Efficient train crossings (deadlocks, halts, wait time)
Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2015 1:18 pm
So, I know this can be solved in 0.12 Chain Signals but I want to share my creations thus far, and have some feedback upon other people's designs as well.
I have so far came up with 3 different designs of crossings.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/327 ... .59.41.png
- The bottom left one is my standard crossing design I do at the start of the game. It's cheap, it's fast to be manually built, and it's simple to remember. It's dumb since often locks up if a train stops a part of it inside the circle while waiting to go at the another station. This can be solved by moved the station, but still annoys me.
- The top left design is an improved version of the bottom one. I do it when I have bots constructing things for me. It saves train distance a bit and it looks cool.
- The right design is the current design I'm trying, but no matter what I do, I cannot optimize the design without causing deadlocks.
---------------------------------------------------------------
What I'm trying to achieve is (let's imagine the crossing on the right):
- If a train comes from the bottom to the top, I want a train from the top to the bottom to be able to cross without a slowdown (not currently possible). The same goes for right->left and left->right at the same time.
- If a train comes from any direction and want to do a 90º right turn, it shouldn't block any other train coming at the crossing (except a train behind it, of course).
- If a train want to do a turn around, it should block only the entrances that it's going at that time (deadlock magnet). A solution is to provide a turnaround that's isolated from the rest of the crossing. Maybe it's fine to accept a global signal block? (this would slowdown everything)
- If a train wants to do a 90º left turn, it should behave as a turnaround. That means should block the least possible entrances, but maybe it's inevitable to block everything.
- Must be able to do a 4-way intersection.
- Must carry power.
----------------------------------------------------------------
So, can you guys share your own crossings? Or give me some tips onto this?
Small note: Also, if you want to know why the right crossing has 2 tracks at every direction is that I'm trying to see if a "express highway" helps me deal long distance traveling. I wanted to do something like a real life highway, where no train can stop at it, and it only connects to highways, and the entry/exit points are at the intersections. The only downside is that I cannot set the inner tracks to have a "lower weight" to the pathfinder algorithm. Maybe creating a "High-speed track" would help me deal with this issue.
I have so far came up with 3 different designs of crossings.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/327 ... .59.41.png
Image
Explanation:
- The bottom left one is my standard crossing design I do at the start of the game. It's cheap, it's fast to be manually built, and it's simple to remember. It's dumb since often locks up if a train stops a part of it inside the circle while waiting to go at the another station. This can be solved by moved the station, but still annoys me.
- The top left design is an improved version of the bottom one. I do it when I have bots constructing things for me. It saves train distance a bit and it looks cool.
- The right design is the current design I'm trying, but no matter what I do, I cannot optimize the design without causing deadlocks.
---------------------------------------------------------------
What I'm trying to achieve is (let's imagine the crossing on the right):
- If a train comes from the bottom to the top, I want a train from the top to the bottom to be able to cross without a slowdown (not currently possible). The same goes for right->left and left->right at the same time.
- If a train comes from any direction and want to do a 90º right turn, it shouldn't block any other train coming at the crossing (except a train behind it, of course).
- If a train want to do a turn around, it should block only the entrances that it's going at that time (deadlock magnet). A solution is to provide a turnaround that's isolated from the rest of the crossing. Maybe it's fine to accept a global signal block? (this would slowdown everything)
- If a train wants to do a 90º left turn, it should behave as a turnaround. That means should block the least possible entrances, but maybe it's inevitable to block everything.
- Must be able to do a 4-way intersection.
- Must carry power.
----------------------------------------------------------------
So, can you guys share your own crossings? Or give me some tips onto this?
Small note: Also, if you want to know why the right crossing has 2 tracks at every direction is that I'm trying to see if a "express highway" helps me deal long distance traveling. I wanted to do something like a real life highway, where no train can stop at it, and it only connects to highways, and the entry/exit points are at the intersections. The only downside is that I cannot set the inner tracks to have a "lower weight" to the pathfinder algorithm. Maybe creating a "High-speed track" would help me deal with this issue.
Not that I think that you are wrong or something, but I can't give up searching for a solution! 
