Factorio Smart Trains (No mods)

'Logistic Train Network' (LTN) is a very popular mod for Factorio that lets your trains behave more intelligently. I've never used it because I had always thought that you could accomplish anything you wanted with the circuit mechanics included in the base game. All over reddit and discord I had seen people mentioning a desire to make 'Vanilla LTN', followed by other users telling them it was not possible. So I decided to give it a try!

I have no idea if this has been done before, because I didn't/don't like to look to other people's creations for inspiration or help. I'm kind of a masochist that likes to suffer through problems until I solve them myself. That being said, this is the product of around 150 hours of effort. I hope you enjoy it!

The song is Dvořák's Symphony no. 9 in e-minor.
Obviously I do not own the rights to the song, nor do I profit from its use in this video.

[christophertesta]

Pretty cool to see logistic train networks can be done 100% vanilla.

[hellboy]

This makes me want to work with trains beyond just "import ore"

[Taygetea]

its incredibly bizarre watching someone play without alt-mode on all the time

[RuliHellion]

This is amazing! I really really love the idea of all trains getting more consistant use! I have been attempting to duplicate this for a good week now and still no luck.

[leandroclaytonpivovarsky]

Man, i almost cried when you set up the system and it actually works how it's suposed to in 13:53. All the logic behind this and the errors that could interfere the funcionality was bypassed.

Good job man!

[SimonWoodburyForget]

I'm very impressed by the whole thing. That being said... I don't see how having a train sit idle is inefficient.

[doctordoggo]

its fuckng beautiful. im 50 hrs to the game and still strugling with my green red and blue circuit.

[shawnp]

As a relatively new player, this makes my head hurt! lol Thanks for sharing Benjamin.

[pasrules]

Yesterday I was thinking of using trains without LTN after playing a fair bit of Soviet Republic: Workers and Resources. Then today I was thinking of your Gauss rifle, only to see this video in my sub feed. Funny coincidence. You should try Pyanodons if you think your logistics solution is worth its salt.

How resilient do you think your vanilla LTN is to errors or unloading times creating junk?

Another good circuit challenge is to beat the game with one assembler but it does require some mods to recursively process recipes. I can prove it can be done, but it takes too long to video.

[minighost]

i've been coming back to this video for inspiration for several weeks, but i'm just now realizing that you have a "vladimir putin power plant" and "dyatlov's pass" lmfao

[miravlix]

You seem to have implemented the feature that made me quit the game when I failed to do it. We didn't have the station count train system, but I managed to use the train logic on how it choose train stations, to implement a dynamic outpost system, then the dev changed how train choose stations and broke my smart station system.

Glad to see some kind of smart station is now possible again. Though you didn't show if you had dynamic outpost stations, so I go out drop a mining outpost and my core base know to start using it automatically, when it runs out the station disable it self and the trains start picking other outpost mining stations. So all I have to do is run around making outpost without changing anything.

Having played Early Access, I'm unfortunately to worn out building the starter base over and over, to even get to the train stage. 2000+ hours does not make starting over fun anymore.

[Fillentr]

Currently figuring how to build this on switch. This game is awesome

[jakubkarmowski]

Would you be willing to provide save file? I want to learn the logic behind it!!!

[DSVDSVDSV]

Did you use picker dollies when designing the circuit setups? I found it was a great qol improvement when developing complex circuit stuff (lets you move and rotate combinators and the wires stay attached).

I developed a similar setup with a central providing hub, but with a system where requests would consist of mixed resource orders that would only have a train assigned and filled if the resources were available (this was for SE where limiting the number of stations is advantageous and you have all resources arriving from outside via pads or space elevator).

[winter-lbid]

1:47 - real stamp of mind
6:33 - ctrl C + ctrl V

[Jankoekepannekoek]

One possible improvement: can you make trains go from a provider station to a requester station directly without needing to go to the depot first? It'll increase throughput and save on fuel.

[zippydinocrash]

Bro you gotta upload more vids, I love them

[davidwing]

Welp, time to overclock my train depot

[JB-knig]

I've been messing around with a train network lately, and I keep encountering a situation where my train will apparently "leave" the current stop, but not actually leave ~ (it remains there, but no longer is broadcasting to the network its cargo ) - I think maybe I need to ensure my train limit doesn't just flicker on momentarily when it accepts a train, but man it gets a bit confusing setting up :) Looks like you've figured it mostly out though, good job.

[sagark]

Dude any update on coil gun as you said in that video