[Mod Request] Narrow Gauge Railway
Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2023 6:20 pm
Why
This would be a game changer, recently while playing timberborn, i realised how little technical debt I acquired as I played. The only ways to acquire debt in that game is through where dams have been built and sometimes where you have planted trees. Reworking dams and water courses in timberborn is very easy (the game is designed for this), and changing the site of an orchard is just a waiting game for the trees to grow, so these aren't major issues. All the other buildings can be demolished and rebuilt without much change to workflow, and without disrupting dependant buildings in the resource chain. This is because beavers have more autonomy than robots do in factorio, and items can flow from any assembler to any other assembler. While not entirely relevant, districts and district crossings in timberborn also provide a natural way to modularise setups. Not having a magic flow of items in Factorio is part of the game (logistics management). I am going to argue it is harmful on a macro scale, such as with the bus. This this is already proven in why we have trains to begin with. Pretty much everything that's connected to the early game bus is technical debt as soon as it has been built in factorio, and it is a major challenge to rework any part as usually assemblers are very interconnected and interdependent along the bus. This is because the bus and belts are the only way to move items in this phase of the game, and the direction and flow cannot be changed without physically changing the belts on the ground. I don't want to learn how to make the perfect starter base, as this knowledge is entirely static and tied to vanilla, and is not adaptable to new situations.
TLDR: In my opinion, and I know others will disagree, that is fine: buses are awful architecture, anything built on the bus becomes technical debt. Moving parts of the factory is stressful. City blocks are mostly how mega bases are organized because railways provide a better way to modularise a factory. I find playing the early game is stressful, I actually don't play this game very often anymore because of how stressful this part of the game is.
The proposal
A primitive narrow gauge railway (1x1) that can be accessed very close to the start of the game would fix a lot of the woes with buses, and potentially make finding the perfect starter base formula mostly redundant.
Access to early rails made from iron plates with simple locomotives could be done in the very early game. These could be speed restricted.
A simple slow early game locomotive with ore and coal hoppers would be an improvement (and look cute). These could even be as basic as minecarts in minecraft if it is found that having the full autonomy of factorio's vanilla locomotives is too over powered.
Later, narrow gauge railways could be updated with newer technologies so more compact and interesting variety could be added to bases. But I'm less interested in this aspect.
The limits
I don't think the game engine can currently support narrow gauge rails?
Alternatives
Tiny Trains https://mods.factorio.com/mod/TinyTrains/discussion has tried narrow gauge track before but suffers some major issues. There are no signals or stations, and the track is still laid on a 2x2 grid. This mod is abandoned and from what I can gather from the discussion is because of limitations in the game engine?
Mini trains https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Mini_Trains partially addresses some concerns, and there is even a mod to bring them into the early game https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Early_Mini_Trains (although this is after green science and with steel production already available). Again though, these trains are still relatively space inefficient because they are bounded by the track size and grid.
Thank you.
This would be a game changer, recently while playing timberborn, i realised how little technical debt I acquired as I played. The only ways to acquire debt in that game is through where dams have been built and sometimes where you have planted trees. Reworking dams and water courses in timberborn is very easy (the game is designed for this), and changing the site of an orchard is just a waiting game for the trees to grow, so these aren't major issues. All the other buildings can be demolished and rebuilt without much change to workflow, and without disrupting dependant buildings in the resource chain. This is because beavers have more autonomy than robots do in factorio, and items can flow from any assembler to any other assembler. While not entirely relevant, districts and district crossings in timberborn also provide a natural way to modularise setups. Not having a magic flow of items in Factorio is part of the game (logistics management). I am going to argue it is harmful on a macro scale, such as with the bus. This this is already proven in why we have trains to begin with. Pretty much everything that's connected to the early game bus is technical debt as soon as it has been built in factorio, and it is a major challenge to rework any part as usually assemblers are very interconnected and interdependent along the bus. This is because the bus and belts are the only way to move items in this phase of the game, and the direction and flow cannot be changed without physically changing the belts on the ground. I don't want to learn how to make the perfect starter base, as this knowledge is entirely static and tied to vanilla, and is not adaptable to new situations.
TLDR: In my opinion, and I know others will disagree, that is fine: buses are awful architecture, anything built on the bus becomes technical debt. Moving parts of the factory is stressful. City blocks are mostly how mega bases are organized because railways provide a better way to modularise a factory. I find playing the early game is stressful, I actually don't play this game very often anymore because of how stressful this part of the game is.
The proposal
A primitive narrow gauge railway (1x1) that can be accessed very close to the start of the game would fix a lot of the woes with buses, and potentially make finding the perfect starter base formula mostly redundant.
Access to early rails made from iron plates with simple locomotives could be done in the very early game. These could be speed restricted.
A simple slow early game locomotive with ore and coal hoppers would be an improvement (and look cute). These could even be as basic as minecarts in minecraft if it is found that having the full autonomy of factorio's vanilla locomotives is too over powered.
Later, narrow gauge railways could be updated with newer technologies so more compact and interesting variety could be added to bases. But I'm less interested in this aspect.
The limits
I don't think the game engine can currently support narrow gauge rails?
Alternatives
Tiny Trains https://mods.factorio.com/mod/TinyTrains/discussion has tried narrow gauge track before but suffers some major issues. There are no signals or stations, and the track is still laid on a 2x2 grid. This mod is abandoned and from what I can gather from the discussion is because of limitations in the game engine?
Mini trains https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Mini_Trains partially addresses some concerns, and there is even a mod to bring them into the early game https://mods.factorio.com/mod/Early_Mini_Trains (although this is after green science and with steel production already available). Again though, these trains are still relatively space inefficient because they are bounded by the track size and grid.
Thank you.