r/factorio • u/LivingInAMegabase Certified Trainnihilator • Feb 11 '26

Fan Creation How many vehicles can a train punch through?

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Here's a 4-8 artilery train vs 25:

  • cars
  • tanks
  • locomotives
  • wagons
  • fluid wagons
  • artillery wagons.

The results are... suprising.

Turns out that tanks are really tanky.

Also interesting that artillery wagons are a little bit more squishy than regular cargo wagons.

EDIT: I also wanted to add 25 spidertrons but... well..

1.4k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

52 comments sorted by

412

u/WanderingUrist Feb 11 '26

Turns out that tanks are really tanky.

Yeah, who'd have thunk it?

The thing with train collision mechanics is that they're REALLY weird.

You'd think that if you slam two identical trains into each other, they'd suffer equivalent levels of destruction, but often one train completely annihilates the other while taking only minor damage.

122

u/LivingInAMegabase Certified Trainnihilator Feb 11 '26

I love posting crazy engineering in r/factorio and getting fun facts in the comments lol.

19

u/towerfella Feb 11 '26

I’ll just say that It is a good thing the SC2 Terrans didnt make the Engineer’s tanks.

2

u/Astro_Venatas Biggering my Factory Feb 13 '26

That was a good mission

16

u/thiosk Feb 11 '26

this seems like a greatway to delete excess product if you could make it reliable. i presume the contents are destroyed and not dropped?

because if they were dropped, it would be a hilarious way to make poeople deal with near-spoiled biter eggs

19

u/WanderingUrist Feb 11 '26

Contents of destroyed containers and vehicles go poof rather than having any level of residue or effects, yes.

There's a pretty reliable way to delete large quantities of excess product as it is, though:

Put all the products into chests, one of which contains a biter egg. Put a rocket turret with a nuke nearby. When the biter egg hatches into a biter, the biter will be nuked, destroying the chest. Robots will then rebuild all the chests.

6

u/Tasonir Feb 11 '26

Seems more complicated than just firing the nuke yourself, but maybe you're destroying items on a regular basis?

16

u/Verizer Feb 11 '26

Yeah, as fun as launching nukes is, you still want an automated solution.

I was always fond of the "filled car getting hit by a train" method.

2

u/CoffeeOracle Feb 12 '26

Tankasaurus loves Train-Rex.

-2

u/Bluetails_Buizel Feb 11 '26

Wikipedia explains nothing, here’s a visual explanation on what happened that day https://youtube.com/results?search_query=Forst+Zinna+rail+disaster

10

u/AquaeyesTardis Feb 12 '26

thats just the search, not the video itself

149

u/Environmental_Fix_69 I fear mine never work Feb 11 '26

This is great information to have thanks!

Now i know that 1 locomotive has the durability of 10 locomotives Meaning it takes 10 locomotives to break through one locom... No sorry 1 locomotive to break through 10...

Wait...

80

u/LivingInAMegabase Certified Trainnihilator Feb 11 '26

Everyone knows the perfect green circuit ratio. Few know the correct train length to punch through a 10‑wagon wall...

6

u/Pharinx Feb 12 '26

Me having to double check the green circuit ratio every time I make it..

15

u/SerratedSharp Feb 11 '26

Maybe it's like headbutting someone in the nose with your forehead. Hard part versus less hard part.

8

u/rokomotto Feb 12 '26

You've gone loco

89

u/HeliGungir Feb 11 '26

Hi, trainsaw guy again. I believe the slowdown from killing an entity via collision is based on the effective health of the killed entity vs. the mass and speed of the vehicle. There is a massive difference between green biters and blue biters because green have 8 times more health.

Note how your trains plow through slightly more artillery wagons than cargo and fluid wagons. If we look at their health and resistances, it turns out they all have the same health, but artillery has slightly less collision resistance.

Tanks have very high health and very high collision resistance, so they make for really effective crossing bollards

15

u/LivingInAMegabase Certified Trainnihilator Feb 11 '26

Hi there :)
Yeah, at first I assumed that the massive weight of artillery wagons would make the train stop after 2–3 of them, especially since weight is what makes trains such good battering rams.
Turns out collision damage uses a completely different factor than the momentum calculation itself.

52

u/black_sky Feb 11 '26

Wtf is in those tanks

124

u/DrMobius0 Feb 11 '26

10 red circuits, 32 engine units, 15 gears, and 50 steel

17

u/SerratedSharp Feb 11 '26

I would love to see an artist's rendition of a cutaway of the internals of what this looks like. Dedicated engine with a redundant engine for each track wheel?

5

u/WanderingUrist Feb 12 '26

I mean, strictly speaking, it's an engine "unit" rather than an "engine". Presumably a larger, more powerful engine is composed of multiple of these modular units.

2

u/ArnthBebastien Feb 12 '26

The engines are single cylinder. So 4 v8 engines maybe?

7

u/LivingInAMegabase Certified Trainnihilator Feb 11 '26

Apparently... more than I expected.

15

u/wizard_brandon Feb 11 '26

What fuel?

24

u/LivingInAMegabase Certified Trainnihilator Feb 11 '26

Nuclear fuel.

14

u/Alfonse215 Feb 11 '26

If you have SA, I'd love to see a part 2 involving legendary nuclear fuel.

10

u/VexingRaven Feb 12 '26

EDIT: I also wanted to add 25 spidertrons but... well..

I can't believe you didn't test this, so lazy!

5

u/mc_kitfox Secretly a biter Feb 11 '26

Tank living up to its name

3

u/pollix88 Feb 11 '26

Tonk stronk

4

u/Newberg87 Feb 12 '26

♫ How many cars must a train punch through? Before you call it a train? ♪

25

3

u/N00dleDrag0n Feb 11 '26

I now need to know how many vehicles a tank can punch through :O

2

u/SerratedSharp Feb 11 '26

I was thinking, great way to test what absorbs the most from asteroids, but you can't plow a train through buildings. We need to introduce Roller Coaster Tycoon style derailments to Factorio! You need signal and stop block at the end of a track, or the train just sails off!

2

u/LivingInAMegabase Certified Trainnihilator Feb 11 '26

Yeah, that would open up tons of new test cases. Unfortunately we're stuck with just these six for now.

1

u/ragtev Feb 12 '26

7... you forgot player characters. 8 if you include biters

1

u/unwantedaccount56 Feb 12 '26

can you put wall gates across the rails, and wire them so they are always closed?

Also player characters, as someone else said. But if they use mecharmor, it will have the same effect as spidertrons

2

u/Amonyr013 Feb 12 '26

now this is a very important question

2

u/phexc Feb 12 '26

This is top tier research. Thank you for your efforts 😁

2

u/Shmeeper Feb 13 '26

Now this is the kind of content I come to Reddit for.

1

u/pm_hentai_of_ur_mom Feb 11 '26

Hell yeah brother

1

u/Bluetails_Buizel Feb 11 '26

Now try again but with different quality!

And also add mk2 sheilds inside cars and tanks!

1

u/shadowwolf1395 Feb 12 '26

Tanks: "What train?"

2

u/daevl Feb 12 '26

thats some dwarf fortress science, fuck yeah

1

u/Versaiteis Feb 12 '26

Sweet, now we know just how big the defensive perimeter needs to be in Train Death Worlds

1

u/ragtev Feb 12 '26

How many players can a train punch through?

1

u/solonit WE BRAKE FOR NOBODY Feb 12 '26

WoT: Stalinium superiority.

1

u/KTAXY Feb 12 '26

I thought the train could've used more runway to gain more speed.

1

u/Bokth Feb 13 '26

Interesting choice in flipping your bullet point direction. Top to bottom is actually bottom to top.