Factorio Forums

When placing a locomotive, it feels like a usb port - it's never in the right orientation and I always have to rotate it 3 times to get it right. (See: usb superposition)

I'm pretty sure there's already a mechanism to decide if a rail is one way. (when placing a signal, possible spots on the unused direction are missing apart from opposite the existing signals)

Would it be possible to use the same detection to orientate the locomotive when it's being placed initially?

PriceChild wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:10 pm it's never in the right orientation and I always have to rotate it 3 times to get it right. (See: usb superposition)

You press "R" to rotate the loco before you place it, and you see its orientation before you place it right ?


What you suggest would spare pressing R 1 time 50% of time when the game default to suggest placing a loco backward in a one way track and you don't want it, but would also adds a mandadory step of rotating a loco 50% of time when you want to place a double headed train on a one way track depending which side you start.

How do you think the loco is actually being oriented ? (not knowing myself but will do the test next game :d ) I'm asking because with habits it seems that my loco are aligned naturally. Maybe i didn't notice the pattern consciously. There must be one , my guess would be something intuitive like if you place a locomotive on a horizontal track, it will go right if you place it right of the screen/character, and go left if you place it left.

Maybe i'm just used to mashing R a lot and don't notice anymore, in this case the game would play slightly faster.

Edit : I was wrong in my guess, here is what i think happen when the game decide which way the locomotive will face:

-it face one way when you hover over a rail with a loco. (A)
-If you press R while not moving, the loco prediction is rotated (B)
-if you move your mouse away from the rail, or build something else and reselect locomotive, it will remember the direction (B)
-if you move your mouse away from the rail and press R, the game will "remember" and do (A)=>(B)=>(A)=>(B)and so on. You will see the loco rotating in 4 different direction, but as soon as you mouse over a rail again, the loco will switch position.

This is particularly visible when you hover over a rail with a loco, notice the direction, then mouse away, press R twice, to rotate 180°, then mouse hover the rail again, the loco will switch 180° automatically too recover the original direction.

The actual behavior is more desirable to me than the suggestion i feel, particularly if you take in account the double headed train, if you add 20 trains that are 1Loco 1wagon 1Loco on a stacker to fill in all the lanes for example, you can do it with only 1 pressing of the R hotkey if you place all the front loco first and then all the back loco, while with your suggestion, the game would propose me the wrong way for the second loco of every train.

mmmPI wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 10:28 pm

PriceChild wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:10 pm it's never in the right orientation and I always have to rotate it 3 times to get it right. (See: usb superposition)

You press "R" to rotate the loco before you place it, and you see its orientation before you place it right ?

...yes, that is true, but... I also suffer this problem, and get it wrong too often. There just isn't enough difference between the front and back of the engine for me to be able to tell which way it points reliability. I'm owning that part of the problem might be me, but I have been pretty tempted to find one of those "train graphics" mods and hack it into working with the other railway mods I use because of this.

This is exacerbated by the fact that a ghost loco is tinted, which significantly reduces color differences, and I have fairly poor color differentiation.

My personal solution would be better differentiation of front vs rear of the train while placing it. An inserter style arrow pointing forward, for example, would help me a bunch in getting this right. I honestly just blueprint trains because it makes the whole thing easier on me. I don't want to, but ... y'know.

slippycheeze wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:23 pm ...yes, that is true, but... I also suffer this problem, and get it wrong too often. There just isn't enough difference between the front and back of the engine for me to be able to tell which way it points reliability. I'm owning that part of the problem might be me, but I have been pretty tempted to find one of those "train graphics" mods and hack it into working with the other railway mods I use because of this.

This is exacerbated by the fact that a ghost loco is tinted, which significantly reduces color differences, and I have fairly poor color differentiation.

My personal solution would be better differentiation of front vs rear of the train while placing it. An inserter style arrow pointing forward, for example, would help me a bunch in getting this right. I honestly just blueprint trains because it makes the whole thing easier on me. I don't want to, but ... y'know.

I understand this, i noticed only recently that there IS somewhat of an arrow, more a triangular shape, on the top of the loco that points "forward" , but you got to zoom in quite a bit, and when using ghost it is even harder to see, and i play in lower res.

Maybe an arrow like the yellow bright one that the inserters have in alt view, could help if the background is dark enough, maybe the loco "taint" could be only on the front/back, so it's easier to distinguish ( it's already a little like that and that's what i use to disinguish ).

Also the front is a little more aerodynamic than the back that is more flat.

I could also blueprint my double headed trains, at the moment i don't really look, i just know the direction is the same as previous train placed when i place several in a row which seems logical/intuitive ingame, i DO get it wrong too sometimes when i place a single train, with suggestion i wouldn't look either, i would be forced to press 1 time every time for the backloco, and i will probably still get it wrong and switch it a few times when placing a single train.

Hopefully someone is not against more visible UI/loco direction because it would breaks immersion or some other reasons.

mmmPI wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 8:01 pm

slippycheeze wrote: Thu Aug 22, 2019 7:23 pm ...yes, that is true, but... I also suffer this problem, and get it wrong too often. There just isn't enough difference between the front and back of the engine for me to be able to tell which way it points reliability.

I understand this, i noticed only recently that there IS somewhat of an arrow, more a triangular shape, on the top of the loco that points "forward" , but you got to zoom in quite a bit, and when using ghost it is even harder to see, and i play in lower res.
...
Hopefully someone is not against more visible UI/loco direction because it would breaks immersion or some other reasons.

Yeah. I can do it, eventually, but it sure isn't *easy* for me. That said, I'm also cool with the idea of using mods to make this happen, rather than core. I think it'd be a nice accessibility change, but I also think that I'm way down the "shallow end" of the curve when it comes to color differentiation, so I'm a special case.

I would *only* care about the indicator while placing the loco, though, not having it while the machine runs. Not that it'd matter, because once placed the train can move in either direction manually, regardless of orientation of the engines.

OP's suggestion has already been suggested several years ago in the following thread:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=41385 Auto turn trains when placing them

PriceChild wrote: Sun Aug 18, 2019 9:10 pm I'm pretty sure there's already a mechanism to decide if a rail is one way. (when placing a signal, possible spots on the unused direction are missing apart from opposite the existing signals)

Would it be possible to use the same detection to orientate the locomotive when it's being placed initially?

As I have already asked in the thread mentioned above, why should the game assume that the player wants to place a unidirectional train, just because the track he is placing the train on is unidirectional? I am against the game making such an assumption, as the player may want to place a bidirectional train on a unidirectional track.

Of course, one could argue that unidirectional trains are standard and that the game should therefore assume that the player wants to place a unidirectional train. However, the main reason why they are standard is because Factorio severely nerfs bidirectional trains, by only allowing locomotives facing the driving direction to contribute to the total propulsion power of the train. This is very unrealistic. In reality, all modern locomotives contribute to the propulsion of the train, even if they are facing the "wrong" direction. This issue has been discussed in the following thread:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=40644 propulsion power of bidirectional trains

Therefore, in my opinion, it would be best if Factorio stopped nerfing bidirectional trains by making all locomotives contribue to the propulsion power of the train. That way, bidirectional trains would become more popular. After that, there would be no reason for the game to assume that the player wishes to place a unidirectional train.

Tekky wrote: Fri Aug 23, 2019 11:08 pm OP's suggestion has already been suggested several years ago in the following thread:

Therefore, in my opinion, it would be best if Factorio stopped nerfing bidirectional trains by making all locomotives contribue to the propulsion power of the train. That way, bidirectional trains would become more popular. After that, there would be no reason for the game to assume that the player wishes to place a unidirectional train.

There are mods for that. M.U.T.C. is certainly good and stable about the whole thing, if that is your bag. Not that I disagree with you -- in non-trivial part because I am happy to use bidirectional rail in places, and "train modification stub line" is one of them, because they do work very well for a subset of needs. RORO stations are far from optimal for lower traffic stops.