how to request a train - a simple way

[Bullet-Tooth Tony]

Hello folks, since i never done it, i'm looking for a easy setup, just for sulphuric acid, to be delivered to a train station when needed. There is a video or thread that you want to recommend to me?
thank you

[Fel]

The easiest solution is to set all of the "requester" stations for a product under the same name and use circuit network to change the number of trains allowed for each of the stations.
0 when you have enough of the product the station takes in and 1 when it needs more.

Like that the train will only go to one of the stations that are currently requesting, and only one train per station will be called as well.

[Bullet-Tooth Tony]

Originally posted by Fel:

The easiest solution is to set all of the "requester" stations for a product under the same name and use circuit network to change the number of trains allowed for each of the stations.
0 when you have enough of the product the station takes in and 1 when it needs more.

Like that the train will only go to one of the stations that are currently requesting, and only one train per station will be called as well.

So if i wire all the storage tanks (15) with red wire, attach to a decider combinator with sulphuric acid > 100k Output X=1 and attach the output of the decider combinator to the "requester" train station with enable/disable set to X different than 1, should work, right?
and i will set a train to travel to the requester station (all with the same name).
with none need, no station will be enabled.

sorry if i did not get something you wrote

[AlexMBrennan]

and attach the output of the decider combinator to the "requester" train station with enable/disable set to X different than 1

No, you need to set the train limit to X.

Disabling train stations is theoretically possible but has a number of side effects which would require additional steps to deal with.

[Elfe]

I would set the train station to a limit of 1 train.
Connect up the tanks to the station as a dedicated circuit network and enable the station when the acid from the train can be unloaded into the tanks. (enabled when acid < 300000) (for a 3 wagon train with 15 tanks on site)
When the acid level drops a single train starts moving towards that station. Otherwise it waits at the loading station or goes somewhere else.

[RiO]

Originally posted by Elfe:

and enable the station

You don't want to mess with enabling/disabling stations. Just use the circuit network to dictate the actual train limit. It can be set to zero, which will prevent any further trains from visiting the station.

The crucial difference is that indeed: it will prevent further trains from visiting the station. A train that is already en-route will finish its tour. In the case where you disable the station, the train may stop cold in its tracks with the "destination unreachable" message if there is no other station by the same name that it can re-path to. It would end up blocking the section of rail track for other trains. Or worse: if this happens while the train is in the mid of an intersection, it blocks the entire intersection. This can snowball into a huge jam that grinds everything to a halt.

Don't do it. Use the train limits and lower them to 0 via circuits instead.

[>//The_FALCON]

you could also just pump sulfuric acid to where you need it

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by RiO:

Originally posted by Elfe:

and enable the station

You don't want to mess with enabling/disabling stations. Just use the circuit network to dictate the actual train limit. It can be set to zero, which will prevent any further trains from visiting the station.

The crucial difference is that indeed: it will prevent further trains from visiting the station. A train that is already en-route will finish its tour. In the case where you disable the station, the train may stop cold in its tracks with the "destination unreachable" message if there is no other station by the same name that it can re-path to. It would end up blocking the section of rail track for other trains. Or worse: if this happens while the train is in the mid of an intersection, it blocks the entire intersection. This can snowball into a huge jam that grinds everything to a halt.

Don't do it. Use the train limits and lower them to 0 via circuits instead.

Disabling stations still works exactly the same as it did before train limits were added and they can still be successfully used as before. The caveat is that you must not enable that particular station's train limits settings and enabling or disabling stations still works like it always has.

Disabling a station typically occurs when a train has arrived at the station and fulfilled the disabling condition (so before another train is dispatched since the station still shows as occupied) but has not yet left that station. A train that is at a disabled station will still leave that station once its own unloading conditions are met. I have an older mega base that I am still in the process of converting from station disabling to train limit settings and have not as yet had any problems created during the conversion process.

[AlexMBrennan]

Disabling stations still works exactly the same as it did before train limits

That is the problem: It works exactly the same which is **poorly**

Disabling stations will result in trains endlessly looping from stacker to stacker to the loading station. Disabling stations results in all 500 trains being dispatched to deliver one trainload of stuff. Disabling stations results in trains rerouting at inopportune times and getting stuck and disabling the entire train network.

You **can** deal with all of this but it is far easier to take the easier option the game provides.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

Disabling stations still works exactly the same as it did before train limits

That is the problem: It works exactly the same which is **poorly**

Disabling stations will result in trains endlessly looping from stacker to stacker to the loading station. Disabling stations results in all 500 trains being dispatched to deliver one trainload of stuff. Disabling stations results in trains rerouting at inopportune times and getting stuck and disabling the entire train network.

You **can** deal with all of this but it is far easier to take the easier option the game provides.

I never had any of those issues with disabled stations. The only time a train went round and round was if I had more than 2 stations in its list and then it would just go from enabled station to enabled station and skip the disabled one.

I didn't have the other problem you mention because I set up my trains to run specifically from one location to another. Except in cases where I wanted several trains waiting in a stacker. I didn't have any issues even when I was running a hundred or so trains in one base.

Not saying that station limits is bad, because I think its great. Disabled stations just wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be.

[Fel]

That's the thing, most of the time when people want to do "requester" stations they end up adding a third station to "store" the trains that don't have anywhere to go, and disabling stations makes the whole thing break down.

Before we had access to the train limit, we had to make-do with disabled stations and the more complex scenarios required fairly complex circuit network stuff.
But now that we have the train limit that works in all cases, there is no reason to push for a solution that only works when specific conditions are met.

[Bullet-Tooth Tony]

So if I understood it right doing a thing like this https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2458121089 and set train enabòe/disable S=1 and set train limit to 1 is bad. even if you have only 1 train :(

[Fel]

Check "enable train limit" on the left, and just use "set train limit" to S, that way it will work even if you make changes to how you handle trains later on (having a place where trains wait, having several trains handling the same material and so on).

[Leeux]

In my very limited experience, after tweaking and trying stuff on my train network for some time, and after being told about the "set train limit via circuit" thing too, here on the forums, I have to say that it's much more trouble free to do that than to deal with disabling stations.

The only con for the train limit method, is that you have to have some waiting space for trains somewhere to get them out of your stations after loading/unloading is done.

In my own observations, disabling stations is easier but only works correctly when all of these are true:
1. you only have two stations in every train schedule
2. you *must* manually set train limit to 1 to each station that will be disabled via circuit (else trains already in route will stop in place wherever they are when other trains service that station and that causes it to disable itself)
3. you're prepared to deal with trains clobbering your loading stations when there's not enough drop off destinations available (you can't use stackers to make trains wait, as that would mean more than 2 stations per schedule breaking 1. above)

I mostly switched from disabling stations to setting train limits and everything works better now... I still have a few trains running using the old way (Crude Oil and Uranium trains mostly which are low traffic) that I haven't got to convert yet.

AFAICS the only reason not to want to use the set train limit option is not wanting to deal with the extra complexity of having to use the intermediate combinators needed for figuring out the number of trains in each station... and yeah, it's kinda a PITA to deal with on a case by case basis, but, once you blueprinted your solutions you can mostly copy/paste them over existing stations and only go there to connect the last wire, if that's even needed at all.

The only variable factor in the calculations is the type of mats being loaded/unloaded and the maximum capacity of the trains (depends on max mat stack value) so you can probably blueprint all the combinations you need and have them ready to use easily from a BP book.

[Fel]

The waiting station is not exactly a hard requirement either, especially if you have less trains than loading stations, they can just stay at their loading stations until they have somewhere to go deliver their items and go back to the loading station after that.

[Bullet-Tooth Tony]

Originally posted by 76561198007674930:

Check "enable train limit" on the left, and just use "set train limit" to S, that way it will work even if you make changes to how you handle trains later on (having a place where trains wait, having several trains handling the same material and so on).

thx for your patience
like this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2458137315