trains taking way too long to load

[kraysellz]

Trains at trainstops will take forever to load a product if the trainstation is being fed into it from a belt constantly. So if I have a fast belt or omni pipe that is feeding beef into the train station at a fast rate, the train will just keep on loading it and loading it until maybe 10-15 seconds later or if the incoming product stops coming in. I'm guessing 10 -15 seconds is the max a train will wait at any train station no matter what and I'm guessing the issue is that the train keeps on rechecking to make sure it has something more to pick up before it moves on but it keeps on rechecking and rechecking since items keep coming in.

My game is rendered unplayable now because trains take way too long to make its cycles. Omni pipes aren't fast enough and they are messy to use if too many needs to be used. I'm on endless research now at end game and I require fast throughput of products but with this stalling it's backing up all my chain of products. Hope to get this quick fix in the next update.

[mikeydsc]

Some have been asking for a quantity cap box or something similar for this issue.

[protoplaste]

If omnipipe speed is the problem there are a couple of things you can do.
There is endless research for omnipipe speed
You can run multiple pipes on top of each other
You can also run any type of pipe underground (press g with the pipe selected), each pipe type has a separate underground layer

[ed]

The problem I'm having is that if the train station I'm loading from doesn't have enough stuff the train I'm loading waits until the last bit of stuff turns up. I have hold until full turned off for the loader, but that only seems to work for unloading.

[protoplaste]

I get it, when the items trickle in at a constant speed the loading recepy will always have something to load.
If your trains take forever to load then maybe they are too long? It sounds more like a slow production issue than the train loading issue. Not sure how you are using the trains

You could try speeding up the "move train cargo" recepy
Go to Esc > Editor > Edit rules > Recepies and find "Move train cargo" recepy
Then set the production time to 0,1 (not sure if lower will work but you can try)

[mikeydsc]

It would be better if you could, say, load 20 of an item and the filter would load until you had the quantity you specified so you have more granular control over situations like that. The are always workarounds for issues, but the simple fact that there is no quantity control on anything except for upgrading barns etc.. to hold more.

[ed]

Bingo! The station is being fed by belt, if I send the belt to a silo, then have a caravan move it a few squares the train the hold until full switch works as expected. I guess what's happening is the train loads what it can and makes one last check to see if something new arrived-- if something new arrives it just keeps loading it a few at a time until it's full.

Changing the Move train cargo recipe doesn't change this behavior.

Trains are complicated :)

[protoplaste]

Glad you found a workaround

I just think if thats the issue you are encountering you are using trains wrong, trains are suppose to be used to move large amounts of goods over large distance
One belt feeding a train station is simply not a lot of goods
And if your production chains down the line are stopping it may not be the trains fault

Think of it this way: if you would replace the train track with a belt that could carry all your items to the next step in the production chain, would that production chain have enough items to operate?

[ed]

I may be doing this wrong, it's my first train. I have a production cluster out in the country, it dumps its goods in a train station so the train can take them to market. My hope was to reduce clutter in my city center.

The really odd thing is that the fastest and easiest way to get goods from the station to the market seems to be putting them one square apart and using caravans. It's faster than belts and doesn't clog up if I give my people too much fruit.

[CubicBerserker]

Originally posted by protoplaste:

Glad you found a workaround

I just think if thats the issue you are encountering you are using trains wrong, trains are suppose to be used to move large amounts of goods over large distance
One belt feeding a train station is simply not a lot of goods
And if your production chains down the line are stopping it may not be the trains fault

Think of it this way: if you would replace the train track with a belt that could carry all your items to the next step in the production chain, would that production chain have enough items to operate?

I find the best use of trains is to move several types of items over the same track without risk of clogging everything up. That's why I think it's more important for the train to keep moving instead of waiting until it's full so that other items aren't held up.

I would assume it's a bug for the train not to depart when "hold until full" is turned off. From what I've seen myself it doesn't happen when items are coming in slowly. Only after increasing production speed does the train suddenly start waiting. I'm also seeing the same behavior kraysellz mentions where after 10-15 seconds it leaves anyway.

[pat]

Originally posted by protoplaste:

I just think if thats the issue you are encountering you are using trains wrong, trains are suppose to be used to move large amounts of goods over large distance
One belt feeding a train station is simply not a lot of goods

The number of belts or the distance a train is traveling has nothing to do with this issue. The goods have to be transferred into the train station by some means. In most cases it would be a belt. What other method would resolve this problem?

Due to something ed said above, I've added a minecart solution to the problem.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2327380304

[robcreid]

Not tried it myself yet but but if you have compute blocks could you set up a blocker or barrier on the belt that is switched on by the train coming into the station and switched of by the train leaving?

[protoplaste]

Originally posted by robcreid:

Not tried it myself yet but but if you have compute blocks could you set up a blocker or barrier on the belt that is switched on by the train coming into the station and switched of by the train leaving?

Good idea, but to solve this problem you would need to do the opposite: block all belts when train is in the station and then turn all blockers off when the train leaves

[Erik Asmussen]

I thought this was a bug I fixed in the last version (see patch notes below), although it's possible the loading functionality is working differently than the load functionality.

The Train Stations shouldn't have a 'move train cargo' recipe anymore, because that functionality is now contained within the Train itself.

What version number do you see in the bottom-left when you launch the game? If it's less than .180, try updating the game. If it is .180, maybe there was an issue with the game migrating your train stations to use the new logic. If you build a new train station, does it still show the 'move train cargo' recipe?

[pat]

I have 0.180b. In that scenario where I posted that screenshot a few posts ago, I was able to resolve it with that minecart delivery. But I just turned off the minecart and had a belt deliver from the barn to the train station. The train with 5 boxcars stopped and waited approx 20 seconds before continuing.

Edit: I have no "move cargo" recipe.

[ed]

I'm on .180b and there is no move cargo recipe when I select the train station.

This would be a lot easier to test if the item producer in sandbox mode had a frequency control, hint hint :)