Introduction
This mod will make train acceleration more realistic, by both reducing the acceleration to real world levels, and making it dependent on the cargo of your wagons.
The effects are quite drastic, so you should expect 'some' reorganisation of your trains, stations and intersections. When a train is forced to brake, it will take quite a while to get going again. This is realistic, but it obviously reduces the throughput of your existing rail network.
Acceleration based on engine power & weight to pull
The weight of each cargo wagon is based on each filled stack weighing 250 kg (40 full stacks = 10000 kg)
The weight of each fluid wagon is based on every liter of fluid weighing 0.4 kg (25000 liter = 10000 kg)
Each carriage (locomotive, cargo wagon, fluid wagon) also has its own weight, respectively 20000 kg, 10000 kg, 10000 kg. Given the increased weight, the fuel consumption is quite high. We take fuel type into account, consider solid fuel to be your go-to fuel, once you can afford it. Just like IRL, coal fueled locomotives are quite power limited and wood fueled locomotives have a place in early game only.
- Wood: 33%
- Coal: 66%
- Solid fuel: 100%
- Rocket fuel: 200%
- Nuclear fuel: 300%
This mod will calculate the appropriate values for modded items as well, using a logarithmic scale based on energy density.
There is a mod setting to disable fuel type based acceleration, it will effectively set all multipliers to 100%.
Demonstration video
The screenshot and video (below) show a scenario where 7 trains start simultaniously. You can clearly see having full wagons affect the acceleration, just like having multiple locomotives.
- See the train acceleration in action: https://youtu.be/E-FO_AN9IoY (locomotive count vs cargo)
Beware: this changes everything (you might want high capacity carriages)
The mod is not for the faint of heart and meant for 'rail world' maps, where trains have sufficient space to reach full speed.
Because the throughput is affected significantly, I created a separate mod that increases the carriage capacity by factor 4, but beware that hauling more goods will require more power.
Rivens Big Train Carriage mod. See: https://mods.factorio.com/mod/TrainBigCarriage
Todo
- The direction of the individual locomotives is not yet taken into account.
Support for the Cargo Ships mod
As you probably realized, cargo ships are simply trains on water, and therefore this mod affects cargo ship acceleration too. I hope the effects are properly finetuned, please tell me if you run into oddities or issues. Keep in mind that with the large mass of the ships and the huge cargo bay, picking the appropriate fuel type is important.
Support for the Better Electric Trains mod
Electric trains have higher torque, and hence get moving quickly, but have reduced power to reach their top speed.
Support for Bobs mod (MK2, MK3, armored trains)
Bobs trains are quite a bit heavier than regular trains, and were made significantly more powerful to compensate for this.
Support for the FreightForwarding & MiniTrains & IntermodalContainers mods
These mods feature small trains (less weight, less powerful), and containers with lots of items (like 1 container with 2000 iron ore). These containers fill only 1 stack in the train. We now calculate the weight of such a container, based on its contents.
Changelog
- Version 0.1.22: Estimate the locomotive power using the max energy usage per tick, instead of hardcoding power per (modded) train.
- Version 0.1.19: Make the mini-locomotives of FreightForwarding less powerful than a regular locomotive.
- Version 0.1.18: Added support for FreightForwarding and IntermodalContainers mods, calculating the appropriate weight of containers.
- Version 0.1.16: Added support for Bob's Logistics mod (MK2/MK3 trains), fixed issue where ships were too heavy.
- Version 0.1.14: Fixed issue were too many locomotive-types were considered to be elec-based instead of fuel-based.
- Version 0.1.13: Fixed typo that made 0.1.12 do nothing interesting at all. =)
- Version 0.1.12: Added support for the BetterElectricTrains mod, aiming electric trains for short hauls.
- Version 0.1.11: Fixed acceleration issue with user controlled vehicles, like cars, tanks and small boats.
- Version 0.1.10: Added support for the CargoShip mod, making ship acceleration more realistic too.
- Version 0.1.9: Made acceleration based on fuel type
- Version 0.1.8: Made braking behavior more natural by adjusting the train weight (10 times as heavy) and acceleration (10 times as strong). This makes the train consume more fuel too, but that could also be considered more realistic.
- Version 0.1.7: Reduced braking speed to realistic values. Trains will keep more distance to accomodate.
- Version 0.1.6: Added safeguard to prevent flipping the train direction while train is on route
- Version 0.1.5: Introduced mod parameters, to adjust weight and forces
Feedback
If you have ideas on how to improve this mod, please let me know. All feedback is welcome for that matter!
My other train mods can be found here, they play well together: https://mods.factorio.com/user/riven8192