activating a train stop (refueling) only when fuel is low

[aRatNamedSammy]

i found out how to turn on/off station, with logistic condition.. nice thing ..but i tryied to set a stop to be activated only when a train need fuel, and it seems it didnt read the loco fuel.. or i didnt set it properly
i want it to get to the refueling stop (refinery) only when fuel is under 50 solid fuel, then goes on his regular task. any idea?

[aaargha]

The smarter trains mod has support for this. I'm not sure that it can be done in vanilla, but I haven't tested that enough to say for sure. Currently I'm leaning no though.

[mrvn]

In vanilla the train contents read by a station do not include the fuel.

[BenSeidel]

There is no way in vanilla to get a train to go to a stop when it needs refueling. However now that you can enable/disable the train stops it is possible to have a fuel train drop fuel of at all your stations. This will allow you to refuel your trains when they are being loaded/unloaded.

[Aeternus]

That was possible before as well - I usually set up a simple requester chest that demands some Solid Fuel or Rocket Fuel, which tops off the locomotives each time they visit one of my main base stations or transfer docks. A simple inserter pushes fuel into the loc until it's full. Even the "New Hope" turorial campaign kinda shows it does that, as it has an inserter set up to service the dual-headed train the player is supposed to rebuild.
The amount of fuel needed is so low, even a longer logistics route is the simplest way to handle it imho. Rocket fuel is exceptionally handy for this, since it has a low stack size and a large energy value. If you have multiple logistics grids, you can use a simple one-wagon supply train on a loop between the zones to deliver fresh fuel and other supplies (wall sections, repair packs, turrets - automates base repair if the biters get feisty).

[mrvn]

I think the point was that you can have one fuel train set up to go between the fuel source and fuel destination. Every outpost then gets a fuel destination with a buffer chest and you only enable the station when the buffer chest is low.

What this means is that the fuel train will sit at the source waiting for some outpost to enable their station. Only then it drives there, drops the fuel and goes back to the source and waiting. Previously the fuel train would have to visit every outpost in turn and drive away full most of the time.

[BenSeidel]

That was possible before as well

Yes, you are correct.

I think the point was that you can have one fuel train set up to go between the fuel source and fuel destination. Every outpost then gets a fuel destination with a buffer chest and you only enable the station when the buffer chest is low.

That is what I should have said.

[Lav]

There is no way in vanilla to get a train to go to a stop when it needs refueling. However now that you can enable/disable the train stops it is possible to have a fuel train drop fuel of at all your stations. This will allow you to refuel your trains when they are being loaded/unloaded.

That's a setup I'm currently running.

There's the Coal Central which mines coal in bulk, and a single 1-3-0 train (I designed my entire network for 1-3-0 trains, though 1-2-0 would probably be faster) which visits all my outposts in order, delivering coal to them. Each output has it's own steam power generation, and I'm using smelt-where-you-mine approach, so the coal is needed there anyway.

Nice thing is that if station gets disabled when coal train is already there and unloading, it will continue to unload until it achieves it's departure criteria. So I can set station to enable only if Coal < 1K, but the coal delivery train will unload until station stores hit 3-4K. This ensures that the station will be able to function for a long time after delivery, reducing the number of trips coal train has to make. This seems to work - so far I still have no need for a second coal train (and my Coal Central was designed to handle 3-4 easily).

Now I use this approach for my entire rail network structure: iron trains only depart when iron-receiving stations enable, which only enable when iron gets low, and so on. Essentially, station becoming enabled is a remote signal to train that it needs to route there.