After making my starter base, I was working on a train system using train limits, circuits, and bidirectional 3-8-3 trains. I realized the scale was too large for me, and I wanted something smaller and simpler. I had also messed up the fueling system, and wanted to redesign it.
I nuked the old system (literally and figuratively), and I want to switch to unidirectional 1-4 trains, but still using train limits and circuits to calculate the limits. I also want a single fueling (maybe adding multiple as the factory grows) station that is visited by all trains.
Any suggestions for planning or designing something like this? The only mega base I have ever made was a spaghetti mess and I’m trying to be a bit more organized in the creation of this one (the initial goal is 2.7k spm)
Designing something from scratch and expecting it to work on the first try probably won’t work.
My suggestion would be, to start with some simple blueprints for a train station, intersections etc. and just use it until you run into issues. Then you can improve on it, update your blueprints, use those for a while and repeat.
For example, I tried the whole refueling station for a while, and had bad experiences with it. It created bottle necks and fixing those turned into a whack-a-mole type of situation for me. What I did instead was to refuel my trains at every station that wasn’t purely a mine (I excluded those, because those will get torn down when the resources dry up and the trains picking stuff up there will always drop it off at another station that has refueling).
So now my station blueprint includes a stop for a refueling train that only enables when the local stock of fuel drops low.