Railroad Nerf

[ListenerNius]

Allow me to preface this with the fact that I play Factorio for the trains. They're my favorite element of the game, and I think they're just about the most useful infrastructures available to the player.

That said, there is a glaring problem in the way trains function in Factorio: they're too agile.
Watch a fully-laden eight-car train whip around a 180-degree turn at full speed, and imagine that happening in real life. Either it ends in fire and a lot of twisted steel, or everything inside the train (including its operator, if any) are liquefied from the sheer G-forces.
Additionally, trains are able to accelerate and decelerate much too fast. The relatively-new Braking Force techs are a step in the right direction, but trains should require a long time to start and stop - even if they only have one or two cars.

The end result is that trains are essentially a semi-instantaneous portal from one place to another - a magic function that, as long as you have the actual rails to do it, can spaghetti just as badly as conveyors do and deliver products at impossible speeds. For me it has a negative effect on the immersion of the game.

I have a few suggestions to address these problems:

• Make train agility scalable. Game options could determine whether trains use classic or "realistic" physics. The current rules are friendly to rapid growth and casual play, but after enough playtime they seem out of place.
• Add speed limit signals.
  • When a train plots a path through a signal whose limit is lower than its current speed, it automatically slows down in time to be travelling no faster than the configured speed when it passes the signal.
  • When a train plots a path through a signal whose limit is higher than its current speed, it will begin accelerating to the specified speed (or to maximum speed if the signal is set to no limit) after the tail end passes the signal.
  These signals would serve two purposes. A major function of these signals is described below, for limiting train speeds around turns. A minor additional benefit is that trains entering a busy rail yard or factory could be limited so that a player (and his car/tank) have time to move out of the way before being run over.
  There's nothing worse than forgetting to check the minimap before driving your car laden with steel and concrete across the tracks at the exact moment a train traverses the length of your screen in a quarter second and demolishes you.
• Make trains limit their speeds for turns:
  • Preferably by use of signals. Placing insufficient signals at curves and allowing trains to fly around turns too fast should result in explosions - not unlike several cannon shells detonating - at the point of derailment.
  • Alternatively if signals are deemed not the way to go, trains could be made smart enough to slow down automatically.
  Game options could determine whether trains require speed signals, are smart enough, or even care at all about speed limitations.

Everything else about trains is great - especially the new fluid wagons. A well-ordered railroad network is the backbone of any factory of even modest scale, and keeps geeky train-lovers like me entertained for hundreds of hours.

[Hannu]

That said, there is a glaring problem in the way trains function in Factorio: they're too agile.

I agree. Factorio trains do not simulate actual railroads but some kind of fictive cargo tram system. In my opinion it would be nice to have much more realistic trains. But on the other hand, it would be very expensive programming project and it would not give anything for large majority of players who do not expect or want complex realistic railway operations.

You say that trains are overpowered because unrealistic running performance. It is very true, but on the other hand trains have far too low cargo capacity. In real life it is good sized factory which uses and produces one trainload (2000-5000 t) of stuff in one day.

In realistic train system train wagon capacity should be at least 20 times larger. Trains should have 20-50 wagons. That would make stations tedious to build and impractically large and change the whole nature of train traffic. Low capacity superfast trains give logistic challenge through congestion management, which is important element in all megabase scale factories. After all, it would maybe be better to make a new train simulator game which have factorio like production elements instead of implementing really realistic train system in this game. And in any case, I do not believe that devs want to make any significant changes in rail system in this final phase of development.

[mrvn]

If speed is limited in curves then we also need curves with larger radius.

[Hannu]

If speed is limited in curves then we also need curves with larger radius.

That would be nice also for aesthetic reasons. Current radius of about 10 m is more ridiculous than model railway curves. Most modern rolling stock can not run tighter than 100 or 150 m curves even at walking speed. Short switches at railyards and stations have radius of about 200 m.

And of course clothoids between straight and curved sections, long switches, tilted curves (in 2D world?) etc. fancy stuff. Maybe rails should be off the tile grid except stations so that geometry could be arbitrary.

Yes, I know all that real world shit which prevents all fun in life.

[metis_seeker]

Hmm, it could be pretty neat to have a second type of train that has a much larger carrying capacity but is significantly slower. It would be an interesting challenge for them to share the tracks adequately with the current trains.

[ratchetfreak]

Hmm, it could be pretty neat to have a second type of train that has a much larger carrying capacity but is significantly slower. It would be an interesting challenge for them to share the tracks adequately with the current trains.

or a cargo wagon with the same physics as the artillery wagon (heavier and no brakes) but much bigger storage

[Aeternus]

What's the average real life length of trains? If I'm not misstaken, a typical cargo train in my own country is upwards of 20 cars, with typically 2 engines. In the US, given the distance they go, trains are far, far longer - upwards of 2KM in total length. For Factorio's purposes, that'd pose problems, since the game doesn't support creeping a train foward to have a few wagons handled at a time. So you'd have to make stations as long as the trains.

I suspect you're looking for a mod that makes the speed and accelleration of trains lower, the distances between stations even further then the current Railworld, and a significant hike in the cargo capacity of the cars along with a significant weight increase.

[Koub]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_trains#Bulk

[Jap2.0]

What's the average real life length of trains? If I'm not misstaken, a typical cargo train in my own country is upwards of 20 cars, with typically 2 engines. In the US, given the distance they go, trains are far, far longer - upwards of 2KM in total length. For Factorio's purposes, that'd pose problems, since the game doesn't support creeping a train foward to have a few wagons handled at a time. So you'd have to make stations as long as the trains.

I suspect you're looking for a mod that makes the speed and accelleration of trains lower, the distances between stations even further then the current Railworld, and a significant hike in the cargo capacity of the cars along with a significant weight increase.

Most trains in the US (at least where I live) are 50-200 cars with 2-4 engines.

[Philip017]

lol i love the trains as they are, build 2-4-2 trains frequently with nuke fuel for max acceleration and as for stopping, it better with the upgrades, but i go one further with the mod that enhances braking further till it's nearly instantaneous.

if you are concerned with getting run over you can make a braking light to slow your trains so that you don't get run over.

here is an example of my slow signal.

example.jpg (293.46 KiB) Viewed 4726 times

[mrvn]

lol i love the trains as they are, build 2-4-2 trains frequently with nuke fuel for max acceleration and as for stopping, it better with the upgrades, but i go one further with the mod that enhances braking further till it's nearly instantaneous.

if you are concerned with getting run over you can make a braking light to slow your trains so that you don't get run over.

here is an example of my slow signal.

example.jpg

I like that setup. The distance between signals should let you pick a train speed. So maybe we don't actually need speed signs for trains.

[mrvn]

What's the average real life length of trains? If I'm not misstaken, a typical cargo train in my own country is upwards of 20 cars, with typically 2 engines. In the US, given the distance they go, trains are far, far longer - upwards of 2KM in total length. For Factorio's purposes, that'd pose problems, since the game doesn't support creeping a train foward to have a few wagons handled at a time. So you'd have to make stations as long as the trains.

I suspect you're looking for a mod that makes the speed and accelleration of trains lower, the distances between stations even further then the current Railworld, and a significant hike in the cargo capacity of the cars along with a significant weight increase.

You can place multiple stations along a line so that the train advances a few wagons at a time as it goes from station to station.

[Aeternus]

if you are concerned with getting run over you can make a braking light to slow your trains so that you don't get run over.

here is an example of my slow signal.

example.jpg

Neat design, but safer yet is to use a few circuit controlled gates to make a rail crossing that physically blocks the track when you are crossing them.
See viewtopic.php?f=18&t=60806 for an example

[mrvn]

if you are concerned with getting run over you can make a braking light to slow your trains so that you don't get run over.

here is an example of my slow signal.

example.jpg

Neat design, but safer yet is to use a few circuit controlled gates to make a rail crossing that physically blocks the track when you are crossing them.
See viewtopic.php?f=18&t=60806 for an example

Doesn't help that much when you start collecting exoskeletons. You simply run through the gate. Sometimes, if you are luckily you also run through the trains.

[Dixi]

Currently there are enough in game challenges related to trains:

1. They stop if not fueled and blocks rail line, usually cause major traffic stop.
2. They move not so fast when multi-wagon.
3. Rail network need a lot of space.
4. They like to make traffic jams on line crosses.

I'm not complaining about listed above, I'm just pointing on a fact that building efficient train network is tricky enough without additional obstacles.

[Zavian]

1. They stop if not fueled and blocks rail line, usually cause major traffic stop.
4. They like to make traffic jams on line crosses.

Both of these are typically a problem you solve through proper design.

And with rocket fuel trains 1-4 or 2-4-2 trains tend to be fast enough, which should solve your point 2 above.

[Cribbit]

I think that requiring manual signaling to avoid derailing is a little too much. Signals that avoid collisions create interesting and complex problems with many solutions. Signals to avoid too high of a speed are a static, predetermined question.

I would support trains having to slow down to go through curves if we also got the ability to make even finer grain adjustments to curves to maintain max speeds. Trains would determine their required speed automatically, same way they do when coming into a station.