With the release of the LuaSchedule API in 2.0.36 (and its various iterations until currently 2.0.39), it is now possible to influence train schedules much more than with the limited 1.1 (and the previous 2.0 API).
I have put together a number of things for the 2.3.0 release of LTN that will be API visible:
1) There will be a new station type: "fuel station" . This station type is intended for refueling trains. When enabled, LTN will send trains that are low on fuel to a fuel station.
- Everything is controlled by a per-map setting. If fuel stations are not enabled, everything below is ignored.
- There is a new virtual signal 'ltn-fuel-station' that signifies that a station is a fuel station. If a station receives both the depot and the fuel-station signal, it is a depot (depot takes precedence)
- There is a sad icon (https://github.com/hgschmie/factorio-Lo ... tation.png) for the fuel station. Better icons very welcome.
- Fuel stations can declare which networks they serve (with the network id signal) and they can control the thresholds for the fuel interrupt (see https://github.com/hgschmie/factorio-Lo ... /README.md for a longer explanation)
- Refueling is controlled by a Train Schedule interrupt called "LTN Fuel". There is an expectation that a fuel station will refuel all locomotives in a train.
2) LTN will no longer reset the Interrupts of a train schedule
- This is actually controlled by a map setting as well, so both (ignore interrupts and reset interrupts) is possible
- Other mods can add train schedule interrupts and LTN will not modify or delete them
I consider this the last major change to the LTN 'as is'. First, I want to play the game more, not just write mods for it.
I have some ideas for a "next gen LTN" but for now, I want to shake some more bugs (see viewtopic.php?t=127270) out of the code and collect user feedback. I was hoping for 2.0.38 to be the next stable release but I may be wrong. I am planning to release 2.3.0 relatively soon but I would love to get some feedback from brave spirits that are willing to install the mod from the github repo. It would be great if someone could test the cargo-ships with LTN and report.
If you work on a LTN related mod, consider supporting fuel stations (if a mod does not, the fuel stations will show up as regular stations that never have deliveries scheduled to them).