Is max wait time really what people want?

[Voice From Beyond]

When you set a line to "full load" max wait time 3 minutes, I expect the train to wait until it gets a full load OR 3 minutes have passed maximum. What we get is wait until full load OR 3 minutes have passed SINCE an item was loaded onto the train. Most likely this means the train will sit there until it is fully loaded, especially with raw materials like logs or stone.

That's not what I want or expect. I want the train to wait a reasonable amount of time loading everything it can get and then leaving. To me "Max" wait time means "MAX". If the train sits there too long, other trains on the line are likely to start backing up. You are also paying maintenance costs when the train COULD be making some money.

[Martin]

no. it leaves either at full or 3m no like set to 1m or not at all.

[Ideas Man]

I wouldn't mind it, however, the fact it trickles freight makes it useless.

In my mind, the way I believe it should work is a train sits there waiting for a full load. It empties the platform of waiting goods and the clock starts ticking. At this point, the production source should not be producing anything. A train arrives that loads the production source and it starts producing goods within the wait window. It should do this sufficiently fast enough to fill the train within a reasonable time.

The problem as you indicate is the platform can be empty but the production source keeps producing very slowly. If you look at the stock it has, it often has sufficient source goods to fill the train but because it's producing them so slowly, it actually works against your network.

The train is waiting for a full load but the factory isn't producing them fast enough because you're not transporting the finished goods quickly enough. If you let the trains go without a full load, they will be mostly empty for a while before the transport rate is sufficiently high that the production facility ramps up to fill all trains automatically.

Thus, I find it's a useless feature that causes more harm than good. It behaved this way in TpF1 as well which meant I hardly ever used it.

[canophone]

It's more useful now than it was in the previous titles.

[SmearyCherry]

It's definitely not what I want and expected for "max" meaning in this scenario. In most cases all variants - 1, 3, 5 or whatever minutes of max waiting will work exactly the same to "infinite" waiting time that makes this whole system ± useless for me.
Just imagine trains irl will wait 1 more minute after every next late passenger unlike some constant time stops.

[pat]

What I'd like, and is almost certainly impossible, is this:

Wait until full load
OR
3 min has passed
OR (and this is the big one)
another vehicle on the same line is waiting behind me

[sergetechone]

The "Wait Until Full" is usualy for cargo line. I always set to "Wait to Full Load" at unlimited time, whatever is it a train , truck , boat, plane, I make sure it is not going empty or half full. Beside, the maintenance fee for any vehicles waiting to be loaded is only 1/2 of the full fee. and 1/10 of the fee while waiting at the depot.

As for passagers line, I always set to " Pick any load" and no waiting.