Factorio Forums

Currently train stations can signal only 2 states, enabled or disabled. I propose a third status 'passive'. Which reads as disabled to all trains not already headed to the station, but reads as enabled to trains already enroute. The reason is currently, a station must remain enabled until a train arrives, which in large bases can cause multiple trains to target the station, which is inefficient. Alternatively, train behavior can be changed so that once it targets a station, it will travel to the station, even if it becomes disabled. Perhaps a setting on the train itself on how to deal with disabled stations, "ignore" (current behavior) or "continue".

I am proposing this be added to vanilla, No current mod adds this functionality. Some add some features which address only a few instances where this feature would help, but none address all situations that this feature would solve.

I believe that the suggestion made in the following thread offers a better, more flexible solution to the problem:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=49214 Train Entry-Condition

Also, the following threads are related in that they also discuss conditional order jumping:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53792 train-stop id and train targets a train-stop by id
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58057 Trains ignore stop if wait condition already met
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=59378 Train-side stop disabling and a toggle for station skipping
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=58646 Jump on train automation

No, those do not address the issue. Which is that I need a train to continue to a stop even though the train stop is disabled after the train begins its trip. Currently the behavior is that if the stop is disabled, the train will immediately reroute to the next stop in its list. For example - The COOOOOOOOAL Train is sitting at the unload station. The load station A signals it has a load of coal by activating for 1 gametick. The coal train leaves the station. The unload station signals it has released a coal train Stop A deactivates. Stop B, which is right next to Stop A activates.

Currently, The train will reroute back to the unload station as soon as its target station deactivates, or worse, it will reroute to the now active station B. Leaving station A waiting for eternity (or until the watchdog timer expires) for a train that will never arrive.

Desired behavior - the train continues to its first target, Stop A.

No current mod implements this behavior. LTN can limit the number of trains sent to a station, but it cannot multiplex trains to multiple destinations from multiple sources in large megabase situations. Hundreds to thousands of trains which are not cargo specific. i.e. the coal train may carry coal this trip, but iron plates next trip and solid fuel the trip after that. So a train cannot reroute to the next stop or it will be delivering coal to the iron plates unloading station, or just driving in circles forever.