Tunnel or bridges for trains

[leadraven]

Tunnels/Bridges will increase rail network throughput greatly. Too greatly. Rail network will become too powerful. Currently it has at least some limits, and also it is an awesome puzzle.

[mrvn]

Tunnels/Bridges will increase rail network throughput greatly. Too greatly. Rail network will become too powerful. Currently it has at least some limits, and also it is an awesome puzzle.

Then don't use them.

The point isn't adding them to the game but to allow mods to add them.

Personally I don't see tunnels as solving all your rail problems. Tunnels should be expensive with a long entry and exit way. So if you have 2 busy rail lines crossing in the middle of nowhere you can tunnel one under the other. But inside your base there simply wouldn't be enough space for the entry and exit ways to make tunnels practical.

Tunnels would be something to use where you really need a tunnel. E.g. they could tunnel under a channel of water. Or actually be entries to underground mines. Which is what I want them for.

[Tekky]

Tunnels/Bridges will increase rail network throughput greatly. Too greatly. Rail network will become too powerful.

In my opinion, that is not an argument against tunnels, but rather an argument to make them very expensive to build (large amount of explosives).

I agree that the map should not be cluttered with tunnels. But being able to have a few tunnels in important positions would add to the gameplay.

[Darinth]

Tunnels/Bridges will increase rail network throughput greatly. Too greatly. Rail network will become too powerful. Currently it has at least some limits, and also it is an awesome puzzle.

Then don't use them.

The point isn't adding them to the game but to allow mods to add them.

Personally I don't see tunnels as solving all your rail problems. Tunnels should be expensive with a long entry and exit way. So if you have 2 busy rail lines crossing in the middle of nowhere you can tunnel one under the other. But inside your base there simply wouldn't be enough space for the entry and exit ways to make tunnels practical.

Tunnels would be something to use where you really need a tunnel. E.g. they could tunnel under a channel of water. Or actually be entries to underground mines. Which is what I want them for.

When you initially made the comment "Then don't use them." I thought I was going to disagree. When you went on to say you're not interested in seeing them in vanilla, you just want the API available for train (and possible biter?) pathing between surfaces so mods can do this, it makes perfect sense. Honestly, I'm good either way. I don't think tunnels would be as ridiculously overpowered as some people seem to think. My only major hangups involve technical difficulty in implementation and thus development time.

[bcwhite]

Trains stopped underground are a problem but not a insurmountable one. I'd treat the underground section like a single chest. To remove it, everything in it has to go into your inventory before the section can be "mined".

If a train gets stuck, you can remove the underground section along with the train and all its contents (probably in parts, dumping the acquired inventory into nearby chests), then re-place it. That's a big PITA but not an unreasonable one if you're silly enough to let your trains run out of fuel.

Actually, get stuck in a tunnel while driving it manually seems a bigger problem. Does exiting the train exit the tunnel, too? Can you re-enter the underground train to continue driving it, or are you forced into destroying and re-building it?

Bridges would look good, too!

[mrvn]

Trains stopped underground are a problem but not a insurmountable one. I'd treat the underground section like a single chest. To remove it, everything in it has to go into your inventory before the section can be "mined".

If a train gets stuck, you can remove the underground section along with the train and all its contents (probably in parts, dumping the acquired inventory into nearby chests), then re-place it. That's a big PITA but not an unreasonable one if you're silly enough to let your trains run out of fuel.

Actually, get stuck in a tunnel while driving it manually seems a bigger problem. Does exiting the train exit the tunnel, too? Can you re-enter the underground train to continue driving it, or are you forced into destroying and re-building it?

Bridges would look good, too!

Again not a problem with tunnels where the inside of the tunnel can just be another surface.

[Tekillaa]

Trains stopped underground are a problem but not a insurmountable one. I'd treat the underground section like a single chest. To remove it, everything in it has to go into your inventory before the section can be "mined".

If a train gets stuck, you can remove the underground section along with the train and all its contents (probably in parts, dumping the acquired inventory into nearby chests), then re-place it. That's a big PITA but not an unreasonable one if you're silly enough to let your trains run out of fuel.

Actually, get stuck in a tunnel while driving it manually seems a bigger problem. Does exiting the train exit the tunnel, too? Can you re-enter the underground train to continue driving it, or are you forced into destroying and re-building it?

Bridges would look good, too!

Again not a problem with tunnels where the inside of the tunnel can just be another surface.

Some little thing i dont understand in your argumentation.
You want :

1) tools for mod makin tunnel as you wish with another surface

or 2 ) have another surface available directly in vanilla version (no mob required)

because for 1) you can do/have/ask what you want, but im not sure it's the good place for the discussion (mod discussion probably) or 2) i tottally disagree with you, i don't want another surface in the game.

So can you precise what you exactly need for the "Vanilla game" without invovling mod?

[mrvn]

Trains stopped underground are a problem but not a insurmountable one. I'd treat the underground section like a single chest. To remove it, everything in it has to go into your inventory before the section can be "mined".

If a train gets stuck, you can remove the underground section along with the train and all its contents (probably in parts, dumping the acquired inventory into nearby chests), then re-place it. That's a big PITA but not an unreasonable one if you're silly enough to let your trains run out of fuel.

Actually, get stuck in a tunnel while driving it manually seems a bigger problem. Does exiting the train exit the tunnel, too? Can you re-enter the underground train to continue driving it, or are you forced into destroying and re-building it?

Bridges would look good, too!

Again not a problem with tunnels where the inside of the tunnel can just be another surface.

Some little thing i dont understand in your argumentation.
You want :

1) tools for mod makin tunnel as you wish with another surface

or 2 ) have another surface available directly in vanilla version (no mob required)

because for 1) you can do/have/ask what you want, but im not sure it's the good place for the discussion (mod discussion probably) or 2) i tottally disagree with you, i don't want another surface in the game.

So can you precise what you exactly need for the "Vanilla game" without invovling mod?

What's needed is a special rail entity that gets paired with a second rail entity (usually on another surface) that allows trains to path through the pair of rails. Trains driving over those pairs of rails then teleport from one rail to the other as they pass.

At the moment the best a mod can do is have train stops at the tunnel entry and exit and have the user explicitly add them to the schedule of a train. Then pathing will go to the tunnel entry and the LUA script can teleport the train to the exit and have it continue there. Having to specify the tunnel explicitly is far from ideal and the entry being a train stop makes the train stop. Won't work with things like LTN.

[SkiCarver]

I would like to add my voice to the calls for a train tunnel/bridge, even if it is only long enough for one track to cross over it, as that would make the tunnel short enough that a carriage cannot be fully 'underground' and therefore all the normal train building/deconstruction rules will apply.
if the tunnel entrance/exit are 1x2 tiles, you can have a 1x2 entrance, a 2x2 tunnel(with rail crossing or whatever) and then a 1x2 exit. This would allow for rails crossing the usual track spacing for double tracks (4 tiles between tracks). I have included an image showing the carriage length compared to a 4x2 tunnel.
While I would like longer tunnels, I can see the logic causing issues.
The only thing to be careful of, is the the carriage must be visible within the squares of the tunnel (z-depth putting it above the black area of the tunnel tile, but below the grey area) to ensure it is selectable where multiple tunnels are placed in a row.

[mrvn]

No, that would take away all the puzzle from making train crossings. The idea was to make train tunnels expensive and the entry and exits long to make using them the exception and not a total replacement for crossing tracks.

[SkiCarver]

No, that would take away all the puzzle from making train crossings. The idea was to make train tunnels expensive and the entry and exits long to make using them the exception and not a total replacement for crossing tracks.

I agree that what you say is the ideal, but from reading the thread I am not convinced that the logic issues that arise from longer tunnels are so trivial that we will ever see long tunnels. If the choice is short tunnels or no tunnels, then my preference is short tunnels.

[mrvn]

No, that would take away all the puzzle from making train crossings. The idea was to make train tunnels expensive and the entry and exits long to make using them the exception and not a total replacement for crossing tracks.

I agree that what you say is the ideal, but from reading the thread I am not convinced that the logic issues that arise from longer tunnels are so trivial that we will ever see long tunnels. If the choice is short tunnels or no tunnels, then my preference is short tunnels.

Oh, totally. The "long" part should be totally up to the mod to make. The magic rail tile that makes a tunnel (or teleport or cross surface jump) should be 2x2 like a normal straight rail.

[SkiCarver]

No, that would take away all the puzzle from making train crossings. The idea was to make train tunnels expensive and the entry and exits long to make using them the exception and not a total replacement for crossing tracks.

I agree that what you say is the ideal, but from reading the thread I am not convinced that the logic issues that arise from longer tunnels are so trivial that we will ever see long tunnels. If the choice is short tunnels or no tunnels, then my preference is short tunnels.

Oh, totally. The "long" part should be totally up to the mod to make. The magic rail tile that makes a tunnel (or teleport or cross surface jump) should be 2x2 like a normal straight rail.

I would be happy with a 2x2 tunnel entrance/exit, as long as the carriage is visible so it negates the logic issues raised.

[SkiCarver]

... I have changed my mind ..... To maintain the balance, very expensive bridges / elevated trains that require long inclines would be best. If we have elevated trains, would we want elevated stations and the means to unload on ground and elevated levels?

[Attal]

We can look at real-world examples
just check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(slope)#Railways

factorio-train has size 1x3 rail-tiles, assume that height is also 1, so tunnel depth (or bridge(ramp) height) should be 2.
It's just a triangle, where a=height/sin(slope)
so tunnel entrance should be at least 12 rail-tiles for 10% slope or 23 rail-tiles for 5%

It enough to have only straight tunnels/ramps.

[knifeymcknifeface]

TL;DR

Would be extremely helpful for large bases/train dense bases to have a rail overpass that operates like underground belts

What ?

I think that it would be extremely helpful and work a bit more like the real world if there were an overpass for railways. You could make it have a minimum tile length and it would operate similar to underground belts, except trains would go above the tiles.

One of the big issues is that if you have large train systems (with multiple rail lines going each way), then you have *very* complex intersections and many of the trains will slow as they enter the intersections. Signaling in these scenarios can become complex and very unintuitive for new users.

Why ?

This provides a really good, vanilla way of reducing complexity at rail crossings. It also brings routing of railways inline with the way that belts work. This would make it much easier for new players to route trains and avoid complex intersections. It would also increase the throughput and reduce locking of trains at intersections.

[netmand]

would it elevate trains so biters couldn't attack them?

[NotRexButCaesar]

Yeah! Then we would be able to build almost freeway-like systems. This would be a great factorio 2 or factorio 1.1 feature! Sadly, the way the game engine is made right now, this seems mostly impossible.

[Koub]

[Koub] Merged into older topic on the same subject.

[lsc9x]

Just my two cents:

I wanted to place a rail line across my base and I could do the entire line except for a few chemical plants that were in my way. I thought, if I could just tunnel under them like I could with belts, problem solved! Unfortunately there is no way to do it in 1.0.

Keeping in the spirit of laying rail lines, underground rails (could) have some constraints:

1) Tunnel has to be in a straight line, E/W or N/S. (this should save a ton of development work, maybe...)
2) Tunnel can't go underwater! (or can it?....)
3) Tunnel has a fixed maximum distance (like belts). (or does it?)

I mean laying down a curved rail line that goes under a large lake would be pretty cool, (if not horribly expensive)!

Honestly, I can see why elevated trains and train bridges are not in the game: 1) The first would add little to game play for a massive amount of work. 2) Bridges aren't needed because you can already use land fill and concrete to make a bridge!

But underground train tunnels could add a lot to the game in terms of design.

If you really wanted to go "whole hog" you could figure out a way to place underground rail lines, exactly like above ground rails (like they are in real life) and tunnel under entire cities! Maybe train tunnels are even more flexible than belts when it comes to doing stuff underground. I don't know, but it sounds like it could be fun. Just make train tunnels a tier 3 research item for rails (like express transport belts) and make them super expensive. So yes, you could run a rail line underground across your entire base, but it's going to cost a huge amount of resources to produce, just like real life!

EACH underground rail track could cost you 10 regular rail tracks + 10 steel + 100 concrete +3 pipes +1 blue chip and +1 light (or something similar). So, yes you would be able to tunnel under a lake or under a city in a late stage game, but it's going to be super expensive to do so. Exactly like real life!

Thanks again for all your hard work and have a good one! =)

peace!