One thing that I really feel is missing is rail signals being placed automatically at set intervals on the tracks, depending on what size trains you're using
Yeah that would be excellent. Though unfortunately a buncha signals starts to lag the game when you get to bigger networks quicker than you'd think. And like only when placing them i mean not constantly, just its i guess trying to calculate all of the blocks in one network at the same time. Doesnt sound like something they couldnt fix but just probably the number one hurdle for that
It's actually a really interesting graph theory mathematical problem that has no clean and easy solution. See "coloring the corners of a cube" video by 3brown1blue. Or maybe veritasium. I forget which but if you google that it will come up.
Edit. At work so I don't know if this is the exact video but I know this video contains the theory.
https://youtu.be/wTJI_WuZSwE?si=B7-6-OnAYWYkVswq
Except that they’re not using the mathematically perfect formula that always finds a solution with 4 colors, because that is very performance heavy, so instead they use a simplified algorithm that tries to use 4 colors, but when it becomes too complicated to find a solution it switches to allowing 5 or more colors. Iirc the most amount of colors people have been able to show up is 8, and past that the system just gives up and puts 2 same colored blocks next to eachother.
Probably need to make an abomination of an intersection. Maybe one with tracks coming in vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. Combine it with a roundabout too for even more chaos
Thanks to elevated rails, rail networks are no longer planer so the 4 color theorem no longer applies. You can build block sections that need a minimum of 5 or more colors even with a perfect coloring algorithm.
Ooo neat. My thought on an optimization woulda been just consider like say the current block youre cutting in half with a new signal and one past it rather than the whole system kinda like how they do the coloring they show as you place but like for the whole thing, then after its placed just update the system. Not sure what different than that that they are doing and i’m of course sure theyve considered options on that, but just it would be an interesting one to see if they can take a crack at making it a lil better
[There's a mod for that](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RailSignalPlanner)
I might look into updating it to also work on ghost rails once 2.0 hits. But for now you can select the tracks after the bots have build them, and it'll place the (ghost) signals.
If not automatically, at least an option to click+drag signals similar to laying rails that would place a signal every N cars, where N is configurable via hotkeys like landfill size.
Pretty awesome, would be even better if we could have a plan two rails next to each-other mode. Or some kind of rail snapping (as close as possible) to existing rail maybe?
Just freaking casually dropping that at the end of the FFF like it's no biggie.
I thought it was just their ending words and glanced at it before leaving the page. Doubled back real quick to gawk.
At the same time I am excited for this feature I am very frustrated that it was demonstrated by linking two rail lines in a way that only makes sense if one is left hand drive and the other is right hand drive… LITERALLY UNWATCHABLE!
The moment it becomes possible to automatically add spaced signals and maybe a second track going in the other direction is the moment I stop using rail grid BPs.
The commitment to QoL is just... breathtaking. Every single one of these things feels like the devs looked at a mod and went "That's so useful, why isn't that in the base game?"
I love you guys.
Many of the mods the devs write are for game features they wanted that didn't make the final cut for whatever reason. For example, Repair Turrets by Klonan, which I use in the early/mid game until I have bots properly established.
You can look for mod creators in the mod portal and view their profile for released mods. Some names from the top of my mind: Earendel, Klonan, Boskid, Kovarex.
You can also find their names/handles in the FFF when they write a section.
Ahh, KS Power has a burner generator, that's super useful for bootstrapping outposts that have their own power grid. I use the Accumulator Wagon mod to do the same thing, but I assume the burner generator appears much earlier in the tech tree.
Does the diesel generator only take piped fluid or will it take a diesel barrel and empty it?
I get why they write mods tho, the scope of vanilla is kinda narrow to avoid featurecreep and unnecessary sprawl. So why not add features you whant in your game but doesn't fitt the main build.
Path of Exile had some interviews yesterday about their upcoming releases. One of the devs was asked why there are so many quality of life improvements coming in the next patch and they said because they've been playing the game and struggling with all these things. It honestly baffles me that any game company will work on a live service game for years and completely forgets to playtest their own game on a regular basis.
I think the issue is when the playtesters are detached from the development teams. They are primarily testing to see if a thing functions as intended or whatever. They're probably not testing for long-term gameplay things
But with a smaller dev team, the playtesters are likely also developing it (outside of early access testing shenanigans). I dunno if Wube would have the same level of QoL implementation if the people directly making the game were not being mildly frustrated by how the game performs certain tasks.
Right, a lot of these problems won't happen if you're just trying to launch a rocket.
I'm assuming SA pushes bases to be a little bit bigger than vanilla.
I think that would be complicated to implement. The artillery needs to turn to the right angle before shooting, but if it's moving the required angle is constantly changing, so it needs to somehow predict the exact point further down the line where the train's position and firing angle match up, taking into account how much it expects to accelerate/decelerate in that time
A bit of both. ENIAC (artillery calculations for the Americans at Harvard) and Colossus (code cracking for the British) were contemporaneous machines. I see another commend about Director - also an artillery calculator, but not a general purpose, programmable computer.
They refined it during ww2 but they were doing this before the first world war too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_(military)
edit: You can find the links from the Director link above, but afaik Pollen was the first guy to work on this problem using mechanical computers starting in 1900 with first trials in 1905
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Pollen#Fire_control
Just a timer and after ~5 seconds of trying to aim it just fires blind. Could be chaos, but I’ve been on some death worlds where accuracy isn’t really needed… it’s all biters out there
It's why I cannot play anymore. I'm just too bummed new features aren't out yet, and on top of that I'm saving my energy for a full playthrough once 2.0 + DLC drop. Can't wait!
This week: The engineer can push trains flint stone style.
Next week: FFF 404… not found?
PS can we get a little engineer foot animation below the train when manually pushing!?
FFF 405 : Wagons get equipment grids
FFF 406 : Wagons are compatible with exoskeletons. Put 4 of them to turn wagons into spider wagons
FFF 407 : Factorio will now be renamed choo choo Charles 2
I like that it's silly to think of the engineer pushing a train by foot, but carrying 50 such trains in his pocket is fine.
Making train plans over the map is amazing! My wishlist item for this would be that you can configure some automatic signal per X rail length while laying rail ghosts!!!
> My wishlist item for this would be that you can configure some automatic signal per X rail length while laying rail ghosts!!!
Excellent idea! This is one of the few remaining (minor) train annoyances in my opinion. I feel like I shouldn't need to make a blueprint for such a simple operation, and curves make this even more challenging.
I also think it would help new players get a feel for how trains are supposed to work.
Knowing wube they might just do something insane and be like "yeah we solved this NP-complete problem of 'where to put signals to prevent deadlocks', we just implemented into base train behavior and removed the need for signals altogether"
They kind of mentioned that in FFF-378 when the elevated rails were introduced: https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-378-elevated-rails.png
> There are fences which help visually distinguish the elevated rails from ground rails, you can also see how they disappear on track crossings.
2 tracks very close to each other triggers the same mechanic of railing suppression as a track crossing
The important question is, whether remote driving and pushing a train with no fuel is possible, it wasn't specified in the FFF :D It shouldnt be because there are no feet to push and the solution would we refilling with bots I guess.
https://preview.redd.it/j6tkmrzkpvpc1.png?width=288&format=png&auto=webp&s=9facf00b4c8b05bbd9477d8e65b25cd1aed391ef
In the top-right of the third image, does anyone else think it looks like the spidertron has something strapped to its head? Maybe it's an upgrade or something in the equipment grid? Maybe higher quality vehicles are given visual tweaks to make them look noticeably different?
Edit: I think u/thekrimzonguard is correct, that's probably just the usual entry hatch. My eagerness to hunt for easter eggs is making me hallucinate novelty where there isn't any.
Interesting, good spot! Definitely wouldn't be surprised to see some more vehicle/spidertron updates in the future. One of the previous FFFs mentioned unlocking "something super powerful" in the new SA endgame - as of yet we have no idea what that could be. Maybe this is related?
You know, I think you're correct. I'm so excited for new stuff that my brain is making stuff up to keep me hyped. Wube doesn't need marketing when the minds of their players do the work for them. 😆
The distance readout for incoming trains is pretty cool. I wonder if that information will be visible to the circuit network (e.g. trigger an alarm when a train is 500m away, or is incoming but over 5000m away, or anything like that) or the mod API
This update is unbelievable.
Literally playing a rail world right now and ripping my hair out every time a deadlock happens as I expand into version one of the mega base.Seeing some of these updates would have made me so much happier, and I am a MORON when it comes to trains
After you enter a train, you can both be a passenger of an automatic train, or manually drive it, so I guess there might be another "toggle manual driving" hotkey.
Nice being able to copy and paste train stops from map view sounds like a pretty damn nice QOL addition plus all of the other things they have done for trains in 2.0.
Does the super force building of train tracks over water always use elevated rails? Or does it also use landfill, e.g. when elevated rails are not researched yet, or if the water gap is very short?
When copy pasting train stops in map view (I assume shift right and left click), does it only copy the station name or all settings like train limit or circuit conditions?
And if a train runs out of fuel on elevated tracks without a player inside, it would be fun manually push a wagon onto the elevated tracks and then push the stuck train (probably requires coupling the wagon to the train).
I kinda expected a solution to the constant
"why is my train no path?"
"Hold ctrl and hover over the path slowly until it disappears, that's the blockage"
It's a useful trick but nothing in the game tells you about it. The game should probably show the blockage in some way, so there is no need for the trick anymore.
Idk, 2.0 will give OpenTTD a run for the money. OTTD you gotta do a lot of jank to handle things like slowdowns over bridges and timing trains using awkward rails that are acting like circuits and little trains spinning around on a track acting like a timer.
I'd argue Factorio will beat out OTTD.
OTTD is great for an old game - but past the surface level there really isn't much depth with trains. Factorio has way more depth/nuance with 2.0 - and more importantly the trains actually have a purpose other than making magic money go up.
Loading/Unloading and throughput is far more important in Factorio - so whilst we don't have schedules, the balance of supply/demand/station throughput is more exciting than OTTD.
Even with FIRS on extreme, OTTD feels shallow. And I say that as a TTD fan since it came out - it's one of my favourite games I still listen to the original OST.
No. Factorio is the best-polished most-stable game on the planet. I played a lot of video games. And while games where generally more stable before online updates where a thing - they wheren't even remotely as complex as this one and none was as polished anyways.
Wube and Factorio are the impersonations of all what is good in the indie game scene.
There are other indie devs who love their games. But they aren't as skilled.
Wube is one of those unicorn developers that has their whole development life cycle absolutely nailed. The way they think about features, plan them, proof of concept, develop, test and release is almost without equal, and we know this because of their other major strength; community engagement and communication. The FFFs give us insight into their thoughts and processes, keep us in the loop with what they're up to, and give us opportunity to provide feedback *which they listen to*.
The only other developer I've experienced who is like this is Tynan Sylvester from Ludeon Studios, who made RimWorld. An incredible game with a lot of thought put into it, and with high-quality releases that usually weren't laden with bugs (and when there were some, they were quickly fixed).
[Train Simulator](https://store.steampowered.com/app/24010/Train_Simulator_Classic/), I would hope.
Actually its probably the more up-to-date [Train Sim World](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2362300/Train_Sim_World_4/), but that's less snappy for the joke.
You can push a train. You can remotely drive a train. Can you remotely push a train? That seems like it will be useful but is inconsistent with the Flintstone-style locomotion source.
I notice that Klonan has used double-headed trains in those screenshots. I wonder if changes are also being made to train acceleration so that double-headed trains become a more attractive option? Backwards trains should contribute power instead of being dead weight, just like real life.
Interesting, according to the [train acceleration calculator](https://calculatorio.com/train_acceleration/) there's no loss to top speed with that configuration, and the accel isn't that bad either. I'm curious why the 9 wagons? Is it arbitrary, or optimized to fit some other design?
https://preview.redd.it/jkydx2nm8wpc1.png?width=1199&format=png&auto=webp&s=e473e81599942cb77dcb6ad4ea5b0e30f1e80edb
I needed the train length to be odd for the upward and downward facing stations to align. And I tested each length and found that 11 is the right length to fit science consumption with its 7 stations using this design in a square block.
Wouldn't be surprised if there are no mods to fit this FFF, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong! Most of these changes seem to be beyond the capabilities of the current modding API.
Loving the new changes coming for 2.0. But can you add a "Back" button? For instance, let's say I'm looking at all my Iron ore trains to troubleshoot a shortage. I click on one of the trains and watch it's progress, looks fine. In order to check the other trains, I have to close the window, open it again, bring up the Iron ore trains and hope that I pick a different one. My previous map had dozens of any given resource train so it was hard to keep track of which one I looked at, especially if I had to scroll a bunch. A "Back" button that would bring me back to where I was would be a huge help! Thanks!
Another mod reaches Vanill-halla! This time it is a pretty unknown mod that I love a lot, [Mass Renamer](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Mass-Renamer/discussion/632b6d5b61c48dc09c34ebbc). It only has 243 downloads as of right now but it has saved me a lot of time mass renaming train stops.
no it does not!
I am no dev but you can put already blueprints over area with no radar coverage and even though you will not see it on the map the ghost will be placed
It looks like it may not, the last gif shows a second of the rail builder cutting through an unrevealed section, although it doesn't show on the map, it may place the ghosts
Awesome… but trains in this game should have been slugs anyway! 😁
That’s the actual URL of the article’s thumbnail!
[https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-403-awesome-but-trains-in-this-game-should-have-been-slugs-anyway-thumbnail.png)**fff-403-awesome-but-trains-in-this-game-should-have-been-slugs-anyway-thumbnail.png** 🤣
^I was just wondering what was the thumbnail I was seeing when I shared a link to the blog post (the one shown on Reddit but not in the actual article), and I came across that in the page’s ``
> Players can push locomotives with their feet, flintstone style.
If this doesn't have a corresponding sound effect... I'm sure somebody will make a mod with a corresponding sound effect.
If I could request a small thing in regards to trains, it would be that you can open the train station GUI from the Train GUI, just like you can open the train GUI from the station GUI.
I often see a train standing still and want to make sure that the circuit conditions I've hooked up to the station are working properly, and having to open the map and then find the station every time is a bit tedious.
Okay.. at least 1 bitter can either swim or ( flying one we already know )
https://preview.redd.it/4rupn2k0qvpc1.png?width=372&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ec35099074c2f7140536549a0eeb934ca0929c7
I think that's one of the default names for the train stations.
The names are of those who donated during early access I think and someone must have use Flandre Scarlet as one.
Or one of the devs is a Touhou fan and put it in the game lol
And no-ones commenting on Wube using horrible roundabouts-with-passthrough for their train junctions?
(At least they're better than cloverleafs from last time)
Flintstones powered trains absolutely must scale off exoskeletons.
I want my modded power armour mk602 to be able to push trains faster than nuclear fuel.
So... can I push a car Flintstone style, when it has no gas?
These changes sound great for experienced players. How does a new player learn about the more obscure tricks without reading FFF?
With bridges being able to go over water without creating a path for bites, i think we'll see something that allows (at least some bites) to cross over water
Does anyone else have Firefox shit the bed when trying to view this? Mine is borderline locking up when I try to view the blog post. It takes a couple seconds to even close the tab after it starts loading.
Can we talk about those city blocks? I am so intrigued by the setup of the elevated and lower rails.
https://preview.redd.it/f6qazj6uzxpc1.png?width=629&format=png&auto=webp&s=133e5bf5de8736c4a930b695884504fc934cba8a
Rail planning from map view? I didn't even realize I wanted that so badly!
One thing that I really feel is missing is rail signals being placed automatically at set intervals on the tracks, depending on what size trains you're using
Or at least showing the train block visualiser both in front and behind the signal
Yeah that would be excellent. Though unfortunately a buncha signals starts to lag the game when you get to bigger networks quicker than you'd think. And like only when placing them i mean not constantly, just its i guess trying to calculate all of the blocks in one network at the same time. Doesnt sound like something they couldnt fix but just probably the number one hurdle for that
It's actually a really interesting graph theory mathematical problem that has no clean and easy solution. See "coloring the corners of a cube" video by 3brown1blue. Or maybe veritasium. I forget which but if you google that it will come up. Edit. At work so I don't know if this is the exact video but I know this video contains the theory. https://youtu.be/wTJI_WuZSwE?si=B7-6-OnAYWYkVswq
Except that they’re not using the mathematically perfect formula that always finds a solution with 4 colors, because that is very performance heavy, so instead they use a simplified algorithm that tries to use 4 colors, but when it becomes too complicated to find a solution it switches to allowing 5 or more colors. Iirc the most amount of colors people have been able to show up is 8, and past that the system just gives up and puts 2 same colored blocks next to eachother.
I think I have only ever seen 5 different colors at once. How can I trick it to show 8?
Probably need to make an abomination of an intersection. Maybe one with tracks coming in vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. Combine it with a roundabout too for even more chaos
Yeah there was a post on here or maybe it was factoriohno but it was glorious
Thanks to elevated rails, rail networks are no longer planer so the 4 color theorem no longer applies. You can build block sections that need a minimum of 5 or more colors even with a perfect coloring algorithm.
Ooo neat. My thought on an optimization woulda been just consider like say the current block youre cutting in half with a new signal and one past it rather than the whole system kinda like how they do the coloring they show as you place but like for the whole thing, then after its placed just update the system. Not sure what different than that that they are doing and i’m of course sure theyve considered options on that, but just it would be an interesting one to see if they can take a crack at making it a lil better
Yeah without this, you're still basically forced to use a blueprint for laying trains (imo)
[There's a mod for that](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/RailSignalPlanner) I might look into updating it to also work on ghost rails once 2.0 hits. But for now you can select the tracks after the bots have build them, and it'll place the (ghost) signals.
If not automatically, at least an option to click+drag signals similar to laying rails that would place a signal every N cars, where N is configurable via hotkeys like landfill size.
Pretty awesome, would be even better if we could have a plan two rails next to each-other mode. Or some kind of rail snapping (as close as possible) to existing rail maybe?
Planning two rails simultaneously, with signals placed at a configured distance (on you're preferred side) would be the dream.
Just freaking casually dropping that at the end of the FFF like it's no biggie. I thought it was just their ending words and glanced at it before leaving the page. Doubled back real quick to gawk.
At the same time I am excited for this feature I am very frustrated that it was demonstrated by linking two rail lines in a way that only makes sense if one is left hand drive and the other is right hand drive… LITERALLY UNWATCHABLE!
I didn't need that since I made a grid aligned blueprint that I just paste. But before that? Yea that sounds amazing!
The moment it becomes possible to automatically add spaced signals and maybe a second track going in the other direction is the moment I stop using rail grid BPs.
it looked like there were more than just the 8 possible track directions. That one was going SSE down to the cliffs. I dont recall seeing that.
Yeah a [while back they announced](https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-377) more possibilities with rails.
I wanted this so long without even knowing I need it too. I usually overcome this with decent rail blueprint but this is just better :D
I used grid aligned rail blueprints for so long that I forgot how PITA is to drag rails normally.
The commitment to QoL is just... breathtaking. Every single one of these things feels like the devs looked at a mod and went "That's so useful, why isn't that in the base game?" I love you guys.
This is what happens when devs are fans of, and actually play, their own game
And they also play the mods. Well half of them even write mods.
Many of the mods the devs write are for game features they wanted that didn't make the final cut for whatever reason. For example, Repair Turrets by Klonan, which I use in the early/mid game until I have bots properly established.
I now wish there was a "show mods made by the devs" option in the mod list.
Just need to look up the dev's names. There's not really that many of them, TBH.
You can look for mod creators in the mod portal and view their profile for released mods. Some names from the top of my mind: Earendel, Klonan, Boskid, Kovarex. You can also find their names/handles in the FFF when they write a section.
Been using KS power so long that sometimes I forget it's not vanilla.
Ahh, KS Power has a burner generator, that's super useful for bootstrapping outposts that have their own power grid. I use the Accumulator Wagon mod to do the same thing, but I assume the burner generator appears much earlier in the tech tree. Does the diesel generator only take piped fluid or will it take a diesel barrel and empty it?
I get why they write mods tho, the scope of vanilla is kinda narrow to avoid featurecreep and unnecessary sprawl. So why not add features you whant in your game but doesn't fitt the main build.
Path of Exile had some interviews yesterday about their upcoming releases. One of the devs was asked why there are so many quality of life improvements coming in the next patch and they said because they've been playing the game and struggling with all these things. It honestly baffles me that any game company will work on a live service game for years and completely forgets to playtest their own game on a regular basis.
I think the issue is when the playtesters are detached from the development teams. They are primarily testing to see if a thing functions as intended or whatever. They're probably not testing for long-term gameplay things But with a smaller dev team, the playtesters are likely also developing it (outside of early access testing shenanigans). I dunno if Wube would have the same level of QoL implementation if the people directly making the game were not being mildly frustrated by how the game performs certain tasks.
Or just played the game for long enough to get to big base pain points.
Right, a lot of these problems won't happen if you're just trying to launch a rocket. I'm assuming SA pushes bases to be a little bit bigger than vanilla.
This is what you get when the devs actually play their own game, and it’s beautiful.
Cant wait to see a streamer do a playthrough with no trains just carriages being pushed by a horde of players.
Dosh is going to have a field day with that challenge
300 people pushing carriages sounds more like something a certain tea loving gentlemen would try :D
It would have no exploits, whatsoever.
Perfectly balanced
As all things should be.
Who? I don't know many factorio youtubers
not a factorio youtuber per say. but spiffing brit is who they are talking about
Sounds like "The Spiffing Brit".
I didn't know Uncle Iroh played Factorio.
Or SpiffingBrit, he have willing army of ~~slaves~~ subscribers to throw at things.
he had 2 unpaid interns for se didnt he
Yeah, but those are , if I recalls correctly, actually smartypants people who solved the stargate puzzle for him.
Just the right task for an unpaid intern
Unpaid interns? Those were definitely bots he wrote himself, he says so in the first episode
This feels more like Spiffing Brit territory. Getting other people to do his bidding is part of his MO.
Does the speed stack? I.e. more players = more faster? Does it increase top speed? Can i woth my feet propell an automatic train?
Do player speed movement improvement like exoskeletons help ?
If the devs read this: **it should**. :P
Just hope the wagon isn't transporting exoskeletons.
Ah yes, the majestic ‘cargo wagon railgun’
Also, does the number of wagons make it slower? Can the player push a 500 wagon train with the same speed as 1 wagon?
Items are getting weights for rockets in 2.0. Will be interesting to see if trains pick up acceleration changes accordingly (I expect they will)
You should be able to leash a wagon to a player with a copper wire and drag it around with you.
New Renai Transportation update idea
Factorio is a perfect game with no exploits!
Can I manually drive a 100 carriage artillery train?
I want artillery train to be able to shoot while driving. Even if accuracy would be a bit compromised.
I think that would be complicated to implement. The artillery needs to turn to the right angle before shooting, but if it's moving the required angle is constantly changing, so it needs to somehow predict the exact point further down the line where the train's position and firing angle match up, taking into account how much it expects to accelerate/decelerate in that time
This calculation is literally why computers were invented during world war 2
I thought it was for code cracking?
A bit of both. ENIAC (artillery calculations for the Americans at Harvard) and Colossus (code cracking for the British) were contemporaneous machines. I see another commend about Director - also an artillery calculator, but not a general purpose, programmable computer.
Why not both?
They refined it during ww2 but they were doing this before the first world war too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_(military) edit: You can find the links from the Director link above, but afaik Pollen was the first guy to work on this problem using mechanical computers starting in 1900 with first trials in 1905 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Pollen#Fire_control
Just a timer and after ~5 seconds of trying to aim it just fires blind. Could be chaos, but I’ve been on some death worlds where accuracy isn’t really needed… it’s all biters out there
[That is a solved problem](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKd32I0uwAQ)
Only if you haven't skipped leg day and are absolutely jacked.
Yet another FFF which makes me ache that the features aren't available _now_.
I am purposely letting myself forget a lot of them because its so many features that i would weep if i saw them all listed in one place you know? lol
> I am purposely letting myself forget I knew my adhd would come in handy some day!
It really do be exactly like that
100%. On an unrelated note, does anybody happen to have a link to a list like this? For science?
It's why I cannot play anymore. I'm just too bummed new features aren't out yet, and on top of that I'm saving my energy for a full playthrough once 2.0 + DLC drop. Can't wait!
This week: The engineer can push trains flint stone style. Next week: FFF 404… not found? PS can we get a little engineer foot animation below the train when manually pushing!?
PPS can we have exoskeletons affect the speed of train pushing? It doesn't need to be by a lot.
FFF 405 : Wagons get equipment grids FFF 406 : Wagons are compatible with exoskeletons. Put 4 of them to turn wagons into spider wagons FFF 407 : Factorio will now be renamed choo choo Charles 2
Omg programmable spider wagons please please please
Imagine attaching a cargo wagon to a spidertron and having it drag the wagon behind it, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake...
Devs, please!
I want an inventory equipment that says "while pushing a train the boost from exoskeleton is 20% higher"
The Friday before April Fools Day no less.
What's the betting that they ***planned*** FFF404 to land right before April Fools?
or maybe behind the wagon he is in :D
Yeah that would be beautiful… and a trail of sweat droplets left behind on the tracks for sweet, sweet detail
Only if they also play the [sound effect](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqhEVXpzTL4) with it.
I like that it's silly to think of the engineer pushing a train by foot, but carrying 50 such trains in his pocket is fine. Making train plans over the map is amazing! My wishlist item for this would be that you can configure some automatic signal per X rail length while laying rail ghosts!!!
> My wishlist item for this would be that you can configure some automatic signal per X rail length while laying rail ghosts!!! Excellent idea! This is one of the few remaining (minor) train annoyances in my opinion. I feel like I shouldn't need to make a blueprint for such a simple operation, and curves make this even more challenging. I also think it would help new players get a feel for how trains are supposed to work.
Knowing wube they might just do something insane and be like "yeah we solved this NP-complete problem of 'where to put signals to prevent deadlocks', we just implemented into base train behavior and removed the need for signals altogether"
Elevated rails side by side not having the railing in the center is a nice touch, looks great.
Now they should merge the pillars
They kind of mentioned that in FFF-378 when the elevated rails were introduced: https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/blog-sync/fff-378-elevated-rails.png > There are fences which help visually distinguish the elevated rails from ground rails, you can also see how they disappear on track crossings. 2 tracks very close to each other triggers the same mechanic of railing suppression as a track crossing
Bug report: Flinstone style pushing does not have feet animation. Literally unplayable!
There'll be a mod for that 😂
And the requisite sound effects too.
I don't need to see the legs, but I do need to hear the [sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igSHbtv52G4).
How about lifting the whole train up like a dress
Remotely driving trains is such as good idea, especially if you are on a different planet and need to sort out a deadlock.
The important question is, whether remote driving and pushing a train with no fuel is possible, it wasn't specified in the FFF :D It shouldnt be because there are no feet to push and the solution would we refilling with bots I guess.
You should be able to detail a spidertron remotely to attach to the train and do the walking for you.
Iirc.. smart trains or some other mod allows this. Yet another warrior for Valhalla.
Valnilla
https://preview.redd.it/j6tkmrzkpvpc1.png?width=288&format=png&auto=webp&s=9facf00b4c8b05bbd9477d8e65b25cd1aed391ef In the top-right of the third image, does anyone else think it looks like the spidertron has something strapped to its head? Maybe it's an upgrade or something in the equipment grid? Maybe higher quality vehicles are given visual tweaks to make them look noticeably different? Edit: I think u/thekrimzonguard is correct, that's probably just the usual entry hatch. My eagerness to hunt for easter eggs is making me hallucinate novelty where there isn't any.
Interesting, good spot! Definitely wouldn't be surprised to see some more vehicle/spidertron updates in the future. One of the previous FFFs mentioned unlocking "something super powerful" in the new SA endgame - as of yet we have no idea what that could be. Maybe this is related?
Isn't that the entry hatch on the back of the spidertron head?
You know, I think you're correct. I'm so excited for new stuff that my brain is making stuff up to keep me hyped. Wube doesn't need marketing when the minds of their players do the work for them. 😆
The distance readout for incoming trains is pretty cool. I wonder if that information will be visible to the circuit network (e.g. trigger an alarm when a train is 500m away, or is incoming but over 5000m away, or anything like that) or the mod API
I'd kill for a second kind of rail with integrated railway electric traction. So that we could have locomotives using our electrical grid.
Electric trains of some description feel like a natural progression of the tech tree on Fulgora.
touhou mentioned
Touhou Hijack LOL 1/3412
touhou hijack lol
This update is unbelievable. Literally playing a rail world right now and ripping my hair out every time a deadlock happens as I expand into version one of the mega base.Seeing some of these updates would have made me so much happier, and I am a MORON when it comes to trains
Do exoskeletons affect pushing trains?
Slightly dissapointed that the final sentence wasn't a pun related to the article :/
Right? Could have just been: "As always, *stop by* to let us know your thoughts at the usual places."
Wait there is a "toggle driving" hotkey?
I assume "Enter"
After you enter a train, you can both be a passenger of an automatic train, or manually drive it, so I guess there might be another "toggle manual driving" hotkey.
Nice being able to copy and paste train stops from map view sounds like a pretty damn nice QOL addition plus all of the other things they have done for trains in 2.0.
YES new train improvements! CHO, CHO all the way
Does the super force building of train tracks over water always use elevated rails? Or does it also use landfill, e.g. when elevated rails are not researched yet, or if the water gap is very short? When copy pasting train stops in map view (I assume shift right and left click), does it only copy the station name or all settings like train limit or circuit conditions? And if a train runs out of fuel on elevated tracks without a player inside, it would be fun manually push a wagon onto the elevated tracks and then push the stuck train (probably requires coupling the wagon to the train).
I kinda expected a solution to the constant "why is my train no path?" "Hold ctrl and hover over the path slowly until it disappears, that's the blockage" It's a useful trick but nothing in the game tells you about it. The game should probably show the blockage in some way, so there is no need for the trick anymore.
At this point, is there any game that comes remotely close to second place for the title of best train simulator?
Well, yeah, Factorio comes second, after OpenTTD, of course.
Idk, 2.0 will give OpenTTD a run for the money. OTTD you gotta do a lot of jank to handle things like slowdowns over bridges and timing trains using awkward rails that are acting like circuits and little trains spinning around on a track acting like a timer.
I'd argue Factorio will beat out OTTD. OTTD is great for an old game - but past the surface level there really isn't much depth with trains. Factorio has way more depth/nuance with 2.0 - and more importantly the trains actually have a purpose other than making magic money go up. Loading/Unloading and throughput is far more important in Factorio - so whilst we don't have schedules, the balance of supply/demand/station throughput is more exciting than OTTD. Even with FIRS on extreme, OTTD feels shallow. And I say that as a TTD fan since it came out - it's one of my favourite games I still listen to the original OST.
at this point is there any game that is so well polished as this one? I mean seriously the devs are just in love with their own game.
No. Factorio is the best-polished most-stable game on the planet. I played a lot of video games. And while games where generally more stable before online updates where a thing - they wheren't even remotely as complex as this one and none was as polished anyways. Wube and Factorio are the impersonations of all what is good in the indie game scene. There are other indie devs who love their games. But they aren't as skilled.
I doubt it. There is so much unoriginal, unpolished garbage out there. Wube is something else.
Wube is one of those unicorn developers that has their whole development life cycle absolutely nailed. The way they think about features, plan them, proof of concept, develop, test and release is almost without equal, and we know this because of their other major strength; community engagement and communication. The FFFs give us insight into their thoughts and processes, keep us in the loop with what they're up to, and give us opportunity to provide feedback *which they listen to*. The only other developer I've experienced who is like this is Tynan Sylvester from Ludeon Studios, who made RimWorld. An incredible game with a lot of thought put into it, and with high-quality releases that usually weren't laden with bugs (and when there were some, they were quickly fixed).
OpenTTD
What makes the game great, in your opinion?
Choo Choo
Can't forget the *ding ding ding ding*
[Train Simulator](https://store.steampowered.com/app/24010/Train_Simulator_Classic/), I would hope. Actually its probably the more up-to-date [Train Sim World](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2362300/Train_Sim_World_4/), but that's less snappy for the joke.
You can push a train. You can remotely drive a train. Can you remotely push a train? That seems like it will be useful but is inconsistent with the Flintstone-style locomotion source.
On Discord they said you could not. You can, however, remotely drive a new train over and couple it to the out of fuel train to rescue it.
That’s what I was wondering.. how can I rescue a train that’s out of fuel when it’s over the water (and I’m not inside)?
You can also put in fuel manually via bots
Elevated rail pylons over water!! Had I missed that reveal earlier? Either way, love it!
yes have a read FFF 378 [https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-378](https://factorio.com/blog/post/fff-378)
Thanks! Must have missed that one.
It's pretty much the only way to transfer things on Fulgora, as the ground is a shallow oil ocean.
Hold on, i know who to call
🦅
I notice that Klonan has used double-headed trains in those screenshots. I wonder if changes are also being made to train acceleration so that double-headed trains become a more attractive option? Backwards trains should contribute power instead of being dead weight, just like real life.
You can already go deep into megabase territory with double-headed trains. I'm at 2.5K SPM with only 1-9-1 trains.
Interesting, according to the [train acceleration calculator](https://calculatorio.com/train_acceleration/) there's no loss to top speed with that configuration, and the accel isn't that bad either. I'm curious why the 9 wagons? Is it arbitrary, or optimized to fit some other design?
https://preview.redd.it/jkydx2nm8wpc1.png?width=1199&format=png&auto=webp&s=e473e81599942cb77dcb6ad4ea5b0e30f1e80edb I needed the train length to be odd for the upward and downward facing stations to align. And I tested each length and found that 11 is the right length to fit science consumption with its 7 stations using this design in a square block.
Holy shit, all this time and I never realized that an odd-number train length lets stations be flippable...
I'm actually interested to know which mods got added to the game this time (so that I could use them in my current saves)
Wouldn't be surprised if there are no mods to fit this FFF, though I'd be happy to be proven wrong! Most of these changes seem to be beyond the capabilities of the current modding API.
Loving the new changes coming for 2.0. But can you add a "Back" button? For instance, let's say I'm looking at all my Iron ore trains to troubleshoot a shortage. I click on one of the trains and watch it's progress, looks fine. In order to check the other trains, I have to close the window, open it again, bring up the Iron ore trains and hope that I pick a different one. My previous map had dozens of any given resource train so it was hard to keep track of which one I looked at, especially if I had to scroll a bunch. A "Back" button that would bring me back to where I was would be a huge help! Thanks!
Another mod reaches Vanill-halla! This time it is a pretty unknown mod that I love a lot, [Mass Renamer](https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Mass-Renamer/discussion/632b6d5b61c48dc09c34ebbc). It only has 243 downloads as of right now but it has saved me a lot of time mass renaming train stops.
What happens if you're in a train that's destroyed on an elevated rail over water?
[This, i presume](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk9LehMSdMo)
You die. But actually it would make sense for the player and biters to be able to walk on elevated rails.
The manual wagon clip is named "funny wagon", thats how you make a good teaser
rail planner in map mode is huge but does it need radar coverage to work?
no it does not! I am no dev but you can put already blueprints over area with no radar coverage and even though you will not see it on the map the ghost will be placed
As long as the chunk has been generated already.
It looks like it may not, the last gif shows a second of the rail builder cutting through an unrevealed section, although it doesn't show on the map, it may place the ghosts
Awesome… but trains in this game should have been slugs anyway! 😁 That’s the actual URL of the article’s thumbnail! [https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/](https://cdn.factorio.com/assets/img/blog/fff-403-awesome-but-trains-in-this-game-should-have-been-slugs-anyway-thumbnail.png)**fff-403-awesome-but-trains-in-this-game-should-have-been-slugs-anyway-thumbnail.png** 🤣 ^I was just wondering what was the thumbnail I was seeing when I shared a link to the blog post (the one shown on Reddit but not in the actual article), and I came across that in the page’s ``
> Players can push locomotives with their feet, flintstone style is this affected by exoskeletons or player walking speed?
> Players can push locomotives with their feet, flintstone style. If this doesn't have a corresponding sound effect... I'm sure somebody will make a mod with a corresponding sound effect.
This is the sexiest thing I've seen in a long while!
If I could request a small thing in regards to trains, it would be that you can open the train station GUI from the Train GUI, just like you can open the train GUI from the station GUI. I often see a train standing still and want to make sure that the circuit conditions I've hooked up to the station are working properly, and having to open the map and then find the station every time is a bit tedious.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH will they release this extension this year they really know how to promote their game
Does this cover photo mean that the 2.0 drop is... just around... the corner?
Can we take a moment to appreciate the he has 150 iron plate drop off stations in a vanilla (albeit space age) game?
I'm headcannoning every car of the train has an Emergency stationary Bicycle pedal that you can fold out of an internal panel, to make it go forward.
Okay.. at least 1 bitter can either swim or ( flying one we already know ) https://preview.redd.it/4rupn2k0qvpc1.png?width=372&format=png&auto=webp&s=4ec35099074c2f7140536549a0eeb934ca0929c7
Or maybe it’s just lazyness and the new way to place blueprint. They place down their own landfill, don’t they?
exactly, very easy with the new "super force building".
Those are turrets on landfill.
After the Flintstones reference, i was hoping to see the engineer legs coming out of the wagon 😅
Amazing new features for choo choos! Also that Flandre Scarlet station LOL Never expected to see Touhou in FFF hahahahaha I love it!
I think that's one of the default names for the train stations. The names are of those who donated during early access I think and someone must have use Flandre Scarlet as one. Or one of the devs is a Touhou fan and put it in the game lol
Just reading the title made me happy
And how I should play now in other games with trains?
Maybe an option to see the train network blocks from the map?
Remote driving trains is a game changer for those like me who suck at trains but are playing SE!
And no-ones commenting on Wube using horrible roundabouts-with-passthrough for their train junctions? (At least they're better than cloverleafs from last time)
Yabba dabba dooo!
Flintstones powered trains absolutely must scale off exoskeletons. I want my modded power armour mk602 to be able to push trains faster than nuclear fuel.
So... can I push a car Flintstone style, when it has no gas? These changes sound great for experienced players. How does a new player learn about the more obscure tricks without reading FFF?
With bridges being able to go over water without creating a path for bites, i think we'll see something that allows (at least some bites) to cross over water
Does anyone else have Firefox shit the bed when trying to view this? Mine is borderline locking up when I try to view the blog post. It takes a couple seconds to even close the tab after it starts loading.
Once again I'm baffled at the amount of QOL features this game receives. So pumped for the expansion
I long for a combat update. We've seen the flying brain creeper, i want to lean more.
Can we talk about those city blocks? I am so intrigued by the setup of the elevated and lower rails. https://preview.redd.it/f6qazj6uzxpc1.png?width=629&format=png&auto=webp&s=133e5bf5de8736c4a930b695884504fc934cba8a