Friday Facts #68 - The trains

[El-Lobo]

If it's the only station with the Name "insertnamehere", it will wait in front of the station. If there are other stations with the name "insertnamehere" around, it will calculate trough the wheighting system, whether it's better to go to the next free station or to wait.

edit: yes, you can give trainstations the same name. In the currently game the train looks 2(?) blocks forward for free stations. So these have to be close together for the train to consider them.

[roy7]

If it's the only station with the Name "insertnamehere", it will wait in front of the station. If there are other stations with the name "insertnamehere" around, it will calculate trough the wheighting system, whether it's better to go to the next free station or to wait.

edit: yes, you can give train stations the same name. In the currently game the train looks 2(?) blocks forward for free stations. So these have to be close together for the train to consider them.

I'd never had thought to try that if I didn't ask in this thread. Thanks! That's awesome.

[Drury]

Pre-signal hype!

I remember thinking they were the best thing since sliced bread, at least up to the point that path-based signals came around... Might be too much to ask, but with PBS, the game would be complete.

[FrozenOne]

I really wish you skipped presignals and went straight for path signals. I know they might be harder to implement, but they are that much easier to understand for noobs and yet allow for more fluent traffic than presignals. I used only those in TTD.

Also, the main problem why trains are underused is the cumbersome building of rails. Having to swap all the time straight and curved, and rotating it 7 times (or 15 times, when we don't realize the correct one) is just stupid and i get tired after building one simple circle, which is work for several minutes.

Make it more simple: just shift+click on end of rails and then move cursor, and shadow track will appear leading from end of track to cursor...click, bam, it's built, move cursor, next part of shadowy track appears, click, another segment built. No rotating needed, no swapping rails, straight or curves right/left appear depending on position of cursor, just single click to place every rail is needed.

It can be limited to one piece at a time, or it can compute best fit and be able to place several pieces of track at once all the way to cursor. Shift+click can allow build mode from middle of existing track to make switches.

[-root]

Just whatever you do in .12, do not change the corners of belts. leave them as they are.

[ssilk]

If a train stop is blocked and the train decides to go around it, what happens to the train's schedule? Is it still going to that stop and it'll drive around the network until it gets back to it? Or does it skip that stop and go to the next stop in the schedule?

No, the train searches the "shortest" way, it doesn't go around it. And the shortest way is that with the lowest weight. See how A* works: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A*_search_algorithm
In the center is that pic: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A*_ ... etwork.gif

Also, since some discussion has been made regarding pre-signals and multiple lanes for trains to pick up or unload, is there any sort of way to do that currently? Can you set a train to go from "Ore Area 1" to "Ore Dropoff 1" but name two stops to the same name "Ore Dropoff 1" and the train will go to whichever has a green path? Or fake this in some other way?

You can. The train chooses again the "shortest" (lowest weight) way to the both train stops. Simple. See also https://forums.factorio.com/wiki/inde ... stop-trick

[Nova]

Yeah, the times I did play Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe, I only used the Path signals. Never anything else. I think I did even read something about that the Path signals are the only needed signals, with exception of one very small cases with pre-signals(?).
If you really want to make Factorio perfect for trains, try a look at the Path signals. They may be (or may be not) your solution. The source code of Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe is even... well, open source. Maybe you can take a look at it.

Just whatever you do in .12, do not change the corners of belts. leave them as they are.

Hopefully they change it.
(It makes no sense to discuss this, especially not here.)

[Jaridan]

if you want to look at a good simulation for trains and transportation in general take a look at Simutrans with standard pak64 or pak128 : http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=14126.0

[MF-]

Won't a path signal have significant amount of common code with a presignal anyway?
I'm happy to see either.
Presignals aren't hard to understand.
They mark a "never stop here" (super)block, that's all beginners need to know.

PS: I'd prefer hacking up my own signals with ccNET if that will be possible of course.

[El-Lobo]

Since I'm responsible for that savegame, here are some screenshots i took a while ago:
http://imgur.com/a/bImSv#0
The trip around the lake takes about 6 minutes (no wagons).

[cpy]

I was hoping for some train love like electric trains/tankers and stuff, but bugfix is cool too.

I'm hoping to see ships one day, sea biters, cruisers where we go! Offshore drilling rig (oil/metal?) hell yeah, space? Hell yeah. Factorio can only get better.

[fregate84]

What are pre-signals doing? some big signal network or so?

the pre-signals is used when you have 2 or more paths (to station for exemple). The pre-signals is red if all signals are red.
It is used to block train before the train have to choose to go to the way 1 or 2.

like that :

without pre-signals


with pre-signals

[ssilk]

Won't a path signal have significant amount of common code with a presignal anyway?

Pre signals are simple: the need to check, if some former signals have red. (Very simplified)

Path signals are quite different and much more complex. They look, which path the train will go (they look into the trains planned path) and "reserve" the rail segments, where another train can possibly collide. That enables to have several trains in one block, if the trains cannot collide.

[MF-]

Path signals are quite different and much more complex. They look, which path the train will go (they look into the trains planned path) and "reserve" the rail segments, where another train can possibly collide. That enables to have several trains in one block, if the trains cannot collide.

Thanks for the explanation.

So a path signal is just a "signpost" that tells the train to reserve it's path via GSM-R or something.
The logic of that is no longer situated in the signal device.
I don't like that.

PS: Also it means the train needs to know where it's going AND don't change it's mind in the protected (super)block.
With the current planner, I don't think that's the case.

[MF-]

What are pre-signals doing? some big signal network or so?

the pre-signals is used when you have 2 or more paths (to station for exemple). The pre-signals is red if all signals are red.
It is used to block train before the train have to choose to go to the way 1 or 2.

like that :

without pre-signals


with pre-signals

To describe in words: "Never stop in the marked (super)block -- between presignal-start and presignal-end

[MF-]

Won't a path signal have significant amount of common code with a presignal anyway?

Pre signals are simple: the need to check, if some former signals have red. (Very simplified)

Is the following example a downside of presignals,
or a reservation-in-advance needs to be implemented for presignals as well?


You might still need to do the "Reservation-in-advance" thing,
so another train from an auxiliary track won't block your free station.

Example of that:
There are two stations, just like in the picture above. I'll call them s1 and s2.
They're guarded by presignals.
However, the block of s1 can be reached from an auxiliary track as well.
That's outside of the presignal (super)block.

When a train see s2 full and s1 empty, it'll will run past the presignal.
If the s1 block isn't reserved, another train from the auxiliary track might take over that block instead,
leaving our train in the "never stop here" (super)block.

[ssilk]

Hm. I dunno.

And I think that is not that important, as in OpenTTD a, cause in Factorio we have much more space. That was always the biggest retention for me with OpenTTD (and other similar games): the sizes of the rails etc. weren't nearly halfway realistic. There is an obvious discrepancy between the length and the width of a track there.

Look at any map, search for the next train station and then look, how much space the needed rails, switches, waiting rails and so on need. Now compare that with OTTD: the difference is obviously immense, and the reason is, that those games really simplified much. A piece of rail in OTTD is how long? About 50-60 meters! In Factorio it is about 2. That is a scaling factor of 25-30! And how many other rails can I put in a space of 50 meter? 10 without much problem!

What I want to say: in reality those problems don't exists. Because of the space between all that. That makes such events as described really rare, and they are solved in a completly different way. For Factorio: that should be solvable with circuit logic. If you cabled your logic wrong: baaaammmm.

[t7119]

Hi Factorio's staff!
Video game development in Japan are looking yours.

"The questionnaire for the title you are looking forward to 2014"
http://www.4gamer.net/games/000/G000000 ... dex_5.html

Yoshinori Kitanose says,
This game is developed during the PC game. But very concept is interesting.
Players make the parts from resources such as iron and copper.
And make a huge automation planet!
The first is nothing in planet.
Eventually, will be filled in a lot of belt conveyor or a robot arm.
Steam locomotive galloping while spitting smoke tickles SF soul.

Who is Yoshinori Kitanose
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8C%97% ... 3%E7%AF%84
FinalFantasy series : Planer,Producer and Directer
Kingdom hears : Producer
Chrono Trigger : Directer and Scenario
Romancing Sa・Ga : Map Design

[Animar]

Oh man I'm already loving it to play arround with trains but all those upcomming features related to them getting me SOOOOOOOOOOOoooooo much exited. I mean Oil wagons, amasing Pre-Signals and maybe some more train logic like wait until full/empty etc... that just sounds so awsome that I want to play with it right now.

The only downside is that we have to wait for 0.12

[Jaridan]

Hm. I dunno.

And I think that is not that important, as in OpenTTD a, cause in Factorio we have much more space. That was always the biggest retention for me with OpenTTD (and other similar games): the sizes of the rails etc. weren't nearly halfway realistic. There is an obvious discrepancy between the length and the width of a track there.

Look at any map, search for the next train station and then look, how much space the needed rails, switches, waiting rails and so on need. Now compare that with OTTD: the difference is obviously immense, and the reason is, that those games really simplified much. A piece of rail in OTTD is how long? About 50-60 meters! In Factorio it is about 2. That is a scaling factor of 25-30! And how many other rails can I put in a space of 50 meter? 10 without much problem!

What I want to say: in reality those problems don't exists. Because of the space between all that. That makes such events as described really rare, and they are solved in a completly different way. For Factorio: that should be solvable with circuit logic. If you cabled your logic wrong: baaaammmm.

isn't this "cabled/circuited logic" just another word for enough options to handle trains and reservation & train logic(where you can do a lot with basically a normal signal,2block signal (for intersections) and platform choosing signals, simutrans logic/wording here , since i've played that since it's awakening more or less )?