Train cornering speed limit - variable radius corners

[SkiCarver]

SkiCarver Edit - Poll removed to facilitate move to suggestions forum.

Hi,

I think an interesting 'complication' that could be added to Factorio is "realistic" train cornering speeds. That is, the speed a train can go round a tight corner should be limited and therefore we would want to try and 'straighten' our rail networks to reduce the number of times the train slows for corners. This could be enhanced by the addition of (perhaps) two additional rail corner radii. If the existing corner is the 'tight' radius, I suggest a medium and large radius (perhaps x2 and x4 of the existing corner piece), with the trains able to take the large radius corner at full speed.

RailCorners.png (1.36 MiB) Viewed 9231 times

The additional (faster) rails could be behind technologies like the belts (normal, fast & express).

Rail-smf.png (1.37 MiB) Viewed 9231 times

This change, in addition to a rail bridge/tunnel, would push train networks to have high-speed routes that are largely straight, with lines coming off that have the junctions. Perhaps the bridge/tunnel would only be available with the express rails.

(I know some aspects of this have been discussed elsewhere, but I thought a poll would be useful for the devs to gauge interest)

[FrodoOf9Fingers]

Simular to loaders, i think we want to avoid item bloat.

[Koub]

Related :
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=58107
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=52911
Also would this benefit the gameplay for the majority of players ? I think not.

[SkiCarver]

Related :
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=58107
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=52911
Also would this benefit the gameplay for the majority of players ? I think not.

Thanks for posting the related links.

ref the comment .... I sort-of agree (Hence why I put a poll to gauge the popularity of the idea). While it is possible and least effort to get to launch with yellow belts, the devs gave us red and blue belts so we can expand to our hearts content and maximise throughput, I see the addition of speed restrictions on corners as an improvement to the game, and faster track will allow for more experimentation for those that wish to.

I guess the big question is .... how many more people will buy the game with the additions noted in my post? It may help to generate more good reviews on steam.

[ShutEye_DK]

...
I guess the big question is .... how many more people will buy the game with the additions noted in my post? It may help to generate more good reviews on steam.

Are you kidding? 98% isn't good enough?

[Ranger_Aurelien]

The question is how much complexity and granularity needs to be built into Vanilla given the style and power of tools the Factorio team presents to the user.

Currently by fuel alone the trains have progressions of increasing top speed, accel, and effective wagon count (1,1,4,14,14) at top speed.

https://wiki.factorio.com/Railway
https://wiki.factorio.com/Locomotive
https://factoriocheatsheet.com/#Vehicle_Fuel_Bonus (for train wagon count vs fuel vs speed table)


Simplest possible implementation of the concept is [mod idea] the tracklayer GUI might only permit "Wide" curved track orientation at start, and at some later research (say "automation2"), "medium", and at a later point, "tight". It would hold much of the spirit of the poster's idea while requiring no new graphics or mechanics.



Let's brainstorm a more complicated implementation...

How would you know you have a tight corner?
To avoid adding specific new tiles for "sharp" or "medium" rail, the devs would likely have to display as you lay rail curves red around "tight" and blue around medium (for example) to show the user at the time of placement what the maximum speed would be.


If the "wide" corners are high speed, what effects would "tight" and "medium" corners have? (vs the train design safe top speed of 300kph?)
Wide Med Tight
-30% -75% -90% ? ( 210 120 30 kph)
-25% -50% -75% ? ( 225 150 75 kph)
-20% -40% -60% ? ( 240 180 120 )
-10% -25% -40% ? ( 270 225 180 )
0% -20% -40% ? ( 225 240 180 )
Noting a 4-carriage coal/lumber powered train has max speed of 214kph anyway, and by fuel cube 274kph...


What could Research technologies do?
Option 1: Nothing. (Braking technology will already help by keeping the train faster before the corner)

Option 2: If Four upgrades, say "25% less speed reduction at corners"? (reducing all penalties proportionally)

Option 3: "+20kph lower cornering penalties" arithmetically lowering penalties to eventually remove the wide, then med, then tight.

How to unlock?
Option A: New technologies

Option B: Adding these benefits in addition to the "braking" technology is researched
If the latter, perhaps remove all penalties before space science, or maybe making it like infinite technologies so it cumulatively removes penalties (approaching 100% but never quite reaching it).
https://wiki.factorio.com/Technologies# ... chnologies



My Conclusion
Personally if the mechanisms were to be built in the game I would appreciate the "science needs to solve this physics problem" and things would get researched in due course. I more or less plan for the "mature" game anyway and less than space science tech is leading up to what a "full" toybox portfolio looks like.
It was a fun thought experiment, but I'll put it back to the originator: how long people will really notice this level of detail until they research it away? On that thought, if the detail was added, I think it would be better not to have a vanilla way to research it away, but it may be too late in dev cycle to make that change visible to end user...

I would appreciate some rail bridges (like the new mod https://mods.factorio.com/mod/rail-bridge ), ideally so other rail, belt, and foot/vehicle traffic could safely go under.


I was laying some rail to experiment yesterday and even to make a two minimum radius circle junction took more space than a moderate furnace line. I don't lay any rail until I have cliff explosives and then keep it far from my operations because of spacing (usually as growth goes the first big thing is the uranium ore<>acid run).

[SkiCarver]

.....

My thought was that, like with yellow belts, the base level of tracks (with tight corners only) would get the player to launch if they so choose. The technologies would provide tracks on which the train can run faster (larger radius corners and a bridge). These faster tracks would be great for those who want to build rail worlds or mega factories.
The different levels of tracks would enhance the 'puzzle' of trains.

[coppercoil]

I think express corners sbould be larger in radius. It will change crossings design which is the most interesting "complication". The same radius changes nothing. The higher tier of smth is not so interesting because it requires more resouces only and does not involve thinking. If bigger corners are too complicated for developers, I'd prefer to not change anything.

[MeduSalem]

Simular to loaders, i think we want to avoid item bloat.

While I also think that we don't really need wider radius curves for the train network and more complication for the sake of complication... the base game is already suffering certain item bloat.

Like for example the inserters or belts. They could all have been slipstreamed and designed to take advantage from research upgrades or in a way to take advantage from speed modules or scaling with beacons nearby or something if one already has a module system.

Yet the loaders kinda work differently in my opinion and are a bad example for item bloat in the matter.

[Jap2.0]

I'm fairly certain loaders weren't added because they were impossible to balance, not because of item bloat.

[ssilk]

More related:

New types of rails (curves, s-curves ...)

Some notes to this "suggestion" (hehe, "poll for my suggestion", but forgot to open the poll for other ideas) after about 3500 game play hours with rails.


Currently a 90 degree curve needs 12 tiles. What Factorio is really missing is some a) smaller and b) larger curves. Not as here suggested 2 new layers of larger rails. And 8 new directions. I will explain it.


Smaller curves: 6 or 8 tiles for 90 degree, 12 or 16 for 180 degree curves. When you want to built in really narrow space-situations. To bring out the last quant of space from your factory. Of course: The train speed should be limited in those curves: About 30-100 km/h. So it is really slow in those curves.

Larger curves: see link.

picture from that article

They enable to switch from one rail to another. For example. Ot this is the ideal kind of rail for "priority lanes". Logically theses rails should not be speed limited.

And in consequence: The current rails should be speed limited to about 120-200 km/h. So if you want to build really fast tracks you need to use the large curves only. That's the sense of priority lanes.

The rail planner then (it is still not perfect with 0.17, it has a lot of quirks that make it difficult to use), needs some option to allow building of small/middle/large curves only.

Eight more directions: Currently there are already 8 directions, in which a train can drive. I would like to have 8 more, between the current. But those directions are possible to build with long rails only! They are useful to have more realistic looking rail-plan on map and to reduce useless curves for long tracks.

Rail curve speed research: In the beginning the trains cannot drive through the curves fast. But with this research it is possible to develop "curve-antigravity", which allows to increase speed of all things turing around corners (trains, cars, ...)

[SkiCarver]

More related:

New types of rails (curves, s-curves ...)

Great link, thanks.

The emphasis of the link is "additional track geometries". This fits well with my suggestion that we could use track corner radius to affect train speed to add another level to rail system design .... optimising track design to maximise train average speed.

[darkfrei]

Is it possible to make free form railway curves via LuaRendering?

[ssilk]

I edited my post above and added some comments. Please reread.

@darkfrei: I don't think this is possible. I cannot be sure, but the logic of rails (building, traveling etc.) must be deep inside the c++ code. For example, you cannot create new rail entities which have much different setup than yet.

[coppercoil]

Larger curves: see link.

picture from that article

They enable to switch from one rail to another. For example. Ot this is the ideal kind of rail for "priority lanes". Logically theses rails should not be speed limited.

I suggest to use 21 tile radius circles (22 to the outer rail edge). 45° arc contains three segments: 1:6 curved, 1:3 straight, 4:6 curved. All rectangles are snapped to tiles, no overlap. There’s no intermediate 45° segment between two arcs (I hope it’s not a requirement). 1:3 segment can be omitted for compact S curve or doubled/tripled for wider spacing. It also can be used as standalone segment for diagonal rails.

Blue line is an ideal circle, green is already distorted to match segments. Looks good to me.

Radius21.png (49.77 KiB) Viewed 8783 times

[Hannu]

Wider curves would be nice for aesthetics, but I think simple addition of couple of still unrealistically small radiuses would not give enough bang for the buck for devs or players. In my opinion, rail system should be taken away from grid. There should be at least tools to build straight, circular arcs and chlothoids (smooth transition curve between different radius elements). And switches with free radius too. There could be straight station areas binded to grid for loading and unloading, but otherwise free rail geometry. An additional property could be realistic speed limits (used by mods or difficult -level).

It is clearly fully unrealistic idea from devs economic point of view. Only railway hobbyists could understand or appreciate it and it is well known to be very small percentage of people and mostly others than gamers (rail enthusiasts are old men, gamers young ans middle aged). In that situation I think current rail system is reasonable trade off. It gives nice logistic add on and transportation method for player. Complexity and realism (or some kind consistency, things behave somewhat how you expect from reality) is well in line with other elements of the game and certainly not too difficult for anyone who really wants to learn in.

[ssilk]

Thank you for your insights. Now I clearly see how useless mine and other rail-enthusiasts wishes are.

[coppercoil]

Thank you for your insights. Now I clearly see how useless mine and other rail-enthusiasts wishes are.

Wa-wa-wait, what do you mean “useless”? 41% is not enough? “If you don’t like it, then don’t use it”, it’s a golden phrase in Factorio. New radii will not break current rail systems. The only difference is, medium rails should be speed limited, so theoretically it could break some megabases. There could be a checkbox for it: “do not limit train speed regardless of rail radius”. It may look a little cheaty, but we already have various checkboxes for enemies and that's fine.

[Hannu]

Thank you for your insights. Now I clearly see how useless mine and other rail-enthusiasts wishes are.

I did not mean that kind of extreme negativity. I am rail enthusiast too and would like to have very realistic and complex rail system. I do not complain if devs make larger curves and speed limits and I would certainly use new curves in my layouts. But unfortunately I can not see significant benefits from devs point of view and do not expect it happen. I will be happy if they show that I am wrong.

[ssilk]

Ok, now without ironic: Thank you for making your standpoint clear.