Factorio Forums

I had this idea for a compact train station which could handle any number of wagons with any products in any order, but I had to scratch it because the wagons do not have even lengths.

The idea was that I will have a sequence of train stops on a single rail, spaced by exactly length of one wagon. I will then make the train to stop at first one, which causes the first wagon to unload, then the second one, which causes the 2nd wagon to unload, and so on. With smart inserters you can have any combination of wagons coming in and be unloaded, just select the proper order of stations to stop by. I therefore think it would be beneficial (although painful) to fix the wagon lengths so that tricks like this could be used.

This has been discussed a few times and the problem is that the "square tiles" are not square. They are more long than wide by an odd ratio. If you make it fit in one direction it won't fit in the other direction. There is no easy way around that. Some people even went coocoo trying to solve it

Also note: Vertical trains are different lengths than Horizontal trains!!!

Anyway...

You should read the Friday Facts news posts more often, the solution is in development for V0.13. Not only will the trains have the same length vertical as horizontal, but the wagons will be an exact number of tiles long.

My preferred solution would have been to squash the onscreen grid visually so that it matches the projection. If that creates issues with visibility, just add the option to rotate the view in 90-degree increments - everything that needs to, already has graphics for every facing.

It would require a 32x23 square grid, I looked into it already.

Though, the Devs want to keep the grid square.

It would have been the simplest solution, in my opinion. Keep the grid mechanically square, but squish the distances for display purposes. Unless there are many things in-engine that measure distances in pixels, it wouldn't even need any changes beyond the render functions (and, y'know. Any graphics that take into account how skewed the orthographics are currently)

Sean Mirrsen wrote:It would have been the simplest solution, in my opinion. Keep the grid mechanically square, but squish the distances for display purposes. Unless there are many things in-engine that measure distances in pixels, it wouldn't even need any changes beyond the render functions (and, y'know. Any graphics that take into account how skewed the orthographics are currently)

I think they are more concerned about redoing all the graphics than the simple change of squishing the display.

That's not a lot, really. Buildings are all more or less correctly orthographic, they will just need to be offset. Belt graphics need a squish. Even things that do need a remade graphic - isn't everything in-game a prerendered 3D model anyway?

bobingabout wrote: You should read the Friday Facts news posts more often, the solution is in development for V0.13. Not only will the trains have the same length vertical as horizontal, but the wagons will be an exact number of tiles long.

Thanks, that's good to hear. I am pretty new to the game, I probably read it but it didn't click with my experience yet.

Is implemented with v0.13