[MOD 0.15|0.14] Rail Tanker - Liquid transport 1.4.1

[R3CONN3R]

Ugh, I hate to say it, but that really just doesn't sit well with me. It probably has to do with the tanks being vertical like that.
I mean, I suppose there's a reason we don't do that IRL either, you lose storage space by having the gaps in between the "tanks".
The quality doesn't look bad, and I like the dual ports on the side, but I think it should stick as a conventional horizontal tank.

I like the visual connection points in the middle, but the vertical tanks look just wrong to me.

I like the vertical tanks I think it fits the Factorio Style

From an IRL standpoint I agree. My thoughtprocess was something like "what if I put storage tanks on a train?" and this is the result

I like this a lot! It feels very Factorio to me, and it fits the new shiny trains really well. Please do release this even if it doesn't get into the main mod. I'll at least use it.

I'm managing something like 13 different liquids in my game right now.. this got me thinking that it'd be pretty sweet to store 4 liquids per train car in reduced quantities.. could you make an alternate with 4 pipe inputs per side instead of two? I think I'll take a look at the mod code tomorrow to see how doable such a thing would be...

I'll see what I can do with 4 connections. On the code side I have no clue if it's possible to store 4 liquids though ^^

Why not have both.
I'm more the big laying tank type but won't complain if the other design is available.

Fair enough!

Perhaps people would feel those tanks were more "factorio" If they were as dirty as the pipes they connect to

Perhaps. A lot of custom mod graphics tend to have really clean buildings, but the tanks here at least look kind of hand crafted and a little rough. The new train wagons are also very slick and shiny so I think it fits.

One thing I was thinking is that it matches the pumps quite nicely in the vertical station example, and the horizontal station has the usual problem of the pumps not looking connected. However, 0.13 now has that animation for when wagons are ready to unload. I wonder if that feature could be used to have the pipes extend outward when at a station so they can fully connect now?

This could even be an alternate wagon type. Holds 4 liquids at reduced quantities (but maybe more total than a single tank car), requires one pump per tank, maybe costs a little more.

I'm really quite pumped about this graphic. I hope it gets released to us plebs!

Yeah the problem with hor/vert is really annoying and I have thought about an animation.
I have however not come up with something that might look good and logical. Simply extending the pipes would look a bit wonky I think.

In the attachment is a zip with the model I made.
To install it get the latest RailTanker 1.3.32 zip and unpack it in the mods folder. Rename the zip to *.zipX or something otherwise you'll get a duplicate mod error on startup
Make sure the unpacked folder structure looks like this
mods\RailTanker_1.3.32\
and not
mods\RailTanker_1.3.32\RailTanker_1.3.32\
Download the attachment and copy the contents. One file has to be overwritten i.e. the prototypes\entity\entities.lua .
If you want you can also delete the old sprites in graphics\rail-tanker\ .
In case there are problems with the graphics being cut off delete the crop-cache.dat in the factorio folder.

[MrGrim]

Yeah the problem with hor/vert is really annoying and I have thought about an animation.
I have however not come up with something that might look good and logical. Simply extending the pipes would look a bit wonky I think.

Maybe a telescoping effect? It would also be possible to fake the pump extending instead I would think, but that would have the downside of only looking good with vanilla pumps.

I'm going to dig into the code to look into the possibility of multiple fluids after work today. I'll do a proof of concept with two fluids using the two inputs on the current graphic just to see if it would work.

I love modding mods!

Thanks for sharing this! I'm going to integrate these immediately!

I have a question for you. I'm working on a bit of a "meta mod" project that's designed to be a mod you can install that tries to auto detect other mods and merge them together in a cohesive way via various runtime patching methods with an aim at producing a unified extended vanilla experience. Changes can be drastic to simple; e.g. it completely removes the multi layer circuit board chain from Bob's Electronics and re-sorts the entire crafting menu, or it will just replace the BioFarm crusher entity with the crusher entity from Hard Crafting if they're both installed. One of the things it does is swap graphics out sometimes for ones with a more vanilla theme. May I have your permission to include your work there should I ever actually distribute it in case it's not adopted by mainline?

Thanks for this!

[R3CONN3R]

I have a question for you. I'm working on a bit of a "meta mod" project that's designed to be a mod you can install that tries to auto detect other mods and merge them together in a cohesive way via various runtime patching methods with an aim at producing a unified extended vanilla experience. Changes can be drastic to simple; e.g. it completely removes the multi layer circuit board chain from Bob's Electronics and re-sorts the entire crafting menu, or it will just replace the BioFarm crusher entity with the crusher entity from Hard Crafting if they're both installed. One of the things it does is swap graphics out sometimes for ones with a more vanilla theme. May I have your permission to include your work there should I ever actually distribute it in case it's not adopted by mainline?

Thanks for this!

Sure! Free to use for everyone.

[orzelek]

I have a question for you. I'm working on a bit of a "meta mod" project that's designed to be a mod you can install that tries to auto detect other mods and merge them together in a cohesive way via various runtime patching methods with an aim at producing a unified extended vanilla experience. Changes can be drastic to simple; e.g. it completely removes the multi layer circuit board chain from Bob's Electronics and re-sorts the entire crafting menu, or it will just replace the BioFarm crusher entity with the crusher entity from Hard Crafting if they're both installed. One of the things it does is swap graphics out sometimes for ones with a more vanilla theme. May I have your permission to include your work there should I ever actually distribute it in case it's not adopted by mainline?

Thanks for this!

Sure! Free to use for everyone.

Why would you remove multilayer electronics chain from bob's electronics? Just don't use the electronics mod then.

[MrGrim]

Why would you remove multilayer electronics chain from bob's electronics? Just don't use the electronics mod then.

I wanted to use it as a substitute for the current 3 tiers of electronics in vanilla. When I was testing things the difference between the top two electronics tiers in Bob's wasn't very significant. The chain was similar just different materials. Since I wasn't using any other part of his mods the 4th tier didn't serve much of a purpose. I only enabled the ores needed for the first three, I disabled all higher tier buildings added by the mod, and removed custom buildings such as the electrolysis plant (I thought the art style clashed with vanilla) just assigning appropriate recipes to the chemical plant. The only building I ended up keeping was the chemical mixing furnace and only the first tier of the electric version.

Anyway, I don't want to steal this thread. So far I'm just making my mod for me and am contemplating sharing it as it matures. I'm grabbing permissions and keeping a list of credits as I pull in artwork and code just in case. Feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss it further.

[MrGrim]

Sorry for the double post, but the subject is completely unrelated to the last one so it felt weird editing it.

Factorio modding can have some strange limitations sometimes. E.g. I learned tonight that the storage tank prototype only supports a single fluid box while most others support multiple.. for reasons..

Anyway, I think it's totally doable to have multiple fluid types per car to match the graphic. The mod basically throws down invisible storage tanks every time the train comes to a stop then saves their contents and destroys them once moving. So, essentially you just plop down 4 of them instead of one. The trick is putting them in the correct orientation depending on which way the train is facing. The new code that manages the fake fluid inventory for dealing with 0.13 signals would also need to be updated to be aware of it.

What do folks think? Is this worth doing?

BTW, the code for this mod was a pleasure to read. Excellent style.

[MiniMe943]

Anyway, I think it's totally doable to have multiple fluid types per car to match the graphic.
...essentially you just plop down 4 of them instead of one.

What do folks think? Is this worth doing?

Maybe I'm just too much of a stickler, but it just seems unnecessary. If you need to carry around multiple liquids with one train, I'd say to just plop down multiple tanks, not this "multiple fluid tank" gubbins.

The graphic is growing on me though, and I might be more in favor of having the vertical tank car have a slightly lower capacity, with a cheaper cost, and then have the normal horizontal one stay the same, and/or make it slightly more expensive.

Just some sort of rebalancing and adding this in as a separate, smaller car is the way I'd go about it. But of course, only opinions here.

[MrGrim]

Anyway, I think it's totally doable to have multiple fluid types per car to match the graphic.
...essentially you just plop down 4 of them instead of one.

What do folks think? Is this worth doing?

Maybe I'm just too much of a stickler, but it just seems unnecessary. If you need to carry around multiple liquids with one train, I'd say to just plop down multiple tanks, not this "multiple fluid tank" gubbins.

The graphic is growing on me though, and I might be more in favor of having the vertical tank car have a slightly lower capacity, with a cheaper cost, and then have the normal horizontal one stay the same, and/or make it slightly more expensive.

Just some sort of rebalancing and adding this in as a separate, smaller car is the way I'd go about it. But of course, only opinions here.

For vanilla I agree. There's one, maybe two fluid types you might care to move? Modded games can be liquid heavy, though. I'm carting fresh water around.

[Mooncat]

For the new graphics, I think there should be something at the bottom part to hold or connect the tanks. As you can see in steinio's image:

the 2 tanks are connected by the bottom part and look very solid.

Right now it looks like you just put 4 separated tanks on a plate wagon:

and they will fall off when the train turns.

[hoho]

What do folks think? Is this worth doing?

I use a metric ton of mods with at least a couple dozen different fluids/gases and I've yet to think that putting more than one type to a single wagon would be useful.

Considering how much harder it would be to support several different fluid types in a single wagon, no, I don't think it's worth it. I'd much rather have you improve and extend the mod in some other way. You could put the multi-fluid idea to a lower priority queue and do that if there is nothing better to do.

[MrGrim]

What do folks think? Is this worth doing?

I use a metric ton of mods with at least a couple dozen different fluids/gases and I've yet to think that putting more than one type to a single wagon would be useful.

Considering how much harder it would be to support several different fluid types in a single wagon, no, I don't think it's worth it. I'd much rather have you improve and extend the mod in some other way. You could put the multi-fluid idea to a lower priority queue and do that if there is nothing better to do.

Just a quick disclaimer, I'm not the author of the mod. Just a fan w/ some coding skills inspired by another fans artwork.

[Hannu]

You say that I should not have inserters on tank wagon load rails. I can easily remove the inserters from my oil load and unload tracks but sometimes game routes trains in very odd way and sometimes an oil train go through ore loading tracks with inserters and also stop on them to wait green signal. What are those fake items and can I avoid disturbing them by using filter inserters in my unload tracks?

[MrGrim]

You say that I should not have inserters on tank wagon load rails. I can easily remove the inserters from my oil load and unload tracks but sometimes game routes trains in very odd way and sometimes an oil train go through ore loading tracks with inserters and also stop on them to wait green signal. What are those fake items and can I avoid disturbing them by using filter inserters in my unload tracks?

Filter inserters should do the trick.

[Choumiko]

You say that I should not have inserters on tank wagon load rails. I can easily remove the inserters from my oil load and unload tracks but sometimes game routes trains in very odd way and sometimes an oil train go through ore loading tracks with inserters and also stop on them to wait green signal. What are those fake items and can I avoid disturbing them by using filter inserters in my unload tracks?

The fake items are used to make the full/empty no change conditions work. If i remember correctly, inserters only pull out items of a wagon if the train is at a train stop or controlled manually. So if the train is waiting at a signal nothing should happen. But you might test it for yourself, been a while since i actually played

[brunzenstein]

I installed the rail tanker mod but the tanker won't show up anywhere under 0.13.15.
Is there a special requirement?
Have I overlooked something?

[Choumiko]

It's unlocked by a new tech, which has fluid handling and automated rail as a prerequisite.

[binbinhfr]

Hi Choumiko,

it seems that you create special fluid-items here :

Code: Select all

if data.raw["pump"]["small-pump"] then
  data.raw["pump"]["small-pump"].collision_box = {{-0.29, -0.29}, {0.29, 0.29}}
end

for i, fluid in pairs(data.raw["fluid"]) do
  local fluid_item = {
    type = "item",
    name = fluid.name .. "-in-tanker",
    icon = fluid.icon,
    flags = {"goes-to-main-inventory"},
    subgroup = "contents",
    order = "z[rail-tanker]",
    stack_size = 2500
  }
  data:extend({fluid_item})
end

could you consider making these items with flag "hidden"
so that they do not appear as classical items in logistics or mods that deals with "normal" recipes ?

[Choumiko]

Making them hidden would defeat half of the purpose why they where added: You wouldn't be able to use them in the "Item count" train schedule conditions (and in combinators when combined with SmartTrains or mods that add inventory sensors).

Is there a specific issue you're running into? I could add an interface that returns a table with the added items if that helps.

[binbinhfr]

The problem is that they have the same icon as original fluids, so players often get confused. I have a new mod Black Market that shows prices of items and fluids and you can find oil, lubricant, etc. in 2 groups and sometimes players do not understand which one to use. Maybe you could find a different icon for these itemized fluids ? I don't know what could be the solution...

[Supercheese]

Is it possible to overlay icons dynamically? You could overlay the fluid icon atop the rail-tanker icon, to give an easy visual distinction between the two.