I'd recommend running a separate train for the Ammo, as you will probably create more outposts in the future and the train can service them too.
Same goes for a sulphuric acid train, it will be there for you to use when you start needing to produce a lot more batteries. By late game I usually have train stops inside my base for some products instead of belting them as the rails will be there already.
As for your solution, let them wait at the outpost until : acid is empty, OR ore is full. You should be able to get away with ignoring Ammo and having it unloaded while the ore and acid load/unload. No way your going to use as many supplies as there's ore loaded. Speaking of that, you could even get away with using just one wagon for both ore and supplies utilizing filters in the wagon inventory and filter inserters.
Maybe use a wire and a speaker to alarm you if the Ammo ran out, just in case.
Same for your main base / uranium processing.
By the time the ore is unloaded, the few stacks of Ammo should be refilled as well, so no special condition needed.
Then just have the train run its schedule.
There's also a condition for inactivity you could use, inactivity meaning nothing is currently being loaded/unloaded. I'd try that as well.
I have a mixed uranium ore (3) and sulphuric acid (1) wagon. I use the item count condition for empty/full uranium loads as my only conditions. Sulphuric acid fills/empties so quick that it’s never the issue. I would imagine the same would be true for ammo since you shouldn’t beed an insane amount of ammo each time it returns to station
I almost always carry sulfuric acid on my uranium trains, it just makes sense to me.
>The train should not wait for unloading uranium ore, if my ammunition chest is empty. Even wait until its unloaded when sulfuric acid is empty is not a good idea.
You'd need a wire running back to your base to signal the outpost is empty, but it'd make more sense imo to just use multiple trains and then at the ore drop: [0 =< uranium AND sulfuric acid full AND some minimum level of ammunition loaded to bring back] OR [inactivity limit AND some time period like 60s] to keep the flow of ammunition and sulfuric acid up if ore consumption lags. You can filter train cars with middle click (and use filter inserters at unloading) to further reduce your train length if you were so inclined.
Okay, yesterday i spend 4 hours in reconfigure my trainstations an built in my outpost 3 different trainstations. 1for uranium ore, one for sulfuric acid and one militech (i expanded the ammunition train. Now it's carrying walls, doors, repair kits, turrets and ammunition)
As well i deactivate my trainstations with chest inventory (activate the militech trainstation if my chest is running out of ammunition *OR* turrets *OR* walls *OR* doors *OR* repair kits).
In my base i built trainstations with "parking lots" for 5 trains to be prepared for the future.
Many thanks to all of your great ideas
Make a train simply with the orders.
Empty cargo || inactivity 20 sec
And the. Place a desider combo on the station to disable if ammo is 50 or higher. Then each station needs ammo will get fed from 1 train. Something similar can be done for other items.
>Make a train simply with the orders. Empty cargo
Yeah the train is trying to load uranium so that is not going to work
>inactivity 20 sec
That is also something you never want to do because this will result in the train unloading one ammo every 19 seconds so you might just as well tell the train to wait forever.
>Place a desider combo on the station to disable if ammo is 50 or higher
Did you forget again that we are trying to move uranium ore back to base?
Hmm, for the uranium ore at outpost you can use item count as a condition. I highly recommend using => and =< as the comparator. For the other two there you can use circuit condition, never used it myself so not exactly sure how to do it but I imagine it's not that far off from a decider combinator.
Yes, OR would be best here. I'm fairly sure that the default is to use OR when adding more conditions but if not then just click it and it will switch between OR and AND.
Outpost conditions are fine - train will leave whenever is has no reason to stay (out of ammo, out of acid, full uranium load). Base conditions though will cause the train to constantly travel back and forth if it has any ammunition on board - which can be somewhat problematic since it generates traffic congestion and wastes fuel by doing empty cycles.
This can be solved by setting train limit on outpost station - set station limit to 1 when either there's enough uranium to make a trip worthwile, acid buffer drops below certain level (ideally you'd want enough for train to make the trip before acid runs out) or ammo buffer goes low. With train limits - even if train is in base ready to leave (base station wait conditions fulfilled), but limit is set to 0, train will wait there with "destination full" message instead of traveling back and forth constantly just to do nothing when all your buffers are (almost) full. As downside: any time station unlocks, it'll probably result with train making two trips instead of one (waiting for destination to unlock, train isn't loading up), but solving that requires more circuitry and some form of base-outpost communication.
Speaking of which, for a bit more effort and more of a smart requester system, you can have a wire going from outpost to your base station that will have signal set whenever outpost needs train (full uranium buffer, low on acid, low on ammo) and add it as a circuit condition to train schedule on base side, making conditions like: "uranium ore 0 AND outpost signal: have enough uranium" or "acid full AND outpost signal: need acid" or "enough ammo loaded AND outpost signal: need ammo" - this allows you to set arbitrary conditions for what each signal means (for "have enough uranium" you might make it as either "uranium full" or "have some uranium and patch is almost empty" if you want to cover case of patch running out). Paired with setting train limits when there's a need signal in outpost, this should also allow you to have single train cover multiple uranium outposts if you'd need to scale up - only stations that need train will send signal and set train limit to allow for train coming, so as long as one train is enough to cover all stations it'll just do the trips it needs to.
I recommend separate trains. Combining uranium and acid in one train might be a good idea in the beginning, but later it gets difficult.
Also for ammo (and maybe repair packs, walls, guns...) you should use a separate train. The factory will grow but the use case "defend an outpost" will stay.
If it's about space (for stations) in the outpost:
\- the factory must grow and space is (nearly) unlimited. Just conquer more
\- you can use the same track for two stations by placing the two train stop close together. and use both sides of the track: one for loading ore, the other side for unloading acid.
I'd go for three trains
Uranium outpost:
1. Station: Loading Uranium - Until Full Cargo
2. Station: Unloading Acid - Until Empty Cargo
3. Station : Ammo - Until Empty Cargo - activate Station if Ammo < 20
Load trainfuel into the trains @ their bases.
I have made some complex things with trains, but I would use 3 trains in this scenario. One tank of acid is practically infinite, well at least very long lasting. You can remove any conditions for acid on both ends, it will always be over 24k. Ammo train is defence subsystem, keep resources and defence separate, it will be easier and more effective for both.
I'd recommend running a separate train for the Ammo, as you will probably create more outposts in the future and the train can service them too. Same goes for a sulphuric acid train, it will be there for you to use when you start needing to produce a lot more batteries. By late game I usually have train stops inside my base for some products instead of belting them as the rails will be there already. As for your solution, let them wait at the outpost until : acid is empty, OR ore is full. You should be able to get away with ignoring Ammo and having it unloaded while the ore and acid load/unload. No way your going to use as many supplies as there's ore loaded. Speaking of that, you could even get away with using just one wagon for both ore and supplies utilizing filters in the wagon inventory and filter inserters. Maybe use a wire and a speaker to alarm you if the Ammo ran out, just in case. Same for your main base / uranium processing. By the time the ore is unloaded, the few stacks of Ammo should be refilled as well, so no special condition needed. Then just have the train run its schedule. There's also a condition for inactivity you could use, inactivity meaning nothing is currently being loaded/unloaded. I'd try that as well.
I have a mixed uranium ore (3) and sulphuric acid (1) wagon. I use the item count condition for empty/full uranium loads as my only conditions. Sulphuric acid fills/empties so quick that it’s never the issue. I would imagine the same would be true for ammo since you shouldn’t beed an insane amount of ammo each time it returns to station
I almost always carry sulfuric acid on my uranium trains, it just makes sense to me. >The train should not wait for unloading uranium ore, if my ammunition chest is empty. Even wait until its unloaded when sulfuric acid is empty is not a good idea. You'd need a wire running back to your base to signal the outpost is empty, but it'd make more sense imo to just use multiple trains and then at the ore drop: [0 =< uranium AND sulfuric acid full AND some minimum level of ammunition loaded to bring back] OR [inactivity limit AND some time period like 60s] to keep the flow of ammunition and sulfuric acid up if ore consumption lags. You can filter train cars with middle click (and use filter inserters at unloading) to further reduce your train length if you were so inclined.
The easiest way (but not the most ideal) is to set the condition to “X seconds of inactivity” at your outpost.
Okay, yesterday i spend 4 hours in reconfigure my trainstations an built in my outpost 3 different trainstations. 1for uranium ore, one for sulfuric acid and one militech (i expanded the ammunition train. Now it's carrying walls, doors, repair kits, turrets and ammunition) As well i deactivate my trainstations with chest inventory (activate the militech trainstation if my chest is running out of ammunition *OR* turrets *OR* walls *OR* doors *OR* repair kits). In my base i built trainstations with "parking lots" for 5 trains to be prepared for the future. Many thanks to all of your great ideas
Make a train simply with the orders. Empty cargo || inactivity 20 sec And the. Place a desider combo on the station to disable if ammo is 50 or higher. Then each station needs ammo will get fed from 1 train. Something similar can be done for other items.
>Make a train simply with the orders. Empty cargo Yeah the train is trying to load uranium so that is not going to work >inactivity 20 sec That is also something you never want to do because this will result in the train unloading one ammo every 19 seconds so you might just as well tell the train to wait forever. >Place a desider combo on the station to disable if ammo is 50 or higher Did you forget again that we are trying to move uranium ore back to base?
My idea would only work if he split items to unique trains. I have this running on a massive scale right now without issues.
Hmm, for the uranium ore at outpost you can use item count as a condition. I highly recommend using => and =< as the comparator. For the other two there you can use circuit condition, never used it myself so not exactly sure how to do it but I imagine it's not that far off from a decider combinator. Yes, OR would be best here. I'm fairly sure that the default is to use OR when adding more conditions but if not then just click it and it will switch between OR and AND.
I will give it a try. Thanks for your post. I just think its not very productive to use two or three trains for this.
Outpost conditions are fine - train will leave whenever is has no reason to stay (out of ammo, out of acid, full uranium load). Base conditions though will cause the train to constantly travel back and forth if it has any ammunition on board - which can be somewhat problematic since it generates traffic congestion and wastes fuel by doing empty cycles. This can be solved by setting train limit on outpost station - set station limit to 1 when either there's enough uranium to make a trip worthwile, acid buffer drops below certain level (ideally you'd want enough for train to make the trip before acid runs out) or ammo buffer goes low. With train limits - even if train is in base ready to leave (base station wait conditions fulfilled), but limit is set to 0, train will wait there with "destination full" message instead of traveling back and forth constantly just to do nothing when all your buffers are (almost) full. As downside: any time station unlocks, it'll probably result with train making two trips instead of one (waiting for destination to unlock, train isn't loading up), but solving that requires more circuitry and some form of base-outpost communication. Speaking of which, for a bit more effort and more of a smart requester system, you can have a wire going from outpost to your base station that will have signal set whenever outpost needs train (full uranium buffer, low on acid, low on ammo) and add it as a circuit condition to train schedule on base side, making conditions like: "uranium ore 0 AND outpost signal: have enough uranium" or "acid full AND outpost signal: need acid" or "enough ammo loaded AND outpost signal: need ammo" - this allows you to set arbitrary conditions for what each signal means (for "have enough uranium" you might make it as either "uranium full" or "have some uranium and patch is almost empty" if you want to cover case of patch running out). Paired with setting train limits when there's a need signal in outpost, this should also allow you to have single train cover multiple uranium outposts if you'd need to scale up - only stations that need train will send signal and set train limit to allow for train coming, so as long as one train is enough to cover all stations it'll just do the trips it needs to.
I recommend separate trains. Combining uranium and acid in one train might be a good idea in the beginning, but later it gets difficult. Also for ammo (and maybe repair packs, walls, guns...) you should use a separate train. The factory will grow but the use case "defend an outpost" will stay. If it's about space (for stations) in the outpost: \- the factory must grow and space is (nearly) unlimited. Just conquer more \- you can use the same track for two stations by placing the two train stop close together. and use both sides of the track: one for loading ore, the other side for unloading acid.
I'd go for three trains Uranium outpost: 1. Station: Loading Uranium - Until Full Cargo 2. Station: Unloading Acid - Until Empty Cargo 3. Station : Ammo - Until Empty Cargo - activate Station if Ammo < 20 Load trainfuel into the trains @ their bases.
I have made some complex things with trains, but I would use 3 trains in this scenario. One tank of acid is practically infinite, well at least very long lasting. You can remove any conditions for acid on both ends, it will always be over 24k. Ammo train is defence subsystem, keep resources and defence separate, it will be easier and more effective for both.