Rail-laying is really bad

[Malidictus]

I apologise for the click-bait title, but I don't really have a better way of putting this. The act of laying train rails in Satisfactory is incredibly clumsy and cumbersome for reasons that I really don't understand. The game already has a perfectly serviceable system for laying what amounts to bezier curves with limited incline and turn radius. Why does it seem like rails use a completely different system to everything else?

Here are a couple of decisions that I don't understand:

• Rail ends cannot be rotated when placing. This means I can't control the angle of a rail after a turn unless I manually lay out and measure that turn - and that really only works for 90-degree turns. If this were a conveyor belt, I would manually rotate the end to face my desired direction and rely on the game's Bezier curves to find the right path.
  
• Rail bend limits are different for placing a loose end vs. connecting to existing rail. When loose, the rail can make a 90 degree turn within the span of 24 meters (3 Foundations forward, 3 to the side). When connecting to existing rail, the shallowest turn span is 28 meters (4 Foundations forward, 4 foundations to the side). It makes no sense that the rail should be able to make different turns depending on what it connects to.
  
• Rail bends are calculated incorrectly for larger turns. Any turn much larger than 90 degrees has a high chance of claiming that it's too sharp, but only because the game chooses to cut the corner without cause. Rail can turn 90 degrees in a 4-foundation square, but asking it to make a 180 degree turn in an 8-foundation square (or really, any distance) produces a "bend too sharp" error. I know the rail CAN do it if it simply maintained an arc, but instead the game uses two very sharp angles and a straight line. This is with both ends connected to preexisting rails.

I typically like playing with rails in factory games, and just in general. I spent untold hours in Transport Tycoon and Locomotion. The amount of manual fidgety pixel-hunting I've had to do just to lay down a 90 degree bend in a piece of rail in Satisfactory, however, has just about killed my enthusiasm for the system. What's most frustrating, though, is that it feels like the rail system is SO close to being convenient and easy to use, if only it respected conveyor/pipe laying mechanics.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by >< V ><:

For sure, the rail system has something janky with curved tracks, but consider the process to be order dependent. Place the half circle down first and then connect the straight pieces. The process does not work starting with the straight pieces.

I appear to have misunderstood what you meant, or else I'm using an incredibly narrow definition. By my definition, 180 degree curves like that can only be made if they connect to nothing. Straight pieces can then be connected to them. That much I already knew, but it basically makes my concept of a "roundabout" impossible.

Which is fine. I've gone with an over-under stacked design, where both directions run overtop each other and so a roundabout wouldn't work. I'll have to go with a standard highway cloverleaf interchange, instead. Rail likes cross over/under/through each other, then interchanges are done over slipways.

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Just saying, since I think this is a pretty cool game and it would be a shame for the rail system to ruin that for you, is that a good quality of a game is if you can find a solution and I've always been able to find a solution for my rail system.

It's less the lack of solutions and more the overall fiddly jank of getting solutions to work that's really curbing my enthusiasm. Everything takes just... SO LONG and is so much effort. Part of what's helped me give the system a second chance is I've lowered my standard for train management.

Previously, I wanted to have trains stay at an off-the-rail depot until their route was warranted. This would have involved BUILDING a large train depot which I'm not sure I want to. It would have also involved quite a bit of work via the Wiring mod. It's doable - I did this exact thing in Factorio using that game's circuit network.

However, I realised an unintended knock-on effect of using a "Packing" mod. It packs items to 20% of a stack per box, then the boxes themselves stack to 50. I would cut them down to a lower stack value, personally, but the mod doesn't have a middle value between 1 and 50, and 1 is a major nerf. As a result, my trains can move a SUBSTANTIALLY higher amount of cargo than they're intended to, meaning I can afford to leave trains idling at their loading stations for much longer since I can't produce items fast enough for it to matter.

Yes, I'm entirely sidetracking an important aspect of rail design (intersections and throughput), and would like to handle it. However, as large as Satisfactory's trains are and as much of a PITA rail infrastructure is to build, I'll leave it like this for now.

Just finished my first train. Watching it do its rounds (well, round - started with a pretty pitiful factory complex) is exciting :)

[dlbarron28]

I agree completely. Tracks should lay down the same way belts do, but even on foundations they do not. For me, at least, it is almost impossible to get a straight run of track after any kind of turn.
Yes, I've watched the videos and all. It's just not as well thought out as it should be.
Over all, a great game and I am enjoying it very much.

[*****GameFolder]

+1

[mackster]

Without following toasters guide, I would have never been able to lay track like this, plus there are path signals (which never worked for me), now operational on the entrance to the junction on this right handed track
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2892071223

I really do recommend people watch this guys stuff, he has a wealth of informative, and easy to follow guides such as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_y3cn99pY8

[Die Hand Gottes]

Originally posted by mackster:

Without following toasters guide, I would have never been able to lay track like this, plus there are path signals (which never worked for me), now operational on the entrance to the junction on this right handed track

I really do recommend people watch this guys stuff, he has a wealth of informative, and easy to follow guides such as this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_y3cn99pY8

I think that should look more like this unless their double track lane is not with right traffic and left the lane for oncoming traffic.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2882490183
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2877842364

[Die Hand Gottes]

Here I have close ups
A T-junction
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2892086879
A crossing
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2892086893
And a traffic circle
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2892086884
all designed for right-hand traffic and left-hand side as oncoming traffic.

Oh yes, and everything secured with path signals works without problems.

[Dregora]

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Just saying, since I think this is a pretty cool game and it would be a shame for the rail system to ruin that for you, is that a good quality of a game is if you can find a solution and I've always been able to find a solution for my rail system.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891712612

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891712635

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891712655

I think the issue most people have isn't getting it to work EVENTUALLY, but that it requires so much more hassle than it logically should to get it that way.

[Die Hand Gottes]

Originally posted by mackster:

...

I have looked at the design of them again more closely that should also function for two-track traffic. I'll rebuild the times, whether that works with my track.

[>< V ><]

Originally posted by Dregora:

Originally posted by >< V ><:

Just saying, since I think this is a pretty cool game and it would be a shame for the rail system to ruin that for you, is that a good quality of a game is if you can find a solution and I've always been able to find a solution for my rail system.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891712612

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891712635

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2891712655

I think the issue most people have isn't getting it to work EVENTUALLY, but that it requires so much more hassle than it logically should to get it that way.

Eventually? This isn't non-linear partial differential equations in a spacetime manifold...this is whether you draw straight lines first or the circle first. It's really not that hard.

[jaye1967]

Originally posted by Rhodry:

problem i had was having straight lines, always wanted to curve instead of just going straight....I hate trains in this game, only made one so far :/

I find they will only be perfectly straight if they are dragged that way behind you from a station. When coming from any sort of curve they will always have a slight 'S' curve shape to them, though this stays within the width of one foundation.

[Orgull]

+1

Track should be placeable to specific curves with supports, exactly the same way belts are. Roads that can be placed the same way would be nice too (a la slot car track or hot wheels)

[Prown]

I'm hoping the new blueprint system helps with the finickiness of the rail system, trying to remove and rebuild a junction over and over because of how... odd it builds rails.

I'm just gonna download junction blueprints and that'll be that.

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Dregora:

I think the issue most people have isn't getting it to work EVENTUALLY, but that it requires so much more hassle than it logically should to get it that way.

That's where I am, yes. It's doable, just such a pain in the ass. And honestly, I don't get why. Satisfactory already has a perfectly good system for laying tracks, which works just fine for conveyors and pipes. Why not just use that? Give the start and end of a rail some kind of support element, let us place those in whatever orientation we want, then just snap rails to them. Would solve a lot of the issues.

Incidentally, the issues of the same curve working sometimes but not always is also present in laying Hypertubes with the "horizontal to vertical" method. Sometimes the curve will work in one direction, sometimes not at all. At least three, though, I can switch to noodle or auto2d. With rails, no such option exists.

By this point, having built one full bi-directional rail line, I'm convinced that Coffee Stain need to work on their Bezier curves math. If I had to guess, it seems like a floating point rounding error somewhere in the calculation is causing arc radius checks to fail when they shouldn't. Either using fixed point numbers or else making the checks less strict might help there.

Originally posted by Prown:

I'm hoping the new blueprint system helps with the finickiness of the rail system, trying to remove and rebuild a junction over and over because of how... odd it builds rails.

That... is a really good point. I can make all the rail elements once, save them and reuse them. I can't wait ☺️

[Malidictus]

So, having gotten a lot more experience with laying rail, I have to say... it's really, really bad. However, I am getting better at actually using it, now that I know what I can and can't (despite all reason) do. Knowing that 3x3 CAN work if I connect them to nothing has helped tremendously, as well as the angle measurements from that video someone posted before. That last one really helped me figure out slopes.

The optimum rail slope is 25 degrees, or 1 in 4. For every 4 meters of height (a 4-meter foundation or a wall), that's 16 meters of distance, or 2 foundations. This is why a single 2 meter foundation exactly matches the incline - because it's 2 meters high and 8 meters wide.

It's slightly more complex when doing multi-rail slopes vs. single-rail slopes, but that's the same difference as running pipe or hypertubes diagonally. For multi-pipe diagonal segments, I can connect them point-to-point - either between foundation centres or foundation corners. I'm merging cardinal-direction pipe with a diagonal pipe, I connect one meter "short" - towards the straight section. This is because the bend in the pipe takes up about 1m of space, at least when using Auto2D.

I need all of this verticality because I'm running rails over/under. That makes intersections a bit more complex, but it also makes them a lot cleaner with a lot less train-to-train conflict. Plus it looks pretty :)

[RemoteLeg]

I found rail corners to be a problem. I lay straight track then insert a beautiful curve, but all the track that follows the curve won't lay straight. It just bends left then right and I end up with a wibbly wobbly line. The solution I found was to lay one stretch of straight track, then skip the curve, then another set of straight track after-which I go back and insert the curved piece. Now my track runs true until the next curve.