Part 02: Satisfactory Guides - How Do Trains Work? Stations, Tracks, Signals, Roundabout Intro

#satisfactorygame

Part 02: Satisfactory Guides - How Do Trains Work? Stations, Tracks, Signals, Roundabout Intro

[John-jsuj]

This is a very satisfactory explanation of train signals

[BrohunGaming]

man... this helps A LOT! thanks. going to watch the roundabouts now

[aresivrc]

Nice. Something important that you should include into your future guide on signals is the following:

Trains look ahead all the way to the end of their current braking distance. If they detect a red signal there, the begin to brake to make a smooth stop in front of the red signal. While this is quite an elegant system, it has several implications not immediately visible:

- Locomotives have - significantly - better brakes than freight cars so the longer and the heavier a train gets, the worse its braking and the longer its braking distance. The mass of the train also depends on the freight cars load. All items have the same weight but due to different stack sizes, the mass of a fully loaded freight car depends on the stack size. Fully loaded freight cars with 50 item stacks are the lightest while fully loaded freight cars with 500 item stacks are the heaviest. Those share the weight with fully loaded fluid cars. A single locomotive can pull up to 5 maximum weight freight cars uphill on fully foundation based tracks (spirals are may be steeper and thus require an additional locomotive.

- Trains are affected by slope, getting faster (up to 200 kmh) downhill and slower uphill. Going downhill as a result unsurprisingly greaty increases braking distance....with long downhill tracks resulting in heavy trains having a braking distance in excess of 1 km.

For reasons of gameplay fun, the game makes it impossible for - automated - trains to run over a red signal. This means that any weight train going downhill any slope at any speed will forcefully stop before the red signal even if the brakes technically cannot handle that.

So why am I telling you all of this when the topic at hand is signals?

Very simple.... trains look ahead for red signals and will begin to brake to come to a stop before the first red signal they detect ahead.

Block signal standard setting is green, they are always green unless the block they protect is in use. So a train will speed past them and only stop in front of the first red block signal ahead.

Meanwhile, Path Signal standard setting is red. And only when a train is on direct path towards it, will the train request the path to make the signal green. The train sends the path signal request when passing

the last block signal in front of the path signal

The path signal can only turn green when the train has passed the block signal directly before it.

This can lead to slowdowns as the train will detect the red path signal at the end of its current braking distance which can be much further ahead than the block signal preceding the path signal. Because the train has not yet passed the last block signal ahead of the path signal, the train cannot request the path signal to turn green so the path signal stays red and the train brakes in preperation to come to a stop in front of that red path signal. Only when the train passes the last block signal ahead of the path signal, it can request a green path signal (if a path is free of course) and only then it stops to brake/accelerate again.

Trains in general but especially heavy trains take a while to get up to speed so unecessary braking can significantly impact throughput. So to avoid a train unnecessarily braking before one of your roundabouts for example, the distance between the final block signal and the entry path signal has to be at least as large as your heaviest trains braking distance at full speed which can be a considerable distance.


In simple english... to avoid slowdowns, make sure that there is a significant distance between the block signal that comes before a path signal. That way trains will maintain full speed as the red signal is outside the braking distance until the block signal is passed at which time the path signal will turn green, allowing full speed drive on.