Friday Facts #403 - Train stops 2.0

[husnikadam]

Is there something we have missed?

A feature just came up to my mind. Imagine a setup where multiple trains want to go to the same destination, which is train limited such that only one train can go there at a time. There are two trains nearby and one a bit further. What I experience is that these two trains just keep cycling into the station, while the third, further train never gets departed to go there. I know there will be the station/train priority thing, but I don't necessarily want to prioritize any stations. I just want the trains to take even-ish turns.

My suggestion is: when multiple departing trains(stations) are at the same priority, the one who is waiting the longest should go there

NOTE: if moderators/admins consider this to be a bug, I will hapilly move it to a bug report section, just let me know

[Kyparos]

I don't really like solar and nuclear in cart either, but as I said, I really like idea about grid because of accumulators (not big enough? add bigger one in game for bigger cart grid) with station chargers (like pumps for liquids we have) making possibility to make power bank on rails and guard cart with laser turrets for building tracks in frontier.

Ok, though this wasn't all what you were suggesting in the first post, so that explains where my mind was originally.

(Keep in mind that what follows is all my opinion/feeling on this.)

Just to recap what I had already said, I wouldn't want to be able to load power generators into it without it contributing to the locomotive (which would then be free energy, invalidating fuel), but neither do I see creating special grid items that instead are free to use or require new (and possibly not trivial to ups) mechanics to allow feeding from the locomotives of the train.

Using wagons as accumulators is something I think I have mixed opinions on. It's certainly interesting in concept and I think could be great in some situations (getting power to small islands without having to landfill for power generation or wires across the water), but this very easily becomes something that you just include on everything and suddenly all of your outposts are no longer at risk of losing power (unless the rails get cut, which the original proposal would fix, too). Further, unless you prevent the placing of power generators into the grids, these can then just generate free energy for you to distribute.

PDLs... PDLs I feel like are just way over powered. I don't like them. Instead, I'd rather see a purpose built, armored gun/turret wagon that requires ammo to operate. Either a single turret with 360 degree coverage, or two "guns" that only have partial coverage to each side of the wagon (and perhaps lack some of the additional bonuses that normal turrets get). And yeah, I feel like the max speed on these should be lower, thus discouraging you from just including them on all of your trains.

For the roboports, because I feel as though there shouldn't be power generators in the grid and that they should get their power from somewhere, being in the locomotives themselves seems the better idea as it would allow the roboport to take energy directly from the entity its in vs searching the whole train for all locomotives and then pulling energy from them that way. But then the question: should this just be added to the current locomotive, or should a new one be added? If the current, then all trains are going to have it. If a new one, then this allows for the addition of more fuel slots to compensate for the roboport's energy usage, but if there isn't a down side, then all trains are going to have it. So that leads to here:

Making locomotive slower doesn't turn it into something different, it makes it being slow locomotive. Basically it would make the thing that copy feature of two already existing mechanisms and merging them together. Factorio is frequently referred as a programming game, and programming games should provide you with a tool box but not ready solutions.

About slow speed for bots being able to keep up -- could be just an option for a normal locomotive. Slow locomotives would clog up the train network.

I feel like you misunderstood me (or I'm misunderstanding you). Only the new locomotive with the roboport coverage (or whatever would be using the roboport) would be slow, not all. As such, these would not be ideal for use in all trains and instead be best for dedicated repair/construction trains, which is the point. So there would likely only be a few and dispatching as needed, and as such they'd have minimal impact on the train network as a whole.

Alternatively I find idea about electric locomotives quite interesting, it's something new, we already have electricity everywhere we have trains and this could "free up" space for module grid wich would be powered by our global electric system. We already have seen superconductors in FFF, why becoming electric trains with magnetic levitation wouldn't be possible?)

Yeah, I'd like electric locomotives, too, but as their own, new entity that would have their own pluses and minuses. As a special wagon with a grid, this also runs into the same issue as the roboports with power... this wagon needs to search the whole train for locomotives to affect, which costs more on the ups than what I'd imagine a new, dedicated locomotive would. And as a wagon (or if it's just a grid and new grid item on existing locomotives), then there's no reason not to use it on all trains (or locomotives).


All of this, of course, is all my opinion on what I would find fun and engaging with the game.

Regarding clogging up the rail system, I meant that slow trains will be in the way of faster ones, it could lead to interesting logistics puzzles to solve, but maybe I just don’t really like idea of dealing with that.

I think we reached the point where we said enough words and only playtest and access to source code could determine which ideas are viable. (Also math, but I don’t think I’m that determined )

Thanks, last thing left to us is to hope that this feature will be added in some shape or form

[FuryoftheStars]

Regarding clogging up the rail system, I meant that slow trains will be in the way of faster ones, it could lead to interesting logistics puzzles to solve, but maybe I just don’t really like idea of dealing with that.

OK, well I guess I don't see that as a major concern because I don't expect (at least for the repair/construction trains) for them to be out on the rails (vs at a depot) all that frequently.

I think we reached the point where we said enough words and only playtest and access to source code could determine which ideas are viable. (Also math, but I don’t think I’m that determined )

Thanks, last thing left to us is to hope that this feature will be added in some shape or form

Agreed, and yes, here's hoping!

[meganothing]

Can't await getting 2.0 Great job.

Larger maps, planets ... and now we get remote driving. So you are aware of "it takes too long to get to a problem".
remote driving is a good idea. But it is only a small solution to a bigger problem.
To travel between planets in 2.0 or Space Exploration takes a lot of time.

Klonans teleporter are not working on ships while they travelling - so I'm stucked. Yes there might be others mod. But teleporters simplify too much.

Personally I think a kind of avatar would be nice in the vanilla game.

The number of avatars might increase in the techtree of course e.g. 1 avatar per planet in the almost-late game. And in the infinite research tree it could be nice to have multiple avatars on a planet to shorten train travels to far away outposts. And this might be incread eg. for Space Exploration where we have a lot planets.

How is a teleporter overpowered but an avatar isn't?

[mmmPI]

I think most of what avatars allow will be allowed by remote control from map view, whereas teleporter allow you to also teleport your inventory. On a distant planet, or outpost, you could do a few back and forth trip with teleporters to help the building process. Maybe i wasn't able to properly make the best out of avatars for combat.

[DRY411S]

I'm loving these QoL improvements for trains.

If the GUI is being reviewed and amended, can I ask please that you do something about the '+Add station' button so that it does not disappear off the bottom of the window and require scrolling to be able to use it if a train has more than 21 lines of orders (including the '+ Add wait condition' for every stop).

FWIW, I made a suggestion about this viewtopic.php?f=6&t=111451

[husnikadam]

Is there something we have missed?

Another problem came up to my mind. I have a problem, where a train departs to a certain station, but in the middle of the trip it decides "I will go to a different one (with the same name)". It does this because the station, which it initially chooses, is very far and as it recalculates path in the middle of the trip (because of red signals), it chooses a station with the same name, which is closer, which wasn't available before.

It breaks my setups where I have N+M stations for pickup and dropoff and N+M-1 trains serving those stations (with train limit 1). If all stations N are full and a trains departs from any, there is a single M station which can be served, and it thus it gets served. And vice versa. However when train in the middle of the trip decides, that it will go to a different station, very far station may never get served, unless a train heading there doesn't recalculate path during its trip (meets green lights only).

Another minor issue with that is if train choses a station to serve, it uses its train limit, preventing other potential trains from selecting it. As it later abandons the station and frees up the train limit (as it chose a different one suddenly), the station's limit was blocked by a train which never arrives.

My suggestion is: when a trains chooses a particullar station, it should go there and not repath to a different station.

NOTE: if moderators/admins consider this to be a bug, I will hapilly move it to a bug report section, just let me know

[pleegwat]

Is there something we have missed?

Another problem came up to my mind. I have a problem, where a train departs to a certain station, but in the middle of the trip it decides "I will go to a different one (with the same name)". It does this because the station, which it initially chooses, is very far and as it recalculates path in the middle of the trip (because of red signals), it chooses a station with the same name, which is closer, which wasn't available before.

It breaks my setups where I have N+M stations for pickup and dropoff and N+M-1 trains serving those stations (with train limit 1). If all stations N are full and a trains departs from any, there is a single M station which can be served, and it thus it gets served. And vice versa. However when train in the middle of the trip decides, that it will go to a different station, very far station may never get served, unless a train heading there doesn't recalculate path during its trip (meets green lights only).

As long as one of the source stations is available to dispatch, the destination will immediately have a train sent to it, and the en-route train will not repath to it. If none of your source stations have a train to dispatch, then you have insufficient supply or insufficient trains.

[Mifczu]

I've been following the news about the new version and I have the impression that you've overcomplicated it. In a sense, these changes are very cool and I can't wait until I can play it. There are so many changes that you could easily divide it into two separate parts. Thanks to this, we would already have one released and wait for the second one. I think it would be wise to release one DLC per year while maintaining interest in the game. But I am patient and still waiting

[GamerGuru]

Nice changes! One feature I would like to see added: seeing how long a train route will take. This would be usefull to calculate the max throug put of a train route i.e. if a train transports 8k ore per trip and takes 1 minute to drive and 30 seconds for loading and unloading. It can transport 4k ore per minute (8k ore / 2 min).

[KingMetal]

I have two suggestions:
Why not have a train limit of one as the default?

Most here will probably disagree, but im more and more getting the feeling that youre making the game too convinient funnily enough
Im not a gamedev myself, but what ive heared and i agree with is that games need friction, so especially when it comes to powerful features like remote driving i'd suggest making this stuff something you have to research first (like right before you build your first rocket and head out to different planets). Because on one hand Factorio has this like steampunk heavy industrial vibe, and on the other hand there is ALOT remote and smart factory 5.0 stuff which mostly comes for free as soon as you get trains and robots. Like, we have a satalite map view from which we can remotely build a whole factory and control our trains before launching the first satalite. Even the Spidertron needs a remote.

I might be completely wrong about that, you obviously know this stuff the best

[jgilmore42]

My suggestion is: when multiple departing trains(stations) are at the same priority, the one who is waiting the longest should go there

It's deliberate that it DOESN'T do that, actually. Trains always take the shortest path. Which sounds reasonable, of course, but also includes deciding which of several available stations they go to. This is quite reasonable, IMHO, as the train doesn't have a way of determining which other stations will be supplied when by trains which will be how much closer. It's simply an unknown, and since the trains can't tell, minimizing travel time is the right approach.

Solving these sorts of problems optimally is, I'm fairly certain, an NP-complete problem. So even if a generic "solution" was implemented in the core game features, it wouldn't be optimal, and would quite possible suck a lot of processor cycles to even get close.

For instance, you REALLY wouldn't want a train traveling thousands upon thousands of tiles to go to a station which would have been supplied by a different train MUCH nearer to it! You'd potentially end up with both trains traveling back and forth between rather than supplying nearer stations, using a comparatively minor amount of travel time.

If one (distant) station isn't getting served, then it's because supply isn't high enough to fully saturate the other (nearer) stations. Increase supply to avoid/overcome that. Or lower what those stations consider to be "fully saturated" (i.e. at what amount of supplies on hand they're unavailable.) And the thing about that is that if supply isn't high enough, then you're going to have SOMETHING, SOMEWHERE running out no matter which station winds up without.

Now, if that's NOT so for some reason, then what you actually have is a logistics bottleneck. The solving of which is a large part of the fun of Factorio of course.

May I suggest a waiting station? Add another station to each trains route, before they go to their final destination. Design said station with a large parking area, sufficient to park all the trains. Also provide a bypass so the waiting trains can skip that destination. Have then skip the waiting station if the number of available stops is high enough (adjust circuit logic to your specifications.) Add a waiting station for all stops in the route that might have this problem. Scatter several waiting stations around the outskirts of your base, if routing them all to a central location is a problem (it probably is.)

Problem solved? Probably not completely, of course, and certainly not optimally, but that's part of what makes Factorio fun IMHO.

If you really want to make the "longest waiting station" to be the one that gets served first, you can actually implement that in circuit logic if you want. Though if you're going that far, perhaps "is this the station with the lowest supply level" would be a better criteria. Generalizing that to the lowest N stations, where N is the number of trains waiting for a station to open up, is left as an exercise for the student. I do maintain that it's possible though.

[mrvn]

I love that you play with double headed trains. But have you ever build stations like this?

train-deadlock.png (255.65 KiB) Viewed 2465 times

Train stations can be palindrom. By having 2 stops trains can enter from either side and the cargo or fluid wagons are at the same location both ways (assuming your trains cargo and fluid wagons are palindrom too). But here is the big problem: The train limit does not work. Because there are 2 stops, both with a limit of 1, the total limit is 2. Setting the limit via circuit wire doesn't work as it has at least 1 tick delay in which a second train can be scheduled to the other stop.

Could Train Stops 2.0 have a setting for "primary / secondary". A secondary stop will share a limit with a primary stop if:

1) the name matches
2a) the 2 train stops are in the same rail segment
or
2b) the 2 train stops share a circuit network ID

otherwise the limit is 0.

[mrvn]

Is "Trains on the way" a list of all trains headed to a station with the same name or only trains headed to this exact station?

When I rename a station and it is the only station with that name then the schedule of trains is changed to the new station. But when there are multiple stations the trains will repath to a different station with the old name.

Would it be possible to change the schedule of the trains headed to this station to

A) include a temporary stop at the train stop with no condition so they don't stop in the middle of the track before the current entry but also don't unload at the train stop?
or
B) if ALT or SHIFT is pressed change the current entry to the new stop?

In both cases the train should remain heading to the stop and not repath.

[crestopolis]

What if you are stranded in a train above a lake, and the trains around you are out of fuel so you can't walk your train to solid ground without plowing through other trains. Are you stuck, or can you parkour from train to train?

[Agamemnon]

When tinkering around with schedules and logic conditions on the trains themselves, I have the opportunity to set the train to manual to prevent it from leaving or going places it shouldn't be, until I am finished with putting in all of my changes and checked my work.

Problem: With stations I don't have an easy way of changing stuff in it or connected to it without all taking effect immediately.

Example: I have a train en route or already waiting in the station for it's condition to leave becomes true. When it arrives, I don't want it to leave accidentally while I am still working on the logic that determines that condition. Likewise, I don't want the trains contents to be read into my station before I am ready.

Requested solution: Have an easy to access GUI method in the train station so any changes (iE to train limit and station disable) that were triggered by signals are prevented from manifesting and also freezing signal throughput.

...

Speaking of which... It would be nice if one could specify which line (red or green) the station sends or receives signals on instead of broadcasting and listening on both. (having an input side and an output side like combinators do, maybe - Inputs on top, Outputs on base - then one never again has to worry about signal bleed)

[FuryoftheStars]

What if you are stranded in a train above a lake, and the trains around you are out of fuel so you can't walk your train to solid ground without plowing through other trains. Are you stuck, or can you parkour from train to train?

You can couple your train with other trains using the G key when you're close enough.

But honestly, if all of your trains are running out of fuel like that, you've got bigger issues.

[Xiarno]

Are they trying to tell us something with this image? A subtle hint to when 2.0 is dropping???
I NEED IT!!

[Tricorius]

I think the ultimate thing for making remote control of your factory while you are away is a drone hub cart for trains.

Huh. And here I’ve been wishing and advocating for equipment grids in locos so that they could build their own rails and outposts (I know the devs like you to go out and visit a location, but I just want to sometimes drop a bunch of blueprints and have it happen and as awesome as spiders are I don’t like babysitting them for a large build).

So my compromise is to visit once. But ALL I need is for a train to be able to build. This game is about automating. So the ultimate automation is me sitting in my base doing something important (like sipping coffee on a lawn chair) while my automation empires goes off and does the less important stuff like building the 300th iron ore mine…

Oh, I got sidetracked. Sorry. Drone wagon is brilliant and is probably even better than an equipment grid in a loco. Although, I do think it would be hilarious to toss an overload and laser defense in trains that go through biter country. And of course, I still want turret wagons (artillery and flamers at least, lasers might just be super OP and not sure how you’d power them…battery wagons?)

Man, sometimes I have to remind myself it’s Factorio no Traintorio.

[boger64535]

For the Train-Pushing, there should be either an animation of your feet under the car, or of you on either side of the car, pushing/pulling the car (depending on direction and which side of the train you enter from).