Anyone understand how to get the tractors and truck stations working?

Question

So i made a truck station and a tractor. I figured id put coal into the fuel slot and cargo slot of the tuck station and then i assume im supposed to drive the tractor under the arm of the truck station? I did get the arm to start moving around as coal would get put into the station but it never put any of the coal into the tractor.
Anyone have any idea what i need to do or am doing wrong? I would love to automate coal/power.

Edit: I tried removing and placing the truck station back down but it seems that what happens is it fills up to 25 coal in the fuel slot, and then something between 7 and 13 in the truck stations storage and then just stops working. At the moment its not even moving the loading arm anymore. Is the truck station just super bugged out or something? I dont see a place that specifies if its powered so i tried using the station with both power connected to it and not connected to it but it just says "Loading..." whenever i look at the status while driving the tractor underneath.

Comments

Do you mean the direction of loading/unloading? There is a button for that in the Truck Station's configuration panel.

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Heads up for anyone having issues i figured mine out... i think.
Definitely go check what MrMandar said below.
Make sure you have enough power going to all your structures. Even if you see the lights as green dont trust that. Make sure coal is actively being fed into the station. Make sure the station has at least 20MW dedicated to for it to run. You will have to actively drive the tractor out from under it and back under the crane and it should reload whatever is in the station into the tractor.
I havent automated the tractor yet but im hoping i dont encounter any further issues once i do. This has taken up an hour or 2 of my time and has driven me crazy.
Also i think theres a bug where coal wont load into the station when its supposed to so i just kept having to place the station back down before it would work again.
Best of luck.

Answer 1

First the Truck station has 2 inputs and an output so if you are adding fuel make sure it goes to the one by the 2 big tanks.

Make sure the Truck station is powered

Make sure the Truck Station is set to load or unload as you desire

As long as the truck comes into the "yard" of the station it will drop off or load it.

Automation for the truck is done by getting on the truck and choosing to Record the path.  Then drive the full loop you want it to run and end the recording.  Then turn on autopilot and get off (wont run on auto while you are on it)  May have to wait a little bit for it to start working

WARNING:  It isn't always good at following paths.  Especially when you need it to make a sharp turn or U-ture/3 point turn.  If near pits you may way to build platforms or walls to help keep it from falling

Comments

Thanks. I already tried everything you mentioned tho and its not working.
The dang station doesnt say whether it has enough power so ive been relying on the light on top of it to indicate if it has enough power.
I was having issues with keeping it powered for some odd reason. Had other things hooked up but they were powered and working and no fuses had to be reset.

Right now ive done everything you mentioned, weve got power to the station, its set to unload to the truck, it has coalin its storage and fuel but it wont move it to the truck anymore. I dont even see the unloading status anymore on tractor.

Any ideas what might be going wrong? I think since u posted i also updated the OP with extra infos as ive been struggling with this.

It seems one of the issues has to do with the station not being able to load coal into it. It just backs up, i removed the station and placed it back down and that was no longer a problem but it seems to keep happening.

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Some thoughts:
1) If your truck station isn't powered properly, it won't accept items by belt.
2) Load is to put stuff INTO the tractor, Unload is to get stuff OUT of the tractor.
3) Power light will be yellow and station will power down if no tractor is in yard, but belts will still work.
4) Truck station will only unload or load when you drive in.  If additional materials are added to the station AFTER truck is done being loaded or unloaded, it will NOT continue loading.

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I had some difficulties getting it to work the first time too.
For me, the station had power, it had coal in its inventory, and it was set to 'Load' the truck, but nothing would happen.
What ended up fixing it was I just had to drive the truck out of range of the loader, and then drive back into range. Once the truck enters the yard, it signals for the loader to load (or unload, depending on the situation)

Also,
I had a bit of a hard time figuring out how to automate the truck as well. Press 'C' to open the trucks menu while driving it.

Hope this helps.

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Oh yeah.  The building will only interact with the truck once per visit.  If the building is empty you will still get the animation even if you don't get or drop off anything.   Adding stuff after that will not cause anything to happen.   The yard is big so you have to drive a bit away.

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In addition to that warning about following paths, I noticed its not the best with the gas/brake pedals either. I happened to see one approaching a truck station while I was tinkering with a nearby belt so I watched my automated minion at work as it slammed full speed into the truck station and bounced off onto its side for a second before rolling back over onto its wheels. Then it casually sauntered over to the truck station as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But when it went to leave, it drove forward into the truck station and got stuck. I thought I was going to have to jump down and help it but to my surprise it backed up and drove away.

Answer 2

I don't know if you're still having this issue, but the other stuff mentioned by other people are givens. I noticed that there was a difference between the two inputs on the truck station. Imagine you're looking at the side with the two inputs and one output. The input on the furthest left us the fuel input. The input on the right is the cargo space input (the one that gets loaded in to the tractor). Then you have the output that is where your offloaded materials come out of.