So, rails have an arbitrary placement grid you have to plan for?

[jamesc70]

Trying to add a copper ore station to a map, and dropped the station as a blueprint.

Problem is, it won't line up. I can't drop a railroad section next to my stack inserters that feed off of chests filled with copper ore. It will let me lay track one space away from the inserters but not next to them, and also I have to move one set on each train cars inserter layout because I can't make the station itself line up with storage cars.

I've tried numerous times to re-lay the track, but find myself having to manually fix everything.

Never ran into this before, but haven't ben a huge train user. Anyway to force train tracks to lay where you want, or something else that would help?

[Warlord]

It's because rails can only be placed on every other grid piece. Since they themselves are big 2x2 pieces, you do not want to start two rails miles apart and find out that one of them was built 1 square north and one square east of the other one. Amusingly, I suppose it is to prevent situations like this:
https://foundonweb.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/misalignment-of-the-rails.jpg

Rails are the only ones that do this. You have to plan things around the rail placement, not around the station.

[jamesc70]

So I guess I need to make a station blueprint sans rails themselves, lay the rails, then lay the blueprints?

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

So I guess I need to make a station blueprint sans rails themselves, lay the rails, then lay the blueprints?

Lay the rails first, then add the chests, etc. You can then BP the entire thing together.

[GMC]

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

Lay the rails first, then add the chests, etc. You can then BP the entire thing together.

But note that you can't "flip" the complete blueprint; if you want the same layout but with the train heading in the opposite direction, everything will be off by one, as the offset between wagons is seven tiles.

It's best to just not have tracks in blueprints.

[KatherineOfSky]

Originally posted by GMC:

Originally posted by KatherineOfSky:

Lay the rails first, then add the chests, etc. You can then BP the entire thing together.

But note that you can't "flip" the complete blueprint; if you want the same layout but with the train heading in the opposite direction, everything will be off by one, as the offset between wagons is seven tiles.

It's best to just not have tracks in blueprints.

It's easy enough to remedy. Grab a copy of the BP, right click rails, and plop it down in the other direction.

I love including rails in my station BPs because they help me space the stations from the main line. (I include the 90' exit curve on them).

[Warlord]

Originally posted by jamesc70:

So I guess I need to make a station blueprint sans rails themselves, lay the rails, then lay the blueprints?

I have rails in my blueprints. If a blueprint has rails, it forces the entire blueprint to the same grid as rails themselves, so you can't place it wrong. I found almost all my stations have the stuff needed coming in from one direction, but if it is the other direction it isn't a whole lot of belts needed to reverse it all.