Steam/diesel locomotives

[Rjskeet]

So i am a huge user of trains in a rail world/towns setting such as what MangledPork Gaming does and I have done many different saves in that style. But in my opinion only having the diesel locomotive to me is kind of, well i'm just going to say not Factorio. I say this because in almost everything else there is variety for example, assemblers have 3 variations that vary in speed and what they can craft and how many modules they hold, but you wouldn't use a green assembler to make wooden boxes( just an example ). Trains should be the same way, you could have a steam locomotive that pulls less train cars, takes water, and can only use coal and wood, but is super easy to build( 1 steam engine 1 tank and maybe some steel just as a thought ) and then later you could have the diesel locomotive that is expensive( make it use electric engines ) but can pull more and is way way more efficient and can use any fuel.

I bring this up because we now have the fluid pumps for trains and well as stated before i love using them in this game.

[bigyihsuan]

I'd say to have 2 types of steam locos, and change the Diesel Locomotive.

Steam engines require both fuel and water, but they're highly versatile with 2 different kinds. Although, they can only move at top speed when going forwards.
Tank Engine (Tier 1)

• Small internal inventory for water (1/2 tank) and fuel (1 slot).
• Mid-speed, best for short distances, like moving materials from one part of a base to another
• Advantage: Doesn't need a tender. Fast to accelerate and stop.
• Disadvantage: Short range. Slow.

Tender Engine (Tier 2)

• No internal tanks or inventory, so it depends entirely on it's tender(s).
• Tenders accept fuel and water (1 tank and 5 fuel slots), and feeds into the main engine for fuel and water.
• Very fast (slightly slower than the Diesel Locomotive), but very powerful (think the Big Boy class of locomotives in the 1960s).
• Disadvantage: Requires 1 or more tenders to function/increase range. Does nothing without a tender. Very inefficient with fuel and water. Slow to start and stop.
• Advantage: More tenders can be added to increase range.

Diesel locomotives are simple to use, but additional logistics are needed to get the liquid fuel into the engines.
Diesel Locomotive (Tier 3)

• Fastest, and a little bit less powerful than the Tender Engine.
• You can chain many together to make longer trains.
• Disadvantage: Runs only on liquid Diesel Fuel (from refining Light Oil). No way of adding a "tender".
• Advantage: Very efficient on fuel. Easy to use (just set up fuel input). Can run bidirectionally without speed decreases.

[Rjskeet]

I'd say to have 2 types of steam locos, and change the Diesel Locomotive.

Steam engines require both fuel and water, but they're highly versatile with 2 different kinds. Although, they can only move at top speed when going forwards.
Tank Engine (Tier 1)

• Small internal inventory for water (1/2 tank) and fuel (1 slot).
• Mid-speed, best for short distances, like moving materials from one part of a base to another
• Advantage: Doesn't need a tender. Fast to accelerate and stop.
• Disadvantage: Short range. Slow.

Tender Engine (Tier 2)

• No internal tanks or inventory, so it depends entirely on it's tender(s).
• Tenders accept fuel and water (1 tank and 5 fuel slots), and feeds into the main engine for fuel and water.
• Very fast (slightly slower than the Diesel Locomotive), but very powerful (think the Big Boy class of locomotives in the 1960s).
• Disadvantage: Requires 1 or more tenders to function/increase range. Does nothing without a tender. Very inefficient with fuel and water. Slow to start and stop.
• Advantage: More tenders can be added to increase range.

Diesel locomotives are simple to use, but additional logistics are needed to get the liquid fuel into the engines.
Diesel Locomotive (Tier 3)

• Fastest, and a little bit less powerful than the Tender Engine.
• You can chain many together to make longer trains.
• Disadvantage: Runs only on liquid Diesel Fuel (from refining Light Oil). No way of adding a "tender".
• Advantage: Very efficient on fuel. Easy to use (just set up fuel input). Can run bidirectionally without speed decreases.

Love that idea with the 3 tiers. Didn't even think about the tender engine style for long range heavy haulers. This also gives rise to massive train yards for unloading/ loading, refilling, and refueling trains and that would look awesome!!! and add late game complexity

[evildogbot100]

I do make a mod that makes locomotives ONLY accept fluid oil as fuel. You can configure it to take steam as well. The thing is, I haven't found a good way to implement locomotive that uses both water and solid fuel. Here is the link to the mod page https://mods.factorio.com/mods/evildogb ... Locomotive

[Hellatze]

i want my monorail.

[OdinYggd]

I do make a mod that makes locomotives ONLY accept fluid oil as fuel. You can configure it to take steam as well. The thing is, I haven't found a good way to implement locomotive that uses both water and solid fuel. Here is the link to the mod page https://mods.factorio.com/mods/evildogb ... Locomotive

I have a yet-unreleased mod that implements steam locomotives using water and fuel. So far though I haven't been able to get the tank locomotive to carry its own supplies though.

At some point I suppose I'll finish it. Was waiting for 0.15 and got distracted.

[Optera]

I certainly would welcome train variety, however steam locomotives don't fit Factorio's setting.
Within the first few minutes of gameplay we transition from burner era to electricity from steam engines. Within an hour we are at solar if not nuclear.
By the time trains become a thing we are already at the stage where diesel locomotives feel outdated. Variety should go towards full electric and nuclear locomotives.

[Rjskeet]

I certainly would welcome train variety, however steam locomotives don't fit Factorio's setting.
Within the first few minutes of gameplay we transition from burner era to electricity from steam engines. Within an hour we are at solar if not nuclear.
By the time trains become a thing we are already at the stage where diesel locomotives feel outdated. Variety should go towards full electric and nuclear locomotives.

In most games yes people do progress very fast, but in a rail-world game it is actually very slow and current trains are kinda expensive, especially in a marathon mode. I suggested this Mainly for people who just love playing with the trains in the game and would like to see some variety in the stuff they use.

[bigyihsuan]

I certainly would welcome train variety, however steam locomotives don't fit Factorio's setting.
Within the first few minutes of gameplay we transition from burner era to electricity from steam engines. Within an hour we are at solar if not nuclear.
By the time trains become a thing we are already at the stage where diesel locomotives feel outdated. Variety should go towards full electric and nuclear locomotives.

Yes, in a vanilla sense, but in a long-running modded game where diesel locos are ridiculously expensive and hard to make? Then steam engines would work then.

[Lav]

I do not think the game needs different types of burner locomotive. Factorio is not big on duplication anyway.

So I think the game needs:

1. Burner locomotive - burns solid fuels. May or may not need water to function, I'm fine with either option.
2. Diesel locomotive - burns liquid fuels.
3. Electric locomotive - accumulator inside, recharges automatically from stations.
4. Nuclear locomotive - runs on nuclear cells, has adjacency bonus.

There is no need to re-create the history of railway in the game - it's not TTD and the main character has advanced knowledge in his head/omnitool anyway.

[Optera]

I certainly would welcome train variety, however steam locomotives don't fit Factorio's setting.
Within the first few minutes of gameplay we transition from burner era to electricity from steam engines. Within an hour we are at solar if not nuclear.
By the time trains become a thing we are already at the stage where diesel locomotives feel outdated. Variety should go towards full electric and nuclear locomotives.

Yes, in a vanilla sense, but in a long-running modded game where diesel locos are ridiculously expensive and hard to make? Then steam engines would work then.

If you use marathon setting to slow down progression considerably having something similar to Junk Train makes sense.

My Railworld however has been running for several hundred hours and I really feel the need for faster more powerful and longer trains as my mines keep sprawling out further and further. That's why I made More Locomotives. With 0.15 I might transition to Nuclear Locomotives.

I wish the burner inside locomotives could directly use electricity or fluids so mods like Diesel Locomotive and Electric Trains didn't have to use ups tanking scripts to fuel their locos.

All of these mentioned mods fit Factorios tech progression.

[Rjskeet]

I do not think the game needs different types of burner locomotive. Factorio is not big on duplication anyway.

So I think the game needs:

1. Burner locomotive - burns solid fuels. May or may not need water to function, I'm fine with either option.
2. Diesel locomotive - burns liquid fuels.
3. Electric locomotive - accumulator inside, recharges automatically from stations.
4. Nuclear locomotive - runs on nuclear cells, has adjacency bonus.

There is no need to re-create the history of railway in the game - it's not TTD and the main character has advanced knowledge in his head/omnitool anyway.

True true, I was just thinking of easiest to build to hardest and I thought about the steam engine and how the character already knows how to build it and that he might as well put it in a train, then it would improve. Nuclear trains are just awesome someone also mentioned. I just don't want A-B-C-D progression where D is the best at everything and no one uses A-C. Each one should have its own purpose in a way, like coal shunters shouldn't be nuclear trains for example it just wouldn't be efficient.

[Optera]

I do not think the game needs different types of burner locomotive. Factorio is not big on duplication anyway.

So I think the game needs:

1. Burner locomotive - burns solid fuels. May or may not need water to function, I'm fine with either option.
2. Diesel locomotive - burns liquid fuels.
3. Electric locomotive - accumulator inside, recharges automatically from stations.
4. Nuclear locomotive - runs on nuclear cells, has adjacency bonus.

There is no need to re-create the history of railway in the game - it's not TTD and the main character has advanced knowledge in his head/omnitool anyway.

True true, I was just thinking of easiest to build to hardest and I thought about the steam engine and how the character already knows how to build it and that he might as well put it in a train, then it would improve. Nuclear trains are just awesome someone also mentioned. I just don't want A-B-C-D progression where D is the best at everything and no one uses A-C. Each one should have its own purpose in a way, like coal shunters shouldn't be nuclear trains for example it just wouldn't be efficient.

Indeed, no one would keep using T1 assemblers when T3 is better in every regard.
Going by what I learned while balancing locomotives around the current diesel locomotive I'd use these stats:

Burner Locomotives:
Cheap and capable of pulling small trains at lowered speeds.
efficiency: 50% or less
top speed: 180km/h (current locomotive has 205 with wood/coal)
power: 400kW
weight 1t

Diesel Locomotives:
Similar stats as current locomotives, but uses liquid fuel instead of solid fuel. Material cost should be slightly increased for normal crafting so Burner is longer viable.
efficiency: 80-90%
top speed 205km/h with heavy oil, light oil +10%, petroleum +20%
power 600kW
weight 2t

Electric Locomotives:
To balance the high power and top speed it requires electrified rails or uninterrupted electric network coverage along rails.
efficiency 100%
top speed 300km/h
power 1200kW
weight 2t

Nuclear Locomotive:
Very heavy (shielding), runs for hours with a stack of fuel cells.
When destroyed it takes everything around it down with a nuclear explosion. Seeing a behemoth killing one only to die in the explosion would be very satisfying.
efficiency 100%
top speed 250km/h
power 1200kW
weight 5t

With these stats I probably would end up using only electric for my central network and fall back to diesel or nuclear for really far away mining outposts.
As I only use trains longer than L-4C the Burner variant wouldn't play a role for me, but I've seen a lot of players using those L-2C trains.

[Laogeodritt]

For electric, I might suggest requiring new infrastructure (i.e. the specific electrified rail items) and having a range limit (perhaps an electric rail network requires only one power point, or can only have them at stations, and can only transmit up to a certain length of rail, or effective power available to the train decreases linearly with distance from a power input point)—that would allow it to be extremely fast/time-efficient but really limit it to within a major base or to nearby outposts, not long-haul stuff.

I mean, these ideas also partially appeal to me due to analogs in real-life EE, which isn't necessarily good gameplay too.

[mrvn]

I certainly would welcome train variety, however steam locomotives don't fit Factorio's setting.
Within the first few minutes of gameplay we transition from burner era to electricity from steam engines. Within an hour we are at solar if not nuclear.
By the time trains become a thing we are already at the stage where diesel locomotives feel outdated. Variety should go towards full electric and nuclear locomotives.

That's because researching and building trains is expensive and a side track you normally don't start with.

But if you could build trains using only a steam engine and some steel plates they could be much earlier in the game and only require red science. It would destroy the "Getting on track in 90 minutes" achievement but would make the train world scenario so much more fun.

[Optera]

That's because researching and building trains is expensive and a side track you normally don't start with.

But if you could build trains using only a steam engine and some steel plates they could be much earlier in the game and only require red science. It would destroy the "Getting on track in 90 minutes" achievement but would make the train world scenario so much more fun.

I'd agree if trains where locked behind oil processing (diesel locomotive) or blue science packs, but as they currently are they already are a rather cheap early tech.

If we had an even cheaper red science junk train, getting on track would be reduced to 30minutes or it would explicitly state junk trains don't count for it.

[mrvn]

Oh and one more thing we should have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draisine

[Lav]

Oh and one more thing we should have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draisine

I assume player must click left and right mouse buttons in sequence to move?

[Rjskeet]

Trains should start at red science with the junk train, then green science brings in proper steam trains blue science gives you both diesel and full electric trains( need electric engines and accumulaters for electric ).

[SQLek]

Oh and one more thing we should have:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draisine

I assume player must click left and right mouse buttons in sequence to move?

If trains can be hand powered... maybe assemblers also? And we end with something like this


I think hand assembler can be moded into factorio. When mined with pick, You disassemble it, but when mined with hand, it breaks after 30 seconds, and in event handle every one second of mining is worth 0.25 seconds of recipe progress. Drasine will be more tricky, because event open-gui and disassemble must be used.