Feature Request: Train station wagon offsets

[not_nugget]

TL;DR

Allow trains and/or stations to specify a wagon offset, at which a train will stop at the station at the front of the last wagon, or the front of the wagon indicated by the train and/or station offset (whichever comes first)

What?

Currently, when a train selects a station as a destination, it will always stop at the front of the very first wagon. I am proposing a "Wagon Offset" slider/input be introduced that, when set, will control at which wagon the train will come to a stop at the station, regardless of where the station is placed. This slider can be implemented either within the Train GUI, Station GUI, or instead by exposing stop offsets within the LUA API, which would allow a third party implementation.

Example of additional station slider:

temp.png (61.5 KiB) Viewed 172 times

Current straight station behavior:

08-01-2025, 20-36-06.png (224.49 KiB) Viewed 172 times

Current curved station behavior:

08-01-2025, 20-36-53.png (229.89 KiB) Viewed 172 times

Desired straight station behavior with "Wagon Offset" of 3:

08-01-2025, 20-38-51.png (173.36 KiB) Viewed 172 times

Desired curved station behavior with "Wagon Offset" of 3:

08-01-2025, 20-39-08.png (294.91 KiB) Viewed 172 times

Something similar was suggested here: 56693, and the implementation can achieve similar effects if it is implemented via the train. However, I believe a station should be that which controls how incoming trains should be serviced i.e. how they should be aligned to the (un)loading entities. Additionally, this feature would be used to alleviate the space restrictions of some train stations due to the inability to place stations on curved rails, without needing to lose train engine counts, or create inverted trains. This feature would also allow L-W-L trains to use stations that would otherwise be too short (or require excess space to accommodate).

Why?

I believe this additional feature being present would further improve the usability and convenience that trains already provide, while also removing the existing pitfalls that are presented due to limitations such as stations only being placeable on cardinal straight rails.

[eugenekay]

This sounds like a huge opportunity for Confusion and mis-aligned station logic. I doubt it would ever be practical to implement, but it does look like an interesting idea for "unload one Wagon at a time" style stations; which is how real-world cars are unloaded (via tipping, or bottom-dumping). I think you could build the same sort of thing with multiple "Train Stop" entities in a line, using some Combinator logic.... but that sounds way too complex.


If your goal is "shorter stations, with the Locomotive parked on a Curved track": you can just put the Wagon in front of the Locomotive, nobody is stopping you anymore since 2.0:

08-02-2025, 12-06-21.png (1.22 MiB) Viewed 96 times

YouTube: Reverse Trains: A Cursed Optimization -Factorio 2.0

Good Luck!

[boskid]

No. 109517

[not_nugget]

No. 109517

My apologies, I didn't see this when I was searching for similar ideas posted before. Thanks for the reply!