A diagonal train gap of 5 'half tiles' can be achieved by placing signals with a distance of 4 'half tiles' or with an autosignal setting of approximately 2. This translates to a minimum diagonal train gap of 4.5 'half tiles'. This translates to a minimum diagonal train gap of 6 'half tiles', which can be achieved by placing signals with a distance of 5 'half tiles' (or by twice placing signals with an autosignal setting of 5).Īn autosignal setting of 2 gives a minimum train gap of 3. This seems to be true for only some NewGRFs! (Iirc, it is true for the JapanSet and wrong for the default trains.)Īn autosignal setting of 3 gives a minimum train gap of 4. The following examples have been created under the assumption that the length of the train also changes on diagonal track. So if using a certain autosignal setting, you will probably need to manually increase the signal density on any angled rail you have. Otherwise trains can jam either when going from straight to diagonal or from diagonal to straight track.Ī quick experiment showed that trains move exactly 25% slower on diagonal tracks. It is important that the train gap (not SD) of straight and diagonal tracks is as similar as possible. In OpenTTD, trains move slower on angled track (thanks SmatZ!), and thus require an increased signal density to prevent bottlenecks. Remember that this also holds for corners and splits/merges. Thus, a track with one signal every two tiles, that has an anomalous one-off gap of three or four tiles, will suffer from greatly diminished capacity and can potentially jam and violate rule 1 (Figure 2). The capacity of a track is determined by whichever individual signal gap is the largest. One important consideration is consistency. In practice, reaching this density is impossible. When trains are this close together, you have reached the theoretical maximum train density. On diagonal track one signal every 2N 'half tiles' or N 'full tiles' the minimum gap cannot be less than 2N+1 'half tiles' or N+1/2 'full tiles'.

With an SD of one signal every N tiles, the minimum gap between two full-speed trains can never be less than N+1 (Figure 1). Widely-spaced signals will result in a lower carrying capacity. Disclaimer over, let's consider the various factors that affect your carrying capacity. Junctions and networking are much more important. This page is intended as a theoretical treatment purely of carrying capacity. 1.3.2 Theoretical Maximum Train Density.1.1.2 So what signal distance should I use?.

Openttd path signals