Hello!
The code refactor of rails presented last week is great, but the motivation for such a task wasn’t quite just some shape changes for rails.
As explained last week, we can now define any kind of rail shape, and we had some very specific shapes in mind all along…
Over or under?
We want multi-level crossings for trains, but how? Bridges or tunnels?
At first it would seem like going underground is the safer bet – we already have experience with belts and pipes doing that. Simple – we draw the entrance and the exit, the middle is magically connected, and that’s it?
- The second layer of rails should also be able to use curves and rail signals, otherwise it would be quite limited.
- Sometimes you already want to interact with items inside of underground belts, with trains this would be a lot worse as they can run out of fuel, stop at signals etc.
- Building curves, signals or interacting with trains inside of a tunnel probably means we need to be able to walk inside.
- If we can walk in a tunnel, biters and robots should be able to as well.
- If tunnels can have curves, how could you tell which tunnel entrance connects to which exit when looking from the outside?
- Tunnels “over” water don’t quite feel right.
- Drawing tunnels would be surprisingly difficult as we would need to do some expensive masking that Factorio isn’t currently capable of.
- And more…
The idea of an elevated rail seems to have much more potential, although drawing in an upper layer certainly won’t be easy either.
Also, you just want to boldly see all of your trains in their full glory instead of hiding them somewhere in a cellar!
Such an idea would consist of:
- Rail ramp – The transition between the lower and upper layer.
- Elevated rail – Tracks buildable above most things.
- Rail support – Elevated rails would need supports at some intervals.
Elevated rail system pieces. These were the “greybox” graphics to test the gameplay of the new rail shapes and the ramps, before the final graphics were created.
Elevated rails
I know you’ve already scrolled down to see the ramps instead of reading this but it just felt weird not to put a
paragraph here.
When we thought about the visual design with Albert and Earendel, we wanted the ramp to be heavy and industrial, but
at the same time not quite perfectly stable and rigid. After multiple iterations we have arrived to this combination
of a solid concrete base combined with an upper metal structure.
The concrete base helps clearly show where the ramp touches the ground, while in contrast the metal part has a lot of holes so you could see entities placed behind the ramp most of the time. The metal is painted red, as mostly the only other red entities in Factorio are related to trains, it help
