Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

[FactorioBot]

Here it is! (beep boop)

https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-389

[Gergely]

Thank you!

[malecord]

OMG, love this. All I ever wanted to do with trains in vanilla.

I also like the hint to interrupt and new planets. It allows me to fantasize of a world with environmental hazards and train schedules that have to adapt to weather conditions. Something I'd really like to see.

[MEOWMI]

Truly superb! For a veteran player, the game really benefits so much from all of these improvements (new players will of course use them too).

[Kallinger]

IMO this makes LTN and Cybersyn almost irrelevant. Would only like to change priorities of stations, maybe there is a way to do this as well i just have not realized yet.

[Sopenas]

LTN mod i think will still be more efficient way to manage trains. But anyways nice improvements. Trains are amazing feature.

[Sutoraika]

this is everything i wanted from trains. i've been making workaround systems to do just this since i discovered trains so the fact this is now doable by default is amazing, i cannot wait. now i find myself hoping that the updates the expansion will bring will also apply to the switch even if the expansion doesnt make it to it so i can continue to factorio on the go

[Hares]

How about measuring fuel in Joules or Stacks instead of plain units? You just mentioned updating train fuel, and manually updating each train (group) is not sounds autmative enough.

[Ghoulish]

Very neat and clever additions!

[Hares]

I still believe that the reservation limit defined from the circuits network should have optional field "but not more than X" allowing at most exactly X trains per station, regardless of the station inventory (due to a limited waiting bay)

[Tertius]

So we fixed it, so the train will only give up its reservation once it leaves the block with the train stop. I would be interested to know if other people encountered this problem in 1.1 as well.

Definitely. I encountered this, and I simply endured the issue and tried to design the outgoing rails in a way that trains are able to leave the station as fast as possible. For a large smelter array with multiple stations, I added a traffic control circuit system that enabled all outgoing trains leave at the same time, so they accelerated simultaneously and filled the outgoing rail as efficient as possible.
Having the reservation going away only after the train actually left the station block is an improvement (I cannot say it's the solution unless I'm able to evaluate it hands on).
Please make sure the circuit network is still able to detect if a train occupying a station block and halting in the station area is actually halting for the schedule (so the inserters should activate) or just halting there (so the inserters should not activate). Currently, this is possible by reading the train id from the station. Inserters activate if train id > 0 and deactivate if train id == 0. The train that's about to leave should have its its train id removed immediately from the station readings but the station should keep its reservation until it left the block.

[mmmPI]

That is my favourite FFF so far
I was afraid things would change but it's all the contrary the change is very welcome !

Very different system, much more flexible, easy to use hopefully for everyone, but sounds like having a lot of intricacies with the interupting the interrupt, a lot of depth hours of fun time

Curious to see what would be on that other planet that can impact even trains, meteorites ? Alien invasion hijacking trains ?

I like the coloring of the locomotive, it's a nice touch, not only cosmetic but quite useful to debug traffic too.

Very good to learn about the interaction between "logistic group" system and trains schedule.

The problem is that once the train decides to leave the station, it instantly clears the reservation of the train limit, while still physically blocking the stop. This lets another train start its journey toward the stop, while there might not be enough space to wait without blocking the mainline.

So we fixed it, so the train will only give up its reservation once it leaves the block with the train stop. I would be interested to know if other people encountered this problem in 1.1 as well.

If all the trains are in a single block ? does that means we can't use the limit anymore because trains will never leave the block with the train stop ?
I only encountered this behavior when dealing with signaless network, a train leaving a train stop was allowing the previous one to get in, but if the previous one had some speed left, it would sometimes destroy the slow to accelerate train that was considered having left the station already.

[DanGio]

Great ! In general I'm all about having the fewest blueprints possible (but the more versatile ones possible), so getting a simple solution to merge all different ores into 1 blueprint is great.

I encountered the reservation problem once or twice, but found a workaround with trains waiting at their mining outpost.

At first glance, when I see the train group in locomotive UI, I feel it looks like the train *name*, and this feeling is enforced by the pencil icon button next to it :

group.png (42.98 KiB) Viewed 13048 times

The problem is that renaming a train feels useless and I would naturally skip this if I didn't knew it was the powerful group feature.
UI is very difficult and I'm no pro so I cannot propose a better solution. I think I'll use the train group feature when 2.0 comes out, and put every group name in caps to help me differentiate them.

[Terrahertz]

Great news as always. And even more to come

The only thing left, in my opinion, is the ability to rename stations based on circuit conditions, so your station can basically act as a requester chest.
This would at least be cool for me as I like to use rather long trains and try to have one station for multiple goods.

[dasiro]

So now we need to create a request as an interrupt and we can generate a fully generic goods or fluids train system where you only have a depot in the schedule. This will radically change how the entire train-system is built

[TheoMarque]

Very nice improvement, Used mods for this now, in 2.0 these mods are gone. Great.

But I have a question - what about coupling and decoupling wagons and trains in depot stations? This mechanic is not fully used. I t will be new way to manage trains using "depot" sheds in other way than table with numerous of tracks and different train lengths.
Until train can be packed into a pocket - is not a problem that we would have a facility "making" trains (number of wagons or locomotives) on demand. Making new trains is boring and little annoyance because for large outpost we need to copy and paste the same trains manually even using blueprints.

Train grouping? G-R-E-A-T. Changing for few train in my large train network with more than 400 active routes - makes me sick.

But I ask for some UI improvement - is possible to set cargo wagons slots in better way other than manually pick an item to filter 40 times in wagon? Just like logistic requests?

[spinba11]

One thing I want to know about refuelling is I’ve got dual double header trains (4 locomotives 2 facing each direction). I’m running nuclear fuel and I think it’s a waste for the locomotives to have more than one waiting to be used at any given time. I would assume the interrupt would be if nuclear fuel is less than 4 go to the refuelling station, is there any way to stop the the inserters inserting fuel into the locomotives that still have the spare fuel in them? BTW I want to have inserters at all 4 places where the locomotives stop if possible.

[IForgotMyName]

Incredibly useful improvements! Trains at least are already smart, but it is still tiring to configure the railway system even if it is small
However, new improvements can confuse a beginner. Not because features are complex, but because most of them are not clear how you can use them. For example, "Interrupt in Interrupt", in your words, makes sense only on a specific planet, but some players are unlikely to even play with the Expansion

[tenphes]

I would prefer the ability to auto paint the train based on contents rather than on destination station colour (I know there is a mode for this) but otherwise all excellent features.

[gGeorg]

Brilliant.
Make things simple is complicated, but you made it. Again.

I just immediately come up with other interupts usage.
Make a train who deliver ammo to several stations on the wall. In case ammo starts run out (interrupt) go to production for full load of bullets.

Can we get a interrup logic check or a station read value to get info : Health status of train
When train goes thru hostile terrritory, it might get damaged. I would like to make an interrupt - when damaged go to repair station.