Help me understand the arcane logic of industries

[Artess]

In my latest game, I had one town that had an oil well and a refinery nearby, so naturally I created a supply chain (truck) that worked very well. In the 1950s, however, I noticed that the refinery stopped producing and the trucks were running around empty. A similar problem occured with another town. Can the resources in the oil well run out? Or is it maybe possible for a factory to be “too close” to the city? I tried to send a single truck half a map away, and suddenly it was all crazy profits.

[vinkandoi]

You might want to go thru some tutorials availabe  in community guides of steam. There is also my “Learning Cargo in 10 mins” tutorial.

 

[Norfolk_Chris]

Is your town obtaining goods from elsewhere?  Has it any unfulfilled demand for goods?  Don’t forget that goods will only be supplied to satisfy demand.

I have noticed that if a town is receiving goods from more than one source, demand can fluctuate between the sources unpredictably.

[Artess]

You might want to go thru some tutorials availabe  in community guides of steam. There is also my “Learning Cargo in 10 mins” tutorial.

Yeah, I did that, and I think I read even the guid by that name, but couldn’t find anything that explained this sudden drop. The line worked perfectly fine for over a century, was well saturated – I adjusted the number of trucks when needed – and then the production simply went away.

Is your town obtaining goods from elsewhere?  Has it any unfulfilled demand for goods?  Don’t forget that goods will only be supplied to satisfy demand.

That’s the weirdest thing, it was the only production facility supplying the goods, and the demand was not fulfilled – it was something like “1/63”. Once I connected another factory, much further away, – it instantly jumped into gear, and the new line was very profitable, too. In another town, the production dropped – not to a halt, though, but it wasn’t fulfilling the demand either, and the trucks were running half empty.

[Norfolk_Chris]

I’m sorry I can’t think of any logical explanation for this.  It looks like this could be a bug in the game a bug in the game. ……..  Perhaps the guys at Urban Games could investigate?

[Artess]

I’ll see if I get it again in a different game, and if I do, I’ll report it as a bug.

[isidoro]

You can check three things:

a) See in the factory properties if it says “Line usage:yes”.

b) Turn “Cargo” on in the bottom right menu and see the goods boxes move around.  Sometimes, the go on foot to the city, sometimes the city gets goods from other sources.

c) Check that the vehicles you use can certainly carry Goods.

Hope it helps.

 

[Artess]

That helped a little bit, thanks: in one of the towns, the goods were indeed moved by foot – I guess the town grew too close to the factory. In the second case, however, it still was a mystery: the goods weren’t being moved, the town didn’t have enough goods supply, and yes, the trucks were the right ones =)

[kingeek]

When cargo goes by foot, I assume this is because it is shorter then going by the provided vehicles? The cargo should still arrive at it’s destination. The only downside would be that is does not generate any income.

[Author]

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