains to skip stations is a lot of micromanaging (in my game every train has a unique schedule). Problem is that I see no other way. Weather a train is full or not full and how many stations it should then skip is something specific to a train. If you program the station in some way to direct the train then it needs to be programmable per train (or route if you have such a meta construct) and you have the same amount of micromanagement. Except then the train route is split between the train and X stations. I doubt that would be usable.



I've been thinking about 1). I think that can only result in two things: A) the train skips unloading and goes to mines multiple times till full or B) it waits on some station till full. Neither is desirable.

If you wanted really smart trains you would calculate a route for the train with loading and waiting times considering the amount of iron available at that point in the future when the train would be at each stop so that the waiting times are minimized. But good luck doing that with circuits and scaling it to more than 3 stations and trains.

[TheUnknown007]

Again, that's how you play. I am currently playing with a sorta modular design where I have boxes and trains between them, each box produces a single item (like electric circuits)
It would really help if trains were a bit smarter in deciding whether it is a good idea to go to a certain station (most definitely if there would be an easier way to distribute trains over stops with the same name, but that's a different thread)
And, as said, if you have five trains that bring stuff to 10 different stops, it would really help to have them skip the remaining 8 stops if they already ran out of supplies. (and it will also help in 0.15 where we can turn of the first 2 stops that are now fully supplied)

As you say, this is mostly something for a very small and busy network, which is precisely what this is. And I think it is a bit hypocritical to say that we should not only consider our solution if there are other solutions: why is our solution not good?
In my case, I could send each train to only 2 specific stations. But that is a lot of time to set up, where in the case I want I could just make the first train and copy its schedule to all the other trains. And it is MY solution, I am not saying that your solution of just running a few trains between only 2 stations per train is not good, but that is just not the factory I am going for right now.

[mrvn]

Again, that's how you play.

Who is that "you" you are talking about? There are many people with different styles in this discussion.

[TheUnknown007]

Again, that's how you play.

Who is that "you" you are talking about? There are many people with different styles in this discussion.

ssilk, as far as I know the only one in this chat that is against this proposal.

[ssilk]

Hm if that is the impression I'm sorry. I'm currently not against this. Maybe some weeks ago. I think I pointed a little bit too strong to my opinion, that controllable trains isn't that useful as controllable train stops and run into a controversial discussion. I just brought to much of my own stakes in.

[mrvn]

Hm if that is the impression I'm sorry. I'm currently not against this. Maybe some weeks ago. I think I pointed a little bit too strong to my opinion, that controllable trains isn't that useful as controllable train stops and run into a controversial discussion. I just brought to much of my own stakes in.

I just run into a case where I want to turn off train stops. Now I miss that.

I got sick of having one train per smelter or steam plant delivering coal and sitting there 90% of the time waiting to unload. But having one train making 10 stops it would be hugely beneficial to disable all stops that have > 1000 coal left. Now my train is stopping for 60s on each stop and arrives still half full at the end. But I'm afraid a longer time would have some station run dry if demand spikes.

[Rokani]

Hm if that is the impression I'm sorry. I'm currently not against this. Maybe some weeks ago. I think I pointed a little bit too strong to my opinion, that controllable trains isn't that useful as controllable train stops and run into a controversial discussion. I just brought to much of my own stakes in.

I just run into a case where I want to turn off train stops. Now I miss that.

I got sick of having one train per smelter or steam plant delivering coal and sitting there 90% of the time waiting to unload. But having one train making 10 stops it would be hugely beneficial to disable all stops that have > 1000 coal left. Now my train is stopping for 60s on each stop and arrives still half full at the end. But I'm afraid a longer time would have some station run dry if demand spikes.

There is a way to shut down a Train Station.
Connect the chests with a wire and connect them to the Rail signal at the back of the train and set the condition. Make sure there is a Chain Signal before entering the station, so that the train wont get stuck in there.

And then back at the Refinery, or where ever, make some waiting areas and a fake train stop with the same name as the station that you will turn on and off, make its signal always red and the trains will sit in the waiting area for that station to open, when the real station(s) are ready to be unloaded/loaded their signal will change and the trains will head out.

Though this is really only good for one train, as the others will rush to the open station, but if you have a ton of stations the extras will just repath to a new one soon enough.

[TheUnknown007]

There is a way to shut down a Train Station.

This won't give the desired behaviour, as this will only prevent trains from entering the station when it is turned off, but they will wait until it is turned on.
The desired behaviour is that all trains that have the station in their schedule skip that station and go to the next station instead.

example:
A
B
.. <-- trains will wait here in your solution
C <-- station C is turned off
D <-- desired behaviour: trains skip C and go to D.
E

[TheUnknown007]

I just run into a case where I want to turn off train stops. Now I miss that.

Entirely possible. Disabling train stops is implemented for 0.15, so either you wait for that or you try Rokani's solution, although I don't think it will work for your case (unless I understood it incorrectly)

You could disable a station as described by Rokani (normal signal disabled before station, chain signal with possibility to go somewhere else before that) and provide another station much further away with the same name.
If the actual station is turned off, trains will sooner or later decide to go to the other station that is further away. It will take some time, but they will not be unloaded in the meantime.

ASCII art:
A is the station before the station you want to turn off.
c is a chain signal
s is a normal signal
d is the normal signal but closed (d for disabled)
B is the station you want to turn off
and B' is another station with the same name as B.

B is turned on:
A__c______s______B <-- B is accessible and closer, go to normal B

• \___________________________B'

B is turned off:
A__c______s______B <-- B is turned off

• \___________________________B' <-- only B' is accessible, so trains go here.

If you want to make it foolproof, turn off B' if B is turned on

[Rokani]

There is a way to shut down a Train Station.

This won't give the desired behaviour, as this will only prevent trains from entering the station when it is turned off, but they will wait until it is turned on.
The desired behaviour is that all trains that have the station in their schedule skip that station and go to the next station instead.

example:
A
B
.. <-- trains will wait here in your solution
C <-- station C is turned off
D <-- desired behaviour: trains skip C and go to D.
E

Yea my solution is really only for mines/oil pumps. I would name all the mines the same, Iron mine, copper mine, etc, and set the train schedule as follows: Refinery > Mine > Fuel. This way the train will wait in the waiting area until it is guaranteed a full load from one of the Mines.
Also, thinking about it with multiple trains, each mine would need a waiting area that can reconnect to the main line to prevent trains from backing up the main line if more than one train tries to get to the open station.

Nvm, Multiple trains will jam up the system so this only works with one train, you can do more than one train but you risk the trains sitting on the main line.

And there is a distance limit to this as well, eh always something, too far and the trains will never look at the real station.

Seems adding a wagon to the fake train station makes it the last choice allowing the trains to repath correctly. Seems that it only doubles the distance the trains will look for a new station.
So unless the trains are going a short distance this is mostly a useless idea. RIP.

[GrayMage]

Nvm, Multiple trains will jam up the system so this only works with one train, you can do more than one train but you risk the trains sitting on the main line.

That's why I made this suggestion, which is hopefully already implemented.

And there is a distance limit to this as well, eh always something, too far and the trains will never look at the real station.

Seems adding a wagon to the fake train station makes it the last choice allowing the trains to repath correctly. Seems that it only doubles the distance the trains will look for a new station.
So unless the trains are going a short distance this is mostly a useless idea. RIP.

Adding 3 red semaphores (which turn green when the station has enough resources) before every outpost station works good for me.
I'm using a dummy train stop at the end of my depot. That train stop named the same as my outpost ones (e.g. "Copper", "Iron" etc) and is always closed by 3 red semaphores.

[Rokani]

@GrayMage:

Works for the test setup time to see how many extra signals ill need for my real base when I expand further, Thanks for the tip.

[walljaik]

im in to trains a lot and im missing that feature too. Even i would like some way to send signals to train in certains spots so you could add conditions to avoid or modify the next path. With the Enabling station system you could have cleaner rails, create even a big train depot. They are awesome now, but still just need to be tweaked a bit more and train system will be sexy as hell.

[mrvn]

Wouldn't it be simpler to just turn on/off the signal leaving your depot instead of having a dummy station? The trains will always choose the right station because there is only the right station and they won't leave the depo until you allow them to.

[TheUnknown007]

No, because the train will simply go to the closest open station (open means that there is no train at that station) after leaving the depot. They will only reroute if they are waiting at a chain signal for a long time (2 minutes I think, but I don't really know)

[mrvn]

so put a chain signal and normal signal at your depo exit.

[TheUnknown007]

that only works if the train will be waiting a long time at the chain signal, which it probably won't.

[sparr]

Bumping this thread. I'm not a fan of a lot of the additional ideas put forward in the middle of the thread, but I would still very much like to see my original idea implemented. I am going to try to implement it as a mod, if I can figure out all the UI stuff.

[leoch]

You can do this in 0.15 by using the circuit network to disable stations. Mind, it doesn't work well with multiple trains and might require you building long-distance circuit networks.

[sparr]

You can do this in 0.15 by using the circuit network to disable stations. Mind, it doesn't work well with multiple trains and might require you building long-distance circuit networks.

It wouldn't work at all with multiple trains, and the only train systems worth talking about are multiple train systems.

I don't want every train to skip the iron loading station, I only want trains already full of iron to skip it. I don't want every train to skip the third iron dropoff station, I only want empty trains to skip it.