Trains vs conveyors?

[Tami]

I have split my factory in different parts. For example i have a wheel factory and trains deliver the wheels to the place where they needed. I play factory like transport tycoon, you have several factorys producing one thing and it gets delivered to other factories. If you have access to oil, you have almost unlimit amount of fuel also, so refueling locomotives is no problem at all.

If you want to have this game harder, you can avoid using solarpanels and only use oil for energy, its really fun to play in this way. If you need more oil, expand!

[therapist]

I've already banned myself from logistics bots and logistics chests in lou of permanent train and belt spagetti so I sort of understand, but to go without solar power? BLASPHEMY I SAY! I might try it if we were forced to use liquid petrol to power the cars, trains, and boilers and all that. Too bad there isnt any kind of "Fuel Inserter". We need a liquid fuel mod.

[TehDwArF]

I have split my factory in different parts. For example i have a wheel factory and trains deliver the wheels to the place where they needed. I play factory like transport tycoon, you have several factorys producing one thing and it gets delivered to other factories. If you have access to oil, you have almost unlimit amount of fuel also, so refueling locomotives is no problem at all.

If you want to have this game harder, you can avoid using solarpanels and only use oil for energy, its really fun to play in this way. If you need more oil, expand!

I'm actually working on a map with a similar strategy. No solar. Logistics only to supply myself, not other machines. Also recently had the similar idea of separated factories (I plan on making a isolated locations to make each sci pack once I get the resources).

I just wish you could have conditional train routing. IE, low on fuel, go to fuel stop, or instead of timed stops, leave the station when a/all cars are full/empty. Also cars should act as smart chests imo. The possibilities....

[middle_manager]

Trains are pretty invisible from Biters as long as the stations and drilling are protected, whereas the belt is asking to get attacked, and it might take a while for you to notice, causing a massive loss of resources.

Also they look cool

[squisher]

Trains
+Very high cargo capacity
+Very responsive to supply changes
+The player can use the train to get to and from distant resource bases
+Track is not attacked by biters (?confirm?) and the loco can kill biters (very fun!)
-Complex to set up (the track, the automatic network and manufacturing the locomotive itself)
-Consumes energy (although trivial amount)
-Produces pollution (again, a trivial amount)

Forgot one:
+ Trains accelerate, while belts only have a constant speed. This scales better when you start needing to cover massive distances.

[ssilk]

I found some other articles:

https://forums.factorio.com/forum/vie ... 235#p16235

[JimiQ]

I've just had the most brilliant idea (in my mind it looks so ) - what if conveyor belts were damaged/destroyed after it transported 5000 items. It is high enough to not pose problem at starting phase of the game, but annoying enough in later stages. Thus trains get another advantage. Also fast belts could have limit 7500 items and express 10 000.

[starxplor]

Belt limits on total items transported makes entire factories unable to run without constant attendance, the opposite of what this game appears to be about, to me at least.

It would be better to do something that targets long belts if doing anything... such as making belts a significantly higher priority for bitters than rail/train.

I am not sure anything really needs to be done though, everyone has their prefered methods of transport and factory design.

[GewaltSam]

I could imagine that trains get a lot more important when endgame content is finished. Maybe we need bigger factories, outposts and higher throughput then, and this is just a lot easier to realize with trains longterm. Factorio is also a bit about options (like do I use belts, logistic bots or both?), and if people like to handle their factories with belts instead of trains, let them - though I hope trains get a better use than they have now anyway. At least the distances have to be greater in general (i.e. farther away outposts/resources).

[ssilk]

I've just had the most brilliant idea (in my mind it looks so ) - what if conveyor belts were damaged/destroyed after it transported 5000 items. It is high enough to not pose problem at starting phase of the game, but annoying enough in later stages. Thus trains get another advantage. Also fast belts could have limit 7500 items and express 10 000.

Hm. First I thought wtf, but then, hm, this idea is not bad. In combination with construction bots this won't be an issue, if you use the belts inside some central places. But when you do long runs, this hurts. That's what is wanted.

But in the end it counts what that brings. And I don't think this will change much in the game, only bring up some gamers.

[Bleda]

The strong point of the trains compared to belts is that you can set a route for every train, even if they are using the same tracks. However, right now this strong point doesn't matter so much, because all you normally do with trains is to carry raw materials to your main base.

I like the idea of having remote sub-factories and connecting them by train. Right now, this just seems like massive overhead. Even if you play big, it's so much easier to have everything in one spot. So, maybe there should be like a jump in the usage of some products. For example, in the beginning you just need a few science packs of each type, but then, as you get all the automation and logistic tech, you get to research new endgame technologies, that need 100 times more of these, so your little science pack factory in your home base gets too small. now you have to go really big and it's almost impossible to expand the home base so much, so what you do is to find some open space and build a really big, efficient factory specialized in one product.

This would lead to a relatively complex rail network, that could be difficult to handle with the current signals. there would have to be pre-signals and way-choosing-signals at least. Also the trains should be integrated into the logic network, so you can use a train to move things in both directions without getting clogged.

Imagine, a science lab outpost with a 4 track train station, one for each type of science packs. Imagine a train carrying iron and copper to your oil processing outpost, then getting loaded with solid fuel for the smelting line on the way back.

[jorgenRe]

The strong point of the trains compared to belts is that you can set a route for every train, even if they are using the same tracks. However, right now this strong point doesn't matter so much, because all you normally do with trains is to carry raw materials to your main base.

I recently checked out ssilk's awesome base. There he was transporting all sort of things around his base with his base. And i think he was using the green wire stuff to do that, so basically my guess is that when the object lets say a normal belt was low in amount in one of his sub bases then the a train would be loaded with transport belts and so transported to that place that was requesting it.
So basically you can transport all sorta stuff with trains

[ssilk]

That was exactly the way it goes.

This is the link to the savegames

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id= ... sp=sharing

I havent tried v0.10 till now, so it's possible, that the biters now overwelm me (they find their way?).

[GewaltSam]

Imagine, a science lab outpost with a 4 track train station, one for each type of science packs. Imagine a train carrying iron and copper to your oil processing outpost, then getting loaded with solid fuel for the smelting line on the way back.

Imagining that is exactly what I'm doing, and it would be awesome

I try to build like that anyway, no matter if I need it or not. To accomplish the goal right now (building the rocket defense) isn't really that hard, so I try to set my own goals. In my last few factorio hours I was setting up a huge outpost with the dedicated task to produce large quantities of advanced circuits (maybe I'll add processing units and modules also, because that uses the most adv. circuits atm). It gets plastic from my main base and has its own supply of iron and copper. I chose a spot right besides the biggest copper deposit I could find, because it'll need crazy amounts of copper cables.

Sure, you don't need to go that big right now, but it's a lot of fun to design and build. I'm already planning on going as big as possible with most interesting productions with some friends of mine as soon as multiplayer is released. The funny thing is: in Factorio, you have nearly no boundaries at all on how big you can go, as long as there are enough ore deposits connected, and you plan your logistics right. And that's exactly what I want to do

I really hope that the endgame content needs a lot of mass production. Imagine the whole logistics to have two hundred assemblies work on advanced circuits on full power And that shouldn't even be too hard to accomplish. I already got some basic designs that really help with that (got a rad design for mass production of green circuits, for example, where I am only restrained by the amount of copper I can get - no logistic bots used); I'll post some pictures when I get there

Back to topic: All of the mentioned above is pretty complicated if done with conveyors only; trains help a lot here.

[Zourin]

trains enable a multipurpose solution over long distances. The longer the distance, the more efficient they are. Items are not 'left' on the tracks, nor take ages to reach a production line any longer than it takes for the train to run its course.

Belts are for high throughput needs over short distances. High volume needs should be done with express belts (arterial lines), and when a splitter is used, should be broken down to red or yellow belts. Low throughput intermediaries like Steel and Advanced chips can often be handled via logistic network rather than via belt, simplifying design.


Trains now allow you to carry multiple goods in a single wagon, allowing you to supply remote sub-processing facilities (such as basic circuits, advanced circuits, and co-processors) with items like drones, wall sections, fuel, and repair kits. You do not need the constant flow created by upwards of 4 belt lines just for this. You just need a periodic spot check of defense supplies.


So, simply: Bulk materials like iron/copper and bulk intermediaries are best handled via belts or direct transfer when possible. Non-bulk intermediaries and products can be moved by bots. All this is within a single "factory assembly" area, and multiple can be connected via train to import and export their specific needs.

One of the first things you should do (especially if you have logistic robots), is set up a storage yard and train junction. This allows you to centralize your resource flow so that any number of bases can then be subsequently built and logistically connected. This usually winds up being a fairly massive area, and requires a fair bit of planning to account for different base types, such as Ore/Oil fields, Oil processing, chip processing, Science production, and "Personal Production" (gear, ammo, construction materials), etc.

[Der_Doodle]

One of the first things you should do (especially if you have logistic robots), is set up a storage yard and train junction. This allows you to centralize your resource flow so that any number of bases can then be subsequently built and logistically connected. This usually winds up being a fairly massive area, and requires a fair bit of planning to account for different base types, such as Ore/Oil fields, Oil processing, chip processing, Science production, and "Personal Production" (gear, ammo, construction materials), etc.

I think it would help to see one or two screenies with a "Station"-Layout for Loading up a train and unloading a train. And ofcourse an storage yard and train junction as you wrote.

[ShivaFang]

Trains now allow you to carry multiple goods in a single wagon, allowing you to supply remote sub-processing facilities (such as basic circuits, advanced circuits, and co-processors) with items like drones, wall sections, fuel, and repair kits. You do not need the constant flow created by upwards of 4 belt lines just for this. You just need a periodic spot check of defense supplies.

I have a question about this. How do you prevent the wagon from filling up with one resource and not having room for any of the other? This has always been a huge hassle for me if I have more demand for one thing than another and the contents of the wagon become lopsided, so I just always use one wagon per type of good. Of course that has it's own problems as when I make my repair trains it hoggs all my repair packs until it's full (you can't X out slots like you can with chests).

Features desired:
- Ability to X out slots like on chests
- Ability to make sure no more than a certain quantity of a certain type of good can go into a train. Say... 4 stacks of repair kits and 6 stacks of walls for example.

[Gammro]

Try to click middle mouse button on a slot in train wagons. You can set a filter. Which is exactly what is meant by the line you quoted, as it was bugged in 0.10.

[ShivaFang]

Thanks! Never tried middle mouse button on things!

That's exactly the kind of feature I wanted (the 2nd one I mentioned) if I understand what you described correctly (haven't tried it yet) and it can effectively make the first one work if I filter slots for, say, stone when I'm not putting stone in.

EDIT: Okay, the last time I used trains was in 0.9.8, and I see now I have the ability to X out wagons. Additionally, middle mouse works great, not only can I choose an item from a list but if there is already an item there it filters for the item that's there (so I can put 1 each of stuff and make it work.

[Ethribin]

I got Factorio recently and played a game.

In my first game there was copper everywhere on the map, but none was close to iron and coal. So I build my base somewhere with coal and iron close by each other and built a long fast transport belt to the copper (it was the length of five big electric poles reach)

Once I reached preparation for tier 3 research I realized that there was no oil what so ever nearby. Looking around it seemed that there were only very few oil patches, even at far range....
So what I did was go into railways as quickly as I could and put my entire oil and copper production (as there was a huge copper field near the oil) at the biggest oilfield I cold find, transporting the crafter plastics, batteries and copper plates to my main base by train.

I kept watch on the wagons, ALT helped me a lot there XD, to make sure the don't overfill. If they started to I simply turned the inserter by 90 degrees.
(I'm still a bit of a newb to the game, so don't judge me for a simple solution please XD)

After a while though I got to the next problem, and that was that my oil fields were drying out.
What I did was build a small outpost on a new oil field and fill the oil into barrels (basic I know)
It was so easy though to just build new rails to that outpost, and as I have a rather small production (only about 4 assemblymachines per tier research packs) the one train I was using before was enough for that too. all I had to do is add a third wagon.

From my experience in this one game, where I used both trains and long distance transport belts, I'd say there is a grey zone where belts and trains can both be used, but above you should always go for trains. It's just faster and so much easier to expand and control as long as you keep an eye out on your wagons and the fullness of the chest at your station. plus, if you have widly spread resources (like I had the oil on that map) and many bases, you're so much quicker in reaching them by just hopping in the train. (I don't like the car as, in a forest biome as I normally ended up in, you drive it to shit in the trees XD)

I eagerly await the doors for walls, and hope that they will also work for rail networks^^
Also, I am hoping for maybe an electric engine?^^ (I use the solid fuel that I make from spare light or heavy oil to power the engine) As a person who likes to experiment with solar power and as little pollution as possible and a fan of electric trains anyway, an electric would be awesome XD

About the resource thing...
It was my first game. And I fount building a trail system very easy. the pain was to get all the stone. But just plotting down two or three burner minign drills I had left after replacing all the other drills with electric ones, solved that problem very fast. And the engines for the disel locomotive... a spare assembly machine and stuff it with the gears, pipes and steal and Vloilà XD

At least it was that way for me.