What is the train's damage collision formula ?

[Gimlinus]

Hello,

I was wondering if someone knows the exact formula of the damage delt by train on impact ? I'm trying to estimate how much locomotive I would need in the late game and having such formula would help

From looking at forum / google and after doing some experiments, I understood that it depends on acceleration / speed / weight but that's about it...

thanks

[SyncViews]

I think you will have to experiment.

You can find the "locomotive" data in Factorio/data/base/prototypes/entity/entities.lua.

As well as "weight", speed, etc. as mentioned, there is a "energy_per_hit_point = 5" that I am not sure on the purpose of. These are also present on the "tank" and "car", "cargo-wagon" and "fluid-wagon" objects.

The standard kinetic energy (KE) equation is 1/2 mv^2. So maybe, the damage is something like "KE / energy_per_hit_point" but I am honestly not sure.

EDIT: The prototypes wiki didn't say, but the Lua API ref does. https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/Lua ... _hit_point

The energy used per hitpoint taken for this vehicle during collisions or nil.

So looks like my thinking is right, but you will need to see if I was about the energy equation.

[BlakeMW]

Hello,

I was wondering if someone knows the exact formula of the damage delt by train on impact ? I'm trying to estimate how much locomotive I would need in the late game and having such formula would help

Empirically:

The damage formula for the Tank appears to be roughly: weight * v^2 / 23000 (where weight is 20000 and v is the speed in km/h)

The damage formula for Trains appears to be roughly: weight * v / 1075 (where weight is the total weight of the train)

For some reason Train damage seems to be based on momentum, wheras Tank damage is based on kinetic energy - I guess trains were much too wimpy at low speeds and much too murderous at high speeds for the quadratic scaling to work. Another difference is that Tanks lose velocity and hitpoints when they destroy a target. A train does not: if it deals enough damage to kill, the train murders the target losing no hitpoints nor velocity, that could be a bug or again it could be the devs decided it was unfun for trains to own themselves running into biters so they disabled taking damage and losing velocity.


Anyway. The important thing: A train needs a weight of 11000 to kill a Behemoth Biter when travelling at top speed, Locos have 2000 weight, Wagons have 1000 weight and Artillery have 4000 weight. Due to the murder train property a train of this weight will destroy any number of Behemoth Biters which gets in its way (though the biters can still bite the loco as it passes by). You'll tend to need 2 Locos using Rocket or Nuclear fuel to get an adequate top speed. The train needs to be heavier if using inferior fuels.

[Gimlinus]

Thanks for your replies. It's much clearer now !!

[BrunoRyb]

Thanks. This helped a lot when getting the golem achievement.(Brought a tank to 29 kmh if I remember the speed correctly and ran in front of it on concrete and let it ram me with 6 energy shields in my power armor)