Factorio Forums

TL;DR

On the train page, when looking at the train groups tab, trains within a group are displayed in no particular order I can see. It would be useful if they could be sorted, e.g. by what stop they are currently at, what stop they're going to, or their state (i.e 'moving', 'at station', 'all destinations full', 'stopped at a red signal', etc.).

What?

The TL;DR pretty much covers it.

Note that the new sort mode should not replace the current system. Sorting the trains like this also inherently means that trains will move around in the list as they arrive at and leave stations, which would make finding and selecting a given train difficult. The current system has the advantage that it is stable, i.e. a given train's location on the list doesn't change, and thus is still needed as an option.

Why?

With the advent of interrupt-based train systems and universal trains, it has become difficult to quickly get a sense of the overall status of one's train system. Being able to sort the list in various ways would allow one to check various useful metrics:

• Do I have enough trains of this type? Sort by location; if there are few to none at 'Parking', you need more.
• Do I need more refuelling stations? Sort by destination, then status; if there are too many trains heading to 'Refuel' and not enough at 'Refuel', you need more.
• How active is my network? Sort by status and see how many are on the move vs. loading/unloading vs. waiting.
• Something's gone wrong, but I'm not sure what; where's the issue? Sort by different things and look for anomalies; if way too many trains have the same destination, that might be a station with an incorrect train limit, while many trains stopped at red signals might mean a deadlocked intersection or a train halted on the mainline.