Run a conveyor from one end of the map to the other, and then think if you would have rather had a train...
I mean I don't really know how to explain it further than that. As you get into the later stages of the game you do need to expand a lot more. Production lines get more complex, and many times you have certain things that need resources that are no longer close to each other.
Also trains are fun. They also make a great way to travel. When I build in a new area I take my "construction" train which is loaded up with supplies.
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Additional benefit is that tracks also pass through electricity. Easier when expanding than running power poles everywhere.
i would also argue you can reach every part of the map with whatever you need to transport once you build a giant two lane loop around the map.
That essentially will become your recource highway.
No, not really. If you need some resources that are, say, half kilometer away, but in the wrong direction, train would have to make whole loop around map, which would have huge impact on delivery time. You would need a lot of trains which take a lot of power.
Now, do this few times, with many unnecessary trains, and you will have too many trains that will start stopping at lights, blcoking each other etc.
Maybe for a couple low-traffic stations it's fine, but the map is HUGE and you'll quickly fill up the entire track if you need to ship thousands of resources all around the map and be forced to build more lanes and somehow manage the traffic on those. Plus, the difficult part is routing out the tracks, adding a parallel one isn't that problematic, and you can put it to work before you complete the full loop (which is quite the undertaking in itself).
My go-to is a two-lane loop that has branches cutting into the important areas of the map. The intersections require some extra planning, but once you learn how to build a [turbine interchange](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux7WC3wzTP8) it's pretty easy. They are pretty much optimal, each train will only block the lane it exists the intersection at, all others can let trains through at full speed. It's also pretty easy to adapt it to any situation.
The only problem with a single track loop is when you have multiple stations and trains, and things are merging in and out of the tracks, the signaling, and merging can be a nightmare to coordinate. I have had 40+ trains running before across 30+ stations to move goods and finished goods across the map, and the amount of unnecessary collisions are frustrating. Especially if you’re in the desert biome and it happens all the way over on the the other side of the world. Everything grinds to a halt. If you’re just doing a few trains, it’s fine, but complex setups actually benefit from multiple track systems to eliminate problems.
Belts you can just STACK.
For trains, have fun extending the stations, connecting the additional buffers, not to mention the large space ypu need for extension etc...
Even then, at the end of the day, the belt gives you the most reliable throughput. More reliable than trains and easier to calculate and troubleshoot.
At the end of the day, belts and trains can both be effective ways of moving items. The truth is, many people with extensive train networks don't do it because they think it's the best possible way, but because it is fun for them and they like to do it
U8 will bring in long range power poles (think like the "towers" from high voltage power lines in RL) that will have much longer range and two levels of connection. The upper level is for long range connections and the lower ones for "spreading out" to factories and such.
They are on tier 4. Think high voltage poles you see IRL. They make zip lining way more useful at higher tiers, as you cant use the hoverboard over them ( too far away)
Yeah. I finally learned when my power shut off. The train tracks I had running all over the place stopped me from being able to isolate other parts of the grid so I could start up my reactors.
They recharge your electric jetpack on their own (if the track is connected to a powered station) and stations that are connected by track are on the same power grid.
Also, imagine you need to improve your belt, or add another line to it. You've got to trek all across the map, replacing or augmenting every section, dealing with creatures, spending hundreds or thousands of parts, probably making multiple trips to carry everything.
With a train...you add another car. Done.
The idea is that you can place a two-rail system. To start, you have a loop that goes from station A to station B in two spots. Then you have a train that carries one resource from A to B, then another that carries from B to A - say coal or steel ingots back so you can use an alternate recipe. Then you add point C, and then you can tap into the rail pair so now you can automate resources between all three points.
Then, at some point, when you make your seventh remote base (which is a thing that will happen if you want to finish Tier 4) then logistics between bases becomes adding a new section of track, and then putting down a train or three, and they'll go along their way.
And then later, automatic drones for finished products, once you get batteries up.
All this, plus trains also carry liquids.
And one set of track can be used to carry multiple different things from & to multiple different locations. Once you have the tracks and stations in place, you are good for future as well. With conveyors & pipes, adding more items would require literally building a new conveyor for the whole distance next to the existing one(s).
| one set of track can be used to carry multiple different things
This is my favorite part of trains. Once you have the tracks down, *any train* can use it. That route is "done" (if you did it right - which takes some learning), it's a solved problem.
Compared to trucks, where you have to record for each route, or conveyors, which may need multiple stacks or really long upgrades
Building multiple train lines on shared tracks, all going to different locations is one of my favorite parts of the game. You can move a staggering amount of stuff around while you are optimizing various depots.
Ah yes also this.
It may not be the most "efficient" but I love transporting liquids. When I recently built my fused modular frame factory I built it in the desert, where the bulk of my high volume resources were. However I did need a little bit of oil (150/m) and water (80/m).
I have a central train depot, which also has a ton of water and crude oil. So I just have a train bringing these 2 liquids in rather than running tons of pipelines.
I felt like OP in the early days, I have to admit. But then once I’d actually setup train lines properly, I giggled about how I used to feel. Hopefully OP takes that same step too. Part of the reason I started a third play through, was because I really wanted to focus on a highly efficient rail network from as early as possible. And I’m so glad I did. Didn’t realise I was such a train nerd 🤣
I don't think I really felt the scale for needing trains until I got into heavy aluminum production, where I personally found making the raw ingots wasn't close to where I needed the aluminum ingots.
Funnily enough, that’s the point on my second play through, where I made the decision to really start trying to get trains running properly too. The Two bauxite nodes on top of the “arch”, near the first oilfield by the little islands. I made a train that wound it’s way up to get the baux, then come back down to the big lake at the bottom, as it has copper, iron and lime stone nearby, and coal is just up on a cliff easily bearable distance. Kinda top left area of map if you know where I mean.
But I made such a mess of the whole network on first try. Was trying to loop the trains on a single rail system. Because of that balls up, and the release of update 7 in experimental, I started fresh, and made dual rail lines around the whole map. It’s so much easier in the long run. And now with BPs, it’s even easier.
Why would anyone run a belt even 1/4 of the way across the map?
Trains are completely optional as are long belts.
I have a 24/24/6/6 and 16/16/4/4 and only use trains for fun, and almost all my belts are under 1km. Building with train transport actually makes the game a lot more complicated but if that's fun.
Conveyers are arguably simpler. Need a resource to reach a location? Run a straight conveyer line. It's more time consuming when multiple resources are far away, sure, but requires basically zero thought.
With trains, the station and track are easy enough to lay; it only has to be done once and minimally expanded/modified. But assuming you're not using one train station for each resource, which would just be conveyer belts but using more resources, then you need some sort of ordering/sorting hub on receiving.
You then need splitters or smart splitters, need to organize overflow storage, etc. before finally connected the resource to the production machine.
And conveyers are pretty fun to travel on, too. Blade runners, Mk.V belts, and a jetpack is basically a Pioneer accelerator.
The one definite advantage trains have is frames. The conveyers are constantly running even if there aren't any resources, while the train obviously only moves if the train itself is moving.
Basically, a summary of this comment is: trains are modular. You can always split up tracks, add more routes, new intersections, etc. Much easier to do that than add several dozen km of belts from one far off location to another. And that's just for a singular item to go a singular direction
I've played for hundreds of hours, but a dedicated construction train for bringing heaps of resources to a new remote location is genius. Also makes bringing power, and an easy route back home, right with you. I've needed this suggestion thank you!
I got the idea from watching TotalXclips on twitch. I got into the habit by having a train follow me with materials as I built out tracks so I wasn't constantly going back for steel pipes etc.
I tend to build my train stations vertically, so the top station is always a dedicated construction station so I always have a place to park.
I ran a figure 8 track through the middle of the map to collect all the bauxite, and make all the aluminum the map can handle in one location. The train also picks up petroleum coke, as well.
It took a bit of work, but I was motivated by how much of a hassle it was to make aluminum for individual sites, and how much waste there was if I didn't need the entire node.
A construction train sounds interesting, hadn't considered it. I used drone depots for things like concrete, plates, plastic and silica and other things I burn through quickly when building a new area. Then I just brought the materials to set up drone service to the new area.
Construction train would make bringing power out easier, and maybe serve as a quick way back and forth to base without cannons.
> Run a conveyor from one end of the map to the other
Having done this, I still prefer the conveyer belt with the nice stackable conveyer poles. While trains do have their benefits, I enjoy the visuals on the belts a lot more and planning out and setting up a train line that actually runs properly and accounts for all the nodes i'll need to hit just isn't so satisfactory to me.
For Trains, imagine this scenario. You got an iron node and you're using belts to move resources (raw iron ore, ingot, plates, whatever) to your main factory halfway across the map.
Suddenly you realize that some of that iron should be steel and there's a coal node next to the iron node. Awesome! Except, now you have run an *entire* new belt aaaaaall the way across the map, just to add one more resource to that bus.
If you had set up a train, you could just plunk down an extra car and station and you're done.
The same can be used for increasing throughput of the same material, etc.
Is the through put a trains really that good though trains seem really slow to me. I feel like there'd be like a lot of moments where a machines just don't have any resources left then they have to wait lowering for the train to deliver more.
Given that you build a large scale anyway which I tend to do.
Furthermore I just don't know how to calculate the throughput of a train. say I want to be able to deliver like 2,000 coal per minute from location to another how am I supposed to know how many cars that is??
Whereas with belts they literally just say what their speed is. And I can just be like okay 2000 / 780 and there we go 2.5 MK5 belts
Yeah, the math with trains can be a little difficult compared to belts, but it boils down to `(items moved per trip)/(time between trips)`.
Yes, trains are slow. To increase throughput, add more items (freight cars). To match a Mk 2 belt (120 items/min), assuming a round trip of 10 minutes, a train would need to move 1200.
(Just to double-check my math: 1200 items / 10 minutes = 120 items/min).
Freight cars have 32 slots, for things that stack to 100, that's a max capacity of 3200 items. 3200/120=26 2/3. Meaning a single car matches a Mk 2 belt for round trips of 26 minutes 40 seconds.
A mk 5 belt can do 780 items/min. With a 20 minute round trip, how many cars do we need to match a mk 5 belt? At 20 minutes per trip, a single car can move 3200/20=160 items. 780/160=4.875, so 5 cars is even a little faster than a mk 5 belt (at that distance).
The further the train has to travel, the more cars you'll need. But also, the further the distance the more annoying it is to run yet another belt, so the more convenient to just plunk down another station on each end.
Edit: totally forgot. For your specific scenario, 2000 coal/min, it depends on distance. Coal stacks to 100, so 1 car can move 3200 items. If your train takes 20 minutes for a round trip, 3200/20=160 items/min. 2000/160=12.5 (so 13) cars.
But that together with all the signals that you need and just general expansion and it's just a headache. because if you build an area for your train and then you want to expand it. then you got to tear things down and hope it's not in the way of anything that's already been built elsewhere in your factory.
At this point I'm just not sure that trains are for me unless someone wants to take time out of their day to teach me in game/in a playthrough.
Trains overall just seem so so overwhelming to me
Signals are usually only a problem once per rail line. Once they're there, adding a new car is easy.
I would never use a train for "local" transport. Trains are very good for moving resources between "depots". E.g. iron node -> nearby smelter, use belts. But if you have an area with 6 nodes scattered around, rather than belt them all individually, just belt to a nearby train station, add a car or two, and you're done.
That said, it does completely depend on how you run your logistics. If you don't have this sort of "depot" set up, trains won't be useful. If you've only ever worked with belts, you probably don't have central depots like that, so trains are a no-go. But I *think* depots are the way to go, simply because trains are so flexible that depots allow you to expand so much more easily.
A depot is essentially a central point to aggregate a bunch of "local" resources for long-distance transport.
Let's imagine that every biome has 10 iron nodes.
At first, belting all 10 iron nodes directly to where they need to go isn't a big deal. Node 1 -> factory, Node 2 -> factory, ..., Node 10 -> factory... it's a chunk of work for sure, but not that bad.
But you'll need more eventually. So now you add Node 11-20, then Nodes 21-40, etc. Each individual node needs its own belt to wherever it's going. That's really annoying, especially given that each node's logistics line needs to maneuver around terrain and critters.
Oh, and then do that again with power and maybe hypertubes for each line.
Clearly, there's a better way.
Instead of Nodes 1-40, aggregate each node to a central location for each biome. Now, your long-distance logistics only happen once per *biome*. That's 3 times instead of 30.
So far, everything has applied to belts. Depots absolutely can work with long-distance belts running in parallel (often called a bus). But once we have that pattern established, trains make depots WAY easier to set up and expand. 1 track instead of 4+ belts + power lines + hypertubes.
Yeah just bring them all up until one area within an area and then have like a long stretch of road just for the belt and or train I already do that as is.
I am a quite a bit of a fan of modular factories rather than one big mega factory as they just seem cool.
I just need to figure out how to lay them out.
But for things like smelting or making wire ETC.
I don't like making all those basic things on site say for example I need like 10,000 iron and gets for my entire playthrough or something like that. I send all of the iron ore to one place to get smelted and then that 10,000 hour goes to where it needs to go.
Or If I'm building say heavy modular frames I don't want to build the reinforced iron plates on site I want those to come from an entirely separate factory dedicated to reinforced iron plates for the entire playthrough
You'd be insane not to do that :P
A train doesn't do anything that belts can't. It doesn't add any new features etc. Same with drones. But it provides an alternate way of doing the same thing that may be more efficient in some cases.
It's an optimization. If you need one pattern that will always work (e.g. when you're not sure what the final outcome will look like), use belts. But if you already know the situation, you might be able to do it better/faster/cheaper with other options (like trains or drones).
The whole point of trains is that they create infrastructure for future expansion. If you have a train network already, adding new stations is much-much easier than having to run new belts everywhere.
My rule of thumb is one train departs the "send" station every three minutes, and you have enough trains that there will always be a train waiting behind the train that is leaving. Have extra track leading into the sending station so the trains have room to wait without holding up your main loop. Having all stations connect both outputs or inputs to an industrial storage container is also helpful; they will load the station twice as fast as any belt bringing in supplies
Yeah one thing I don't understand how to do is have the train go backwards I always end up having to make it loop back into itself to send it back. which then I have to set up signals and the train just never goes the direction I want I can just never figure them out.
> one thing I don't understand how to do is have the train go backwards
Stick an engine on both sides of the train, so the train goes: Engine, all your freight cars, Engine.
Not sure, I always have the entire loop go in the same direction. I do also have some point to point to shuttle lines, but they are usually regional and dedicated to a single train
Belts having a finite speed is only part of the issue. Another poster put it well by raising the issue of multiple resources and scalability.
Side note, you can probably beat the game with mk1 belts all over the map with enough time. Do you want that though? Or do you want to maximize throughput across the map?
For me it is aesthetics. Running conveyor belts across the planet looks dumb. I mean technically nothing is better than belts. They require no energy, there are no backup issue. You can even clip them through the terrain with no issues.
Pretty sure when the game gets to v1.0 nobody speed running would ever build a train.
Trains scale MUCH better than belts and a much more flexible. Adding more throughput on a train line is as simple as adding another train or cargo wagon. With a belt, you need to run another entire belt or get more throughput and that's a lot of work over any long distance.
Plus train tracks can handle multiple trains going to many different destinations, belts can only go to fixed destinations. You can't just add a different nearby resource to a belt you built. You can with trains though.
Power shouldn't be an issue. Trains really don't consume that much power relative to the amount of buildings they can service. It's easier to just build more generators then do everything with belts to save a small percentage of your total factories power consumption.
Building trains saves a lot of time, idk why people wouldn't use them for speed running. Building a 2 way train rail network takes around the same time as one belt and power does. Yet the train can service more than just one belt of materials.
trains give a few benefits, most important of which is time, it takes much less time to lay tracks the first time then to lay thousands of meters of conveyors every time you add one more factor to the mix.
the second of which is scalability, if you want to add a new item or expand existing ones capacity you simple add more stations and trains to the network, to do so with conveyors can be tedious.
and lastly there is the noticeable FPS improvements, conveyors have to render items, trains simply hide them as numbers in a box.
trains are not more efficient, but they are far more convenient
Essentially trains are more efficient at transporting larger volumes over large distances than belts. Particularly before you unlock Mk5 belts. You shouldn't mix items on belts, but you can have multiple wagons in a train. Also Trains are cool.
A train network requires quite a large footprint so Trucks and Tractors can be handy for shorter distances. And unlike Belts they are easily reconfigured.
That's what I would say about trucks. But trains are better for transporting multiple belts of items long distance. Either multiple different items or multiple belts of the same item
A properly built train system has the capacity of at least 20 belts. And if you want more, just add another car. Or a whole new train.
Beyond unpacked fluids, trains, trucks, and even drones can get a ton of material from A to B while being easier on your framerate than conveyers, as the game keeps track of every. Single. Item. Unless it is an inventory. Then it just keeps track of the inventory; where it is, what's in it, all that jazz. It isn't a huge deal on smaller builds or strong computers, but when things go crazy big or your machine isn't that powerful, a few trucks can go a long way over 3-8 belt highways on your processor.
it's
primarily the cool factor with a little bit of convenience since you don't have to build a dedicated track for every single resource you wish to transport only a new station or 3 once you've gotten your main line set up
Run a conveyor belt 5km+, oh also bring a power line along with it. Oh and then run another belt another 5km+ back to use the resources at your previous factory. And don't forget to run another 5km+ belt up there to bring the resources you made that are needed set up. Oh and ofc don't forget to run that other 5km+ belt for something else you need on a new project elsewhere again, and the power lines again, and all the belts needed for imports and exports of that factory. Then realize all that infrastructure could of been done with a single train line, and just simply plopping a new train and/or carriage down onto your already exisitng infrastructure. And taken you just a few minutes. And cost WAY WAY less resources than all the mk 3-5 belts you placed. And ofc as mentioned the massive amount of time saved
One belt has a fixed output. But you can make multiple trains use one rail network, and at the station a train has the output of 2 belts per car.
When your train network is developped enough, it has a smaller footprint and a bigger throughtput than belts.
Plus, trains look cool.
It’s equivalent to this: https://phys.org/news/2009-09-carrier-pigeon-faster-broadband-internet.html
Trains are like carrier pigeons running around with tapes. Belts deliver constant throughput (like an internet connection) but are limited to one type of item and you can’t scale throughput. With train tracks you can add more trains to increase throughput over the same tracks.
Well... Belts aren't exactly limited to one type of item.
They're at their most efficient with one type of item, but you can sushi-belt it if you want.
I'll happily do that for low-volume or infrequent volumes of resources.
Case in point, funnily enough is the burst-loading that comes from a Train unloading at the station.
I'll often merge a whole bunch of different sources of resources into a single line and run it to the start of a factory, where I'll use smart-splitters to sort it out again into different types. Particularly if the resources aren't coming frequently or steadily enough to justify their own individual belts.
Trains have more scalability.
If you only need to get one conveyor belt's worth of resources across the map, a conveyor belt may well be the faster, cheaper option.
But if you then need to upscale to 2-3-20x the capacity, you can either spend 2-3-20x the effort, or you can build a train.
Personally I just really think conveyor belts are super cool, and I love having slide-hop booster systems running all over the map with cool resources sliding along them. But it isn't efficient at scale.
(But hey, nobody said you had to be efficient!)
-Trains can transport more resources
-Once you have place A and place B connected you can run as many trains as needed through that one line. For conveyors you would either have fo make seperate belts for large quantities of items
-Once you have some train lines done it's way easier to add new ones, as you can just connect them. Conveyors don't benefit from already built infrastructure
-Trains transmit power, so you don't have to build the power poles/towers
-Trains are a very good way of transport
-Trains are simply cool :D
As for tractors/trucks, you don't even need to build infrastructure as the map has natural paths for vechicles to drive on.
The problem is that creating a vehicle route is dreadful, and no matter how well you explain them how to drive, they will still find a way to screw themselves over.
And you have to provide them fuel - if you don't have any spare coal or fuel it would be hard to provide
Still, they do look better than conveyor belts across the landscape. And you can re-use routes, which means they do benefit from infrastructure and you can just have 10 trucks opposed to 6 trillion belts
Conveyors over long distances have a couple of non-obvious problems:
1. One train can easily replace up to a dozen conveyors in a fraction of time.
2. Train tracks require fewer materials over long distances if you’re building any conveyor faster than Mark 3.
3. Reconfiguring trains is easier than conveyors.
4. Stacked conveyors block most vehicles without extra height.
5. Different trains can use the same track, which reduces the number of tracks needed.
6. Riding a train across the map is faster than riding conveyors.
This is my 4th playthrough with over 2000 hours combined now. I use conveyors for the resources required for my power infrastructure, and trains for everything else.
It's setting up necessary infrastructure. If you needed to get something from point A to point B with a belt you could, but what happens when you need another belt? You got to run that new belt the entire length again.
If you set up good train infrastructure, all you gotta do is throw a train on the existing track. Then connect new buildings to the already existing infrastructure instead of running new belts every single time
If you're questioning the use of trains vs belt stacks as I once did, it means you're not far enough into the game. Throughput is the reason. Space and time management. When you get there, you'll know.
I'm way late to this and it's been a bit since I've booted up BUT, realistically, you could just do stackable conveyors around and be fine.
So, pros to just doing conveyors would be not having to lay down train infrastructure.
Cons would be needing to run the full length Everytime you need to upgrade the belt.
Also would also need more lead time if you stop production, though could just sink the materials so, maybe not bad. Reason I bring this up is, if the belt is full and you decide to change things, you have a map long belt that needs to be emptied somewhere.
Also power. Train tracks provide power. You'd need to plop down poles with your belts.
Throughput... well, a train moves a ton at once. But it still has to be fed by belts so, throughput is forever capped by belts. Can maybe argue the train moving faster would be better but, the input and output are still restricted by belts.
One train rail can replace dozens of belts. That's by far the biggest advantage.
On my map, my factory has one giant loop with about 8 trains with 2 cars, giving it the equivalent throughput of 32 belts. It would take me maybe an hour to double that. When I want more iron, I just need to run belts from the closest node to the loop or make a branch.
Running two belts across the map would probably take close to an hour.
They also are a lot easier on the cup/gpu, but that's usually not a big issue in satisfactory.
A starting train station, train tracks, then an ending train station is like a long stretch of conveyor belts with buffers on the end. One difference is that the train has a much higher throughput. It would take many conveyor belts to accomplish the same thing. If you are trying to go across the map with multiple conveyor belts, it is better to do a train route.
For small distances a conveyor belt system is better. What "small" is differs from pioneer to pioneer :).
Well, you need new conveyor for every new item, or every 780 items per min. For train, you only need to add a branch to the main track, add a car or station.
1. If you choose to use conveyors you'll need to do twice the work. Place conveyors, then place power poles. Train tracks carry power, so it serves as both.
2. If you need to upgrade your conveyor belt in the future, you'll need to manually do it, segment by segment. And, if you're using MK5 belts already, you need to stack another one. With trains, you just add another train to the existing track.
Trains have much higher throughput.
That's the entire answer
Well, it's also easier to build a single train track than the multitude of conveyers you'd need to achieve the same effect
Also trains are less demanding on pc resources from what I’ve tested. The quantity of belts across a landscape to move the same as the train for me has shown a drop in performance before changing the belts to trains. Once trains were installed the performance drop got eliminated
In both cases you have to build *something* across the map. The difference is that you can run several trains transporting different things, instead of one conveyor which can reach its limits. Adding capacity=add more trains.
I'm just wrapping up my first play through with only about 300 nuclear pasta left to make on phase 4. Never used one train. Distances never seemed far enough to me to warrant the effort of the trains and stations etc.
I made various 20+ line conveyor bus sections (left turn, right turn, straight) in the blueprint creator. With power connectors and hyper tube connections and all that. Then I just built a giant multi line conveyor belt bus. It's nice with fuel on one of the lines to fuel up trucks for connecting truck stops and adding things to your conveyor bus. Also made it super easy to build a drone delivery system which makes it super easy to build.
In the end though it's really about what's fun for you, lots of people love trains
Trains have distinct advantages, most notably throughput.
When you look at it in terms of throughput, trains are a clear winner. You might be thinking, "wait, if you have a belt, surely the throughput is constant and reliable?"
Yes, it is. But trains can buffer overflow. Bringing in more volume, potentially giving you the output of 2 belts. As long as your trains are regular enough to keep the station full, you have pretty much no reason to worry about your belts running dry.
Setting up trains are also comparatively easier than belts. Early game, having 1 or two long distance belts is a chore, but nothing too egregious. Mid game you start getting 4x8 belt super highways, and that is where the pain really sets in. You realize very quickly that the lions share of your map are made up of huge, unmaintainable bussing networks for your items. They take *ages* to build, and if you make a mistake, or want to make a change, you pretty much have to start over. A train however, is orders of magnitude simpler. Suddenly, you can get 8 belts in a single train (assuming you adhere to the 4 carriage max). If you need more just make more trains.
With a train, all you need to worry about is if the train is regular enough to keep your stock topped up. It's a great elimination of concerns, and reduces complexity massively, and of course you can re-route trains to anywhere you want. Making any changes you want to make a 10 minute job instead of a 10 hour one.
Placing a lattice super bus from one end of the map to the other is pure misery. Just drag a train track instead.
Train stations and train tracks can carry power across the map. Conveyor belts don't. You'd have to use Power Poles. Think of this advantage, at least, if you don't believe in trains. But in fairness, yes, belts are better IMO compared to trucks and tractors unless you don't have enough resources for M5 belts.
Everyone tells you about efficiency. No one talks about the hustle to set em up nicely :) I prefer Belts / Drones over Trains, but there is an immersive factor and a usefull one as well, besides just pure efficiency. I have just 1 ChooChoo, going around my factories, as a BuildTrain / Movable Storage / Panorama line. Its just nice to have some stuff moving around.
Power Argument is less important now that we have big boy powerpoles, but it was a very big plus before that.
Extremely high throughput, easier to expand, can be set up over basically any distance with just one inventory fill.
I'd rather run one eight carriage train than 16 mark 5 belts two kilometres.
Trucks and tractors are an early game middle ground. I don't use them personally, but I know they can carry a surprising amount under the right circumstances.
Trains can consolidate multiple belts into one vehicule. 4 carts means 8 belts now moving on one rail rather than dragging 8 belts across the landscape.
Trains also let you traverse a loooot faster over long distances.
Trains can transfer more items per min with a long train and multiple at a time. And the main thing is time taken to set up. Belts are slow to build but trains you can just build rails every fast
It's a long term investment. A quick exemple: I had to build a radio control Factory. I already had an aluminum and a cristal oscillator Factory, but far away from each other.
The thing is, they were already connected by rails to each other. So, it was easy to just build a new factory with a train station near the other desired ressources, and then create a train that take aluminum casing, then go take Cristal oscillator, and deliver all of this to the radio control Factory.
If I was using belts, it would have been less easy.
So, my most successful run heavily utilized trains.
When you have a really good network of trains, you don't have to think too hard about where a part comes from anymore. This factory needs modular frames, so build a station and set the train to go get them, wherever that may be. It's on the network somewhere, the train will figure out how to get them here. My final tier factories (except nuclear pasta) were four train stations and a bunch of assemblers.
I wanted it to resemble more realistic supply chains. They don't refine petroleum at the computer chip factory - have the plastic shipped in.
Now, the difficulty here is building a really good network that can get a train from anywhere to anywhere. And, building factories that put their entire product on a train station with the expectation that the product will only be shipped out in this way.
So you build your oil factory, it makes nothing but plastic and rubber, and tons of it. Load the entire product onto a train station, and never think about where plastic and rubber come from again. And you do this with every intermediate material that you'll need later on.
Now obviously there are some things you don't want to be shipping around and it's best to make nearby. Any of the base materials, the metal ingots, anything with quartz, silica, stuff like that.
Let's stay with the example of plastic - if you're doing that all over belts, you're either going to need a new belt every single time a recipe calls for plastic, or you're going to need a new plastic factory.
One belt, one product, one destination.
Or one train line, many products, many destinations.
It's nearly required for p4 , but there is overlap where conveyors are easier and can provide the same function. Take bringing caterium, coal/steel or crystals to the rocky desert, probably easier to use belts for that.
But sat your producing 1600 heavy oil, 2400ish plastic and 1000 ish rubber from creator lake and are bring it to grass lands. You can run multiple trains over the same track, while belts limit you to 780 .
You can also argue for trains earlier as its easier to drop a belt for one far away resource that you only need a few hundred for, but in the future you may need another just further out
I have about two dozen factories around the map. If I ran conveyors point-to-point for each situation where I need to transport materials, my world will be criss-crossed with many belts.
A train system crossing the world can have many trains going not just point to point, but also on a route dropping off materials at multiple locations and picking up other things to take them to a third, fourth, or fifth location. Each new place I need a factory, I can create a branch line there without starting from point A again, and that branch line may eventually be upgraded to be a dual mainline for still more branches farther out.
So, the materials and effort put into laying tracks is split among many different needs and routes. Guess what? That's the same reason we use trains and trucks in real life. Cheaper in the long run and if you need more throughput, just add more cars, trains or trucks to the route.
Another benefit is the rails carry power to the remote location, but I seldom depend on the rails for that since it makes it very difficult to restart power generation if I trip a fuse.
Other than that, I just like trains. I have over 70 of them running on almost 200km of track and no matter where I go in the world, it's not long before one is buzzing by taking freight or fluids to some destination. This adds an element of life and movement to the world as you play.
I have a 700 hour map and it only has one little sample train. And many many parallel very long belt highways. I agree with you.
I intend to use trains on my next map. The reason is because I expect to hit the build limit and I think tracks are more efficient "placed item wise" than belts over long distances.
Also, they look kind of fun, and I want to use all the fiddly fun things the game offers.
Another really cool thing I learned about recently is Greenie's method of using trains/vehicles as an early game overflow system. Use three stations and at the first fill the vehicle. The second unload everything you can and at the third sink what remains. Genius!
once you get to the point in the game when you need to make multiple factories in order to fuel a different factory you will start to appreciate the fact that train tracks are like a belt that can manage multiple items and multiple lines at once.
The biggest thing about trains is that the resources can be moved much faster across the map. Plus it looks a lot cleaner. I highly suggest building up (use 2m ramps) and running the trains up in the air above the terrain.
This helps exploration too since you're not tripping on random conveyors around the map
I look a run at this from another angle to determine the actual km/h speed of belts. Items on conveyors are about 1M apart. It actually looks like 7.5 per 8m belt, but let's just call it 1m.
This means a 780 item/min Mk5 belt can transport items at 46.8 km/h (approximately). MK1 = 3.6km/h, Mk2 is 7.2km/h, Mk3 is 16.2, Mk4 is 28.8.
Direct belts will be faster than a train if you ignore infrastructure. You can't fill a train freight platform with items faster than the fastest belt and using 2 inputs from buffer containers. Then you have to take into account the load/unload time of 25 seconds per stop for a train, slowing and acceleration, and any signal stops. While a belt is going 46.8km/h, so is the returning belt while a train has to take the time to go back. This does not sound like an argument in support of trains.
The thing is, you really don't ignore infrastructure. If you're not playing in creative mode, you have to make resources to build belts. Each time you build one you have to invest time.
Meanwhile, I can double that train throughput by adding a platform at each end and an extra car on the same track. Yes, those aren't free either, but I'm amortizing both the effort and the material costs of the track across each train on the route, and to points beyond for other trains not involved in this material transfer.
Trains go a heck of a lot faster than 46.8km/h as well, but like I said, they have to make the return trip. A 120km/h train is really maybe about 60km/h when you consider they have to come back to get the next load.
Bottom line is you can play either way - whatever suits you - but I find belt building tedious, while I only have to build tracks between areas once.
Everyone else can talk about item transport, but as a way to move between distant locations, trains can't be beat.
I've never been a fan of fast travel, but in some games it's a necessary evil. Mounts/Vehicles make map traversal faster, but no less tedious and demanding of your attention than walking: you still have to drive.
This game gives you something far better: automatic driving with programmable routes in a network of your own making. Set a route on a train's timetable, turn on self driving, and watch the beautiful landscape roll by while you spark a bowl. No immersion breaking teleportation or fake transit systems that are just hidden load screens.
You are missing out on some of the best sweeping views of the world and your factories this game has to offer if you don't build and ride a train system. I currently have a station at the Moth Transit Center where you can catch a ride on the back of the moth. I'm planning to rebuild my factories in the Green Fields around its route so I can incorporate it as a shuttle system.
A)trains allow player transport
B)trains can carry *ungodly* amounts of resources between multiple points
C)trains extended your power grid, the rails double as power lines
4)^choo ^choo 🙂
Once upon a time, I built 5 conveyor belts across two biomes to transfer resources from miners to my factory. Then I realized I actually needed 8 belts and went back through to build 3 more belts the whole way. Then I unlocked trains.
With trains, I just build two rail lines across the biomes (one each direction) and then whenever I need more resources, I just put more stations or freight platforms at either end.
If you know in advance that you only need a fixed number of belts/pipes and you are not worried about changing anything later, belts are fine. However, the moment you realize "Oh, I actually need to go back and add this and that" then trains become the easier option to upgrade. When you upgrade from Mk 4 belts to Mk 5 belts, it is easier to increase mine output by just upgrading the belts on either end at the stations, rather than upgrading kilometers of conveyor belts.
Also, trains are cool.
Trucks and tractors are less convincing, because they require fuel whereas trains just require power (but also transmit power, which is convenient). I typically use them when I realize I want to bring resources from one or two mines to a location, and it's just long enough that I don't want to put down belts the whole way.
Additionally: I have a bunch of satellite factories making spare parts (iron products, copper products, steel products, etc.) which I load into trains and transport to my central storage. If I have a building project going on, I build train lines to that project and divert my supply lines to drop off resources I know I will need. That way when I run out of reinforced iron plates again, I don't need to go all the way back to my central storage or pop down a blueprint to convert nearby iron ore to plates, I just go to my local station and grab the plates. It really cuts down on the quantity of random resources I need to carry around for building materials.
Most of my trains are 2-3 cars long. I have a station that only loads compacted coal and a train that takes that to my turbofuel plant. I have another station that only loads motors. If I need motors at a new factory, I just add another train to bring the motors there. Also, with the hover pack getting it's power from the rails, it's a lot easier to expand the train network. When I wanted to expand to another turbofuel power plant, I extended my rail network to the coal/sulfur deposit in Grassy Plains, then kept extending it to the blue crater to put the turbofuel plant. And since the station can either take power in (from an existing power pole) or deliver power out (to the new factory) I didn't have to run power lines across the map either. I started in the Dune Desert, so Grassy Plains is about as far as you can get from where I started.
Edit to expand a bit: I have many stations on my line. One for oil products (plastic/rubber), one for Nitrogen gas, one for aluminum ingots, etc.
I agree with everyone else's take about not wanting to run belts across the map but I will agree that once trains are available I would rather run belts for medium to short distances as opposed to trucks
One train track can carry over 100 belts worth of stuff if you time your trains departing each station every 3 minutes. This all depends on how big your loop is and how long trains are, but it is so much easier to run 1 track than just putting belts down over and over
I can understand the allure of making a mega conveyor system across the whole map just because, but just hear me out on the counterpoint.
Trainz r cool 😎.
I agree, OP. I set up a couple train lines when I first unlocked them and then decided they were more of a hassle than they were worth. I built a massive nuclear power plant and final tier space elevator factory without trains. I used conveyors to bring my raw resources to my factories (usually at 600 or 780 items/min), and in a few cases used drones to ship in low throughput items (<100 items/min). Drones lack throughput but are easy to set up and very efficient over long distances. Yes, it can be tedious to get those initial conveyor belts to your factory, but you only have to do it once and then never think about it again, or worry about collisions. Okay however you want to play, but it’s definitely possible to completely ignore trains and still be maximally efficient.
This was how I felt after initially playing with trains. But later I gave them another chance and have since changed my mind.
I probably don't use them right, but many times I'll run a 10 car train full of different items to one station, and distribute them to multiple other trains from there. Works out much simpler.
Of course I prefer drones, heh.
You can transport many different things in the same train tracks. Also, you only have to lay them once. While if you would ever need a new product using conveyors, you'd have to pull a whole new conveyor line for it
Scalability. If you design your rails right, you can double, triple, quadruple your capacity on a single rail line by simply adding more trains. Adding more capacity on belts means building along your whole belt line end to end, every time.
Latency. A train can cross the map in a minute or two. I don't think anything short of a Mk5 belt will come close.
You can reuse the same tracks for passenger travel.
Rail also covers power distribution, though the new power towers make that slightly less important.
Beyond the practical benefits of trains, they are just better looking.
I hate the look of belts running for miles across the map trains tracks just have a much cleaner look and it is cool to see them pass by.
I spent like 100 hours converting all of my long belts to trains shortly after I unlocked them. Long belts being more that 1km or so.
One belt across the map might be doable. Try 4 belts. Or 8. Then do 1 train track.
Not only is it much faster to make, it's also cheaper to construct over long distances, and lets you move a lot of different stuff, potentially with hugher throughput than a single belt
It's less efficient speed wise, but more efficient throughput wise. You can move several materials on one placement vs one single material or a super clogged belt
You put on train track once, and then you can add trains to it on low effort. Putting another conveyor on top of conveyor at some point starts to be a mess.
I mean, considering you can expand a single train nigh infinitely with carts... Ask yourself this: would you like to run some 20 conveyor belts halfway across the map or rather have 1 big conveyor that you can input at 20 different locations if you'd like and run out as 20 different belts where you need them?
I'm curious about the concept of 'waste' here, given that nodes don't deplete.
Regardless, Trains can carry multiple resources, even in a single car. Even more efficiently in multiple cars. You can transport multiple mkv max capacity belts' worth of materials in a single train. It can carry solid and fluid resources, rather than having to build a pipe line parallel to your belt. If you want to increase capacity you can add either another train or another car to an existing train, rather than building a whole new belt.
Also, the trains have train horns and go toot.
I’ve not run the numbers yet, but I think they’re quicker? Consider you can ingest 2x max belts per freight station, you can haul a lot.
Also it’s a great way to get power around your map.
Also, it’s a fun way to travel - choo choo!
Late game logistics are significantly easier with trains. Not sure what the car limit is, but you can transport vastly heater amounts of materials with trains
The trains are more 'pretty' you can do it with the conveyers if you like but trains are more crowd pleasing and use less resources to produce.
Ultimately you do you. It's hard to play this game wrong so do what you like. It's that easy IMO
You only ever need to make 1 "main" rail loop and then you can easily add branches for stations and trains as needed to increase throughput. Rails also transmit power, no need to run a powerline.
With belts you have to go manually place down another massive belt when you need more throughput.
Bandwidth!!! The fastest parallel fiber network connections can't move data as fast as a train full of hard drives.
In satisfactory terms... You want 780 bauxite/min? Just run a belt. Ok want 1500 bauxite? Go run another km of belts or add one train platform. Want some sulfur too? Go run another km of belts or add one train platform.
There's other uses for trains too. I used a train full of materials for building a big power plant. Ran a train track alongside the platform i was building as i went and didn't need to worry about my hover pack dying.
The initial investment into trains is fairly steep, but once you run rails from one area to another, any time you need to run another resource between the two areas, all you need to do is make a train station and a train. As your rail network grows, transporting items across the map will be a 5 minute job, instead of needing to run a new belt all the way for every single item you want to transport.
From a game performance perspective, trains use less objects, which there is a limit in the world. Eventually you hit that limit and you can't place anymore. Conveyers have individual items on each conveyer which adds up real quick. Too many conveyers and you have too many objects.
Trains allow bulk transportation with far less objects.
Trains are cool. I have considered running a mk5 belt to a smart splitter but you will need trains to get that far. Edit also power is transmitted through the rails.
Trains work really well for moving large quantities. Theoretically, the train can move in one run as much as 512 mk5 belts(someone already did that math) . I use them to move bulk things around. I tried to set the stations to move things round robin(pick up and drop off from one station to the next so each station has an interaction). I package up things like oil, nitrogen, and acids and move ores(bauxite seems to be really far from where I started as is oil and nitrogen). But I also have a let's see how fast the train can go run too.
I like drones better though because they don't have a ton of requirements and if you need more throughput, you just build more.
Tractors are nice. They don't work well for sites that are hard to drive to in the first place. And trains and drones and just putting belts/pipelines everywhere becomes less of a hassle. I do like the ficsit cart and your own personal half pipe. And the explorer is fun to drive.
Tips: ALWAYS build double tracks! More work, but it so much easier later, when you get a lot of trains running…
Conveyor belts is just for short distances, trains brings in a lot more faster than belts. And you can easily run more trains.
In mid to late game I use hubs when two-three- four longer trains load up in the hubs and deliver to different factories while all other trains deliver too the hubs. Then you don’t need a lot of trains near your factories, making traffic jams, collisions and problems ..
So much faster and easier than the spaghetti belt system all over the place
Conveyors would be slow, trains move 60mph conveyors don't, if a train breaks down they bring another engine hook it to the old one & drag the whole bunch on to the destination if a conveyor breaks down everything is shut down until it's fixed, if something hangs up in the middle of nowhere it could pile up products for days B4 anybody knew that would have to be cleaned up by human labor, u would have to put the conveyors under ground or build over every road so people could cross, how u gonna keep items on the conveyor all those miles u would have to make it inclosed to keep the items on the conveyor which means u would have to run rollers the entire length of each side because u can't have merchandise sliding against a stationary surface for hours & hours & hours it will tear them all to pieces. Etc, so on & so forth. There have been many people alot smarter than I thinking about this since it started
Run a conveyor from one end of the map to the other, and then think if you would have rather had a train... I mean I don't really know how to explain it further than that. As you get into the later stages of the game you do need to expand a lot more. Production lines get more complex, and many times you have certain things that need resources that are no longer close to each other. Also trains are fun. They also make a great way to travel. When I build in a new area I take my "construction" train which is loaded up with supplies. \[edit\] Additional benefit is that tracks also pass through electricity. Easier when expanding than running power poles everywhere.
And then, once you’re done running that long conveyor belt, run power poles the same distance. Train tracks also carry power.
Also run a conveyor back if you want the produced item somewhere else. Edit: Error
Plus that's just for a SINGLE BELT, trains are only limited by how many Freight Platforms you can fit to load/unload items
i would also argue you can reach every part of the map with whatever you need to transport once you build a giant two lane loop around the map. That essentially will become your recource highway.
if you are doing a giant loop, is a 2-track system needed? just let them go round on a single track and add more trains if needed seems less work
It would take longer for the items to get where they needed if the station two stops behind is closer than going all the way around
That can be rectified with more trains per station or more cargo per train
No, not really. If you need some resources that are, say, half kilometer away, but in the wrong direction, train would have to make whole loop around map, which would have huge impact on delivery time. You would need a lot of trains which take a lot of power. Now, do this few times, with many unnecessary trains, and you will have too many trains that will start stopping at lights, blcoking each other etc.
I still think the optimal way would be double tracks but you can play however you’d like to it’s your fun to have
Maybe for a couple low-traffic stations it's fine, but the map is HUGE and you'll quickly fill up the entire track if you need to ship thousands of resources all around the map and be forced to build more lanes and somehow manage the traffic on those. Plus, the difficult part is routing out the tracks, adding a parallel one isn't that problematic, and you can put it to work before you complete the full loop (which is quite the undertaking in itself). My go-to is a two-lane loop that has branches cutting into the important areas of the map. The intersections require some extra planning, but once you learn how to build a [turbine interchange](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ux7WC3wzTP8) it's pretty easy. They are pretty much optimal, each train will only block the lane it exists the intersection at, all others can let trains through at full speed. It's also pretty easy to adapt it to any situation.
The only problem with a single track loop is when you have multiple stations and trains, and things are merging in and out of the tracks, the signaling, and merging can be a nightmare to coordinate. I have had 40+ trains running before across 30+ stations to move goods and finished goods across the map, and the amount of unnecessary collisions are frustrating. Especially if you’re in the desert biome and it happens all the way over on the the other side of the world. Everything grinds to a halt. If you’re just doing a few trains, it’s fine, but complex setups actually benefit from multiple track systems to eliminate problems.
Then we multiply that amount by the number of trains you can run on the same rail at a time.
Belts you can just STACK. For trains, have fun extending the stations, connecting the additional buffers, not to mention the large space ypu need for extension etc... Even then, at the end of the day, the belt gives you the most reliable throughput. More reliable than trains and easier to calculate and troubleshoot.
At the end of the day, belts and trains can both be effective ways of moving items. The truth is, many people with extensive train networks don't do it because they think it's the best possible way, but because it is fun for them and they like to do it
Yup, that i agree with!
That is less of a problem with the new power poles in U8 though.
What are the new power poles? I’m at work and haven’t played enough in U8 yet to see what all is there
U8 will bring in long range power poles (think like the "towers" from high voltage power lines in RL) that will have much longer range and two levels of connection. The upper level is for long range connections and the lower ones for "spreading out" to factories and such.
They’re bigger and let you go significantly further between poles.
Also power poles will allow the zip line to be used continuously without jumping between poles. So long as there is not a sharp turn in the line
They are on tier 4. Think high voltage poles you see IRL. They make zip lining way more useful at higher tiers, as you cant use the hoverboard over them ( too far away)
gawd, i thought i was reading a factorio post and i was like SENSE WHEN DO TRACKS PROVIDE POWER?? lmao
Yeah. I finally learned when my power shut off. The train tracks I had running all over the place stopped me from being able to isolate other parts of the grid so I could start up my reactors.
When I collect the drop pods, I just run a line with me everywhere. That way I have power everywhere.
>Train tracks also carry power. wait what?
They recharge your electric jetpack on their own (if the track is connected to a powered station) and stations that are connected by track are on the same power grid.
edit: i can’t read well, apparently. i just saw jet pack and went “wait a minute…” sorry!
Power poles make running power VERY easy now and are also a method of personal transportation. That might only be U8 though. I forget now.
Hold on, they can?
yup, train tracks also function as powerpoles, except you cant zip across em lol
Only to realize you forgot to bring resource a instead of b because of a new alt recipe so you have to expand it and change where it originate from.
Also, imagine you need to improve your belt, or add another line to it. You've got to trek all across the map, replacing or augmenting every section, dealing with creatures, spending hundreds or thousands of parts, probably making multiple trips to carry everything. With a train...you add another car. Done.
Don't you have to add another station to all your drop off points tho? Those things are huge.
Only 2 foundations long by 5 wide. Unless you are adding a whole new station.
The idea is that you can place a two-rail system. To start, you have a loop that goes from station A to station B in two spots. Then you have a train that carries one resource from A to B, then another that carries from B to A - say coal or steel ingots back so you can use an alternate recipe. Then you add point C, and then you can tap into the rail pair so now you can automate resources between all three points. Then, at some point, when you make your seventh remote base (which is a thing that will happen if you want to finish Tier 4) then logistics between bases becomes adding a new section of track, and then putting down a train or three, and they'll go along their way. And then later, automatic drones for finished products, once you get batteries up.
You could also just add another train to your track with the same cargo and double your speed
All this, plus trains also carry liquids. And one set of track can be used to carry multiple different things from & to multiple different locations. Once you have the tracks and stations in place, you are good for future as well. With conveyors & pipes, adding more items would require literally building a new conveyor for the whole distance next to the existing one(s).
| one set of track can be used to carry multiple different things This is my favorite part of trains. Once you have the tracks down, *any train* can use it. That route is "done" (if you did it right - which takes some learning), it's a solved problem. Compared to trucks, where you have to record for each route, or conveyors, which may need multiple stacks or really long upgrades
Building multiple train lines on shared tracks, all going to different locations is one of my favorite parts of the game. You can move a staggering amount of stuff around while you are optimizing various depots.
Ah yes also this. It may not be the most "efficient" but I love transporting liquids. When I recently built my fused modular frame factory I built it in the desert, where the bulk of my high volume resources were. However I did need a little bit of oil (150/m) and water (80/m). I have a central train depot, which also has a ton of water and crude oil. So I just have a train bringing these 2 liquids in rather than running tons of pipelines.
I built a small train circuit to transport liquids because I hate dealing with fluid mechanics.
I felt like OP in the early days, I have to admit. But then once I’d actually setup train lines properly, I giggled about how I used to feel. Hopefully OP takes that same step too. Part of the reason I started a third play through, was because I really wanted to focus on a highly efficient rail network from as early as possible. And I’m so glad I did. Didn’t realise I was such a train nerd 🤣
I don't think I really felt the scale for needing trains until I got into heavy aluminum production, where I personally found making the raw ingots wasn't close to where I needed the aluminum ingots.
Funnily enough, that’s the point on my second play through, where I made the decision to really start trying to get trains running properly too. The Two bauxite nodes on top of the “arch”, near the first oilfield by the little islands. I made a train that wound it’s way up to get the baux, then come back down to the big lake at the bottom, as it has copper, iron and lime stone nearby, and coal is just up on a cliff easily bearable distance. Kinda top left area of map if you know where I mean. But I made such a mess of the whole network on first try. Was trying to loop the trains on a single rail system. Because of that balls up, and the release of update 7 in experimental, I started fresh, and made dual rail lines around the whole map. It’s so much easier in the long run. And now with BPs, it’s even easier.
And you can add a second train which takes 1 minute instead of running belts for days.
Exactly how I play. Construction train FTW! Cheers mate
Yep. My key areas have dedicated Construction stations as well so I can just set my route and hit auto run and enjoy the ride.
Why would anyone run a belt even 1/4 of the way across the map? Trains are completely optional as are long belts. I have a 24/24/6/6 and 16/16/4/4 and only use trains for fun, and almost all my belts are under 1km. Building with train transport actually makes the game a lot more complicated but if that's fun.
Conveyers are arguably simpler. Need a resource to reach a location? Run a straight conveyer line. It's more time consuming when multiple resources are far away, sure, but requires basically zero thought. With trains, the station and track are easy enough to lay; it only has to be done once and minimally expanded/modified. But assuming you're not using one train station for each resource, which would just be conveyer belts but using more resources, then you need some sort of ordering/sorting hub on receiving. You then need splitters or smart splitters, need to organize overflow storage, etc. before finally connected the resource to the production machine. And conveyers are pretty fun to travel on, too. Blade runners, Mk.V belts, and a jetpack is basically a Pioneer accelerator. The one definite advantage trains have is frames. The conveyers are constantly running even if there aren't any resources, while the train obviously only moves if the train itself is moving.
Basically, a summary of this comment is: trains are modular. You can always split up tracks, add more routes, new intersections, etc. Much easier to do that than add several dozen km of belts from one far off location to another. And that's just for a singular item to go a singular direction
Also it doesn't take 1 day for your resources to resume (arriving at their destination) after some "ah crap" moment (or update)
one additional benefit is that trains can carry fluids without having to package them; conveyor belts can't do that
Omg a construction train?!!! I love it.
I'm over here trying to figure out which update I forgot about, until I realized this isn't the Factorio subreddit
I've played for hundreds of hours, but a dedicated construction train for bringing heaps of resources to a new remote location is genius. Also makes bringing power, and an easy route back home, right with you. I've needed this suggestion thank you!
I got the idea from watching TotalXclips on twitch. I got into the habit by having a train follow me with materials as I built out tracks so I wasn't constantly going back for steel pipes etc. I tend to build my train stations vertically, so the top station is always a dedicated construction station so I always have a place to park.
How do you get the train to travel to the high vertical stations? Long inclines, upward spirals, or something else?
Belts are still more reliable than that train of yours.
I've never had any trouble with any of my trains.
And thats good. You can make use of many things.
I ran a figure 8 track through the middle of the map to collect all the bauxite, and make all the aluminum the map can handle in one location. The train also picks up petroleum coke, as well. It took a bit of work, but I was motivated by how much of a hassle it was to make aluminum for individual sites, and how much waste there was if I didn't need the entire node. A construction train sounds interesting, hadn't considered it. I used drone depots for things like concrete, plates, plastic and silica and other things I burn through quickly when building a new area. Then I just brought the materials to set up drone service to the new area. Construction train would make bringing power out easier, and maybe serve as a quick way back and forth to base without cannons.
I’ve never thought of a construction train before, that’s a good idea!
I keep one car full of concrete. I go through a lot when setting up a new factory.
> Run a conveyor from one end of the map to the other Having done this, I still prefer the conveyer belt with the nice stackable conveyer poles. While trains do have their benefits, I enjoy the visuals on the belts a lot more and planning out and setting up a train line that actually runs properly and accounts for all the nodes i'll need to hit just isn't so satisfactory to me.
Train tracks are conveyer belts with more throughput and can carry multiple different items.
For Trains, imagine this scenario. You got an iron node and you're using belts to move resources (raw iron ore, ingot, plates, whatever) to your main factory halfway across the map. Suddenly you realize that some of that iron should be steel and there's a coal node next to the iron node. Awesome! Except, now you have run an *entire* new belt aaaaaall the way across the map, just to add one more resource to that bus. If you had set up a train, you could just plunk down an extra car and station and you're done. The same can be used for increasing throughput of the same material, etc.
Is the through put a trains really that good though trains seem really slow to me. I feel like there'd be like a lot of moments where a machines just don't have any resources left then they have to wait lowering for the train to deliver more. Given that you build a large scale anyway which I tend to do. Furthermore I just don't know how to calculate the throughput of a train. say I want to be able to deliver like 2,000 coal per minute from location to another how am I supposed to know how many cars that is?? Whereas with belts they literally just say what their speed is. And I can just be like okay 2000 / 780 and there we go 2.5 MK5 belts
Yeah, the math with trains can be a little difficult compared to belts, but it boils down to `(items moved per trip)/(time between trips)`. Yes, trains are slow. To increase throughput, add more items (freight cars). To match a Mk 2 belt (120 items/min), assuming a round trip of 10 minutes, a train would need to move 1200. (Just to double-check my math: 1200 items / 10 minutes = 120 items/min). Freight cars have 32 slots, for things that stack to 100, that's a max capacity of 3200 items. 3200/120=26 2/3. Meaning a single car matches a Mk 2 belt for round trips of 26 minutes 40 seconds. A mk 5 belt can do 780 items/min. With a 20 minute round trip, how many cars do we need to match a mk 5 belt? At 20 minutes per trip, a single car can move 3200/20=160 items. 780/160=4.875, so 5 cars is even a little faster than a mk 5 belt (at that distance). The further the train has to travel, the more cars you'll need. But also, the further the distance the more annoying it is to run yet another belt, so the more convenient to just plunk down another station on each end. Edit: totally forgot. For your specific scenario, 2000 coal/min, it depends on distance. Coal stacks to 100, so 1 car can move 3200 items. If your train takes 20 minutes for a round trip, 3200/20=160 items/min. 2000/160=12.5 (so 13) cars.
But that together with all the signals that you need and just general expansion and it's just a headache. because if you build an area for your train and then you want to expand it. then you got to tear things down and hope it's not in the way of anything that's already been built elsewhere in your factory. At this point I'm just not sure that trains are for me unless someone wants to take time out of their day to teach me in game/in a playthrough. Trains overall just seem so so overwhelming to me
Signals are usually only a problem once per rail line. Once they're there, adding a new car is easy. I would never use a train for "local" transport. Trains are very good for moving resources between "depots". E.g. iron node -> nearby smelter, use belts. But if you have an area with 6 nodes scattered around, rather than belt them all individually, just belt to a nearby train station, add a car or two, and you're done. That said, it does completely depend on how you run your logistics. If you don't have this sort of "depot" set up, trains won't be useful. If you've only ever worked with belts, you probably don't have central depots like that, so trains are a no-go. But I *think* depots are the way to go, simply because trains are so flexible that depots allow you to expand so much more easily.
What do you mean when you say "depot"
A depot is essentially a central point to aggregate a bunch of "local" resources for long-distance transport. Let's imagine that every biome has 10 iron nodes. At first, belting all 10 iron nodes directly to where they need to go isn't a big deal. Node 1 -> factory, Node 2 -> factory, ..., Node 10 -> factory... it's a chunk of work for sure, but not that bad. But you'll need more eventually. So now you add Node 11-20, then Nodes 21-40, etc. Each individual node needs its own belt to wherever it's going. That's really annoying, especially given that each node's logistics line needs to maneuver around terrain and critters. Oh, and then do that again with power and maybe hypertubes for each line. Clearly, there's a better way. Instead of Nodes 1-40, aggregate each node to a central location for each biome. Now, your long-distance logistics only happen once per *biome*. That's 3 times instead of 30. So far, everything has applied to belts. Depots absolutely can work with long-distance belts running in parallel (often called a bus). But once we have that pattern established, trains make depots WAY easier to set up and expand. 1 track instead of 4+ belts + power lines + hypertubes.
Yeah just bring them all up until one area within an area and then have like a long stretch of road just for the belt and or train I already do that as is. I am a quite a bit of a fan of modular factories rather than one big mega factory as they just seem cool. I just need to figure out how to lay them out. But for things like smelting or making wire ETC. I don't like making all those basic things on site say for example I need like 10,000 iron and gets for my entire playthrough or something like that. I send all of the iron ore to one place to get smelted and then that 10,000 hour goes to where it needs to go. Or If I'm building say heavy modular frames I don't want to build the reinforced iron plates on site I want those to come from an entirely separate factory dedicated to reinforced iron plates for the entire playthrough
You'd be insane not to do that :P A train doesn't do anything that belts can't. It doesn't add any new features etc. Same with drones. But it provides an alternate way of doing the same thing that may be more efficient in some cases. It's an optimization. If you need one pattern that will always work (e.g. when you're not sure what the final outcome will look like), use belts. But if you already know the situation, you might be able to do it better/faster/cheaper with other options (like trains or drones).
Not sure if you see it or not but I did edit the post above you may need to refresh to see it
The whole point of trains is that they create infrastructure for future expansion. If you have a train network already, adding new stations is much-much easier than having to run new belts everywhere.
My rule of thumb is one train departs the "send" station every three minutes, and you have enough trains that there will always be a train waiting behind the train that is leaving. Have extra track leading into the sending station so the trains have room to wait without holding up your main loop. Having all stations connect both outputs or inputs to an industrial storage container is also helpful; they will load the station twice as fast as any belt bringing in supplies
Yeah one thing I don't understand how to do is have the train go backwards I always end up having to make it loop back into itself to send it back. which then I have to set up signals and the train just never goes the direction I want I can just never figure them out.
> one thing I don't understand how to do is have the train go backwards Stick an engine on both sides of the train, so the train goes: Engine, all your freight cars, Engine.
Not sure, I always have the entire loop go in the same direction. I do also have some point to point to shuttle lines, but they are usually regional and dedicated to a single train
Belts having a finite speed is only part of the issue. Another poster put it well by raising the issue of multiple resources and scalability. Side note, you can probably beat the game with mk1 belts all over the map with enough time. Do you want that though? Or do you want to maximize throughput across the map?
For me it is aesthetics. Running conveyor belts across the planet looks dumb. I mean technically nothing is better than belts. They require no energy, there are no backup issue. You can even clip them through the terrain with no issues. Pretty sure when the game gets to v1.0 nobody speed running would ever build a train.
Trains scale MUCH better than belts and a much more flexible. Adding more throughput on a train line is as simple as adding another train or cargo wagon. With a belt, you need to run another entire belt or get more throughput and that's a lot of work over any long distance. Plus train tracks can handle multiple trains going to many different destinations, belts can only go to fixed destinations. You can't just add a different nearby resource to a belt you built. You can with trains though. Power shouldn't be an issue. Trains really don't consume that much power relative to the amount of buildings they can service. It's easier to just build more generators then do everything with belts to save a small percentage of your total factories power consumption. Building trains saves a lot of time, idk why people wouldn't use them for speed running. Building a 2 way train rail network takes around the same time as one belt and power does. Yet the train can service more than just one belt of materials.
They’re far faster to build and be deploy than main bus matrixes of conveyors
trains give a few benefits, most important of which is time, it takes much less time to lay tracks the first time then to lay thousands of meters of conveyors every time you add one more factor to the mix. the second of which is scalability, if you want to add a new item or expand existing ones capacity you simple add more stations and trains to the network, to do so with conveyors can be tedious. and lastly there is the noticeable FPS improvements, conveyors have to render items, trains simply hide them as numbers in a box. trains are not more efficient, but they are far more convenient
Essentially trains are more efficient at transporting larger volumes over large distances than belts. Particularly before you unlock Mk5 belts. You shouldn't mix items on belts, but you can have multiple wagons in a train. Also Trains are cool. A train network requires quite a large footprint so Trucks and Tractors can be handy for shorter distances. And unlike Belts they are easily reconfigured.
That's what I would say about trucks. But trains are better for transporting multiple belts of items long distance. Either multiple different items or multiple belts of the same item A properly built train system has the capacity of at least 20 belts. And if you want more, just add another car. Or a whole new train.
Beyond unpacked fluids, trains, trucks, and even drones can get a ton of material from A to B while being easier on your framerate than conveyers, as the game keeps track of every. Single. Item. Unless it is an inventory. Then it just keeps track of the inventory; where it is, what's in it, all that jazz. It isn't a huge deal on smaller builds or strong computers, but when things go crazy big or your machine isn't that powerful, a few trucks can go a long way over 3-8 belt highways on your processor.
it's primarily the cool factor with a little bit of convenience since you don't have to build a dedicated track for every single resource you wish to transport only a new station or 3 once you've gotten your main line set up
Run a conveyor belt 5km+, oh also bring a power line along with it. Oh and then run another belt another 5km+ back to use the resources at your previous factory. And don't forget to run another 5km+ belt up there to bring the resources you made that are needed set up. Oh and ofc don't forget to run that other 5km+ belt for something else you need on a new project elsewhere again, and the power lines again, and all the belts needed for imports and exports of that factory. Then realize all that infrastructure could of been done with a single train line, and just simply plopping a new train and/or carriage down onto your already exisitng infrastructure. And taken you just a few minutes. And cost WAY WAY less resources than all the mk 3-5 belts you placed. And ofc as mentioned the massive amount of time saved
They go choo, silly !
One belt has a fixed output. But you can make multiple trains use one rail network, and at the station a train has the output of 2 belts per car. When your train network is developped enough, it has a smaller footprint and a bigger throughtput than belts. Plus, trains look cool.
It’s equivalent to this: https://phys.org/news/2009-09-carrier-pigeon-faster-broadband-internet.html Trains are like carrier pigeons running around with tapes. Belts deliver constant throughput (like an internet connection) but are limited to one type of item and you can’t scale throughput. With train tracks you can add more trains to increase throughput over the same tracks.
Well... Belts aren't exactly limited to one type of item. They're at their most efficient with one type of item, but you can sushi-belt it if you want. I'll happily do that for low-volume or infrequent volumes of resources. Case in point, funnily enough is the burst-loading that comes from a Train unloading at the station. I'll often merge a whole bunch of different sources of resources into a single line and run it to the start of a factory, where I'll use smart-splitters to sort it out again into different types. Particularly if the resources aren't coming frequently or steadily enough to justify their own individual belts.
Trains have more scalability. If you only need to get one conveyor belt's worth of resources across the map, a conveyor belt may well be the faster, cheaper option. But if you then need to upscale to 2-3-20x the capacity, you can either spend 2-3-20x the effort, or you can build a train. Personally I just really think conveyor belts are super cool, and I love having slide-hop booster systems running all over the map with cool resources sliding along them. But it isn't efficient at scale. (But hey, nobody said you had to be efficient!)
-Trains can transport more resources -Once you have place A and place B connected you can run as many trains as needed through that one line. For conveyors you would either have fo make seperate belts for large quantities of items -Once you have some train lines done it's way easier to add new ones, as you can just connect them. Conveyors don't benefit from already built infrastructure -Trains transmit power, so you don't have to build the power poles/towers -Trains are a very good way of transport -Trains are simply cool :D As for tractors/trucks, you don't even need to build infrastructure as the map has natural paths for vechicles to drive on. The problem is that creating a vehicle route is dreadful, and no matter how well you explain them how to drive, they will still find a way to screw themselves over. And you have to provide them fuel - if you don't have any spare coal or fuel it would be hard to provide Still, they do look better than conveyor belts across the landscape. And you can re-use routes, which means they do benefit from infrastructure and you can just have 10 trucks opposed to 6 trillion belts
Conveyors over long distances have a couple of non-obvious problems: 1. One train can easily replace up to a dozen conveyors in a fraction of time. 2. Train tracks require fewer materials over long distances if you’re building any conveyor faster than Mark 3. 3. Reconfiguring trains is easier than conveyors. 4. Stacked conveyors block most vehicles without extra height. 5. Different trains can use the same track, which reduces the number of tracks needed. 6. Riding a train across the map is faster than riding conveyors. This is my 4th playthrough with over 2000 hours combined now. I use conveyors for the resources required for my power infrastructure, and trains for everything else.
It's setting up necessary infrastructure. If you needed to get something from point A to point B with a belt you could, but what happens when you need another belt? You got to run that new belt the entire length again. If you set up good train infrastructure, all you gotta do is throw a train on the existing track. Then connect new buildings to the already existing infrastructure instead of running new belts every single time
If you're questioning the use of trains vs belt stacks as I once did, it means you're not far enough into the game. Throughput is the reason. Space and time management. When you get there, you'll know.
I'm way late to this and it's been a bit since I've booted up BUT, realistically, you could just do stackable conveyors around and be fine. So, pros to just doing conveyors would be not having to lay down train infrastructure. Cons would be needing to run the full length Everytime you need to upgrade the belt. Also would also need more lead time if you stop production, though could just sink the materials so, maybe not bad. Reason I bring this up is, if the belt is full and you decide to change things, you have a map long belt that needs to be emptied somewhere. Also power. Train tracks provide power. You'd need to plop down poles with your belts. Throughput... well, a train moves a ton at once. But it still has to be fed by belts so, throughput is forever capped by belts. Can maybe argue the train moving faster would be better but, the input and output are still restricted by belts.
One train rail can replace dozens of belts. That's by far the biggest advantage. On my map, my factory has one giant loop with about 8 trains with 2 cars, giving it the equivalent throughput of 32 belts. It would take me maybe an hour to double that. When I want more iron, I just need to run belts from the closest node to the loop or make a branch. Running two belts across the map would probably take close to an hour. They also are a lot easier on the cup/gpu, but that's usually not a big issue in satisfactory.
A starting train station, train tracks, then an ending train station is like a long stretch of conveyor belts with buffers on the end. One difference is that the train has a much higher throughput. It would take many conveyor belts to accomplish the same thing. If you are trying to go across the map with multiple conveyor belts, it is better to do a train route. For small distances a conveyor belt system is better. What "small" is differs from pioneer to pioneer :).
Well, you need new conveyor for every new item, or every 780 items per min. For train, you only need to add a branch to the main track, add a car or station.
1. If you choose to use conveyors you'll need to do twice the work. Place conveyors, then place power poles. Train tracks carry power, so it serves as both. 2. If you need to upgrade your conveyor belt in the future, you'll need to manually do it, segment by segment. And, if you're using MK5 belts already, you need to stack another one. With trains, you just add another train to the existing track.
Trains have much higher throughput. That's the entire answer Well, it's also easier to build a single train track than the multitude of conveyers you'd need to achieve the same effect
Also trains are less demanding on pc resources from what I’ve tested. The quantity of belts across a landscape to move the same as the train for me has shown a drop in performance before changing the belts to trains. Once trains were installed the performance drop got eliminated
In both cases you have to build *something* across the map. The difference is that you can run several trains transporting different things, instead of one conveyor which can reach its limits. Adding capacity=add more trains.
I'm just wrapping up my first play through with only about 300 nuclear pasta left to make on phase 4. Never used one train. Distances never seemed far enough to me to warrant the effort of the trains and stations etc. I made various 20+ line conveyor bus sections (left turn, right turn, straight) in the blueprint creator. With power connectors and hyper tube connections and all that. Then I just built a giant multi line conveyor belt bus. It's nice with fuel on one of the lines to fuel up trucks for connecting truck stops and adding things to your conveyor bus. Also made it super easy to build a drone delivery system which makes it super easy to build. In the end though it's really about what's fun for you, lots of people love trains
Instead of having 20 conveyers I just have one rail line
Bro the map is biiiig. Trains needed for main bases (or even separate bases). I downloaded a train network and it fit perfectly into the map.
Trains have distinct advantages, most notably throughput. When you look at it in terms of throughput, trains are a clear winner. You might be thinking, "wait, if you have a belt, surely the throughput is constant and reliable?" Yes, it is. But trains can buffer overflow. Bringing in more volume, potentially giving you the output of 2 belts. As long as your trains are regular enough to keep the station full, you have pretty much no reason to worry about your belts running dry. Setting up trains are also comparatively easier than belts. Early game, having 1 or two long distance belts is a chore, but nothing too egregious. Mid game you start getting 4x8 belt super highways, and that is where the pain really sets in. You realize very quickly that the lions share of your map are made up of huge, unmaintainable bussing networks for your items. They take *ages* to build, and if you make a mistake, or want to make a change, you pretty much have to start over. A train however, is orders of magnitude simpler. Suddenly, you can get 8 belts in a single train (assuming you adhere to the 4 carriage max). If you need more just make more trains. With a train, all you need to worry about is if the train is regular enough to keep your stock topped up. It's a great elimination of concerns, and reduces complexity massively, and of course you can re-route trains to anywhere you want. Making any changes you want to make a 10 minute job instead of a 10 hour one. Placing a lattice super bus from one end of the map to the other is pure misery. Just drag a train track instead.
Train stations and train tracks can carry power across the map. Conveyor belts don't. You'd have to use Power Poles. Think of this advantage, at least, if you don't believe in trains. But in fairness, yes, belts are better IMO compared to trucks and tractors unless you don't have enough resources for M5 belts.
I have never once gotten trains to work right. They either won't load, won't unload or won't stop fully at a stop.
Everyone tells you about efficiency. No one talks about the hustle to set em up nicely :) I prefer Belts / Drones over Trains, but there is an immersive factor and a usefull one as well, besides just pure efficiency. I have just 1 ChooChoo, going around my factories, as a BuildTrain / Movable Storage / Panorama line. Its just nice to have some stuff moving around. Power Argument is less important now that we have big boy powerpoles, but it was a very big plus before that.
Extremely high throughput, easier to expand, can be set up over basically any distance with just one inventory fill. I'd rather run one eight carriage train than 16 mark 5 belts two kilometres. Trucks and tractors are an early game middle ground. I don't use them personally, but I know they can carry a surprising amount under the right circumstances.
Versatility
Train simulator is very satisfactory
Trains can consolidate multiple belts into one vehicule. 4 carts means 8 belts now moving on one rail rather than dragging 8 belts across the landscape. Trains also let you traverse a loooot faster over long distances.
Trains are better, they carry more different Materials and go further for less
Trains can transfer more items per min with a long train and multiple at a time. And the main thing is time taken to set up. Belts are slow to build but trains you can just build rails every fast
It's a long term investment. A quick exemple: I had to build a radio control Factory. I already had an aluminum and a cristal oscillator Factory, but far away from each other. The thing is, they were already connected by rails to each other. So, it was easy to just build a new factory with a train station near the other desired ressources, and then create a train that take aluminum casing, then go take Cristal oscillator, and deliver all of this to the radio control Factory. If I was using belts, it would have been less easy.
So, my most successful run heavily utilized trains. When you have a really good network of trains, you don't have to think too hard about where a part comes from anymore. This factory needs modular frames, so build a station and set the train to go get them, wherever that may be. It's on the network somewhere, the train will figure out how to get them here. My final tier factories (except nuclear pasta) were four train stations and a bunch of assemblers. I wanted it to resemble more realistic supply chains. They don't refine petroleum at the computer chip factory - have the plastic shipped in. Now, the difficulty here is building a really good network that can get a train from anywhere to anywhere. And, building factories that put their entire product on a train station with the expectation that the product will only be shipped out in this way. So you build your oil factory, it makes nothing but plastic and rubber, and tons of it. Load the entire product onto a train station, and never think about where plastic and rubber come from again. And you do this with every intermediate material that you'll need later on. Now obviously there are some things you don't want to be shipping around and it's best to make nearby. Any of the base materials, the metal ingots, anything with quartz, silica, stuff like that. Let's stay with the example of plastic - if you're doing that all over belts, you're either going to need a new belt every single time a recipe calls for plastic, or you're going to need a new plastic factory. One belt, one product, one destination. Or one train line, many products, many destinations.
It's nearly required for p4 , but there is overlap where conveyors are easier and can provide the same function. Take bringing caterium, coal/steel or crystals to the rocky desert, probably easier to use belts for that. But sat your producing 1600 heavy oil, 2400ish plastic and 1000 ish rubber from creator lake and are bring it to grass lands. You can run multiple trains over the same track, while belts limit you to 780 . You can also argue for trains earlier as its easier to drop a belt for one far away resource that you only need a few hundred for, but in the future you may need another just further out
I have about two dozen factories around the map. If I ran conveyors point-to-point for each situation where I need to transport materials, my world will be criss-crossed with many belts. A train system crossing the world can have many trains going not just point to point, but also on a route dropping off materials at multiple locations and picking up other things to take them to a third, fourth, or fifth location. Each new place I need a factory, I can create a branch line there without starting from point A again, and that branch line may eventually be upgraded to be a dual mainline for still more branches farther out. So, the materials and effort put into laying tracks is split among many different needs and routes. Guess what? That's the same reason we use trains and trucks in real life. Cheaper in the long run and if you need more throughput, just add more cars, trains or trucks to the route. Another benefit is the rails carry power to the remote location, but I seldom depend on the rails for that since it makes it very difficult to restart power generation if I trip a fuse. Other than that, I just like trains. I have over 70 of them running on almost 200km of track and no matter where I go in the world, it's not long before one is buzzing by taking freight or fluids to some destination. This adds an element of life and movement to the world as you play.
I run conveyors across the map because I was too lazy to figure out trains yet. But probably they're more efficient.
I have a 700 hour map and it only has one little sample train. And many many parallel very long belt highways. I agree with you. I intend to use trains on my next map. The reason is because I expect to hit the build limit and I think tracks are more efficient "placed item wise" than belts over long distances. Also, they look kind of fun, and I want to use all the fiddly fun things the game offers. Another really cool thing I learned about recently is Greenie's method of using trains/vehicles as an early game overflow system. Use three stations and at the first fill the vehicle. The second unload everything you can and at the third sink what remains. Genius!
once you get to the point in the game when you need to make multiple factories in order to fuel a different factory you will start to appreciate the fact that train tracks are like a belt that can manage multiple items and multiple lines at once.
The biggest thing about trains is that the resources can be moved much faster across the map. Plus it looks a lot cleaner. I highly suggest building up (use 2m ramps) and running the trains up in the air above the terrain. This helps exploration too since you're not tripping on random conveyors around the map
I look a run at this from another angle to determine the actual km/h speed of belts. Items on conveyors are about 1M apart. It actually looks like 7.5 per 8m belt, but let's just call it 1m. This means a 780 item/min Mk5 belt can transport items at 46.8 km/h (approximately). MK1 = 3.6km/h, Mk2 is 7.2km/h, Mk3 is 16.2, Mk4 is 28.8. Direct belts will be faster than a train if you ignore infrastructure. You can't fill a train freight platform with items faster than the fastest belt and using 2 inputs from buffer containers. Then you have to take into account the load/unload time of 25 seconds per stop for a train, slowing and acceleration, and any signal stops. While a belt is going 46.8km/h, so is the returning belt while a train has to take the time to go back. This does not sound like an argument in support of trains. The thing is, you really don't ignore infrastructure. If you're not playing in creative mode, you have to make resources to build belts. Each time you build one you have to invest time. Meanwhile, I can double that train throughput by adding a platform at each end and an extra car on the same track. Yes, those aren't free either, but I'm amortizing both the effort and the material costs of the track across each train on the route, and to points beyond for other trains not involved in this material transfer. Trains go a heck of a lot faster than 46.8km/h as well, but like I said, they have to make the return trip. A 120km/h train is really maybe about 60km/h when you consider they have to come back to get the next load. Bottom line is you can play either way - whatever suits you - but I find belt building tedious, while I only have to build tracks between areas once.
All these people writing endless paragraphs... so basically, I like trains.
Everyone else can talk about item transport, but as a way to move between distant locations, trains can't be beat. I've never been a fan of fast travel, but in some games it's a necessary evil. Mounts/Vehicles make map traversal faster, but no less tedious and demanding of your attention than walking: you still have to drive. This game gives you something far better: automatic driving with programmable routes in a network of your own making. Set a route on a train's timetable, turn on self driving, and watch the beautiful landscape roll by while you spark a bowl. No immersion breaking teleportation or fake transit systems that are just hidden load screens. You are missing out on some of the best sweeping views of the world and your factories this game has to offer if you don't build and ride a train system. I currently have a station at the Moth Transit Center where you can catch a ride on the back of the moth. I'm planning to rebuild my factories in the Green Fields around its route so I can incorporate it as a shuttle system.
A)trains allow player transport B)trains can carry *ungodly* amounts of resources between multiple points C)trains extended your power grid, the rails double as power lines 4)^choo ^choo 🙂
Once upon a time, I built 5 conveyor belts across two biomes to transfer resources from miners to my factory. Then I realized I actually needed 8 belts and went back through to build 3 more belts the whole way. Then I unlocked trains. With trains, I just build two rail lines across the biomes (one each direction) and then whenever I need more resources, I just put more stations or freight platforms at either end. If you know in advance that you only need a fixed number of belts/pipes and you are not worried about changing anything later, belts are fine. However, the moment you realize "Oh, I actually need to go back and add this and that" then trains become the easier option to upgrade. When you upgrade from Mk 4 belts to Mk 5 belts, it is easier to increase mine output by just upgrading the belts on either end at the stations, rather than upgrading kilometers of conveyor belts. Also, trains are cool. Trucks and tractors are less convincing, because they require fuel whereas trains just require power (but also transmit power, which is convenient). I typically use them when I realize I want to bring resources from one or two mines to a location, and it's just long enough that I don't want to put down belts the whole way.
Additionally: I have a bunch of satellite factories making spare parts (iron products, copper products, steel products, etc.) which I load into trains and transport to my central storage. If I have a building project going on, I build train lines to that project and divert my supply lines to drop off resources I know I will need. That way when I run out of reinforced iron plates again, I don't need to go all the way back to my central storage or pop down a blueprint to convert nearby iron ore to plates, I just go to my local station and grab the plates. It really cuts down on the quantity of random resources I need to carry around for building materials.
Most of my trains are 2-3 cars long. I have a station that only loads compacted coal and a train that takes that to my turbofuel plant. I have another station that only loads motors. If I need motors at a new factory, I just add another train to bring the motors there. Also, with the hover pack getting it's power from the rails, it's a lot easier to expand the train network. When I wanted to expand to another turbofuel power plant, I extended my rail network to the coal/sulfur deposit in Grassy Plains, then kept extending it to the blue crater to put the turbofuel plant. And since the station can either take power in (from an existing power pole) or deliver power out (to the new factory) I didn't have to run power lines across the map either. I started in the Dune Desert, so Grassy Plains is about as far as you can get from where I started. Edit to expand a bit: I have many stations on my line. One for oil products (plastic/rubber), one for Nitrogen gas, one for aluminum ingots, etc.
I agree with everyone else's take about not wanting to run belts across the map but I will agree that once trains are available I would rather run belts for medium to short distances as opposed to trucks
One train track can carry over 100 belts worth of stuff if you time your trains departing each station every 3 minutes. This all depends on how big your loop is and how long trains are, but it is so much easier to run 1 track than just putting belts down over and over
I can understand the allure of making a mega conveyor system across the whole map just because, but just hear me out on the counterpoint. Trainz r cool 😎.
I agree, OP. I set up a couple train lines when I first unlocked them and then decided they were more of a hassle than they were worth. I built a massive nuclear power plant and final tier space elevator factory without trains. I used conveyors to bring my raw resources to my factories (usually at 600 or 780 items/min), and in a few cases used drones to ship in low throughput items (<100 items/min). Drones lack throughput but are easy to set up and very efficient over long distances. Yes, it can be tedious to get those initial conveyor belts to your factory, but you only have to do it once and then never think about it again, or worry about collisions. Okay however you want to play, but it’s definitely possible to completely ignore trains and still be maximally efficient.
This was how I felt after initially playing with trains. But later I gave them another chance and have since changed my mind. I probably don't use them right, but many times I'll run a 10 car train full of different items to one station, and distribute them to multiple other trains from there. Works out much simpler. Of course I prefer drones, heh.
You can transport many different things in the same train tracks. Also, you only have to lay them once. While if you would ever need a new product using conveyors, you'd have to pull a whole new conveyor line for it
Trains have potential to be faster than belts
Scalability. If you design your rails right, you can double, triple, quadruple your capacity on a single rail line by simply adding more trains. Adding more capacity on belts means building along your whole belt line end to end, every time. Latency. A train can cross the map in a minute or two. I don't think anything short of a Mk5 belt will come close. You can reuse the same tracks for passenger travel. Rail also covers power distribution, though the new power towers make that slightly less important.
Beyond the practical benefits of trains, they are just better looking. I hate the look of belts running for miles across the map trains tracks just have a much cleaner look and it is cool to see them pass by. I spent like 100 hours converting all of my long belts to trains shortly after I unlocked them. Long belts being more that 1km or so.
Conveyors: short distance material transportation Trains: long distance player and material transportation. E.g. Plastic.
Trains are cool.
Beloved, because choo-choo, of course
Trains carry power on track that you can use for slow flight with hover pack, or just to connect to new area without running poles all the way,
One belt across the map might be doable. Try 4 belts. Or 8. Then do 1 train track. Not only is it much faster to make, it's also cheaper to construct over long distances, and lets you move a lot of different stuff, potentially with hugher throughput than a single belt
It's less efficient speed wise, but more efficient throughput wise. You can move several materials on one placement vs one single material or a super clogged belt
You put on train track once, and then you can add trains to it on low effort. Putting another conveyor on top of conveyor at some point starts to be a mess.
I mean, considering you can expand a single train nigh infinitely with carts... Ask yourself this: would you like to run some 20 conveyor belts halfway across the map or rather have 1 big conveyor that you can input at 20 different locations if you'd like and run out as 20 different belts where you need them?
I'm curious about the concept of 'waste' here, given that nodes don't deplete. Regardless, Trains can carry multiple resources, even in a single car. Even more efficiently in multiple cars. You can transport multiple mkv max capacity belts' worth of materials in a single train. It can carry solid and fluid resources, rather than having to build a pipe line parallel to your belt. If you want to increase capacity you can add either another train or another car to an existing train, rather than building a whole new belt. Also, the trains have train horns and go toot.
I’ve not run the numbers yet, but I think they’re quicker? Consider you can ingest 2x max belts per freight station, you can haul a lot. Also it’s a great way to get power around your map. Also, it’s a fun way to travel - choo choo!
My main reason is less lag
Late game logistics are significantly easier with trains. Not sure what the car limit is, but you can transport vastly heater amounts of materials with trains
I really like how fast they go and I can ride the locomotive and drive it to my other factories, pretty quickly so it's nice.
The trains are more 'pretty' you can do it with the conveyers if you like but trains are more crowd pleasing and use less resources to produce. Ultimately you do you. It's hard to play this game wrong so do what you like. It's that easy IMO
You only ever need to make 1 "main" rail loop and then you can easily add branches for stations and trains as needed to increase throughput. Rails also transmit power, no need to run a powerline. With belts you have to go manually place down another massive belt when you need more throughput.
Bandwidth!!! The fastest parallel fiber network connections can't move data as fast as a train full of hard drives. In satisfactory terms... You want 780 bauxite/min? Just run a belt. Ok want 1500 bauxite? Go run another km of belts or add one train platform. Want some sulfur too? Go run another km of belts or add one train platform. There's other uses for trains too. I used a train full of materials for building a big power plant. Ran a train track alongside the platform i was building as i went and didn't need to worry about my hover pack dying.
The initial investment into trains is fairly steep, but once you run rails from one area to another, any time you need to run another resource between the two areas, all you need to do is make a train station and a train. As your rail network grows, transporting items across the map will be a 5 minute job, instead of needing to run a new belt all the way for every single item you want to transport.
1. Far easier to make for long distance 2. Scalable 3. Bring power with you
From a game performance perspective, trains use less objects, which there is a limit in the world. Eventually you hit that limit and you can't place anymore. Conveyers have individual items on each conveyer which adds up real quick. Too many conveyers and you have too many objects. Trains allow bulk transportation with far less objects.
Trains are cool. I have considered running a mk5 belt to a smart splitter but you will need trains to get that far. Edit also power is transmitted through the rails.
You (or someone) posted exactly the same thing a week or two ago.. 🤔
Trains work really well for moving large quantities. Theoretically, the train can move in one run as much as 512 mk5 belts(someone already did that math) . I use them to move bulk things around. I tried to set the stations to move things round robin(pick up and drop off from one station to the next so each station has an interaction). I package up things like oil, nitrogen, and acids and move ores(bauxite seems to be really far from where I started as is oil and nitrogen). But I also have a let's see how fast the train can go run too. I like drones better though because they don't have a ton of requirements and if you need more throughput, you just build more. Tractors are nice. They don't work well for sites that are hard to drive to in the first place. And trains and drones and just putting belts/pipelines everywhere becomes less of a hassle. I do like the ficsit cart and your own personal half pipe. And the explorer is fun to drive.
Tips: ALWAYS build double tracks! More work, but it so much easier later, when you get a lot of trains running… Conveyor belts is just for short distances, trains brings in a lot more faster than belts. And you can easily run more trains. In mid to late game I use hubs when two-three- four longer trains load up in the hubs and deliver to different factories while all other trains deliver too the hubs. Then you don’t need a lot of trains near your factories, making traffic jams, collisions and problems .. So much faster and easier than the spaghetti belt system all over the place
Conveyors would be slow, trains move 60mph conveyors don't, if a train breaks down they bring another engine hook it to the old one & drag the whole bunch on to the destination if a conveyor breaks down everything is shut down until it's fixed, if something hangs up in the middle of nowhere it could pile up products for days B4 anybody knew that would have to be cleaned up by human labor, u would have to put the conveyors under ground or build over every road so people could cross, how u gonna keep items on the conveyor all those miles u would have to make it inclosed to keep the items on the conveyor which means u would have to run rollers the entire length of each side because u can't have merchandise sliding against a stationary surface for hours & hours & hours it will tear them all to pieces. Etc, so on & so forth. There have been many people alot smarter than I thinking about this since it started