[MOD 0.12.x] The 8L Train Project v1.2.3 (Updated '16-05-01)

[Jackalope_Gaming]

0.13 notes
This mod -will not- work properly with 0.13 and I have no intention of making it work due to 0.13 making this mod obsolete. If I do make a train mod for 0.13 then it will be a new mod with a different name so people don't get mixed up.

Important notice

You will need to pick up and again place down all your locomotives and cargo wagons to update them properly if you add this mod to an existing game or are updating the mod from before version 1.2.1.

Type: Mod
Name: The 8L Train Project
Description: Standardizes length of cargo wagons and diesel locomotives, with other minor adjustments.
License: MIT License
Version: 1.2.3
Release: 2016-02-13
Tested-With-Factorio-Version: 0.12.22+
Category: SimpleExtension
Tags: Train, locomotive, wagon, length
Download-Url: https://github.com/Jackalope-Gaming/8L- ... tag/v1.2.3 or see download link below in this post.
Website: https://github.com/Jackalope-Gaming/8L-Train-Project

Currently supported mods and mod versions:
FARL >= 0.4.0
RailTanker >= 1.1.3
Bob's Mods/Logistics >=0.12.0
More Locomotives >= 0.3.0
Color Coding >= 1.0.3
Factorio Extended >= 0.1.3
Shuttle Train >= 1.0.1

License

The MIT License (MIT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Jackielope

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Long description

Long description
This mod changes and standardizes the effective length of cargo wagons and diesel locomotives to be exactly equal to 8 tiles when oriented horizontally. When oriented vertically it appears the length is about 6.33 tiles. It also slightly adjusts their collision and selection boxes and their positions on the rails so they are centered and directly on the rails. It does not change the fact that trains effectively get shorter when oriented vertically compared to horizontally.

A consequence of this mod is, when parked at a station, all locomotives and cargo wagons can accommodate 8 inserters on each side for a total of 16 each (or 32 if using long-handed.) There is no inserter overlap for any of the locomotives or wagons when parked at a station and oriented horizontally, but there is inserter overlap between some locomotives and wagons when oriented vertically.

Pictures

Pictures
...

Version history

Version history
Version# 1.2.3 (2016-05-01): Added support for Shuttle Train.
Version# 1.2.2 (2016-04-12): Added support for Factorio Extended.
Version# 1.2.1 (2016-04-09): Slightly changed some numbers to make cargo wagons align with the grid better and fix an inserter issue.
Version# 1.2.0 (2016-03-26): Revised the programming again to remove redundancies (thanks to D3Phoenix for his help with that.) Added support for Color Coding.
Version# 1.1.0 (2016-03-19): Added support for More Locomotives
Version# 1.0.0 (2016-03-19): Revised the programming to allow for easily supporting other train mods without needing to include new graphics. Added support for FARL, RailTanker, and Bob's Mods.
Version# 0.2.0 (2016-02-13): Added updated cargo wagon graphics
Version# 0.1.0 (2016-01-24): Released

8L-Train-Project_1.2.3.zip

(2.24 KiB) Downloaded 740 times

8L-Train-Project_1.2.2.zip

(2.2 KiB) Downloaded 616 times

8L-Train-Project_1.2.1.zip

(2.11 KiB) Downloaded 327 times

8L-Train-Project_1.2.0.zip

(2.1 KiB) Downloaded 464 times

[Buggi]

Excellent work! Now hopefully the dev's see how it should have been done in the first place.

[ssilk]

Hm. I think this mod does change the game. So it is wrong here. But where should I move it into? I would move it into General mods or maybe better New items... But helper mods would also be valid...
Better ideas?

[Koub]

I'd vote for general : as I understand it, helper mods help but don't change the gameplay. With this mod, gameplay is *slightly* changed (train stations will not be the same as vanilla)

[Jackalope_Gaming]

Hm. I think this mod does change the game. So it is wrong here. But where should I move it into? I would move it into General mods or maybe better New items... But helper mods would also be valid...
Better ideas?

I suppose it depends on where one draws the line for what's a new item. It doesn't feel like it should be a new item since all I did was change the connection distances between cargo wagons and to a lesser extent diesel locomotives. Then again, if a mod made a near side inserter then I suppose that would count as a new item? Of note is if a new item does not break the game if removed then my mod has absolutely no impact on the game if removed. Oddly enough removing my mod keeps the train length fixed until the trains are picked up or placed by the player.

It definitely doesn't fit in the "Helper" category since, by your reckoning, it does change the game whereas Helper mods are specifically called out as not changing the game.

The Vanilla+ section might work, but that depends on whether tweaking four numbers in the game files counts as game-changing enough. The vanilla game's cargo wagon is 7.3 tiles long and the diesel locomotive is 7.9 units. I simply changed them to both be 8 units.

It seems safest to put it in the General mod pile.

[ssilk]

Moved to General mods, leaving a link in Vanilla+, cause this mod really does change a game and you cannot remove it simply, cause then the train stations don't match anymore.

[Jackalope_Gaming]

Quite reasonable. Thank you for looking at it.

[Jackalope_Gaming]

Hello everyone. I have updated this mod with larger graphics for the cargo wagons so that the previous gap between them is now much more reasonable. An updated picture is included in the original post.

[Buggi]

I've just noticed on Reddit you've used my channel icon as your reddit icon.

Why would you steal my art like that?

[daniel34]

I've just noticed on Reddit you've used my channel icon as your reddit icon.
Why would you steal my art like that?

To clarify to non-reddit users, this is done automatically:

[Buggi]

Yeah, I wasn't aware of this, sorry for that.

[Jackalope_Gaming]

It would seem I need to get an avatar for Reddit so a mixup like that doesn't happen again.

I had assumed that the Factorio subreddit simply put the gear logo in when someone had a link or some other thing and there wasn't a user preferred image, but now I see that's not the case.

Sorry for the mixup, Buggi! I saw the pic at first and had never seen it before so I thought it was a picture indicating the thread hadn't been reviewed for moderation yet but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what FG meant in that context. Now I see it's your Youtube channel pic and I'm wondering how on earth it chose that picture of all things.

[StoneLegion]

Should this not be under fixes or hire this guy as a dev or so many other sections beside big mess? I feel like this is the last thing from a mess.

[Jackalope_Gaming]

This mod section is called "Big Mess" because it's the place where everything goes that doesn't really fit into the other categories. But this one does overlap with Vanilla + since it has an impact on objects in the game and switching into it or away from it requires redoing train stations.

My hope is the effects of the mod get incorporated into the base game when 0.13 is released, or whatever number they call it since Steam release might be called 1.0 effectively if it goes directly to market instead of Greenlight.

[StoneLegion]

Will RailTanker work out of the box with this or will we have some possible issues?

[Jackalope_Gaming]

Will RailTanker work out of the box with this or will we have some possible issues?

Yes, it will work without any problems.

Hm, I might work with JamesOFarrell to make an 8 length railtanker since I see the one in the mod is 7.3 like the baseline cargo wagon. Having it at 8.0 long should enable the connections to line up much better.

[StoneLegion]

Will RailTanker work out of the box with this or will we have some possible issues?

Yes, it will work without any problems.

Hm, I might work with JamesOFarrell to make an 8 length railtanker since I see the one in the mod is 7.3 like the baseline cargo wagon. Having it at 8.0 long should enable the connections to line up much better.

Thanks friend

[MONOmah_V]

I'm trying to expand this fix to Bob's mod's Mk{2,3,armoured} cargo wagons and locos. FIrst of all -- just changing joint and connection distances wouldnt work, Factorio will tell you that something is wrong with collision and/or selection boxes (if modded versions of wagons used values from base). I copied modified values from your mod and everything works fine.

Jackielope, do you have a repository for this mod? I could use some help from factorio community in modding basics and this mod seems good to learn something. ^^

[Jackalope_Gaming]

I don't have a repository, though I am working on including graphics and such for other mods which so far is just using Photoshop to enlarge the sprite sheets. If I was really shooting for the stars I could make this into something like "The 8L Train Project" where I'd end up supporting as many train mods as I could.

What kinds of things would you (and others who can chip in their opinions) like to see in the repository?

Right now I'm learning how to do the conditional modding where my mod looks for another mod and then does some changes to make interactions work better.

[StoneLegion]

Mod has been working great for me so far. I hope it's added in 13 but if not I assume this mod will be updated for it