Friday Facts #361 - Train stop limit, Tips and tricks

[Enderdraak]

Something I would like to see with the read function of tips and tricks.

1. Player stored, so cross maps you know what you have looked at.
2. with that player stored also do it for senareo's and modded ones.
3. and option, "Notify me when a new trick appears"
When you join a mp world with an extra tip? Alert.
When a tech unlocks a tip in a mod? Alert.
When a tech unlocks a tip that is marked as read? No alert.
This way one will always have a reason to react sinds when the alert comes it is always new information.

[Jap2.0]

Since you cannot change the map settings without disabling achievements

Changing map settings only disables a few combat-related achievements.

[gGeorg]

Lets name the feature Departure queue manager abreviation used in the fallowing text is DQM
Because:
- it better describe what it does. Manages a queue of trains which are heading to a destination.
(...)
- wording "stop limit" sounds restrictively and negative. This feature helps & improve not restrict.

it does not manage a queue of trains which are heading to a destination, it limits the number of trains that can head to a given station. calling it a "departure queue manager" is completely backwards, it has nothing to do with managing the queue of departing trains.
it's not a "stop limit", it's a "train limit". and while yes, it's "restrictive" - because that's what limits do - it doesn't mean it's a bad thing. and even if in your opinion is, so what? we're not creating a happy marshmallow land with chocolate rivers and unicorns, but a factory. what next? limiting chest slots should be renamed to "improving item buffer overhead"?

- there is an proposal to set balanced OR nearest dispatching. Therefore is better to use words as manage not limit

with this whole nearest/balanced ordeal you're missing one important thing: it would have to be a feature of a train, not of a station.
i.e. when you make a train go to a station, right there in the schedule there would have to be a switch between sth. like "choose nearest" and "balance load"
and that feature could be completely separate from the limit mechanism, because balancing could affect stations with unlimited "queues" too.

and while we're at that, i'm still waiting for a "go to this station only if given requirements are met" setting. i really don't like any of the required workarounds to refuel my trains.

1.
Lest have 4 stations with the name South. Each station is about 3 chunks apart.
Then Set Length of queue to 1. Then Dispatch 3 trains to South. What happens?
Each train goes one station.
2.
same layout but
Then Set Length of queue to 2. Then Dispatch 3 trains. What happens?
There is some logic " a manager" which controls traffic. It is not just limiter, it is traffic controller.
On top is easier to talk about the feature as manager rather then limiter. Perhaps it would be nice to make it work as technology to research.
3. Nearest & balanced vs conditional choose target
well your way thinking is, there need to be new logic for choosing a destination. It is conditional per train. You wold like to use it for dedicated refuel station. Then you say that when I propose Nearest & balanced switch, then I need your feature of conditional destination per trains. It is not true. Perhaps you need better understand what Boskid developed. I recommend read his first post in this topic, the long one.

[Amarula]

So now I want a mod for

a happy marshmallow land with chocolate rivers and unicorns

[cid0rz]

For the trains I think it is ok to implement the train limit per train stop and other auxiliary methods to control train flow. I would also like to ask to be able to redirect the train (or modify its schedule) via the circuit network. Similar to the mod SmarterTrains where you can chose the next train stop the train will go with a circuit signal. I think is the only "important" missing feature for the circuit network.

[FuzzyOne]

Lets name the feature Departure queue manager abreviation used in the fallowing text is DQM
Because:
- it better describe what it does. Manages a queue of trains which are heading to a destination.
(...)
- wording "stop limit" sounds restrictively and negative. This feature helps & improve not restrict.

it does not manage a queue of trains which are heading to a destination, it limits the number of trains that can head to a given station. calling it a "departure queue manager" is completely backwards, it has nothing to do with managing the queue of departing trains.
it's not a "stop limit", it's a "train limit". and while yes, it's "restrictive" - because that's what limits do - it doesn't mean it's a bad thing. and even if in your opinion is, so what? we're not creating a happy marshmallow land with chocolate rivers and unicorns, but a factory. what next? limiting chest slots should be renamed to "improving item buffer overhead"?

- there is an proposal to set balanced OR nearest dispatching. Therefore is better to use words as manage not limit

with this whole nearest/balanced ordeal you're missing one important thing: it would have to be a feature of a train, not of a station.
i.e. when you make a train go to a station, right there in the schedule there would have to be a switch between sth. like "choose nearest" and "balance load"
and that feature could be completely separate from the limit mechanism, because balancing could affect stations with unlimited "queues" too.

and while we're at that, i'm still waiting for a "go to this station only if given requirements are met" setting. i really don't like any of the required workarounds to refuel my trains.

1.
Lest have 4 stations with the name South. Each station is about 3 chunks apart.
Then Set Length of queue to 1. Then Dispatch 3 trains to South. What happens?
Each train goes one station.
2.
same layout but
Then Set Length of queue to 2. Then Dispatch 3 trains. What happens?
There is some logic " a manager" which controls traffic. It is not just limiter, it is traffic controller.
On top is easier to talk about the feature as manager rather then limiter. Perhaps it would be nice to make it work as technology to research.
3. Nearest & balanced vs conditional choose target
well your way thinking is, there need to be new logic for choosing a destination. It is conditional per train. You wold like to use it for dedicated refuel station. Then you say that when I propose Nearest & balanced switch, then I need your feature of conditional destination per trains. It is not true. Perhaps you need better understand what Boskid developed. I recommend read his first post in this topic, the long one.

Shingen is pointing out that the ideas of "train limit" and "nearest/balanced" are potentially orthogonal and if implemented as such it is best to implement the "nearest/balanced" as a feature of trains, not of stations.

gGeorge you seem to misunderstand Shingen a second time as well. The idea of "conditional destination" is completely unrelated to "nearest/balanced" in Shingen's post. I see no indication that Shingen is misunderstanding Boskid or yourself.

[NotRexButCaesar]

A minor quality of life improvement that shouldn't be overly difficult is a way to limit the number of modules inserted without having to open each machine's interface.

For example it's annoying when putting efficiency modules into machines with 4 module slots, because only the first three do anything. Or if I want to put one productivity module and one speed module into each of my electric furnaces - that's a lot of fiddly clicking in 48 UIs.

The obvious solutions I can think of are a) placing a moduled blueprint over existing machines places robot orders for those modules and b) right-clicking into module slots inserts one at a time rather than half the current stack. But I'm sure the devs can come up with something less clumsy.

Anyway, great work with this. Really looking forward to using the train limits!

Press z with modules in hand to place only one into the machine.

[NotRexButCaesar]

and while we're at that, i'm still waiting for a "go to this station only if given requirements are met" setting. i really don't like any of the required workarounds to refuel my trains.

Just have a fuel train that drops fuel off at every station

[gGeorg]

and while we're at that, i'm still waiting for a "go to this station only if given requirements are met" setting. i really don't like any of the required workarounds to refuel my trains.

Just have a fuel train that drops fuel off at every station

I didnt write it.

[Peevester]

Holy crap. I've been playing around for a while with a "rail blocks" concept, where everything is built on a grid, with trains filling the edges and intersections of that grid (2 lanes each direction). If you want a station, you just branch off the outer lane at a specific point by plunking down one or more parallel sidings, and plunk down another blueprint for loading or unloading, complete with choice of belt direction and combinators you set for the desired product.

It works great (mostly, I still have some nagging deadlock issues with my 4 way crossing that are just rare enough to be difficult to diagnose), so I had the further idea of doing exactly what the FFF talks about - using a standard naming convention for all stations, where suppliers are simply named after the resource (with item=), and consumers with resource --> station symbol. My first prototype was to do this with my single "fuel drop" train, and that works fantastic - the fuel train lurks in its supply station until the fuel on hand at a train stop goes below a limit, then BAM it wakes up and refills the fuel bunkers and then goes home. So I then went around my fairly large base and renamed all my iron ore stations the same way, and WOW, things escalated quickly when the first consumer station had a shortage and every dang supply train came screaming out of their various stops at the same time, like sharks with blood in the water.

My first fix was to close the station at any time a trains was parked at it, and set up a bypass lane so all the disappointed trains could plow through the bypass lane instead of getting stuck behind the first train. That also SORT OF worked, but it seemed to make full trains want to blast through the nearest empty supply station and circle back around, over and over. Not good!

My last attempted solution was to make a stacker area where incoming and outgoing trains were counted via circuit, so the network knew how many trains were out prowling around, and if THAT number was greater than or equal to the number of open stations (calculated by creating a single held signal named after the resource, by each station that had a shortage), it would switch the outgoing signal to red so no train could leave the stacker. It seems like it again SORT OF works, but it is a giant pain to implement (green wire over the entire map to carry supply signals), and if I could simply tell all trains to go to the stacker, and only ones with an actual empty destination would leave it, which seems like that's exactly what would happen if the stop limit was set to the number of open spaces at the station (two 1-2 trains in my rail block system), that would be great!

The whole exercise has improved my circuit skills quite a bit (counting trains was pretty dang fun), but not having to implement my current mess in my growing base would be a huge win. I think I'm going to wait for 1.1 before I do any more rewiring.

[Shingen]

There is some logic " a manager" which controls traffic. It is not just limiter, it is traffic controller.
On top is easier to talk about the feature as manager rather then limiter. Perhaps it would be nice to make it work as technology to research.

In a way you're right that there's a sort of train manager in game... but there has always been one, it's not a part of this update.
The manager, which is a part of game's internal logic, uses the new train limit mechanic, which is an attribute of each station separately, to skip stations that are "full" in a similar way to how it skips stations that are disabled.

3. Nearest & balanced vs conditional choose target

that part about conditional stations wasn't a part of the response to you, just my feature request of sorts.

Shingen is pointing out that the ideas of "train limit" and "nearest/balanced" are potentially orthogonal and if implemented as such it is best to implement the "nearest/balanced" as a feature of trains, not of stations.

kinda, but i didn't mean that it's "best" to implement it so. i meant that it is the only way that makes sense. besides making it global for the entire game i suppose, but that opens another can of worms.
it's the train that is looking for a station, so it's up to the train to pick one based on whatever criteria it wants.
how would it even look otherwise?
imagine a station A with a train, and 2 B stations, where the one closer to A has a train stopped.
the train wants to leave from station A to B, so it finds both of them, checks the closer one, reads that the station is set to "balance load", and since it has a train waiting, it looks for another station.
the other station, however, is set to "choose nearest", so it makes the train check the closer station again.
and it loops like that forever.
that's why it shouldn't be an attribute of the station, but the train.

Just have a fuel train that drops fuel off at every station

yeah... that's one of the workarounds that i don't like. and one that is not even possible in some cases.

[Zavian]

Just have a fuel train that drops fuel off at every station

yeah... that's one of the workarounds that i don't like. and one that is not even possible in some cases.

If it is possible to route the train to a fueling station, then how can it be impossible to send fuel to a station on the train's route?

[varundevan]

in other words, will a train prefer nearest empty station or a nearest station with train limit less than maximum.

When a station is occupied it gets a penalty for the pathfinder. So it will tend to prefer smelter 2.
But if your train is near smelter 1 and far away from smelter 2 it will still go to smelter 1.

well , is there a way to make it go the empty station first.
Any suggestions

[netmand]

woot woot! thanks for the update!

[Nosferatu]

well , is there a way to make it go the empty station first.
Any suggestions

When the rail block is guarded by a rail signal set to red by the circuit network -> Add a penalty of 1000.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Railway/Train ... _penalties
Thats one way to further encourage your trains to go where you want.

If you really want to enforce this you can also trainlimit your smelters.

[dgls]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-361

When download will be released?
Fryday Fact could be "Release Facts", and posted when the release is ready.

[LuxSublima]

To answer the question of "why": because people who play this kind of game have a natural curiosity about what they can do in the future as they unlock things. It might even inspire them to go for a specific tech that they see highlighted in the tips, or perhaps help them organize their base better.

I'm not entirely sure about having all tips unlocked at the beginning, but some look ahead can be helpful. My forays into Bobs and Krastorio both contained long periods of 'what next...?' before I grew completely bored, built a new, un-interesting thing that had no uses just for something to do - and then found out that building it unlocked whole tech trees of uses.

A simple checkbox somewhere in the tips & tricks window that says "Show All" would be great. It wouldn't just unlock all - the unlock status would be unchanged. It simply toggles whether to ignore unlocking for what is displayed. That way, if you want to look ahead at all the amazing stuff you'll be able to do in the future, you can. Then if you feel overwhelmed by it, you just uncheck and go back to the carefully designed progression.

To me there's three player approaches that this supports easily:

1. Don't tell me anything, I'll figure it out on my own. This player will just disable/ignore tips & tricks.
2. Give me a bit at a time, ease me into it. Tips & Tricks with unlocking as is.
3. I like to read the entire manual before doing anything. This person can check "Show All" and learn as much as they like.

I personally switch between all three approaches depending on the game and the circumstances.

If you're limited to showing all by permanently unlocking everything with a console command, this is both harder to access and prevents you from going back to approach 2 from approach 3.

[conn11]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-361

When download will be released?
Fryday Fact could be "Release Facts", and posted when the release is ready.

This would be quite redundant, given the fact releases are accompanied with changelogs.

[PunkSkeleton]

Things I didn't get at first:
1. Pause button. This might seem stupid but I normally pause the game by opening the menu (by esc I believe) so when I accidentally paused by pressing pause key combination I thought there is an error. I know it is in the hotkey options but there are so many of them it is easy to miss.
2. Shooting using space. It is partly auto-aim but you have to hover your mouse somewhere near the target. And as I tend to place the cursor when I look I believed that it is fully auto-aim and didn't know why it sometimes don't shoot.
3. Manual train driving when reversing. I never get it right on the junction when going backwards, maybe because it does not work like reversing in a real car.

[MrBadDragon]

Just have a fuel train that drops fuel off at every station

yeah... that's one of the workarounds that i don't like. and one that is not even possible in some cases.

If it is possible to route the train to a fueling station, then how can it be impossible to send fuel to a station on the train's route?

The problem I struggle with is you can't say skip this stop if <condition>

You could set your trains up with a condition visit refueling station.
Depot -> Fuel -> Mine
but skip the fuel stop if fuel > some qty.

Think of your car, you don't have a petrol station at every shop, you go to the petrol station when you need fuel! I'm sure the skip command would have other uses too.