Combined Logistics

[Varana]

tralala: I grouped train station and truck stop, yes – I don’t know whether it’s necessary, never tried it without grouping.

However, I don’t think that it’s really necessary. Even grouped stations count as separate stations, in a certain way:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=314065865

This is the train part of the station. (I get this only when clicking directly on the station graphic, not by clicking the symbol.) Nothing is waiting here, as the train with the goods has just departed, and the coal is waiting for the trucks. Also, you can see that the iron the train just delivered is moving from the train station along the road to the truck station.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=314065525

This is the truck part, a few days later, also selected by clicking on the station itself, not the symbol. Note that it still retains its own name (“Church Stretton Annex”), although the whole station goes by “Ch. St. West”. The coal is waiting here, and you can also see the iron disappearing: It *is* moved over from the train station, which it would only do if there’s “demand” at the truck station, the little symbols are getting fewer as they arrive, but they never show up at the station as waiting.

Anyway: I think douglas is right here, that grouping mostly is for alleviating player’s OCD. 😉

Also, seeing the state in which TF currently is, I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some bugs preventing such a supply chain from working under certain conditions, or just giving the appearance that it doesn’t work, or whatever.

[General]

Grouping stations works for me.

A related question: Some suppliers, both raw material and produced goods, start at “0” productivity.

I also saw i could rise that level by offering the service to transport goods (sometines :/ )

So let’s say i have one “forest” and one sawmill. Will the forest start producing when i set up transport between it and a sawmill which is also currently at “0”? Or do i need to setup a way the products of the sawmill find a receiver?

Or, in other words, is the production “demand-driven” or “transport-driven”?

I also noticed that raising the output of a given goods source seems to be frequency-tied. If i send one large train to a source like an oil-well, production seems to decline, if i send multiple trains to the same location, production seems to raise (as will my costs). Can somebody confirm this?

[Person012345]

It may be to do with the proximity of the truck station to the train station.

Tbh this just goes to show how piss-poor the instructions for the game are, nobody knows what the hell is going on.

[Varana]

General: Production is demand-driven. If the sawmill doesn’t have any customers for its goods, nobody will produce anything. You always have to set up the complete chain at once.

(There may be some production even if you’re just supplying raw materials, because of the automatic transport. However, if the sawmill started out with a production of 0, it’s likely that there’s no city in the vicinity to create demand, so it won’t do anything on its own.)

For the whole process, it works imho best to think it backwards: The city needs goods – how to get them there? And from there on down to the raw materials.

I actively try to avoid thinking about frequency. I do stuff and hope it works; if not, I change it or do something else. “Shorter time is kind of better, except when it’s not” works, so far – on easy. 😀 The whole thing is very vague, I fear that the meagre scraps of information given by the developers only obfuscate things further, and the game does a spectacular job at not providing meaningful feedback.

—

Update on the supply chain above:

It’s not the iron itself that’s buggy, it’s the station or lines. The game can’t seem to cope with TWO kinds of cargo waiting for the SAME line and direction. Just imagine: TWO! Not one! The sheer complexity!

Anyway, what happened: Somehow, the transfer station switched from “eating” all the iron to “eating” all the coal. I suspect that my trucks cleared the station from all coal waiting there, maybe even managed to get it all to the factory before the next train arrived. When it did, it was the iron train. From then on, the iron waited in the station, as it should, and was duly transported uphill by the trucks. Instead, all the coal disappeared, as the iron had before.

A few years later, it went back to coal.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 7 months ago by Varana.

[Person012345]

Oh, and by the way, I can also confirm that loading trucks -> trains works. I just realised I have a setup where trucks ship ore to a train station and it transfers just fine: http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/50986086040097246/D570EA9AFD1AB41E95C2CD1CAF12548CB39AD1A0/

Interestingly, although the train station is called “lower basingstoke” when clicked, the schedule for the line calls it “basingstoke exchange”. Don’t know if this is relevant.

[Traian Trante]

@Varana : the only reason that works s because teh train station os close enough to the factory anyway. The goods woudl drop off and go there by foot, your trucks just make the job easier. If the station woudl be further, that setup wouldn’t work.

 

[Person012345]

@Traian: Is that so?

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/50986086042227104/1C048BD7881E6F0AED0A9033CD93F7AFAE886A49/

Because I started a new game to test this the wells haven’t physically produced anything yet, but the industry screen indicates that it’s perfectly happy to use my train-truck-train line. I will wait and see what happens with the cargo once it’s produced.

Edit: Confirmed that that setup works.

[Person012345]

Proof that it works, if anyone is interested. Nothing was grouped.

[douglas]

Ok that is great news! And thanks for the video. The train engine noise makes all flaws disappear….temporarily 🙂

[Varana]

That was an extremely pampered drop of oil. 😀

[Author]

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