I love the new train system, which is huge with the addition of parameterized blueprints. I’ve gone through three stages with my stations. The first was basic dumb stations, but parameterized so their names and things were selected when you place the blueprint. The second was slightly smarter and enabled/disabled when it needed to. My new one should be set up so I can have cargo trains automatically select a resource to pick up based on demand, instead of being set to a fixed type. I haven’t switched over to it yet though, as I just finished designing it, but it’ll hopefully work and be really convenient. It should work similar to LTN but without needing it.
Ive always liked trains in Factorio, but I’m having more fun with them now than ever before.
Trains is also one of my favorite aspects of the game!
I also made the parametrized train stations first and the variable to for stack sizes is so nice!
I also tried making a schedule with only interrupts for all trains. But that don’t really works because the trains always just goes to the closest outpost.
But I have been thinking if I connect every train stop to a radar. I can also check demand for a specific resource before I enable the stop
And for my mall, I thought about making a single fluid train stop for all fluids. Because pumps can have a filter now, so maybe it can work, haven’t tried it tho
I’m using the radar network for dispatch and priority for tie breaking/to make sure the resources are distributed evenly.
All my loading stations are simply called “Cargo Pickup” and all of my cargo trains go to any of them with an opening. Once there, the station reports on the red wire the ID of the train in the channel corresponding to the item being loaded (unless another train is already being reported by another station with the same items).
On the demand side, stations look for the ID on the item they need. They copy the ID into the green network on the channel corresponding to their station name. In the simple case, a station serving copper ore to copper smelters copies the train ID from copper on the red network to copper on the green network. But stations can also request multiple ingredients in which case they have some other symbol in their name besides copper ore. (Of course, here too the copying only happens if no other station is requesting a train on that same channel).
Back on the supply side, the station looks through all the IDs on the green network and sends the ones that match the waiting train to the train. The train uses the symbols to activate an interrupt to go to the corresponding station to deliver the goods.
I just set this up today. I haven’t perfected it yet. One minor hiccup is handling the fact that you have no way to atomically access a channel. So two stations could request on the same channel at the same time, corrupting the ID. But that only happens if the stations are activated to make a demand on the exact same tick. It’s not so much that it’s a constant problem, it just bothers me that it could be.
How I have my new system is any station requesting items puts how many trains it will need to fill all requests (and subtracts inbound trains) into the radar network (using the item it’s requesting as the channel). At the drop off stations, it reads the request and picks the largest one, and that gets sent to the train at the station. The train will then take that item and use it in the interrupt. In theory this all makes sense. I’m excited to get it set up.
An update after getting my system running, one important thing to know is apparently trains need some default schedule for interrupts to function. I spent at least an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with my circuit based interrupt until I tried putting a station destination into its schedule and it just started working. Now I just need to replace all my stations.
I’m now decoupling my bus from the furnaces and making them train based. I’m excited to see it all working and being demand-based.
I’m now thinking about making my furnaces material agnostic and the outputs just get sorted by type. Maybe that’s a project better left for later so I can actually play the DLC…
Edit: I realized why it needed a station in the schedule. It can’t read the circuit network unless it’s actively stationed at the station. If it’s just sitting there but not actively set to be there, it doesn’t receive the signal. That’s reasonable I guess, but good to know.
I love the new train system, which is huge with the addition of parameterized blueprints. I’ve gone through three stages with my stations. The first was basic dumb stations, but parameterized so their names and things were selected when you place the blueprint. The second was slightly smarter and enabled/disabled when it needed to. My new one should be set up so I can have cargo trains automatically select a resource to pick up based on demand, instead of being set to a fixed type. I haven’t switched over to it yet though, as I just finished designing it, but it’ll hopefully work and be really convenient. It should work similar to LTN but without needing it.
Ive always liked trains in Factorio, but I’m having more fun with them now than ever before.
Trains is also one of my favorite aspects of the game!
I also made the parametrized train stations first and the variable to for stack sizes is so nice!
I also tried making a schedule with only interrupts for all trains. But that don’t really works because the trains always just goes to the closest outpost. But I have been thinking if I connect every train stop to a radar. I can also check demand for a specific resource before I enable the stop
And for my mall, I thought about making a single fluid train stop for all fluids. Because pumps can have a filter now, so maybe it can work, haven’t tried it tho
You can also set each train stop’s priority via circuit. I’ve been setting it based on how badly a train is needed at that station.
Are you using the radar to check which station needs resources?
I’m using the radar network for dispatch and priority for tie breaking/to make sure the resources are distributed evenly.
All my loading stations are simply called “Cargo Pickup” and all of my cargo trains go to any of them with an opening. Once there, the station reports on the red wire the ID of the train in the channel corresponding to the item being loaded (unless another train is already being reported by another station with the same items).
On the demand side, stations look for the ID on the item they need. They copy the ID into the green network on the channel corresponding to their station name. In the simple case, a station serving copper ore to copper smelters copies the train ID from copper on the red network to copper on the green network. But stations can also request multiple ingredients in which case they have some other symbol in their name besides copper ore. (Of course, here too the copying only happens if no other station is requesting a train on that same channel).
Back on the supply side, the station looks through all the IDs on the green network and sends the ones that match the waiting train to the train. The train uses the symbols to activate an interrupt to go to the corresponding station to deliver the goods.
I just set this up today. I haven’t perfected it yet. One minor hiccup is handling the fact that you have no way to atomically access a channel. So two stations could request on the same channel at the same time, corrupting the ID. But that only happens if the stations are activated to make a demand on the exact same tick. It’s not so much that it’s a constant problem, it just bothers me that it could be.
How I have my new system is any station requesting items puts how many trains it will need to fill all requests (and subtracts inbound trains) into the radar network (using the item it’s requesting as the channel). At the drop off stations, it reads the request and picks the largest one, and that gets sent to the train at the station. The train will then take that item and use it in the interrupt. In theory this all makes sense. I’m excited to get it set up.
Ah nice, I have yet to try out the new radar signal stuff. But am equally exited to test all my theories in the weekend!
An update after getting my system running, one important thing to know is apparently trains need some default schedule for interrupts to function. I spent at least an hour trying to figure out what was wrong with my circuit based interrupt until I tried putting a station destination into its schedule and it just started working. Now I just need to replace all my stations.
I’m now decoupling my bus from the furnaces and making them train based. I’m excited to see it all working and being demand-based.
I’m now thinking about making my furnaces material agnostic and the outputs just get sorted by type. Maybe that’s a project better left for later so I can actually play the DLC…
Edit: I realized why it needed a station in the schedule. It can’t read the circuit network unless it’s actively stationed at the station. If it’s just sitting there but not actively set to be there, it doesn’t receive the signal. That’s reasonable I guess, but good to know.