Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Regular reports on Factorio development.
User avatar
Khazul
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Sep 03, 2021 4:47 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by Khazul »

Feather wrote: Fri Dec 22, 2023 12:49 pm I might just be dumb, but do interrupts interrupt whatever the train is currently doing, or is it queued after? (and can you toggle it)
Having a train go to pick up ore just for it to do a 180 half way through would be slightly annoying
I cannot speak for how this works, but for my mod it has a threshold of fuel which if it fall below it gets sent to the depot. If it is triggered to change, it applies the destination change immediately and resumes previous tasking after It basically inserts the depot temporary stop. Also consider that when you are also directing on destination full, then likely they may have recently visited a depot anyway and thus have recently been refueled if you set up that way so redirect for refuel almost never happen. What happens in practice in a large base with a large pool of trains, even when redirects for fuel happen it does not matter as another train in the pool will likely picked up the delayed tasking very quickly.

It is only really a concern when you watch a single train. When you watch the overall actions of hundreds of trains or more specifically the continuity of resource movement, then it becomes irrelevant.

This is what I found with my mod. Originally I was hoping to find a way to consider a minimal redirect of the original trip but in practice in a larger base with a large enough pool of trains it just doesn't matter and the extra complexity would just consume more CPU for no real benefit. Keeping it all simple to compute is good for large factories. While I have no idea what has been done here, I have to assume having solved some of these problem in a mod in an efficient manner that what they are doing is similar but also a lot better because they have much better access to make supporting core code changes than a mod developer has.
reeshal
Burner Inserter
Burner Inserter
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Dec 30, 2021 1:01 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by reeshal »

I NEED IT NOWWWWWW
User avatar
DanGio
Filter Inserter
Filter Inserter
Posts: 398
Joined: Sat May 10, 2014 6:22 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by DanGio »

Merry Christmas!

I gave it some thought, and I think this group assignment interface :
group.png
group.png (42.98 KiB) Viewed 2207 times
should be :
"Group :" and next to it, a drop-down menu (the light gray one that is already present in the game), where the last option is "create new group". It may be not the solution you want because it would force you to find "enter new group name" and "rename group" UI solutions, but IMHO it's the way that conveys the most naturally the idea of "assigning something to a group" to the user.

Cheers!
kitters
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 83
Joined: Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:48 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by kitters »

(so hijacking a train to chauffeur you somewhere won't break anything)
why hijacking a train? Why don't u just pull your train out of your train pocket?
herrkocur
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Mar 04, 2019 4:26 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by herrkocur »

Regarding "Reservation upgrade"
Won't this decrease the throughput of the station as a side effect?
FuryoftheStars
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 2768
Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2017 2:01 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by FuryoftheStars »

herrkocur wrote: Fri Dec 29, 2023 4:49 pm Regarding "Reservation upgrade"
Won't this decrease the throughput of the station as a side effect?
Depends on your setup. If your waiting trains are on the other side of your map, then yeah. But if you're using a stacker or other close by means of giving the trains a place to standby at, then any "decrease" in throughput will be minimal and well worth the cost of not having a train sitting there blocking the tracks for others.
My Mods: Classic Factorio Basic Oil Processing | Sulfur Production from Oils | Wood to Oil Processing | Infinite Resources - Normal Yield | Tree Saplings (Redux) | Alien Biomes Tweaked | Restrictions on Artificial Tiles | New Gear Girl & HR Graphics
Buma
Manual Inserter
Manual Inserter
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2023 7:55 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by Buma »

KeksPlaysFactorio wrote: Fri Dec 15, 2023 4:51 pm I have a very small request, what about also adjusting/changing color of cargo wagons and fluid wagons?? I would love to see this.
Would love to see that too!
Morz46
Manual Inserter
Manual Inserter
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2024 3:13 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by Morz46 »

Love the color changing idea, but from the visualization in the post, the change seemed too sudden and jarring. I think it would look a lot better if it could fade into the new color over like a second or something.
User avatar
Twisted_Code
Long Handed Inserter
Long Handed Inserter
Posts: 91
Joined: Sat Jun 06, 2015 1:15 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by Twisted_Code »

I LOVE IT. I LIKE TRAINS.
How to report bugs effectively (archived version)because everyone should know this.
The game's tech tree, a visual reference guide.
FiNoSHiA
Manual Inserter
Manual Inserter
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Feb 23, 2024 2:39 am
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by FiNoSHiA »

hello everyone,I am from Taiwan
If my English is poor,I am sorry about that.

I hope Factorio 2.0, trains could get technologies to speed up or more Cargo space.
Becouse I play with friends is good at game early.
But if we play infinite technologies,the game always became the robot world.
There are "Worker robot speed" could let robot faster,so my world at last is not use train.

My friend say train will let server Delay is becouse "Rail signals",if one of the friends couldn't get in the World,we can only start over.

I hope trains could be more useful.

thanks you
FuryoftheStars
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 2768
Joined: Tue Apr 25, 2017 2:01 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by FuryoftheStars »

FiNoSHiA wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2024 3:02 am trains could get technologies to speed up
At this time, that is what fuel does. Faster top speed and better acceleration.
My Mods: Classic Factorio Basic Oil Processing | Sulfur Production from Oils | Wood to Oil Processing | Infinite Resources - Normal Yield | Tree Saplings (Redux) | Alien Biomes Tweaked | Restrictions on Artificial Tiles | New Gear Girl & HR Graphics
mmmPI
Smart Inserter
Smart Inserter
Posts: 3619
Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2016 6:10 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by mmmPI »

FiNoSHiA wrote: Fri Feb 23, 2024 3:02 am I hope Factorio 2.0, trains could get technologies to speed up or more Cargo space.
My friend say train will let server Delay is becouse "Rail signals",if one of the friends couldn't get in the World,we can only start over.
More cargo is better than faster trains for the server and for player's computer from what i tested with mods. Faster trains means the same number or more "rail signal" calculations, and less time to make calculations. More cargo also cost more time when inserter try to load or unload, so maybe infinite increase is too much, the price of technology should be the limitation but it can be increased a lot more than train speed before seeing problem.

you can use the command /c game.speed =0.8 to make speed 80% on the server, so maybe your friend can help finish the map before you start over.
User avatar
Starfly
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 22
Joined: Fri Mar 08, 2019 9:04 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by Starfly »

I never liked the rgb-picker to mix the color representing the item i have in mind, especially when i have to do it multiple times and have to remember the rgb values to mix the same color. Would be awesome to have a button in the rgb-menu which opens the list of things in the game. You can pick iron ore for example and the game automatically sets the (dev defined) rgb to avalue which represents iron (greyed out blue for example). This way i could easily have consistent color for the same item. It could also help to read foreign factory layouts due to the uniformed colors.
User avatar
yngndrw
Inserter
Inserter
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2016 12:14 pm
Contact:

Re: Friday Facts #389 - Train control improvements

Post by yngndrw »

I've only noticed this FFF so I'm about a year late, but I have a few last-minute suggestions on the train groups and related signals - Although it may have since changed to make these suggestions redundant.

It would be nice if you could have a special train group that all other groups inherited from. This group could include global interrupts which apply to all trains, such as re-fueling and depot behaviours.

Also, more related to circuit signals and related to Starfly's suggestion above - It would be nice if there was a combinator which could return the average colour of an item or ore. If you could then wire this to a train station to set the train stop colour, parameterisable train stop blueprints would be much simpler as then you only need to specify the item/ore type.
Post Reply

Return to “News”