Amyclas wrote:I guess I really need to learn how to train. They seem to make a lot more sense than belt spam because you can move multiple resource types on the same railway line.
I copied someone's rotary junction, it seems to be the most economical type of junction, but i'm not sure how it will scale up for train spam.
Once you start using trains, you get used to it very quickly. Here's a few basic rules:
• Rail signals (and chain signals) divide the rail network into
blocks. They show for trains of up to 5 long, but technically work for any length of train.
• Place rail signals regularly along the length of your rail to divide the rail system into plenty of blocks. A train can enter a block if that block does not currently contain another train.
• Place a chain signal before every split or cross in the rails.
• Place a rail signal at the end of a junction (when you don't have any more splits in the rails for at least a block of distance).
• If you have a station that leads directly towards a junction, place a chain signal right at the end of the station (immediately after the station tile).
• Always use a one-way-drive system for your main rail lines, and have an equal number of rails going in each direction. Not technically necessary for stations, which can have a single entrance/exit if you're using double-ended trains.
• If using single-ended trains, the only loops in your system should be the stations. The entrance should be fed from both directions of the main rail, and the exit should lead to both directions of the main rail.
• If using double-ended trains, don't use looped stations. Just have a single entrance/exit rail and make sure the exit can't be blocked.
• Use chests for buffers on both the input and output. Limit the chests for each wagon input so that they can't store more in total than the total capacity of a cargo wagon.
• Refuel your trains at their normal stations. Don't try to send them to a dedicated refueling station, it'll quickly get overcrowded.
• In almost all cases, you should dedicate every cargo wagon on a train to the same resource, and use that train exclusively for transporting that resource. Some cases may need mixed trains though; it's really up to you and you'll most likely find situations where it's best to mix the train.
Using these rules (which are more than I had to go by when I started with trains) you should be able to learn how to use trains pretty quickly, and you'll eventually learn to make your own junctions and stations for when your rail system requires more trains than a four-lane system (which is most people's maximum). I'd suggest installing the creative mode mod and playing around with trains in a creative world to see what works and what doesn't.
Now, for using rail networks with Angel's mods, there's quite a few things I'd like to suggest:
• Learn to use trains, and get used to using them a lot. Angel's mods require huge amounts of space more often than not, so you'd be best off splitting your factory into numerous outposts and shipping material by train rather than trying to use belts and pipes for long-distance transport.
• Install the Rail Tanker mod. You'll need it for petrochem things, and some of those are useful for the metallurgy and refining too.
• Set up at least one refinery for each base ore type (Bobmonium, Crotinnium, Jivolite, Rubyte, Saphirite, Stiratite). This refinery should go through the crushing, hydro refining, and chemical refining stages, and produce the outputs of each (crushed ore, ore chunks, ore crystals). There's not really any need for purified ore from the main ore refineries, unless you want to use imprecise ore sorting with it.
• Ship out the three products from the ore refinery by train. Transport crushed ore to a precise sorting facility to create iron, copper, lead and tin ores (these processes don't need mineral catalysts and the materials are used frequently).
• Transport ore chunks to a facility which uses imprecise sorting on the chunks (to gain 4 ore outputs per chunk type, plus slag), and which also uses precise sorting for any ores you find yourself in extra need of (you'll likely need this process for silicon, for example). You can generate mineral catalysts on-site but I'd recommend shipping them in by train.
• Transport ore crystals to a facility that only uses precise sorting to produce the high-end materials (like gold) in bulk. You'll obtain some of these from imprecise sorting of ore chunks, but you'll almost certainly need to supplement that production with precise sorting. This will use mineral catalysts, which once again I'd recommend shipping in by train. This facility should also include an area for thermal refining, so that you can produce the three purified ore types necessary for precise ore sorting to tungsten ore.
• Many of these processes require fluids. You'll need to produce purified water, which should probably be done on site. Chemical refining should be done in the same location as hydro refining because in most cases it consumes the byproduct of hydro refining (e.g. chemical refining of Jivolite consumes hydrofluoric acid at the same ratio as can be produced by processing the fluoric waste water from hydro refining of Jivolite). You'll most likely use hydro refining a lot more than chemical refining, and that'll produce some byproducts. Some seem fairly useless, but it's worth exporting fluorite, sulfur, mineralized water, and saline water (or the waste water products directly if you don't want to reprocess those on site) because there may be need for those elsewhere. This is why I suggested the Rail Tanker mod, as many of these byproducts are fluids.
• Once you have the metallic ore types (iron, aluminium, cobalt, etc), treat them as end products and ship them out by train. Keep in mind that manganese and chrome ores are obtained via the seafloor pump rather than the usual ore processing method. You'll want a separate, dedicated facility for that (and limestone production since that also comes from mud water)
• For metallurgy, you have a few options. You can create one large metallurgic processing center that will take all metallic ores as inputs and create all metal plates as outputs, you can create several separate facilities for producing each type of plate from ore, or you can create separate facilities for smelting (ores to ingots) and casting (ingots to plates). I would generally prefer the third option, because some ingots are used for multiple plate types.
• For the ingots it's relatively simple. You'll input ores, and output ingots after a few machine processes. Higher tier processes for most materials will require several secondary inputs, and some processes have a resource loop (manganese ingot processing has one using iron ingots, for example). There are also byproducts in some cases, and you should export those on a separate train from your ingots.
• For plate processing, things get a little more complex. For the more commonly-used plates, such as iron, steel, and aluminium, or for plates with very rare ores like tungsten, you tend to need multiple ingot types, hence splitting ingot and plate production into separate facilities. I don't think you need anything other than ingots though, so you probably won't need to worry about any unusual imports (like sodium-related items or limestone used in some ingot production). Shipping them in by train allows you to avoid the problem brought up earlier regarding difficulty getting all of the ore-to-plate production in the same location.
• Some ores are pretty much useless (or nearly-useless) in plate form. Cobalt, manganese, and chromium are the examples I can think of right now but there may be others depending on your play style. That also means you'll need ingot production but not plate production, which is another point in favor of splitting ingot production from plate production. These three ores in particular are, while pointless as plates, very useful for increasing the yield of rarer resources. And cobalt is in most cases the best material to mix in with the tungsten powder before sintering. In general, you won't necessarily always want to go for the process that uses the most different ingot types. It'll depend on your production of each ore, and your consumption of each plate. You should probably try to have at least one process consuming cobalt though, unless you're going for exclusively precision ore sorting so you don't get any cobalt ore production (because in plate form it's used only for cobalt steel, which makes a piece of armor and an axe).
• Beyond the ore processing and metallurgy, the other major part of Angel's mods is petrochem. That's a whole different realm of processing and you'll really start wanting the rail tankers for it. As for exactly what you should do, it varies widely depending on what materials you need, how you want to produce those materials, what byproducts you would prefer to have, and what hydrocarbon source you have easiest initial access to. Basically though, refining should be done separately from processing, and if you have a process that produces a petrochemical used frequently in the production of other petrochemical processes, export it by train.
• Bob's mods are popular to use with Angel's mods, and one of their key aspects is circuit production. You'll want a train for both of the first tier circuits, but only the most advanced circuit from each other tier (as the initial circuit in the tier is used only for modules and the next circuit in the same tier). You might want to centralize all circuit production, but it's probably easiest to separate them by tier. Try to limit imports to the basic materials (wood, plastic, metal plates, etc) and do as much production from those materials as you can on-site. This will limit the number of odd trains you have around (there's no need for a transistor train, for example, just produce them on site for the circuits that need them).
• For most end products (assemblers, robots, mining drills, etc) you probably won't need an output train. You might want a personal work train that can be loaded with all of the materials you need for building an outpost, and for that you should have it loaded from logistic requester chests (as soon as you obtain them) at a single factory that produces all of the items you want on the train.You probably should also make a separate service station at every factory you'll be servicing so that your service train won't get unloaded by the import stations or block any resource trains.
