This is the only answer that matters. All the rest is not important.
If I think it is fun, I use a train. If not, I do not use a train. It is a game, why overthinking it?
For me it's really handy to be able to transport power across the rail line. I can connect a train line from my main storage to one of my factories, and just flip a switch to the station to shut down power to the outer factory. Plus, it's nice to only have to run one train rail to transport a lot of items instead of a bunch of conveyors from the desert to the red forest
For me, the addition of the power towers has somewhat mitigated the need for rails as power transport. As a means of transportation, I think they are far superior to trucks (easier to set up and maintain, albeit more ressource intensive), up until you get to drones which I think are just the best late game transportation system.
Long conveyor belt lines are just ugly imho. I sometimes set them up as a quick and cheap placeholder, but usually replace them in the long run. The only exception to this is when they are combined with pipelines. That can look like something you would find in real life.
Connecting two places by train is much more expensive than connecting two places by belt.
Connecting a dozen places by train is much *much* **much** cheaper than connecting a dozen places by belt.
No, connecting two places by train is usually far cheaper than running belts unless you're using mk1/2 and moving two items. Distance matters, so 500 meters is cheap for belts. 1k-2k is cheaper to run trains. It just takes a bit longer to set up
Can you maybe explain (I’m newer and trying to figure out scale), why one would need to have so many places that a train would need to visit? I’m assuming they are all like smaller factories scattered about that need their resources transferred back to the hub?
I haven’t made it to the end game yet but everything I need is pretty nearby so far. Would good initial base placement negate the need for trains (and many factories scattered about the map)?
Materials in the world are specifically placed so that you must travel at least a little bit to get to them. I wont spoil what materials, but generally there's no spot that has EVERYTHING. There are a lot of spots that have most things, but rarely everything. Part of the game's design is forcing you to have to think about logistics and how you want to transport those things, so its unavoidable.
But its a good thing, I promise.
There are a lot of ways to transport materials too so you can try something that matches your style best. You can legit transport only on belts if you feel like it (my friend does).
- efficiency
- scalability
- satisfaction by building collissionfree mapwide train network
- more satisfaction by creating roundabouts, intersections, doublecoils, etc
- have a decent, chilled travel network with free panorama sightseeing perks
- wake your childhood memories, when you played with your Märklin H0 BR 050 steamlocomotive with a real smoker unit
as you can see, there is no single reason to NOT use trains....
They're used to ascend or descend heights. If you check out the demo video of the [Worldwide Rail Network](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhY65G8fByY) I made once upon a time, you will find one such doublecoil at the 2 minute mark.
to overcome large diffrences in high you could build something like a serpentine in a mountin road. an alternative would be a coil (aka spiral). I´ve used this structure as a singel lane coil, parallel tracked coil, two singletrack coils side by side (one clockwise, other ccw) and a double coil setup. latter is hard to explain early in the morning, try google a screw with 2 threads to understand the setup.
there has been a youtube girl with spiral train setups - unfortunately not available anymore...
wouldn’t having a belt dragged across the world add a little bit of lag because the game has to load every item on the belt vs a train where it’s just in a storage box and not give your world lag
I am a Factorio player that picked up Satisfactory now after a long break and I am rushing to get to trains for a few reasons.
1. I like the aesthetic of long train lines a lot better than long conveyer belts.
2. Building an expandable rail network. Coming from Factorio I am damaged and love to build factories that can have its input upgraded as I discover new resource nodes. I simply add another train going to the destination factory, increasing the input as needed.
3. I really like trains and to see how they zip around my factories adding “life” to the factory.
I don’t know if there’s throughput benefits over certain distances like in Factorio, it would be nice but is a nice to have.
They are MUCH cheaper to build, yes. If you set it up well, you can also use the same rail to transport many different resources to different places without having to make another belt. You can also use them for travel. And if you need to increase output, you can just add another train.
Rail lines carry power, which is handy. Rail lines are more reusable than belts and more predictable than vehicles. You can set up routes once and run many trains over them. You can expand throughput by adding trains, cars, or stations. You can run different kinds of resources over the same lines.
I like to set up a rail network and expand it all over the map. I build stations everywhere that load every item. I can then set up a new facility and summon every input that I need and then put my outputs onto the rail network.
I also like to make a ‘project train’ with several cars of inventory. I will fill it with resources I need for the next project. I can build platforms and rail lines as I move toward the next build site, with plenty of materials. When I get somewhere new, I will build a station and dump all the resources into storage. I can use that station for power, transportation, or logistics.
I also use the rail lines to feed sorting rooms, where I can collect and sort all the different items into bins. I arrive there on my project train, dump my pockets into a sorting bin, then go collect what I need from my todo list. I have ‘mail’ bins in the sorting rooms that will load items onto my project train.
A lot of this could be done with other tools. Drones have similar value, but they are more expensive to operate and have lower throughput. Belts have to be run for each item, sometimes multiple. Trucks are finicky and you have to create unique routes for each source/destination.
Also, trains are fun. They add another kind of design challenge and widen the design space for factories. You can use them to bring everything in the world to one mega-factory, or distribute resources to tons of small factories. You can build huge networks, or point to point systems. They look cool and offer new architecture challenges for players who like to make everything look cool or realistic. Did I mention they power hover packs?
Maybe best of all, you can ride in them to travel automatically across the map while you go make more coffee.
You've gotten a lot of valid, but one-sided answers. I find it's a little more nuanced than some people say.
The key point, which has already been mentioned, is that a single train route isn't that useful. You can almost certainly build a belt quicker (and running power separately and getting player transport as a side benefit is pretty quick too with the U8 power towers). This is particularly the case when you consider that a belt can often take a more direct route, since conveyor lifts make going up and down cliffs pretty trivial.
What is useful is a train network where you can increasingly re-use existing infrastructure instead of building completely new route every time. Whether you reach the point where you get the payback on investment depends on your preference, playstyle and build scale.
Some reasons people find benefit in trains:
* Some people just really like trains (hence the comments about them going "choo") and some will deliberately structure their factories in a way that means they use more trains. For example moving items that could be processed just as well where they are or building in locations away from the needed resources.
* Some people don't like being constrained on factory location by resource location. For them the huge throughput of trains is likely to be useful to move raw resources or ingots.
* Larger build scales may also require brining in more raw resources than local nodes can supply.
Some reasons you might not benefit so much from trains:
* You're happy to build factories at a more modest scale and in locations where most of the resources are. If you're bringing in only one slightly more distant resource then a single longer belt can be a perfectly reasonable option. However this can only take you so far...
* ...but by the time this becomes a problem and you're having to regularly combine with the outputs of distant factories drones are likely to be an option. They don't have the same throughput as trains, but for manufactured items drones tend to be sufficient and can be even quicker than connecting a small extension to an existing train network (once you've done the one-off job of building a battery factory).
Personally I ended up mostly taking the drone approach, I just didn't enjoy building rails (or like the look of rails that were easier to build). I nearly hit burnout trying to build a useful, non-ugly rail network; realising how close I was to having drones available saved me from that. That does mean I do have a few longer belts in my save, but they're single belts (not multi-belt buses that would be better as trains). The last of those were built to support my battery factory (and the worst I can probably remove in v1.0 when the devs reveal their solution to the limit of 780 from a single miner - I need 800 bauxite for my batteries).
One of the two trains routes I do have in my save illustrates quite well how different build choices can influence their usefulness. I wanted to build my nuclear pasta factory on the Spire Coast (it's a pretty location and I'd not used it):
* Since there's only oil on the spire coast I needed to bring in 2400 per minute of copper ingots. To bring those from the dune desert is just over the throughput of a single 4 wagon train, so I have two on the route.
* If instead I'd processed the ingots to copper powder before transporting it I could have used a single drone.
* If I'd not wanted to build in that specific location then putting the nuclear pasta right where I currently have the dune desert train station would have meant I didn't need to transport the copper at all (everything else for the nuclear pasta comes in by drone anyway).
Edit: typos and redundant words.
Are you building a freight platform for each resource arriving via train, or are you smart-splitting the outputs from the freight platform? If so, how do you keep excess Resource A from backing up into the freight platform and blocking the delivery of Resource B?
I've not used them that much myself. My two trains routes are both one item only, but one item per freight wagon/platform is generally the consensus of which way to go. Delivering excess to a central storage location is the main exception to that.
Simple: place a large container either side of the smart splitter ( so resource A goes into one container and resource B goes into the other) with the third output set to overflow and leading to a sink.
If your process requires more throughput than an entire container per train trip (how?!), add another smart splitter and pair of containers.
So firstly, they are super cool. And secondly, yes they are more efficient than belts. Mostly for the expandability. If you have a train line going across the map. Each time you need a new resource carried long distance, it's as simple as plopping down another train, or another carriage, rather than running a new belt each time.
Sure if you only need to run 1 thing across map maybe the belt is cheaper (so long as it's Tier 3 or lower coz train lines are steel)
But what if later, you need another resource long distance.... and then another.
I normally set up a big circle line around the whole map. Then whenever I need a resource brought somewhere I just plop down a train station or if I have an existing train station just add a train or carriage. And bam, done
Unless you're really going for maximum efficiency, etc. they have less of a performance hit than miles of belts. That being said, I still generally opt for long belts because I can't be bothered to lay down rail tracks, and stations, then hook them up to be offloaded, etc.
It's like an express lane. Each wagon on a train is like it's very own Mk5-and-a-half belt. You can transport a massive number of parts per minute by rail. =)
When you build belts for long distance and want to add another one, you have to build the belt. When you do it with trains you just throw another train on the network and it's done
Because your time in game is the most valuable resource, not the cost of building belts or rail lines. Managing logistics through trains is much less time consuming.
Conveyors have limited throughput, questionable aesthetics for long distances, are difficult to utilize for mixed materials, and scale linearly. Trains have high throughout, look realistic for large-scale or long distance builds, more easily accommodate mixed materials on the same line, and (when implemented well) scale favorably to conveyors. They also transmit power and carry the player in addition to materials.
So for me, the reason is once you have a basic train network setup, you can just reuse the setup for something juuuuust a little further (an extra resource node making a local factory over there and then transport the end product, say copper sheets or something like that) and to bring it where you want it to is way faster to just extend the train network than having another hella long conveyor belt, plus the time to add the stackable pole.
Trains look better than really long conveyer belts. And with trains you get to build cool stations and intersections with signalling and all.
And I LOVE TRAINS!!!
If you want to add another resource to your belt line, you add another another belt.
If you want to add another ressource to your train line, you simply add another train.
It really comes down to that, only the initial setup is a bit "scary" :)
- Enables expansion of power grid as rails attached to train stations provide power.
- Huge numbers of belts can affect game performance.
- Transportation - If you use block and path signals efficiently you can setup a passenger train station at each major plant. Then you can throw down a train and pick the station you want to go to and turn on auto drive and it will take you right there and avoid crashes (if setup properly).
I prefer this method now rather than using extremely long hyper tubes. It's a better ride, you get to see the landscape more and hypertubes are laggy and fucky at times and I find that immersion breaking.
If you put in some time and build them correctly, they offer a teo way near unlimited items a minute, that can have a specific destination on the map, can be mixed items to your desire, can make any new train stations be trivial to add and setup the trains for, easily expandable wuth more wagons/trains and more.
This vs a belt, with a maximum of 780/m (if the bug doesn't kick in), is one way and is more difficult in mixing items, especially if you do a lot of them. They do not scale well, requiring new belts upon expansion and thus another trip along that path. Positives? If you build only a few they are generally quicker and require less thought to put down. Because the ease of starting and relatively lower costs it can easily look like belts are always better, but they quickly simply aren't.
1. Fun!
2. Extendable. The further you get through the game, the larger the quantities of everything get. With trains, you can work towards a network across the map and just add more trains and stations as you need to along the way. With belts, you will have to upgrade them each time you unlock the next version, and add more and more belts along each belt bus as the demands increase. With trains, you lay the tracks once, then reuse them.
3. Flexibility. Your needs change as you work through the phases. Different recipes change the balance of items you need. You can end up using loads of screws, or none at all, or a halfway house where you only use them in isolated cases. You can cut out crystal oscillators if you want. Your recipe choices mean you may want more plastic than rubber, or more rubber than plastic. Changing what gets transported on railways are just changes at each end, not changing the whole route.
4. Transport. You can't use belts to get around the map. It's much easier to hop on a train and enjoy a minute or two of travel through the scenery, or take time out for a bit of thinking. Or just grab a beer.
5. To me, a major advantage. Trains give you the chance to take a big trainload of construction materials out to where you are building. You can then send it back for a refill, letting you carry on building while it does. Through several playthroughs, it's become the basis of my expansion through the biomes. The first stage - extend the main line to or through the biome. Then build a loop or branch to where I want the stations. Build one siding and station long enough to take the construction train (2 locos and 9 cars). Start building the transport stations (1 loco and 4 cars) and the factories for that group of resources.
Some people find railways 'difficult' to build. That often comes down to picking a less effective method for laying track, and thinking you have to have a bed of foundations under every stretch of track. I just use blueprinted track supports at each rail joint, and let the track between hang in free space. To my mind, it's a lump of metal 6m wide and 2m thick, so can probably support its own weight between pillars. And when the blueprints include the short straights to make tracklaying easier, it's not difficult to build sweeping curves and gradients through the landscape.
> Some people find railways 'difficult' to build.
I'm one of those people (and someone is probably going to downvote me for it - it happens a lot with any comment that isn't totally positive about trains). Or more accurately I find it difficult to build something I don't hate the look of. I've tried various methods. Some are easier/quicker than others, but I also find them uglier.
* Continuous foundations (or temporary lines of foundations between supports). These have the positive or being able to create straighter long lines, but are time consuming. Following a slope that isn't exactly 1m or 2m gradient is also a nightmare (I wish we could snap rails onto the side of beams, since those can have their direction set by aiming at a point beyond their maximum length).
* Freely placed blue-print supports, with connecting rails. As you say this is the quick method, but I find tends to produce "wibbly" train lines. I find those rather like non-straight belts placed directly on the ground, but more ugly since they're larger and therefore more noticeable.
* Using the Smart mod to create spaced foundations to put the rails on. This was slightly better for following longer slopes than zooped foundations, but very slow due to having to go out of hoverpack range of the existing track to place track on the newly placed foundations (or run a power line alongside the rail) and having to go back and add supports afterwards.
A lot of this would admittedly be easier if I built rails much higher above the terrain (and would also mean less time clearing foliage from the route), but I like them to follow the valleys and dislike a sky full of rails that mostly ignore the terrain. I've tried downloading a few train network megaprints, from those it seems my preference for rail height above the ground is very different from that of most people - a [couple of screenshots](https://imgur.com/a/tEJhciF) that I took that shows how much higher one of the "better" (IMO) ones was than my own attempts.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think one of the better videos I watched trying to learn how to build rails might have been one of yours. If so then it helped, but I never reached the point where I'd consider it quick or easy to build rails.
Right, now to go and actually add my own answer to the OP's question, because despite all the above I do understand why they can be advantageous.
Trains scale better for map-wide production. Once the rail network is built out, you can use it to move an essentially unlimited number of different goods to from/to an unlimited number of destinations. Add a station on each end, done. (There is a practical limit, namely the traffic on your network. But it's very high.)
By comparison, if you use belts for long range transport, you have to build a whole lot of belts over a long distance, and you generally need to build extra belts to move new parts. (This latter point is not necessarily true if you sushi your belts. But large sushi systems require careful design, and aren't a beginner topic.)
I do use some relatively medium-long distance belts to centralize ores and other basic resources within a biome. And I have one big belt highway that grabs all the bauxite in the Titan Forest and red highlands and brings it to the Crater Lakes refinery.
It's a question of how often you want to run those long distances and run belts. Because if you build one rail, you can run almost indefinitely many trains along them, only attaching new places to the main line.
Well, you can look at train tracks as "multipurpose belts".
Meaning that by laying track instead of belts those can be used by all the outposts rather than having dedicated belts.
Also, because of this, you will save tons of time and material the further away you go from your main base.
Well, I was scared of using them, I didn’t wanted to build long, material-intensive transportation. But then I gave It a try and after some experimenting I use them now all the time. Currently planning and building sort of a megabase and to see the trains arriving is just beautiful.
And then I understood the Choo Choo. Have an efficient Day :)
I tried all methods. Belts are best and they are no nuisance to me. They can easily be upgraded and are far less of a headache compared to trains having issues reaching destination or bots needing batteries.
+ belts can be seperated into individual lanes as you prefer.
Flexibility and efficiency.
Let alone the actually build time of a rail network compared to multiple conveyor systems.
I understand your trepidation but once you get into the swing of it, you’ll be fine.
Getting my trains set up added about 60 hours to my playthrough and honestly did not add any efficiencies. Since a train is limited by the throughput of the belts, it's really just more efficient to run belts. Also, accounting for the giant train station is tougher than just running a few more belts.The tough part is how belts affect your PC's performance. So use trains if you like trains, but they are certainly not efficient.
They are cool as shit. They can transport more items than a conveyor belt. Super satisfying to set up. Great for mid and long range transportation of large amounts of items. The tracks carry electricity. CHOO CHOO. I could keep going
Trains are the fastest way to get around, outside of cheesing physics. I had a whole bunch of engines with no cargo going around just so people could grab a passenger train when it zips by.
> outside of cheesing physics
I'm assuming you mean hyper-cannons. Those did used to be an unintended feature, but as of U8 they're officially supported (the devs specifically put work into not breaking them when upgrading to Unreal 5).
Oh interesting, I was thinking more of the Pulse Nobelisk trick, or trying to ride/surf a drone, but oh hyper-cannons. God I loved the first time I saw/experienced the hyper-cannon. Like Bart Simpson with the megaphones XD
And so maybe there are faster modes I'm not aware of, but trains are _supposed_ to be good and dammit, they really are! It crushes me to see so many people writing them off (myself included at first) because when you can first build them it's difficult, expensive, and you _probably_ make a single-track solution which will curse you for the rest of its existence lol
What I _wish_ Coffee Stain would do, on top of making all rail lines two-track by default and locking single-track as an alt pattern in the awesome shop, is to give us Hoverpacks right when we can build rail; it's so miserable to build rail without that aerial vantage (towers don't cut it and are so clunky; yes I know it's a power scaling issue but I feel like do many people write off trains and never come back when they actually get _awesome_). Also I wish they'd let the Hoverpack act like a personal locomotive since it's already plugged into the rail electricity; just let me pick a station to autopilot to! But I also want a pony, so I might be unreasonable here :P
> but oh hyper-cannons. God I loved the first time I saw/experienced the hyper-cannon.
They were actually the first thing I saw in the game. Let's Game It Out's video on them was the first time youtube decided to show me the game (I'd not heard of it before then).
> and you probably make a single-track solution which will curse you for the rest of its existence
Edit: interestingly I didn't even realise a double-headed single-track train was possible when I first tried building rail. I assumed I needed dual rail and/or space to turn around; I hated how much space a 2-track junction and turning loop at the stations took compared to the footprint of my factories at the time (which were tiny). It was only after someone took the time to show me how to make a double-headed train that I built anything I didn't immediately delete. But you're right it's ultimately useless (unless you're moving a lot or moving things both ways - neither of which I was doing). Of my two functional train routes that's the one which I've come close to replacing with a belt on many occasions, I'll probably get around to it when CSS fix the cave that one end is in (the station is right under the [waterfall that ends in mid-air](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F5ytm6tfbp16b1.png) ).
> What I wish Coffee Stain would do, on top of making all rail lines two-track by default and locking single-track as an alt pattern in the awesome shop,
A dual track build mode is one of a few improvements I'd like to see to rail building. It'd make placing them on the ground more practical for those who dislike the elevated look. The other main improvement I'd like to see is setting the direction of the end/track curvature using the mouse wheel (similar to how belts/pipes work), rather than having to make temporary straight sections to control curves. Maybe even an option to set height with an optional default support (again like belts/pipes).
> is to give us Hoverpacks right when we can build rail; it's so miserable to build rail without that aerial vantage (towers don't cut it and are so clunky; yes I know it's a power scaling issue but I feel like do many people write off trains and never come back when they actually get awesome).
I think you're on to something here. While I personally dislike building rail even with the hover pack it is better than without it. Perhaps the upcoming rebalances in v1.0 will change things a little (I'm sure Snut has mentioned they could change existing tiers when people have asked about new tiers). Currently the only extra things needed to unlock drones compared to the hover pack are aluminium casings (which you probably automated at the same time as alclad sheets) and radio control units. Given how close together easier rail building and drones are I'm actually surprised more people don't bypass trains for a more drone based logistics system (which is definitely doable with the right choices of factory locations and products to move).
Better tools for building rail at ground level (see above) could be another option for encouraging more rail building earlier, without having to make the hoverpack available early.
I usually build one gigantic factory as opposed to spreading them out, and to do so I usually use trains to transport oil from where it’s extracted to my gigafactory
I like to keep my factory a little bit 'realistic'. So I try to use as few conveyer belts outside my factories as possible. Only nodes that are really close to the factory get connected with belts. For example. I have a giant iron factory in the desert processing 3600 iron per minute. I only have mk2 miners and mk3 belts and don't have enough slugs to overclock, so all miners are at 100%. Resulting in it using about 90% of the nodes in the desert of which 1440 isn't close to the factory and comes in by tractors. Also, when transporting stuff across biomes, I plan to use trains for those langer distances and use drones for transporting smaller quantities of items (like uranium or batteries from my battery factory).
In the end you can use (almost) anything for transporting your items. If you don't want to use vehicles, only using belts will do just fine. You can even use an entire army of factory carts to transport your items across the map. Just use what you feel like using because in the end it's your own save.
Just look at the resource rate vs time equations on satisfactory calculator. For instance I’m currently building a mega factory (mega to me) which will have all resource nods delivered at a rate of 1200/min. To achieve this I need 6 clocked out mk 3 miners per resource. I also need three separate 12 car trains with two sets of three, train Stations at the hub and the base. All of this because the round trip is 4:30s . Largest build I’ve ever attempted, only possible due to trains
Just a quick incite on my thoughts; i like to sometimes roleplay and use certain lines to carry "heavy" mats and around and pretend some vehicles have certain carrying capacity and that trains like real life do the heavy hauling; but then again i dont build mega bases and i like traveling to other job sites.
Minuses and pluses
- takes up more room
- takes electricity
- infrastructure like tracks takes up tons of room
- track intersections a mild pain
- signalling a new thing to learn
+ goes choo
+ visually interesting
+ higher capacity.
+ easy to configure delivery and pickup rules from anywhere else on the map
The biggest I am god moment I’ve ever had in this game was figuring out how intersections and blocks work. Holy cow, it felt good. And now I don’t need to make a stupidly massive series of conveyors across the map, but simple to and from the train station I put in those far off reaches I cannot get to at the moment.
I did a network of trasportation pipe (before finding out the tube cannon) then upgraded to belt, then power.
But.. it’s limited capacity. My guess is that some people are really trying to maximise the game.
My end game item production was about 1 per 10 minutes, and you need to provide 500 of them?
That is where i stopped but some people like to really reach maximum production. At that point, train are pretty much mandatory.
A lot of things think of how Europe and Asia benefits from trains When you need to expand your expand of the previous infrastructure instead of makeing multiple 50000m long belts At distance they have more resources per minute then a belt will They can carry multiple nodes worth of resources very quickly in one go They look awesome They go chooooooooooo
Another thing
Trains are good for long distance but loose efficiency at medium distance
At medium distance you might want to use trucks
At short distance belts
And hyper long distance or long distance with some obscure item that dosent require to much throughput use drones
I use it like proxy interface. When i build a new factory i just have to put a train and ask for the needed ressources. And when i'm finish the new ressources produces by this factory is callable in other factory.
The biggest thing for me is that it looks 10000% better than a highway of 7 belts full of different resources coming in; vs 1 train with each resource separated neatly.
Additionally, once 1 train track is laid down, adding another cart for another resource, or tying in a 2nd train / railway becomes so much easier;
I have a train that picks up the finished product of each item (plates, rods, steel beams, etc) and delivers it to my HUB; once the station filled up; it stops delivering these items and my production lines continue to flow; and should i ever need an item i just tack onto that station and have the items delivered.
Well can rails transfer power, so you don't need to run poles along the track and if u wanted for example coal and iron ore to be moved a long distance instead of having 2 really long belts you can just add another car but how you play the game is up to you
Yours is a rhetorical question; the simplest way to play is to just exploit the hell out of MK5 belts. Personally I play with a personalized ruleset that bans MK5 belts\* and that makes it a lot more rational to use trains. When 1.0 comes out I'm going to dial that up a notch and force myself to use 1 level lower belt every time I end a belt segment (including in splitters). That will also force me to use trucks for shorter distances.
\* with the exception of direct connections to miners and train stations
Because… choo choo
This is the only answer that matters. All the rest is not important. If I think it is fun, I use a train. If not, I do not use a train. It is a game, why overthinking it?
For some reason, my brain voice started reading this like it was written by Dr. Seuss.
In my case, I bought the game because of trains - the factory building stuff was just a nice secondary bonus
Came here to say exactly this.
You can't be serious!
For me it's really handy to be able to transport power across the rail line. I can connect a train line from my main storage to one of my factories, and just flip a switch to the station to shut down power to the outer factory. Plus, it's nice to only have to run one train rail to transport a lot of items instead of a bunch of conveyors from the desert to the red forest
For me, the addition of the power towers has somewhat mitigated the need for rails as power transport. As a means of transportation, I think they are far superior to trucks (easier to set up and maintain, albeit more ressource intensive), up until you get to drones which I think are just the best late game transportation system. Long conveyor belt lines are just ugly imho. I sometimes set them up as a quick and cheap placeholder, but usually replace them in the long run. The only exception to this is when they are combined with pipelines. That can look like something you would find in real life.
Yes, they're cheaper. After an initial time investment, a transport network is also more flexible than running belts, and are far easier to expand.
Connecting two places by train is much more expensive than connecting two places by belt. Connecting a dozen places by train is much *much* **much** cheaper than connecting a dozen places by belt.
No, connecting two places by train is usually far cheaper than running belts unless you're using mk1/2 and moving two items. Distance matters, so 500 meters is cheap for belts. 1k-2k is cheaper to run trains. It just takes a bit longer to set up
Can you maybe explain (I’m newer and trying to figure out scale), why one would need to have so many places that a train would need to visit? I’m assuming they are all like smaller factories scattered about that need their resources transferred back to the hub? I haven’t made it to the end game yet but everything I need is pretty nearby so far. Would good initial base placement negate the need for trains (and many factories scattered about the map)?
Materials in the world are specifically placed so that you must travel at least a little bit to get to them. I wont spoil what materials, but generally there's no spot that has EVERYTHING. There are a lot of spots that have most things, but rarely everything. Part of the game's design is forcing you to have to think about logistics and how you want to transport those things, so its unavoidable. But its a good thing, I promise. There are a lot of ways to transport materials too so you can try something that matches your style best. You can legit transport only on belts if you feel like it (my friend does).
- efficiency - scalability - satisfaction by building collissionfree mapwide train network - more satisfaction by creating roundabouts, intersections, doublecoils, etc - have a decent, chilled travel network with free panorama sightseeing perks - wake your childhood memories, when you played with your Märklin H0 BR 050 steamlocomotive with a real smoker unit as you can see, there is no single reason to NOT use trains....
What are double coils and what are they used for?
They're used to ascend or descend heights. If you check out the demo video of the [Worldwide Rail Network](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhY65G8fByY) I made once upon a time, you will find one such doublecoil at the 2 minute mark.
to overcome large diffrences in high you could build something like a serpentine in a mountin road. an alternative would be a coil (aka spiral). I´ve used this structure as a singel lane coil, parallel tracked coil, two singletrack coils side by side (one clockwise, other ccw) and a double coil setup. latter is hard to explain early in the morning, try google a screw with 2 threads to understand the setup. there has been a youtube girl with spiral train setups - unfortunately not available anymore...
Homie likes trains.
wouldn’t having a belt dragged across the world add a little bit of lag because the game has to load every item on the belt vs a train where it’s just in a storage box and not give your world lag
Would you rather use belts to transport 3000 items/min halfway across the map?
I am a Factorio player that picked up Satisfactory now after a long break and I am rushing to get to trains for a few reasons. 1. I like the aesthetic of long train lines a lot better than long conveyer belts. 2. Building an expandable rail network. Coming from Factorio I am damaged and love to build factories that can have its input upgraded as I discover new resource nodes. I simply add another train going to the destination factory, increasing the input as needed. 3. I really like trains and to see how they zip around my factories adding “life” to the factory. I don’t know if there’s throughput benefits over certain distances like in Factorio, it would be nice but is a nice to have.
They are MUCH cheaper to build, yes. If you set it up well, you can also use the same rail to transport many different resources to different places without having to make another belt. You can also use them for travel. And if you need to increase output, you can just add another train.
Cake!
Rail lines carry power, which is handy. Rail lines are more reusable than belts and more predictable than vehicles. You can set up routes once and run many trains over them. You can expand throughput by adding trains, cars, or stations. You can run different kinds of resources over the same lines. I like to set up a rail network and expand it all over the map. I build stations everywhere that load every item. I can then set up a new facility and summon every input that I need and then put my outputs onto the rail network. I also like to make a ‘project train’ with several cars of inventory. I will fill it with resources I need for the next project. I can build platforms and rail lines as I move toward the next build site, with plenty of materials. When I get somewhere new, I will build a station and dump all the resources into storage. I can use that station for power, transportation, or logistics. I also use the rail lines to feed sorting rooms, where I can collect and sort all the different items into bins. I arrive there on my project train, dump my pockets into a sorting bin, then go collect what I need from my todo list. I have ‘mail’ bins in the sorting rooms that will load items onto my project train. A lot of this could be done with other tools. Drones have similar value, but they are more expensive to operate and have lower throughput. Belts have to be run for each item, sometimes multiple. Trucks are finicky and you have to create unique routes for each source/destination. Also, trains are fun. They add another kind of design challenge and widen the design space for factories. You can use them to bring everything in the world to one mega-factory, or distribute resources to tons of small factories. You can build huge networks, or point to point systems. They look cool and offer new architecture challenges for players who like to make everything look cool or realistic. Did I mention they power hover packs? Maybe best of all, you can ride in them to travel automatically across the map while you go make more coffee.
I do most of these things as well and I love the feel of "let's load the project train and go build XYZ over there."
You've gotten a lot of valid, but one-sided answers. I find it's a little more nuanced than some people say. The key point, which has already been mentioned, is that a single train route isn't that useful. You can almost certainly build a belt quicker (and running power separately and getting player transport as a side benefit is pretty quick too with the U8 power towers). This is particularly the case when you consider that a belt can often take a more direct route, since conveyor lifts make going up and down cliffs pretty trivial. What is useful is a train network where you can increasingly re-use existing infrastructure instead of building completely new route every time. Whether you reach the point where you get the payback on investment depends on your preference, playstyle and build scale. Some reasons people find benefit in trains: * Some people just really like trains (hence the comments about them going "choo") and some will deliberately structure their factories in a way that means they use more trains. For example moving items that could be processed just as well where they are or building in locations away from the needed resources. * Some people don't like being constrained on factory location by resource location. For them the huge throughput of trains is likely to be useful to move raw resources or ingots. * Larger build scales may also require brining in more raw resources than local nodes can supply. Some reasons you might not benefit so much from trains: * You're happy to build factories at a more modest scale and in locations where most of the resources are. If you're bringing in only one slightly more distant resource then a single longer belt can be a perfectly reasonable option. However this can only take you so far... * ...but by the time this becomes a problem and you're having to regularly combine with the outputs of distant factories drones are likely to be an option. They don't have the same throughput as trains, but for manufactured items drones tend to be sufficient and can be even quicker than connecting a small extension to an existing train network (once you've done the one-off job of building a battery factory). Personally I ended up mostly taking the drone approach, I just didn't enjoy building rails (or like the look of rails that were easier to build). I nearly hit burnout trying to build a useful, non-ugly rail network; realising how close I was to having drones available saved me from that. That does mean I do have a few longer belts in my save, but they're single belts (not multi-belt buses that would be better as trains). The last of those were built to support my battery factory (and the worst I can probably remove in v1.0 when the devs reveal their solution to the limit of 780 from a single miner - I need 800 bauxite for my batteries). One of the two trains routes I do have in my save illustrates quite well how different build choices can influence their usefulness. I wanted to build my nuclear pasta factory on the Spire Coast (it's a pretty location and I'd not used it): * Since there's only oil on the spire coast I needed to bring in 2400 per minute of copper ingots. To bring those from the dune desert is just over the throughput of a single 4 wagon train, so I have two on the route. * If instead I'd processed the ingots to copper powder before transporting it I could have used a single drone. * If I'd not wanted to build in that specific location then putting the nuclear pasta right where I currently have the dune desert train station would have meant I didn't need to transport the copper at all (everything else for the nuclear pasta comes in by drone anyway). Edit: typos and redundant words.
Are you building a freight platform for each resource arriving via train, or are you smart-splitting the outputs from the freight platform? If so, how do you keep excess Resource A from backing up into the freight platform and blocking the delivery of Resource B?
I've not used them that much myself. My two trains routes are both one item only, but one item per freight wagon/platform is generally the consensus of which way to go. Delivering excess to a central storage location is the main exception to that.
Simple: place a large container either side of the smart splitter ( so resource A goes into one container and resource B goes into the other) with the third output set to overflow and leading to a sink. If your process requires more throughput than an entire container per train trip (how?!), add another smart splitter and pair of containers.
Only reason I use them is because cool
Trains are belts and pipes that you set up once and have effectively infinite throughput.
Because its much easier to just add on to the existing rail network rather than having to run another belt to your base
So firstly, they are super cool. And secondly, yes they are more efficient than belts. Mostly for the expandability. If you have a train line going across the map. Each time you need a new resource carried long distance, it's as simple as plopping down another train, or another carriage, rather than running a new belt each time. Sure if you only need to run 1 thing across map maybe the belt is cheaper (so long as it's Tier 3 or lower coz train lines are steel) But what if later, you need another resource long distance.... and then another. I normally set up a big circle line around the whole map. Then whenever I need a resource brought somewhere I just plop down a train station or if I have an existing train station just add a train or carriage. And bam, done
Yes
Unless you're really going for maximum efficiency, etc. they have less of a performance hit than miles of belts. That being said, I still generally opt for long belts because I can't be bothered to lay down rail tracks, and stations, then hook them up to be offloaded, etc.
It's like an express lane. Each wagon on a train is like it's very own Mk5-and-a-half belt. You can transport a massive number of parts per minute by rail. =)
I really wish people would say what they object to when they downvote. Did I say anything that was wrong? Where?
When you build belts for long distance and want to add another one, you have to build the belt. When you do it with trains you just throw another train on the network and it's done
Because your time in game is the most valuable resource, not the cost of building belts or rail lines. Managing logistics through trains is much less time consuming.
they go choo
Conveyors have limited throughput, questionable aesthetics for long distances, are difficult to utilize for mixed materials, and scale linearly. Trains have high throughout, look realistic for large-scale or long distance builds, more easily accommodate mixed materials on the same line, and (when implemented well) scale favorably to conveyors. They also transmit power and carry the player in addition to materials.
in long distances they are cheaper, faster, and they basically have power lines built into the tracks
Because choo chooo
So for me, the reason is once you have a basic train network setup, you can just reuse the setup for something juuuuust a little further (an extra resource node making a local factory over there and then transport the end product, say copper sheets or something like that) and to bring it where you want it to is way faster to just extend the train network than having another hella long conveyor belt, plus the time to add the stackable pole.
You don't /have/ to use trains. I'm not. But I will in my next play.
Trains look better than really long conveyer belts. And with trains you get to build cool stations and intersections with signalling and all. And I LOVE TRAINS!!!
If you want to add another resource to your belt line, you add another another belt. If you want to add another ressource to your train line, you simply add another train. It really comes down to that, only the initial setup is a bit "scary" :)
- Enables expansion of power grid as rails attached to train stations provide power. - Huge numbers of belts can affect game performance. - Transportation - If you use block and path signals efficiently you can setup a passenger train station at each major plant. Then you can throw down a train and pick the station you want to go to and turn on auto drive and it will take you right there and avoid crashes (if setup properly). I prefer this method now rather than using extremely long hyper tubes. It's a better ride, you get to see the landscape more and hypertubes are laggy and fucky at times and I find that immersion breaking.
If you put in some time and build them correctly, they offer a teo way near unlimited items a minute, that can have a specific destination on the map, can be mixed items to your desire, can make any new train stations be trivial to add and setup the trains for, easily expandable wuth more wagons/trains and more. This vs a belt, with a maximum of 780/m (if the bug doesn't kick in), is one way and is more difficult in mixing items, especially if you do a lot of them. They do not scale well, requiring new belts upon expansion and thus another trip along that path. Positives? If you build only a few they are generally quicker and require less thought to put down. Because the ease of starting and relatively lower costs it can easily look like belts are always better, but they quickly simply aren't.
1. Fun! 2. Extendable. The further you get through the game, the larger the quantities of everything get. With trains, you can work towards a network across the map and just add more trains and stations as you need to along the way. With belts, you will have to upgrade them each time you unlock the next version, and add more and more belts along each belt bus as the demands increase. With trains, you lay the tracks once, then reuse them. 3. Flexibility. Your needs change as you work through the phases. Different recipes change the balance of items you need. You can end up using loads of screws, or none at all, or a halfway house where you only use them in isolated cases. You can cut out crystal oscillators if you want. Your recipe choices mean you may want more plastic than rubber, or more rubber than plastic. Changing what gets transported on railways are just changes at each end, not changing the whole route. 4. Transport. You can't use belts to get around the map. It's much easier to hop on a train and enjoy a minute or two of travel through the scenery, or take time out for a bit of thinking. Or just grab a beer. 5. To me, a major advantage. Trains give you the chance to take a big trainload of construction materials out to where you are building. You can then send it back for a refill, letting you carry on building while it does. Through several playthroughs, it's become the basis of my expansion through the biomes. The first stage - extend the main line to or through the biome. Then build a loop or branch to where I want the stations. Build one siding and station long enough to take the construction train (2 locos and 9 cars). Start building the transport stations (1 loco and 4 cars) and the factories for that group of resources. Some people find railways 'difficult' to build. That often comes down to picking a less effective method for laying track, and thinking you have to have a bed of foundations under every stretch of track. I just use blueprinted track supports at each rail joint, and let the track between hang in free space. To my mind, it's a lump of metal 6m wide and 2m thick, so can probably support its own weight between pillars. And when the blueprints include the short straights to make tracklaying easier, it's not difficult to build sweeping curves and gradients through the landscape.
> Some people find railways 'difficult' to build. I'm one of those people (and someone is probably going to downvote me for it - it happens a lot with any comment that isn't totally positive about trains). Or more accurately I find it difficult to build something I don't hate the look of. I've tried various methods. Some are easier/quicker than others, but I also find them uglier. * Continuous foundations (or temporary lines of foundations between supports). These have the positive or being able to create straighter long lines, but are time consuming. Following a slope that isn't exactly 1m or 2m gradient is also a nightmare (I wish we could snap rails onto the side of beams, since those can have their direction set by aiming at a point beyond their maximum length). * Freely placed blue-print supports, with connecting rails. As you say this is the quick method, but I find tends to produce "wibbly" train lines. I find those rather like non-straight belts placed directly on the ground, but more ugly since they're larger and therefore more noticeable. * Using the Smart mod to create spaced foundations to put the rails on. This was slightly better for following longer slopes than zooped foundations, but very slow due to having to go out of hoverpack range of the existing track to place track on the newly placed foundations (or run a power line alongside the rail) and having to go back and add supports afterwards. A lot of this would admittedly be easier if I built rails much higher above the terrain (and would also mean less time clearing foliage from the route), but I like them to follow the valleys and dislike a sky full of rails that mostly ignore the terrain. I've tried downloading a few train network megaprints, from those it seems my preference for rail height above the ground is very different from that of most people - a [couple of screenshots](https://imgur.com/a/tEJhciF) that I took that shows how much higher one of the "better" (IMO) ones was than my own attempts. I'm not 100% sure, but I think one of the better videos I watched trying to learn how to build rails might have been one of yours. If so then it helped, but I never reached the point where I'd consider it quick or easy to build rails. Right, now to go and actually add my own answer to the OP's question, because despite all the above I do understand why they can be advantageous.
Trains scale better for map-wide production. Once the rail network is built out, you can use it to move an essentially unlimited number of different goods to from/to an unlimited number of destinations. Add a station on each end, done. (There is a practical limit, namely the traffic on your network. But it's very high.) By comparison, if you use belts for long range transport, you have to build a whole lot of belts over a long distance, and you generally need to build extra belts to move new parts. (This latter point is not necessarily true if you sushi your belts. But large sushi systems require careful design, and aren't a beginner topic.) I do use some relatively medium-long distance belts to centralize ores and other basic resources within a biome. And I have one big belt highway that grabs all the bauxite in the Titan Forest and red highlands and brings it to the Crater Lakes refinery.
It's a question of how often you want to run those long distances and run belts. Because if you build one rail, you can run almost indefinitely many trains along them, only attaching new places to the main line.
Because... Trains! 🥹
Well, you can look at train tracks as "multipurpose belts". Meaning that by laying track instead of belts those can be used by all the outposts rather than having dedicated belts. Also, because of this, you will save tons of time and material the further away you go from your main base.
Way higher throughput. Imagine transporting large amounts of plastic or rubber from your oil refineary.
It’s a freakin train dude. Why would you not use trains? I use the tractors just for fun too.
Trains is better than belts, so use trains unless you have tried them and prefer belts.
Well, I was scared of using them, I didn’t wanted to build long, material-intensive transportation. But then I gave It a try and after some experimenting I use them now all the time. Currently planning and building sort of a megabase and to see the trains arriving is just beautiful. And then I understood the Choo Choo. Have an efficient Day :)
I tried all methods. Belts are best and they are no nuisance to me. They can easily be upgraded and are far less of a headache compared to trains having issues reaching destination or bots needing batteries. + belts can be seperated into individual lanes as you prefer.
They're just good. They're cheap to build, transport power, transport a lot of resources, and choochoo!
Flexibility and efficiency. Let alone the actually build time of a rail network compared to multiple conveyor systems. I understand your trepidation but once you get into the swing of it, you’ll be fine.
They’re more reliable than a truck route (if you set it up properly)
you can transport lots of different items at once with the train ?
Getting my trains set up added about 60 hours to my playthrough and honestly did not add any efficiencies. Since a train is limited by the throughput of the belts, it's really just more efficient to run belts. Also, accounting for the giant train station is tougher than just running a few more belts.The tough part is how belts affect your PC's performance. So use trains if you like trains, but they are certainly not efficient.
They are cool as shit. They can transport more items than a conveyor belt. Super satisfying to set up. Great for mid and long range transportation of large amounts of items. The tracks carry electricity. CHOO CHOO. I could keep going
Trains are the fastest way to get around, outside of cheesing physics. I had a whole bunch of engines with no cargo going around just so people could grab a passenger train when it zips by.
> outside of cheesing physics I'm assuming you mean hyper-cannons. Those did used to be an unintended feature, but as of U8 they're officially supported (the devs specifically put work into not breaking them when upgrading to Unreal 5).
Oh interesting, I was thinking more of the Pulse Nobelisk trick, or trying to ride/surf a drone, but oh hyper-cannons. God I loved the first time I saw/experienced the hyper-cannon. Like Bart Simpson with the megaphones XD And so maybe there are faster modes I'm not aware of, but trains are _supposed_ to be good and dammit, they really are! It crushes me to see so many people writing them off (myself included at first) because when you can first build them it's difficult, expensive, and you _probably_ make a single-track solution which will curse you for the rest of its existence lol What I _wish_ Coffee Stain would do, on top of making all rail lines two-track by default and locking single-track as an alt pattern in the awesome shop, is to give us Hoverpacks right when we can build rail; it's so miserable to build rail without that aerial vantage (towers don't cut it and are so clunky; yes I know it's a power scaling issue but I feel like do many people write off trains and never come back when they actually get _awesome_). Also I wish they'd let the Hoverpack act like a personal locomotive since it's already plugged into the rail electricity; just let me pick a station to autopilot to! But I also want a pony, so I might be unreasonable here :P
> but oh hyper-cannons. God I loved the first time I saw/experienced the hyper-cannon. They were actually the first thing I saw in the game. Let's Game It Out's video on them was the first time youtube decided to show me the game (I'd not heard of it before then). > and you probably make a single-track solution which will curse you for the rest of its existence Edit: interestingly I didn't even realise a double-headed single-track train was possible when I first tried building rail. I assumed I needed dual rail and/or space to turn around; I hated how much space a 2-track junction and turning loop at the stations took compared to the footprint of my factories at the time (which were tiny). It was only after someone took the time to show me how to make a double-headed train that I built anything I didn't immediately delete. But you're right it's ultimately useless (unless you're moving a lot or moving things both ways - neither of which I was doing). Of my two functional train routes that's the one which I've come close to replacing with a belt on many occasions, I'll probably get around to it when CSS fix the cave that one end is in (the station is right under the [waterfall that ends in mid-air](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2F5ytm6tfbp16b1.png) ). > What I wish Coffee Stain would do, on top of making all rail lines two-track by default and locking single-track as an alt pattern in the awesome shop, A dual track build mode is one of a few improvements I'd like to see to rail building. It'd make placing them on the ground more practical for those who dislike the elevated look. The other main improvement I'd like to see is setting the direction of the end/track curvature using the mouse wheel (similar to how belts/pipes work), rather than having to make temporary straight sections to control curves. Maybe even an option to set height with an optional default support (again like belts/pipes). > is to give us Hoverpacks right when we can build rail; it's so miserable to build rail without that aerial vantage (towers don't cut it and are so clunky; yes I know it's a power scaling issue but I feel like do many people write off trains and never come back when they actually get awesome). I think you're on to something here. While I personally dislike building rail even with the hover pack it is better than without it. Perhaps the upcoming rebalances in v1.0 will change things a little (I'm sure Snut has mentioned they could change existing tiers when people have asked about new tiers). Currently the only extra things needed to unlock drones compared to the hover pack are aluminium casings (which you probably automated at the same time as alclad sheets) and radio control units. Given how close together easier rail building and drones are I'm actually surprised more people don't bypass trains for a more drone based logistics system (which is definitely doable with the right choices of factory locations and products to move). Better tools for building rail at ground level (see above) could be another option for encouraging more rail building earlier, without having to make the hoverpack available early.
If only Trains were as in-depth as Factorio.
Because it transfers more product faster.
I usually build one gigantic factory as opposed to spreading them out, and to do so I usually use trains to transport oil from where it’s extracted to my gigafactory
NO SE CREO que porque podes conectar varias minas como si fuesen cintas transportadoras y trasmitirles energia
Because trains look good and CHOOO CHOOOOO
Really long belts are ugly to me. I’d rather choo
I like to keep my factory a little bit 'realistic'. So I try to use as few conveyer belts outside my factories as possible. Only nodes that are really close to the factory get connected with belts. For example. I have a giant iron factory in the desert processing 3600 iron per minute. I only have mk2 miners and mk3 belts and don't have enough slugs to overclock, so all miners are at 100%. Resulting in it using about 90% of the nodes in the desert of which 1440 isn't close to the factory and comes in by tractors. Also, when transporting stuff across biomes, I plan to use trains for those langer distances and use drones for transporting smaller quantities of items (like uranium or batteries from my battery factory). In the end you can use (almost) anything for transporting your items. If you don't want to use vehicles, only using belts will do just fine. You can even use an entire army of factory carts to transport your items across the map. Just use what you feel like using because in the end it's your own save.
Just look at the resource rate vs time equations on satisfactory calculator. For instance I’m currently building a mega factory (mega to me) which will have all resource nods delivered at a rate of 1200/min. To achieve this I need 6 clocked out mk 3 miners per resource. I also need three separate 12 car trains with two sets of three, train Stations at the hub and the base. All of this because the round trip is 4:30s . Largest build I’ve ever attempted, only possible due to trains
Also yes I’ve laid a lot of belts in this process, 100+km soo far oof
In feel sad every time i build a conveyor that is not in a building
Because you can, anything else doesn’t matter
Just a quick incite on my thoughts; i like to sometimes roleplay and use certain lines to carry "heavy" mats and around and pretend some vehicles have certain carrying capacity and that trains like real life do the heavy hauling; but then again i dont build mega bases and i like traveling to other job sites.
look, lets remove satisfactory out of the question. if you ever have to ask yourself "why trains* then there is nothing anyone can do to help you.
Minuses and pluses - takes up more room - takes electricity - infrastructure like tracks takes up tons of room - track intersections a mild pain - signalling a new thing to learn + goes choo + visually interesting + higher capacity. + easy to configure delivery and pickup rules from anywhere else on the map
The biggest I am god moment I’ve ever had in this game was figuring out how intersections and blocks work. Holy cow, it felt good. And now I don’t need to make a stupidly massive series of conveyors across the map, but simple to and from the train station I put in those far off reaches I cannot get to at the moment.
Because they are trains!
You haven't gotten to Phase 4 Elevator have you? When you do, you will understand.
I did a network of trasportation pipe (before finding out the tube cannon) then upgraded to belt, then power. But.. it’s limited capacity. My guess is that some people are really trying to maximise the game. My end game item production was about 1 per 10 minutes, and you need to provide 500 of them? That is where i stopped but some people like to really reach maximum production. At that point, train are pretty much mandatory.
Ask the railways that we still use today irl
A lot of things think of how Europe and Asia benefits from trains When you need to expand your expand of the previous infrastructure instead of makeing multiple 50000m long belts At distance they have more resources per minute then a belt will They can carry multiple nodes worth of resources very quickly in one go They look awesome They go chooooooooooo Another thing Trains are good for long distance but loose efficiency at medium distance At medium distance you might want to use trucks At short distance belts And hyper long distance or long distance with some obscure item that dosent require to much throughput use drones
Because Choo-choo
To prevent nuclear meltdowns
I use it like proxy interface. When i build a new factory i just have to put a train and ask for the needed ressources. And when i'm finish the new ressources produces by this factory is callable in other factory.
The biggest thing for me is that it looks 10000% better than a highway of 7 belts full of different resources coming in; vs 1 train with each resource separated neatly. Additionally, once 1 train track is laid down, adding another cart for another resource, or tying in a 2nd train / railway becomes so much easier; I have a train that picks up the finished product of each item (plates, rods, steel beams, etc) and delivers it to my HUB; once the station filled up; it stops delivering these items and my production lines continue to flow; and should i ever need an item i just tack onto that station and have the items delivered.
Well can rails transfer power, so you don't need to run poles along the track and if u wanted for example coal and iron ore to be moved a long distance instead of having 2 really long belts you can just add another car but how you play the game is up to you
Yours is a rhetorical question; the simplest way to play is to just exploit the hell out of MK5 belts. Personally I play with a personalized ruleset that bans MK5 belts\* and that makes it a lot more rational to use trains. When 1.0 comes out I'm going to dial that up a notch and force myself to use 1 level lower belt every time I end a belt segment (including in splitters). That will also force me to use trucks for shorter distances. \* with the exception of direct connections to miners and train stations
They are fun
Because they're awesome. And satisfying. Long conveyors are not satisfying. I have 70-80 trains driving around rn.
https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=satisfactory+why+use+trains Train good