[MOD 0.16] Bulk Rail Loaders

[Therax]

Version 0.3.0 error

Error while running on_configuration_changed: __railloader__/configchange.lua:35: attempt to get length of global 't' (a nil value)

Thanks for the report. This is now fixed in 0.3.1.

[Warringer]

I keep running into this error, when I'm playing with Bio Industries and use their wooden rails with Versions 0.3 and 0.3.1

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Error while running event railloader::on_built_entity (ID 6)
__railloader__/util.lua:159: attempt to index local 'rail' (a nil value)

I had to downgrade back to 0.2.5 to have it work again.

[Therax]

I keep running into this error, when I'm playing with Bio Industries and use their wooden rails with Versions 0.3 and 0.3.1

Thank you, should be fixed now.

[xaero15]

I'm having an issue while trying to use loaders. When I place them, they didn't transfer the load to the train. One time 3 of 4 where working but not the last one. This time the problem is with sulfur but happened with coke too, but was able to make it work.

I'm using most of angels and bob's mods.

Edit: Seems like it just take some time to it to begin to work.

[Therax]

Edit: Seems like it just take some time to it to begin to work.

Bulk rail loaders and unloaders check for valid items when a train on Automatic stops. If there is nothing to load/unload, they check again every few seconds. In normal operation you'll have items waiting at the station for a train to arrive, and there will be no delay in loading. When testing, you can set the train to manual and then back to automatic to trigger an immediate check.

[xaero15]

Edit: Seems like it just take some time to it to begin to work.

Bulk rail loaders and unloaders check for valid items when a train on Automatic stops. If there is nothing to load/unload, they check again every few seconds. In normal operation you'll have items waiting at the station for a train to arrive, and there will be no delay in loading. When testing, you can set the train to manual and then back to automatic to trigger an immediate check.

Well, that was my idea, and was filling a loader and sending the train on automatic to the station, but it just didn't load, and then i let it there and a couple of minutes before it just work. Maybe it mess a bit with the trigger, but it works so it's fine .

[Therax]

Well, that was my idea, and was filling a loader and sending the train on automatic to the station, but it just didn't load, and then i let it there and a couple of minutes before it just work. Maybe it mess a bit with the trigger, but it works so it's fine .

Hmmm. It should have configured instantly when the train arrived at the station, as long as there were already items in the loader. This was vanilla sulfur, and the loader already had items in it when the train arrived?

[glebtv]

Having this error when placing unloaders via robots and not having enough in the inventory to build them all

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Error while running event railloader::on_robot_built_entity (ID 14)
__railloader__/control.lua:33: attempt to index local 'event' (a nil value)

[Gnorm]

Thanks for taking care of the multiplayer issue I was having on a server. I think we're having the same issue others may have mentioned regarding placing the loader building. If it helps, this is the error I received on the server side. This happened on 16.23 as well as the current 16.24 build 35559

13:26:27 [Error] MainLoop.cpp:1019: Exception at tick 137853667: Error while running event railloader::on_built_entity (ID 6)
13:26:27 [Error] ServerMultiplayerManager.cpp:95: MultiplayerManager failed: "Error while running event railloader::on_built_entity (ID 6)

[Sworn]

I got

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__railloader__/control.lua:33: attempt to index local 'event' (a nil value)

When I palce a loader without a train track. It works with a track so not a major thing.

[Sworn]

IF possible, I would suggest some automatic compatibility with PyIndustries mods, it has lots of interesting itens like "soil, sand, bone", that fits really well with the loaders.

Sure we can use the "allow all" in the config, just a suggestion.

[Therax]

IF possible, I would suggest some automatic compatibility with PyIndustries mods, it has lots of interesting itens like "soil, sand, bone", that fits really well with the loaders.

Sure we can use the "allow all" in the config, just a suggestion.

Thanks for the suggestion. Materials added by pycoalprocessing are now supported.

__railloader__/control.lua:33: attempt to index local 'event' (a nil value)

Crashes related to trying to place a loader when all the prerequisites weren't met should be fixed now. Thanks to glebtv for the pull request!

[Barton1991]

Hey, a mate and I have been experiencing a bug in which the bulk loaders won't switch ore types.

It seem to have it narrowed down to having two types of ore in its inventory on loading the save. It doesn't seem to recognize two types only one.

[ready2r]

having a problem with my unloaders not registering that there is ore in a wagon.

https://youtu.be/CFYnVsiJK0w

[edit]

I will say that the way i was able to "fix" it was when a train arrived with ore.. if i demoed the pre-placed unloader and put another one down.. it would instantly start unloading the ore.

[Therax]

Hey, a mate and I have been experiencing a bug in which the bulk loaders won't switch ore types.

I will say that the way i was able to "fix" it was when a train arrived with ore.. if i demoed the pre-placed unloader and put another one down.. it would instantly start unloading the ore.

I found a typo. Let me know if the latest version is still giving you problems!

[mrvn]

I just tried this mod and since I want to use it for LTN I'm a bit disapointed. So I have a few ideas that might make this mod better: Not all of them re compatible but maybe there could be different loader/unloader.

1) The GUI should allow setting a fixed filter.
2) Allow filtering for more than one item (filter inserter instead of stack filter inserter?)
3) The circuit connection should connect to the internal stack filter inserter and allow "set filter" and "enable" (if not all the inserters options).
4) Allow setting the amount to load. Maybe use a slowed down stack filter inserter with a humongous stack size and load everything in one go. Use the override stack size to set the amount. (circuit controlled too)
5) Visually the unloading station looks larger than the loading station. Maybe make the grate below the rails more visible and reduce the stone paving a bit. Rounded corners for the stone?
6) The rails on the unloading station look bad. Wrong color, wrong thickness, not secured to the ground so they seem to float, the gravel just ends instead of fading out.
7) Seems a bit slow with Angels + Bobs + all research. (Un)loading with 12 (6 per side) express stack filter inserters is faster than the (un)loader. There could be loader, fast loader, filter loader, express loader. express filter loader with different tech requirements and costs.
8) No support for wooden rails (second recipe to build using 3 wooden rails)

BUG: Placing any container larger than 1x1 around the loader puts items on the ground instead of into the loader. (large chests, warehouse, ore silo, AAI depot, ...)

I really wish to use this with LTN but the mixed ores in Bobs and Angels make this impractical.

[Therax]

I just tried this mod and since I want to use it for LTN I'm a bit disapointed. So I have a few ideas that might make this mod better: Not all of them re compatible but maybe there could be different loader/unloader.

Thank you for trying out the mod! By design Bulk Rail Loaders are not intended to be the perfect tool for every use case, and I'm sorry they did not meet your expectations.

1) The GUI should allow setting a fixed filter.

By nature, a large undifferentiated gravity-feed hopper does not allow for only certain items to be transferred. I will not be implementing controllable filters for Bulk Rail Loaders. You can control what items are loaded by controlling what is inserted into the loader's hopper.

2) Allow filtering for more than one item (filter inserter instead of stack filter inserter?)

Versions after v0.3.4 have reliably handled up to 5 items at a time. Please check if you are running the current version.

3) The circuit connection should connect to the internal stack filter inserter and allow "set filter" and "enable" (if not all the inserters options).
4) Allow setting the amount to load. Maybe use a slowed down stack filter inserter with a humongous stack size and load everything in one go. Use the override stack size to set the amount. (circuit controlled too)

As mentioned, external filter control is not and will not be a feature of Bulk Rail Loaders. As for enable/disable, Bulk Rail Loaders are simple devices: a large iron box and a mechanically actuated hatch. The hatch opens when a wagon is aligned with the loader, and closes when the wagon leaves. They are not precision metering devices, and operate at the granularity of emptying or filling a complete cargo wagon. As with item types, you can of course control the amount loaded by circuit controlling what items enter a Bulk Rail Loader by loader or inserter, and I'd be interested in seeing such a design if you implement one.

(As a side note, I've considered implementing a "hard mode" where parking a wagon full of processing units or speed modules 3s over a bulk rail unloader would indeed unload everything, and leave you with 40 stacks of trash, i.e. landfill, instead. )

5) Visually the unloading station looks larger than the loading station. Maybe make the grate below the rails more visible and reduce the stone paving a bit. Rounded corners for the stone?
6) The rails on the unloading station look bad. Wrong color, wrong thickness, not secured to the ground so they seem to float, the gravel just ends instead of fading out.

The stone paving is the upper surface of the buried concrete box that forms the buffer space of the unloader. The squared-off corners are intentional. The rails themselves are exactly the base Factorio graphics, minus the wooden ties (sleepers) and gravel roadbed. The difference in apparent thickness is probably due to the lack of securing spikes that are part of the ties. That said, I am emphatically not a 2-D artist. If you would like to contribute graphics you find more aesthetically appealing, I'd be happy to consider including them in a future version.

7) Seems a bit slow with Angels + Bobs + all research. (Un)loading with 12 (6 per side) express stack filter inserters is faster than the (un)loader. There could be loader, fast loader, filter loader, express loader. express filter loader with different tech requirements and costs.

12 express stack filter inserters cost 720 iron, 480 copper, and a not insignificant amount of oil. A Bulk Rail Loader costs 66 iron and a smattering of stone and copper, and provides 320 stacks of integrated buffer storage. If raw transfer speed is your primary consideration, then inserters or miniloaders may indeed be better for your use case.

8) No support for wooden rails (second recipe to build using 3 wooden rails)

For the unloader in particular, the rails are expected to suspend a 100+ ton wagon over open space, not a stabilized gravel roadbed. This requires high tensile strength steel, not wood. For consistency, the loader will continue to use similar materials. It's not my intention to make Bulk Rail Loaders complicated to manufacture.

BUG: Placing any container larger than 1x1 around the loader puts items on the ground instead of into the loader. (large chests, warehouse, ore silo, AAI depot, ...)

Thank you for the report. I will look into fixing this for the next version.

I really wish to use this with LTN but the mixed ores in Bobs and Angels make this impractical.

Can you elaborate on what issues you are facing with mixed ores? Several other people in this thread are using Bulk Rail Loaders successfully with Bobs+Angels. In my own map, I am using 1+8 unit trains to move raw ore to my crushing and sorting facilities, to move sorted metal ores for smelting, and to remove crushed stone and slag for reprocessing into slurry, all with LTN, and I'm quite happy with how the setup works.

[mrvn]

I just tried this mod and since I want to use it for LTN I'm a bit disapointed. So I have a few ideas that might make this mod better: Not all of them re compatible but maybe there could be different loader/unloader.

Thank you for trying out the mod! By design Bulk Rail Loaders are not intended to be the perfect tool for every use case, and I'm sorry they did not meet your expectations.

1) The GUI should allow setting a fixed filter.

By nature, a large undifferentiated gravity-feed hopper does not allow for only certain items to be transferred. I will not be implementing controllable filters for Bulk Rail Loaders. You can control what items are loaded by controlling what is inserted into the loader's hopper.

Well, not everything has to be 100% realistic. But lets see how to design this:

I was thinking that the loader would have more than one trap door. Maybe internally have 6 or 12 storage bins that can be filled from the sides. Each has it's own trap door that can be opened individually. While you can not filter what goods come out you can put different goods in different bins and then only open the door of the good you want.

Game wise the loader (or a filter loader flavour of it) could actually have 6/12 chests. Depending on where you insert into the loader you fill a different chest. Then instead of filter inserters each chest would have a normal inserter set to enable when "<filtered item> > 0" on the chest. If you mix goods in a chest you get a mix loaded.

2) Allow filtering for more than one item (filter inserter instead of stack filter inserter?)

Versions after v0.3.4 have reliably handled up to 5 items at a time. Please check if you are running the current version.

3) The circuit connection should connect to the internal stack filter inserter and allow "set filter" and "enable" (if not all the inserters options).
4) Allow setting the amount to load. Maybe use a slowed down stack filter inserter with a humongous stack size and load everything in one go. Use the override stack size to set the amount. (circuit controlled too)

As mentioned, external filter control is not and will not be a feature of Bulk Rail Loaders. As for enable/disable, Bulk Rail Loaders are simple devices: a large iron box and a mechanically actuated hatch. The hatch opens when a wagon is aligned with the loader, and closes when the wagon leaves. They are not precision metering devices, and operate at the granularity of emptying or filling a complete cargo wagon. As with item types, you can of course control the amount loaded by circuit controlling what items enter a Bulk Rail Loader by loader or inserter, and I'd be interested in seeing such a design if you implement one.

(As a side note, I've considered implementing a "hard mode" where parking a wagon full of processing units or speed modules 3s over a bulk rail unloader would indeed unload everything, and leave you with 40 stacks of trash, i.e. landfill, instead. )

A mechanically actuated hatch can be, well, not activated. So a "enable" signal from the circuit network should be no problem.

As for it being a precision metering device... The metering could be rough, like with stack granularity. So if you signal 536 you get 600 items. Or it could be randomized as 536 + rand(50). You can close the door before the loader storage is empty but it's not a precise count. At the moment the doors close at exactly 4000 iron plates. That seems inconsistent with your explanation.

Alternatively, if you think the doors can't be closed during operation (which is probably true in RL, way too much mass to close the doors while stuff is falling) then the loader storage should be exactly one train size. When the train comes in the door opens and everything drops in in one big rush. And if the train already contains something then the excess should indeed spill over. I wouldn't like it getting destroyed. But how about dropping it on the floor around the loader? (in hard mode)

5) Visually the unloading station looks larger than the loading station. Maybe make the grate below the rails more visible and reduce the stone paving a bit. Rounded corners for the stone?
6) The rails on the unloading station look bad. Wrong color, wrong thickness, not secured to the ground so they seem to float, the gravel just ends instead of fading out.

The stone paving is the upper surface of the buried concrete box that forms the buffer space of the unloader. The squared-off corners are intentional. The rails themselves are exactly the base Factorio graphics, minus the wooden ties (sleepers) and gravel roadbed. The difference in apparent thickness is probably due to the lack of securing spikes that are part of the ties. That said, I am emphatically not a 2-D artist. If you would like to contribute graphics you find more aesthetically appealing, I'd be happy to consider including them in a future version.

Have you checked lo-res and hi-res sprites? I'm using Bobs+Angels+AAI so I have wooden and cement rails. They look a lot different and I don't think they replaced the vanilla rail images, just added the wooden ones.

I haven't checked how you made the unloader graphics but it sounds like you just made one image. Take a look in data/base/graphics/entity/straight-rail/. The games rails are made out of several layers of images. If you do the same and use the original images for the actual rails then they will match perfectly and you don't even have to draw them. Hope that helps.

7) Seems a bit slow with Angels + Bobs + all research. (Un)loading with 12 (6 per side) express stack filter inserters is faster than the (un)loader. There could be loader, fast loader, filter loader, express loader. express filter loader with different tech requirements and costs.

12 express stack filter inserters cost 720 iron, 480 copper, and a not insignificant amount of oil. A Bulk Rail Loader costs 66 iron and a smattering of stone and copper, and provides 320 stacks of integrated buffer storage. If raw transfer speed is your primary consideration, then inserters or miniloaders may indeed be better for your use case.

8) No support for wooden rails (second recipe to build using 3 wooden rails)

For the unloader in particular, the rails are expected to suspend a 100+ ton wagon over open space, not a stabilized gravel roadbed. This requires high tensile strength steel, not wood. For consistency, the loader will continue to use similar materials. It's not my intention to make Bulk Rail Loaders complicated to manufacture.

The thing is that at the start/middle of the game the loaders/unloaders are faster than using inserters. But towards the end of the game they will be slower. That is a bit unrealistic. Letting things just fall in/out of a train car should be much faster than picking up each item (even considering stack bonus). On the other hand having a loader that is 10000 times faster than a inserter when you haven't researched even stack inserters is unrealistic game wise. That's why I suggested tho have loaders with different speed.

What you say about the 100+ ton wagon makes sense. But I bet wooden rails aren't what you think. The rails are not made out of wood. Instead the rails are fastened on wooden beam. The more advanced rails use concrete beams instead of wood. In the unloader those beams are replaced by the grate. Both rail types use steel for the rail itself. So wooden rails or cement rails makes no difference to the design of the unloader. The part that differs is what you throw away during construction.

Thing is, when you research railraod all you get is wooden rails. The cement using rails need a lot more research and infrastructure to build. Not having a recipe to build loader/unloader using wooden rails makes them a lot more complicated to manufacture.

Note: Wooden rails are from "Bio Industries > Angels refining".

BUG: Placing any container larger than 1x1 around the loader puts items on the ground instead of into the loader. (large chests, warehouse, ore silo, AAI depot, ...)

Thank you for the report. I will look into fixing this for the next version.

I really wish to use this with LTN but the mixed ores in Bobs and Angels make this impractical.

Can you elaborate on what issues you are facing with mixed ores? Several other people in this thread are using Bulk Rail Loaders successfully with Bobs+Angels. In my own map, I am using 1+8 unit trains to move raw ore to my crushing and sorting facilities, to move sorted metal ores for smelting, and to remove crushed stone and slag for reprocessing into slurry, all with LTN, and I'm quite happy with how the setup works.

[/quote]

I have compact setups with warehouses that handle multiple goods. For example I have a crusher factory with 2 train stops. At one side all 6 ores come in by train and get dumped into a warehouse. From there filter inserter put them on belts to the proper ore crusher. From the ore crushers the results go into a single warehouse again for distribution. LTN then sends a train to pick up 3000 saphirite + 2000 stiratite in a train and those gets loaded.

With the loader I would have to pre-sort all the output from the ore crusher and make one station per ore + one for crushed stone. That's a 7 fold increase and simply doesn't fit in my base.

[mrvn]

When I make a blueprint of a station with loaders or unloaders, place that blueprint and walk along it with the blueprint in my hand then bluebuild rewritten will place entities within my reach. When it places a loader or unloader the blueprint in my hand disappears and I suddenly hold a loader or unloader instead. It also fails to place the loader/unloader maybe half the time. Can't test yet if it happens with construction bots too.

More generally I can't place a blueprint of a loader/unloader on top of an existing loader/unloader. E.g. to add circuit connections.

A loader/unloader also can't be replaced by the other like you would replace a wooden chest with a steel chest. The advantage of replacing one with the other would be that the contents would transfer.
I usually don't have space in my inventory for 50k iron ore or such.

EDIT: The problem with blueprints being destroyed is caused by the failure to place. And the failure to place seems to be that when blueprinting a loader/unloader any tree that is in the way does not get marked for deconstruction. Placement of the loader/unloader then fails because there is something in the way and the loader/unloader is returned to the players hand. This replaces the blueprint with a loader/unloader instead.

EDIT2: When a ghost is placed the circuit wire disappears.

[mrvn]

Screenshot of what I mean with the rails don't match in the gfx:

Closeup of unloader

unloader.png (803.59 KiB) Viewed 8170 times