Rant about universal strategies (main busses)

[DingoPD]

Very nice. The layout concept you used there is called "city blocks".

So there's even a name for it, awesome :). In my head i always called it a IC layout, because on the map it looks like etched silicone wafer.

[orzelek]

Very nice. The layout concept you used there is called "city blocks".

So there's even a name for it, awesome . In my head i always called it a IC layout, because on the map it looks like etched silicone wafer.

Just a small note - if you don't really need all the connections don't make it a regular square grid of rails.
Railway pathfinder really doesn't like those - since you have potentially a lot of valid connections between two points with quite similar pathing cost.

[DingoPD]

Just a small note - if you don't really need all the connections don't make it a regular square grid of rails.
Railway pathfinder really doesn't like those - since you have potentially a lot of valid connections between two points with quite similar pathing cost.

Thanks for the heads up, i thought all the routes are calculated only once unless something changes?

[orzelek]

Just a small note - if you don't really need all the connections don't make it a regular square grid of rails.
Railway pathfinder really doesn't like those - since you have potentially a lot of valid connections between two points with quite similar pathing cost.

Thanks for the heads up, i thought all the routes are calculated only once unless something changes?

Route is calculated every time train needs a route. It's not stored anywhere alse from what I know.
And train will need a route every time when it leaves station and in some other circumstances that cause it to fully repath.

[DingoPD]

Route is calculated every time train needs a route. It's not stored anywhere alse from what I know.
And train will need a route every time when it leaves station and in some other circumstances that cause it to fully repath.

Interesting, from watching the trains, they don't change their path even if there happens to be a traffic jam in middle of it, from that i assumed that the path is calculated only the first time, and recalculated only when it becomes unavailable or something on that path was altered.

[Qon]

Just a small note - if you don't really need all the connections don't make it a regular square grid of rails.
Railway pathfinder really doesn't like those - since you have potentially a lot of valid connections between two points with quite similar pathing cost.

At what level does it cause a problem? How many grid cells and trains do you need to notice a difference between a grid and a tree? Did you test it or read it somewhere?

[eradicator]

How many grid cells and trains do you need to notice a difference between a grid and a tree?

"do you notice" is not a useful criteria. On a naturally expanding map any performance drops could be caused by a number of different things. At least in the past trains could "loop" during path-finding so a grid would cause a huge number of failed branches - not sure if they still do.

Maybe someone should make a proper measurement?
https://mulark.github.io/test-index.html

[Qon]

Maybe someone should make a proper measurement?
https://mulark.github.io/test-index.html

Yeah that page is missing it too.
I think the impact of a grid of rails is going to be negligable for anything below megabase. And you would need a lot of cells, grids work fine if you have a few big cells.

[starlinvf]

Route is calculated every time train needs a route. It's not stored anywhere alse from what I know.
And train will need a route every time when it leaves station and in some other circumstances that cause it to fully repath.

Interesting, from watching the trains, they don't change their path even if there happens to be a traffic jam in middle of it, from that i assumed that the path is calculated only the first time, and recalculated only when it becomes unavailable or something on that path was altered.

That would depend on how you set up your signaling. Like most things that have routing logic, it tries to find the shortest path based on network layout (and direction in case of trains); which would easily explain why they like the same routes all the time. (rephrasing something from earlier) The Trains repath dynamically, and its how you set up your blocks that enable or disable cheap alt-paths around your rail network. The block signals are the biggest players in these.

Odds are your rail ways are either too simple to offer enough Alt-routes, or that your sub-optimal paths are way too expensive (typically because they have a lot of similar things as the main route).


I've done switch tracks, and bi-directional ring routes, and I've seen it take different routes based on signal conditions. Its kind of how Bypasses work in the first place. But if we're talking about major route changes (ie sub-optimal, but open) on a macro level, you have to consider that these decisions are being made whenever the network changes, stops change state, or if the signal conditions its following changes (in the case of chain signals, can reach out several blocks). It can't predict a path obstruction in the signal blocks, it only react to them. And if I understand it correctly, trains only reserve a block as they approach a signal. So if your blocks are long, the routing is likely to ignore the option of turning around, unless you make turning around way cheaper then waiting on a signal. More importantly, unless both routes are about equal in cost during initial departure, and you've built your rail system like that across the whole network, it'll typically end up too deep into the initial route to find its way out of it.



https://wiki.factorio.com/Railway/Train_path_finding

[Rjskeet]

Hmm, I think the term Main bus is thrown around way to much. But really a bus system is just a centralized set of materials that are easily accessible. My favorite style to play is having mini factorys all interconnected by rail and each factory is in itself a mini bus. Even in a city block build your railway is a bus for all your material.

[Qon]

Hmm, I think the term Main bus is thrown around way to much. But really a bus system is just a centralized set of materials that are easily accessible. My favorite style to play is having mini factorys all interconnected by rail and each factory is in itself a mini bus. Even in a city block build your railway is a bus for all your material.

I think you are throwing around that term too much. "The Main Bus" concept has a commonly agreed definition that is different from just being a bus that is your main one. It specifically refers to a bunch of belt busses going together, carrying basic resources and more complex ones added on as you go along the bus direction and produces a variety of products, usually almost all, including science packs, circuits and most factory buildings mixed together.

The way you use it, anything and everything is a main bus. A logistics storage chest, a single logistics bot, a car or the player character themselves might fall under your definition.

[T-A-R]

While mainbusses are not really the top efficient, and plain boring, they are the easiest to pull up and get overview, for people that are looking for advice how to build and optimize. This is especially the case in multiplayer games, with clueless random joiners. Scalable / Modular decentralized builds are harder to grow in multiplayer without a propper plan presented somewhere.
Its definitly useful to have made a main bus base at least once for educational purposes, but soon once you realize troughput and ratio mechanics you leave the idea of mainbusses behind hopefully.

Then you are ready to develop Your own style. What ever that being an artist making spagetti bowls, or a scientist trying to remove as much unnecessary logistics as possible. But in the end i think creativity is a talent, not a skill.

[Hannu]

I play always my games through before watching videos or tutorials. It is the most interesting to find solutions by myself. I invented main bus in my first game after short unstructured beginning period. Actually not invented but just applied my knowledge as an engineer. Main bus like construction it is very standard way to handle complex logistics in many areas of engineering.

[astroshak]

Personally, I’ll set up my “main base” with a bus. It will contain my mall as well as the red, green, grey, blue, purple, yellow science production to get me through those techs.

I’ll then start making train-fed outposts to produce Rocket Fuel (and other crude oil derived products, such as Batteries, Explosives, Sulfur, Lubricant, Sulfuric Acid), to smelt a lot of Iron, Copper, Steel, Stone Brick, to produce individual products such as Green Circuits, Logistics Robots, Modules (both Speed and Production), or one color of science flask.

The main bus fed base produces the nuclear fuel for my reactors, as well as all the building supplies to build the train base. But, the bus is only there to get me to the point where I’ve gotten all pre-space techs researched. I could start working on the train base before working on military or blue science, that’s just a matter of personal preference.

Since I don’t showcase my games, though, the only person who should care how I play is me.