Simple Solution To Thundering Train Herd

[GrumpyJoe]

im not saying that this shouldn´t be a thing, i just dont understand the urge to build rails and control trains that way, at least in vanilla.

There will always be use cases that the system isnt supporting, or better not optimal to implement in.
You might find support in 10% playerbase for this "max trains per station", but others might have a slightly different problem

If anyone who wants it hasn´t got a problem using mods, i suggest using LTN, cos it solves all of these problems at once.
If you wanna play vanilla and still want hta, i honestly wish everyone here good luck in convincing the devs, cos i ran into these problems before, i totally understand the technical side.
And i even agree in its functionality being very helpful, as a rail"powered" big base isn´t that unusual.

Im just hesitant to throw in a "hey, why not use this mod?" from the start, cos some people seem to get annoyed by that

Lets see what 0.17 brings, i might test a few things unmodded, until mods are save updating my 0.16 base

[Sad_Brother]

If anyone who wants it hasn´t got a problem using mods, i suggest using LTN, cos it solves all of these problems at once.

I do not like LTN because it is "just works" magically. This suggestion is better imho.

Hta?

[GrumpyJoe]

If anyone who wants it hasn´t got a problem using mods, i suggest using LTN, cos it solves all of these problems at once.

I do not like LTN because it is "just works" magically. This suggestion is better imho.

Hta?

it solves alot of whats discussed in "more vanilla train functionality" threads, but i think you cant imagine the many ways you can screw it up.
If you think its fire and forget, you are in for some fun

The only thing thats missing from those proposal is a depot from which trains "magically" start to every possible station, right wagon type given.

[Sad_Brother]

it solves alot of whats discussed in "more vanilla train functionality" threads, but i think you cant imagine the many ways you can screw it up.
If you think its fire and forget, you are in for some fun

The only thing thats missing from those proposal is a depot from which trains "magically" start to every possible station, right wagon type given.

It should be interesting to listen how can LTN fail. (if it is not against the rules here)

"Depot" proposal is easy aside of LTN and was suggested in another thread.

[GrumpyJoe]

it would be kinda offtopic, but meh
The mod itself does not fail. The failure, as so often, is is to be found in front of the PC

offtopic

• let it run on default other than requesting items. Its possible, it will do something. But not only will it create deliveries of only 1k, but will also make requester into providers if not emptied fast enough or controlled via big number provider signal

• playing with warehouses as station "chests" and trying to provide more than one item type. if you then have items in the train when it returns to the depot and gets redistributed to another schedule, stuff will end up where its not belonging. Same goes for liquids. Needs some thought in input signaling. if you dont understand what its doing and just use provided BPs, you can get lost looking for the mistake, cos schedules will get deleted and cant be traced back

• circling the same item from output to input of the same subpart of your factory. mostly happens with storage blocks of stuff you only need later, like in AB or Pyo. Will create unneed traffic and wont be spotted cos its automated. (if you have basic notifications off, which you will at a later stage) Needs network ID setup correctly. Its not everyones thing to understand encoding

• multiple depots need their own station names and basic schedule, or they will jam your rail system

• full requesters which prevent trains from unloading cos wrong signals or missing wires. goes back to wrong item type somewhere else, see above
  this also happens quite early when your inserters are slow and the train times out and returns unemptied, can be prevented by starting with, hopefully globally set, tresholds or fiddling around in the mods timeout settings

• changing cargo wagons cos of a mod that increases cargo hold, without changing signals. you gotta either change every stations combinators or have it controlled globally or it will just create schedules with the old cargo numbers cos a minimum is reached. If you go straight from Cargo MK1 to 3, thats double the trains running than needed

thats just a few things i can think of right now

basicly it exchanges creating schedules and maybe clever wires in a vanilla setup, with more wires and combinators that you should try to understand or it can backfire.
i use it because setting up stations is what i like, but creating schedules not so much. I haven´t really used it in vanilla but even with its "low" item type numbers it can help (Nilaus´ Modular Megabase series comes to mind)
For more complicated games like AB or Pyo its basicly acting like a bulk bot network, there is way too much items to just belt them around for my likings and scheduling that would be a nightmare.

[Chrisi]

I would like to have a train system where I name all my stations at the different mining outposts the same. for example "Iron pickup" and "Copper pickup".
At a factory that requires iron I would set up a station with the name "Gear wheels production" for example and one or more trains, depending on resource consumption, with the schedule:
-Iron pickup (Inventory full)
-Gear wheels production (Inventory empty)

This way, I do not have to micromanage stations and train schedules each time a mine runs out. Right now it doesnt work because of the thundering herd problem.
Please consider this hopefully simple feature so we can more easily automate resource transportation.

[Mike5000]

i understand the problem, but i dont understand why anyone would set it up like this

take the example of 10 ore stations (with one waiting bay) x2 trains into one big smelter with (hopefully) a stacker that can hold 20 trains

It's easy in vanilla to have multiple mines feeding one smelter, or one smelter feeding multiple factories. Problems arise when you need multiple sources feeding multiple destinations. You have a choice of LTN - a miracle of engineering but also complex and error prone - or trying to squeeze everything through a single set of cross docks.

This proposal - or the equivalent modding interface proposal - enables one to build multiple mines feeding multiple smelters to multiple factories without crippling slowdowns due to thundering herds.

[Darinth]

Actually, I don't think that convincing the devs is all that big of a difficulty. In this particular instance, I doubt they have any serious issue with the proposal (at least in concept). The simple fact that factorio supports stations sharing the same name and semi-intelligently routing trains to those stations as they become active indicates that Wube intends it to be an appropriate method of scheduling trains (if not *the* ideal method of scheduling them in vanilla), but it has a deficiency. It certainly seems like Wube would like to fix this, so that their obviously intentional methodology of train routing works well.

[Chrisi]

One more thing to consider is how trains should behave when the maximum number of trains per train stop is changed.
I suggest a stop with a max number of 0 trains should behave exactly like a deactivated station. If a train is pathing to a train stop and the max number is changed to 0, it should either find another station with the same name or stop with a no path error if no active train stop is found.
If the max number of trains per stop is changed and after the change there are more trains pathing to the stop than the max amount, the exceeding trains should first try to repath, or if repathing is unsuccessful, stop with no path error.

[rldml]

it solves alot of whats discussed in "more vanilla train functionality" threads, but i think you cant imagine the many ways you can screw it up.
If you think its fire and forget, you are in for some fun

Yeah, that's my problem with LTN and other train-scheduling-mods: You have to use trains in their manner. Or to say it more general: You exchange the existing complexity of train scheduling through another. And this is only an advantage for you, if you design your factory to work best with the mod you want to use.

That does not have to be a problem, but for me it is. Train scheduling and train automating is my favorite part of the game.

That's why i request more control on train scheduling in vanilla.

[GrumpyJoe]

Well, if you found out what you need, got your station blueprints set, its only a matter of connecting it all. And maybe add more depots. It just takes some time to get that going.

I understand that after that point its not very interesting

[Koub]

From my understanding, this will be addressed by https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-361

[NotRexButCaesar]

+1 please add this. It is the one thing every person can agree on.

[ssilk]

Moved to implemented. Waiting for release.