Are trains really needed in most cases?

[Panfilo]

My first sandbox game I created a couple rail loops just to play around with the mechanic, having one deliver coal and the other deliver petroleum products. While it was fun to play with 'toy trains' I realized after the fact that it was really an unecessary investment in time and resources at that point in the game, and this was even on a map that encouraged train use. Even long belts and pipes don't take up that much resources, nor do Big power poles, so it just seems much simplier to build distant mines/oil facilities and transport them back to your main base through conventional methods.

[KatherineOfSky]

Depends how material you need, the ore distribution around the map, how big of a base you are building, etc.

If you just want to launch a single rocket, then you can get by without trains, but for a megabase they are an absolute necessity.

[Robka]

In late game, yes, if you dont want to place belts the entire map.

[haessliches Frettchen]

you don't must use trains, but in endgame its easier as with robots or belts to bring up the mass od ressources you need

[sergetechone]

I do like trains in this game. If I need to carrie a lots of resources / materials, trains will be use. Example : An 80 steams engines power production need a lots of coal, and the local resources of coal is over, a new 3 millions coal area is discover, I will construct a loading area at the new coal area, ship by trains to the power plant facility. Same for irons / copper / stone ores and ship via trains to a processing area, same for crude oil.

It depend on your base design and the resources availble near / close to your base.

[Balloon Dog]

Building a mega base atm, trains are just a really cool way to transport your goods around especially if they are spread far and wide. Perhaps a bit daunting to begin with but once you make some blueprints for loading and unloading stations and understand the signals they are super awesome. I even have my own personal train I load up with materials, with specific access stations because driving is just so slow to get around the far reaches of the map. I have only a few gripes with trains the most annoying one its the 2x2 grid restriction. Sometimes you just want it to run one space to the left or right or have your stations not screw with your loading platforms that have already been built. IT can also screw with blueprint placement if you have rails or stations in the blueprint.

[Digitgidgit]

use mods like resource overhaul, it setsup the map for trains

[Panfilo]

Trains would be especially neat to use if there were pieces like tunnels or trestles in order to cross normally inaccessible areas efficiently. Then it would be way better than conveyer belts by serving as a shortcut toward various resources.

[Maelstrom]

The end of what you can do with belts is the beginning of what you can do with trains. You can build a rocket without them, particularly if you're generous with your starting resources, but they're essential for managing a large base with multiple installations and a large defensive perimeter.

[Hoja Lateralus]

Trains are extremely useful and I can't imagine my game without them

[wurf]

Depends. I have over 30 trains on my map. Easier for me to set up multiple, smaller rail roads, than to build a lot of transport belts.
Plus I am playing on rail road, plus on very low frequency...
So yeah, TRAINS FTW

[themadgunman]

I haven't actually run the maths but the amount of resources needed to build a 200+ tile set of belts that would carry the same amount of resources as a train in the same time period would vastly outstrip that required to lay a train (blue belt cost more than ten times the resources per tile of rails and requires oil processing. When you factor in loading/unloading times (you can load/unload 12 belts at once to/from a cargo wagon) then even an inefficient single wagon train will destroy any belt setup.

If your just trying to build your first rocket and win the game then sure it may be viable, but anything larger than that without trains is unfeasible.

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by themadgunman:

If your just trying to build your first rocket and win the game then sure it may be viable, but anything larger than that without trains is unfeasible.

Not unfeasible, just inefficient. I like the sight of belts moving stuff, so I'll sometimes build a completely belt-based base. No bots, no trains. I don't think it'd work for a megabase, but it can carry you surprisingly far into the post-rocket era. Trains may be efficient, but compared to belts (or even bots) I find them to be disgustingly boring to look at :)

[AlexMBrennan]

Not unfeasible, just inefficient

Inefficient to a ludicrous decree: to move 1/10/100 belts worth of items by belt you need to build 1/10/100 belts in parallel but to do the same thing by train you need to build 1 rail track because a train with one wagon moves just as fast and unloads just as fast as a train with 10 cargo wagons.

If you want to build hundreds of parallel blue belts over hundreds of blocks then know yourself out I guess.

[piccolo255]

Originally posted by AlexMBrennan:

If you want to build hundreds of parallel blue belts over hundreds of blocks then know yourself out I guess.

I did start doing exactly that at one time, but didn't go farther than red belts. Then a big update hit (0.16 IIRC) and several mods I used broke, so I dropped that factory. I think I'll try it again once 0.17 hits, this time in vanilla :)

[ByTheNumbers]

While you can get by without using trains, I still find trains easier to use for distant resources than laying down belts, especially oil.