Cant make desert cities grow.

[Dantalion]

I can not provide enough food to make desert cities grow.
I provide one city with the produce from 3 fruit plantations delivered to one food processing plant but it seems to be still not enough.
Food is green for a few seconds and instantly jumps back to required...
What am I doing wrong?

[LeonardMT]

Do you have water? Also to increase production try to add farms

[Dantalion]

Yes I provide a lot of water.

I have no further farms anywhere. It is a bit crazy that I need like 5+ farms from all over the map to grow one city.

[LeonardMT]

Originally posted by Dantalion:

Yes I provide a lot of water.

I have no further farms anywhere. It is a bit crazy that I need like 5+ farms from all over the map to grow one city.

Maybe you should try to transfer the food onto trucks and to spread the food out

[Dantalion]

Originally posted by LeonardMT:

Originally posted by Dantalion:

Yes I provide a lot of water.

I have no further farms anywhere. It is a bit crazy that I need like 5+ farms from all over the map to grow one city.

Maybe you should try to transfer the food onto trucks and to spread the food out

But why does it matter?
It should not be like this. Why would a city not be able to store food?
It just feels like a broken game mechanic.

[LeonardMT]

Originally posted by Dantalion:

Originally posted by LeonardMT:

Maybe you should try to transfer the food onto trucks and to spread the food out

But why does it matter?
It should not be like this. Why would a city not be able to store food?
It just feels like a broken game mechanic.

So the town will always accept food

[dev]

I tried the desert map only once. It felt like the cities want steady supply with trucks. If you dump huge loads with trains once in a while they just throw all the food and water away.

[kamnet]

First, are you using any scripts which dictate what items a city needs to grow? If so, consult the script's documentation for what is necessary.

Second, are you making consistent deliveries every 30 days? If you aren't, then the city is going to fall back and reset. If you're delivering more food than what it needs in a 30 day period, then you may need to do some planning and ration out your deliveries to ensure you're hitting your goals and not wasting food.

[Dantalion]

I am not using any scripts.

I already have a big long distance network and 2 separate trains delivering food to the same city...
It is way too much effort just to deliver some food and water.

And using a road system is also pretty inefficient because the distances between farms, industry and towns are quite big.

Also it has only a tiny profit.
I really dont see any point to play the desert maps like this.

[Jimmy Hunter]

So if your farms are far away, consider making middle terminals to drop the freight and have a second set of trains moving it from point B towards your city, which is point C. Point C can even contain another network of trains/trucks to make the city Point D instead.

Having multiple terminals between long voyages allows you to gain transfer money which helps pay for long distance transport. This also allows for transport to be staggered between different stages, allowing a trickle to continue coming in.

As long as you have a steady amount of water and goods being fed to the city, you can also pay for new buildings via the Local Authority menu in the city. This will lower the amount of time between periods of growth in the city.

It's also worth noting that moving cargo via truck isn't very profitable due to the small loads they carry. Consider upgrading to Trains or Boats for larger loads.

[Dantalion]

Originally posted by Jimmy Hunter:

So if your farms are far away, consider making middle terminals to drop the freight and have a second set of trains moving it from point B towards your city, which is point C. Point C can even contain another network of trains/trucks to make the city Point D instead.

Having multiple terminals between long voyages allows you to gain transfer money which helps pay for long distance transport. This also allows for transport to be staggered between different stages, allowing a trickle to continue coming in.

As long as you have a steady amount of water and goods being fed to the city, you can also pay for new buildings via the Local Authority menu in the city. This will lower the amount of time between periods of growth in the city.

It's also worth noting that moving cargo via truck isn't very profitable due to the small loads they carry. Consider upgrading to Trains or Boats for larger loads.

Yes that sounds reasonable but my point is that it cant be that I have to deliver tons and tons of food to a 500 inhabitants village.

It is just very straining to connect all these farms which sometimes spawn quite unlucky to a food processing plant far away and then micro manage the delivery times for the cities...

I find it very hard to develop even one city let alone multiple ones on the desert map.

It just doesnt feel right.

[dev]

I tried the desert again. Best tactic is to choose your main city from one of the cities that is on the green zone and does not need food or water, but will grow faster with them. After growing that enough, you can start sending the food and water to some other city you want to see grow.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Originally posted by Dantalion:

It is just very straining to connect all these farms which sometimes spawn quite unlucky to a food processing plant far away and then micro manage the delivery times for the cities...

It's worth noting you can buy certain types of Industry by default. Food Processing Plants should be on that list you can purchase.

But I mean, otherwise yeah, part of the sandbox is figuring out these unique problems that pop up. The joys of setting up a logistics system and watching it work just the way you need it.

[kLuns]

Distance is no problem for farms and fruit plants. You can use trains for that. and you 'll get a steady food supply at the food factory.

The Distribution from the food factory requires some planning.
For a continuous delivery on long distance you need both road and rail work together.
Pickup from factory with train > go to a place far away. Make distribution station for trucks to supply nearby and feed it with the trainline.

Scheduling should do a good job as well. Rather on time than full load.

[orbops]

Here's a really good explanation of how to grow towns.
https://wiki.openttd.org/en/Manual/Towns#town-growth