Perpetual Circuit usage?

[Saintanik]

I dont think I understand the intended usage of 'perpetual circuits' ..
In the tutorial, you set one up to only go to one specific station, and ignore the others. How is that different to just not having a signal there at all and leaving the tracks set to go to that station? The tutorial map really doesnt explain at all what the intended benefit is?

[Saintanik]

Follow up question: Is it possible to use perpetual circuit to release a train from the station when the next segment is clear? It seems the first time it encounters an occupied section, it gives up and I have to manually re-enable it.
Or is this function only possible with a departure sensor (which I dont have unlocked yet)

[Arnstein86]

Here is something I wrote in Discord:


Ad perpetual signal: Should not be used on tracks that are either merging or diverging. Its main use is to divide your longer stretch of tracks into blocks to increase the throughput. Along with some other usecases of course. I often have an extra signal before autoblock if the autoblock is the first the train meets after going from/to a station so I don't have to clear the whole autoblock from a departure sensor f.ex. Then the next train has to wait until the first train clears the autoblock. So i put a signal on the entrance with a perpetual route into the autoblock.

Two examples:
https://i.imgur.com/Vr4wkg4.png
https://i.imgur.com/V2xOqlD.png

“Perpetual Route makes the current route being recreated automatically once possible, indefinitely”

This means, the route set will be allocated again automatically once the track is free. So you are in definition indefinitely allocating/clearing the path for the trains along that route.

[Saintanik]

thanks for the info.. will use that guidance to play around with it some more and see if I can figure out how to do what I'm trying to do. Appreciate the guidance.

[MaskMcgee]

Originally posted by Saintanik:

How is that different to just not having a signal there at all and leaving the tracks set to go to that station?

Because now instead of fitting one train over a 20 block distance you can fit 10 train queued up, giving you 10x more track capacity.

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by Saintanik:

Follow up question: Is it possible to use perpetual circuit to release a train from the station when the next segment is clear? It seems the first time it encounters an occupied section, it gives up and I have to manually re-enable it.
Or is this function only possible with a departure sensor (which I dont have unlocked yet)

Yes you can use a Perpetual Circuit as a simpler Departure Sensor.