Railhubs kinda suck

[MeowMaster]

They demand too much heat and resources and don't give enough of an output boost in return, when I build them I find myself faced with a net negative on my resources and a lot of the time instead of a net positive.

If these are going to be using more resources and heat then they produce than why would I build them? they're not worth it to build next to extraction districts as they become a net negative in coal, oil, and materials. They are hardly worth factory districts as they give so little in an extra boost that you'll be wasting materials compared to simply just building a new factory district.

[Ridesdragons]

yea, hubs in general right now are in a terrible place. this is due to, what many of us can only assume is, a bug, where hubs do not affect buildings placed inside of districts. the railhub is just impacted the most due to districts having hardly any production value to begin with (it's the buildings that produce the lion's share of output), so +15% of basically nothing is still basically nothing

[TheRoboticRabbit]

Yeah I agree that most of the hubs demand a lot of heat
It would be cool if you could research upgrading for insulation for some of the hubs or make them able to receive heating bonuses from other buildings or hubs

[Airatome]

Most of the hub centers are traps it would seem. Though I have yet to play through the hardest difficulties in utopia builder yet. And there might be faction abilities like the Overseers Overdrive or having automated workforces or other laws that bring these up to par and make them more viable. But so far I have never touched the hub section of the research tree and the only hubs I use are heating hubs and stockpile hubs. Period.

So far I'm not having any issues in my games where anything else has been required. Why waste resources on inefficiency ?

[TheRoboticRabbit]

The only one that is marginally useful is the heating hub, storage, and trust hubs
Although tension hubs also or kinda okay

[TheRoboticRabbit]

Kinda wish you could pass laws the encourage sports

[Ridesdragons]

the comms hub and the fighting hub do their job, and are the only sources of their produce, so they're valid, but it also depends on you running into situations where tension and trust are issues. eventually, you'll be funding projects rather than raising funds, so you shouldn't have too much issue making people like you, which also goes a long way towards preventing tension. fighting hubs are very good in the story, though, for chapter 5.

other than that, though... it's basically just stockpiles. +50k storage is good, and a free 60 workers per nearby district is also appreciated. and maybe heating hubs for whiteout usage only. I have recently been made aware that heating hubs also don't affect buildings inside of districts (and that the heating tooltip for districts with buildings in them is just... wrong. very, very wrong.), which means they're only useful near districts that would increase to 40+ heat requirement before factoring in buildings during whiteouts. and even then it's questionable.

[Airatome]

Originally posted by Ridesdragons:

the comms hub and the fighting hub do their job, and are the only sources of their produce, so they're valid, but it also depends on you running into situations where tension and trust are issues. eventually, you'll be funding projects rather than raising funds, so you shouldn't have too much issue making people like you, which also goes a long way towards preventing tension. fighting hubs are very good in the story, though, for chapter 5.

other than that, though... it's basically just stockpiles. +50k storage is good, and a free 60 workers per nearby district is also appreciated. and maybe heating hubs for whiteout usage only. I have recently been made aware that heating hubs also don't affect buildings inside of districts (and that the heating tooltip for districts with buildings in them is just... wrong. very, very wrong.), which means they're only useful near districts that would increase to 40+ heat requirement before factoring in buildings during whiteouts. and even then it's questionable.

I hope they're aware of this. I am not entirely sure how to report this issue but I noticed it myself. It's..... very very wrong...

[Ridesdragons]

Originally posted by Airatome:

I hope they're aware of this. I am not entirely sure how to report this issue but I noticed it myself. It's..... very very wrong...

you can report issues here[11bitstudios.com]. that said, while hubs are bad, I don't know if it's "submit a problem"-worthy.

[Airatome]

Originally posted by Ridesdragons:

Originally posted by Airatome:

I hope they're aware of this. I am not entirely sure how to report this issue but I noticed it myself. It's..... very very wrong...

you can report issues here[11bitstudios.com]. that said, while hubs are bad, I don't know if it's "submit a problem"-worthy.

Oh! No...no I meant...

The heat issue thing 😅😅

It's clearly not intended to be that way
..right?

I mean.... right? That'd be kind of a huge oversight otherwise...

[Landlocked]

I agree that railhubs are badly underpowered. Most hubs a a little meh. This game should make me be like 'dang how can I fit more hubs into this nightmarish knot of districts?'

[Xaneorath]

Huh?
I believed the Railhubs were kind of the key for me to solve the "Isolationist"-Achievement on Horizon(Captain/Survivor), so they had their use in my experience.
I didnt really do the math on how much they give, compared to how much heat they cost, but I could swear it gave me the edge to squeeze enough out of the oil deposit to be able to fill the Energy Stockpile for the Stockpile Victory. (Had 10-15 Railhubs next to the oil rig, with 1 space between each)

Considering the other Hubs, I did have good experience with the Heating Hub in my early tries of the game, when I was stuck in a Whiteout and desperatly searching for a way to reduce Heating Cost fast, so my Reserves last till the end of the Whiteout.

Also I am using the Healing Hubs and the Maintenance Hubs to decrease issues with squalor and disease in my current 50-60k population city (Captain/Survivor), since I ran out of spaces for Hospitals and Ventilation, while not needing further Housing Districts.

Didnt use the other Hubs so far (other than stockpiles), but I cant really share the sentiment that they would be completly useless.

[andersonm]

Originally posted by Xaneorath:

(Had 10-15 Railhubs next to the oil rig, with 1 space between each)

This is a joke.
It obviously works, but if a single railhub helped much at all, you wouldn't need 10-15.

[Ridesdragons]

Originally posted by Landlocked:

I agree that railhubs are badly underpowered. Most hubs a a little meh. This game should make me be like 'dang how can I fit more hubs into this nightmarish knot of districts?'

considering the fact that you can't place the same district next to itself, I fully believe that this is, in fact, the intended use of hubs. hence why I believe their complete uselessness is a bug rather than them making it intentionally bad. I can totally see them hooking onto districts and just not noticing that they aren't hooking onto buildings, especially with how confusing the heating and material UI for districts are.

Originally posted by Xaneorath:

Huh?
I believed the Railhubs were kind of the key for me to solve the "Isolationist"-Achievement on Horizon(Captain/Survivor), so they had their use in my experience.
I didnt really do the math on how much they give, compared to how much heat they cost, but I could swear it gave me the edge to squeeze enough out of the oil deposit to be able to fill the Energy Stockpile for the Stockpile Victory. (Had 10-15 Railhubs next to the oil rig, with 1 space between each)

Considering the other Hubs, I did have good experience with the Heating Hub in my early tries of the game, when I was stuck in a Whiteout and desperatly searching for a way to reduce Heating Cost fast, so my Reserves last till the end of the Whiteout.

Also I am using the Healing Hubs and the Maintenance Hubs to decrease issues with squalor and disease in my current 50-60k population city (Captain/Survivor), since I ran out of spaces for Hospitals and Ventilation, while not needing further Housing Districts.

Didnt use the other Hubs so far (other than stockpiles), but I cant really share the sentiment that they would be completly useless.

unfortunately, I think whatever else you were doing was helping your isolationist run far more than the rail hubs were. since rail hubs cannot impact buildings, and instead only raise the base district's yield, that means that each rail hub is only adding an extra 11.25 oil to your oil rig. and I can assure you that in -100C weather, the rail hub is absolutely burning more than 11.25 units of oil to do so. maybe you were using stimulants? stimulants are nuts, so I've heard.

I did say heating hubs can be useful during whiteouts, just that they aren't really useful anywhere else. I only recently discovered that I could turn off my heating hubs, have all my housing districts jump to "20-40 heat requirement", and find that I am not actually using any more fuel than I was before (literally 0 difference) - but I am using less materials than I was before. I'll keep them around for the whiteout, but it's a damn shame they're completely useless otherwise. by the way, fun fact, adjacency bonuses also don't affect buildings. and I'm keen to believe at this point that zone bonuses also don't affect buildings. your research institutes are always gonna hog 20 heat to themselves (weather dependent), no matter how snug in the cracks and districts you fit it.

did maintenance hubs have anything to do with squalor? I thought they only reduced material usage. well, granted, I didn't really use them much before I found out that they don't impact buildings, I certainly use them even less now. way too expensive late-game for what it does. so I wouldn't be surprised if I missed that bit about squalor. besides, moss filtration tower, my beloved.

the housing hubs are, as I said, useful if you need them, and useless if you don't. most people don't have issues with finding space to shove another housing district in, though if you did run out of space, then yea, hospital and police hubs are probably useful. but usually you have more housing building slots than you know what to do with, and more than enough space to fit more, so, eh.

[Xaneorath]

Originally posted by Ridesdragons:

unfortunately, I think whatever else you were doing was helping your isolationist run far more than the rail hubs were. since rail hubs cannot impact buildings, and instead only raise the base district's yield, that means that each rail hub is only adding an extra 11.25 oil to your oil rig. and I can assure you that in -100C weather, the rail hub is absolutely burning more than 11.25 units of oil to do so. maybe you were using stimulants? stimulants are nuts, so I've heard.

Dont know, as I said I didnt check the math and just played by ear and it seemed to help in the run where I actualy did it. (And no, Im not joking, its what I did XD Not saying it was smart either, mightve been Placebo, but I could swear it gave me an edge for it)

I did use constant Emergency Shifts while gathering the Stockpile. Dunno if they factored in?
Also I had the Adaptive Pumps on Oil Optimization. Did you factor that into your math?

I also dont know at which Degree the Weather was at that point, but I had to gather the stockpiles between the 1st and 2nd Whiteout, because after that the first deposits would run dry, resulting in a guaranteed loss. (If I understood the achievement correctly. I didnt build any Logistics District, just to make sure)

Originally posted by Ridesdragons:

I did say heating hubs can be useful during whiteouts, just that they aren't really useful anywhere else. I only recently discovered that I could turn off my heating hubs, have all my housing districts jump to "20-40 heat requirement", and find that I am not actually using any more fuel than I was before (literally 0 difference) - but I am using less materials than I was before. I'll keep them around for the whiteout, but it's a damn shame they're completely useless otherwise. by the way, fun fact, adjacency bonuses also don't affect buildings. and I'm keen to believe at this point that zone bonuses also don't affect buildings. your research institutes are always gonna hog 20 heat to themselves (weather dependent), no matter how snug in the cracks and districts you fit it.

Still sounds like a viable use then: "Shift Energy Need to Material Need", in a case where you might swim in Material but be starved on energy.

Originally posted by Ridesdragons:

did maintenance hubs have anything to do with squalor? I thought they only reduced material usage. well, granted, I didn't really use them much before I found out that they don't impact buildings, I certainly use them even less now. way too expensive late-game for what it does. so I wouldn't be surprised if I missed that bit about squalor. besides, moss filtration tower, my beloved.

No, you are correct there, it was me misremembering. I thought about using both hubs, but ended up only using the Health Hubs against disease, which gave me the building room in Housing Districts for more Vents. Sorry, my bad.

Originally posted by Ridesdragons:

the housing hubs are, as I said, useful if you need them, and useless if you don't. most people don't have issues with finding space to shove another housing district in, though if you did run out of space, then yea, hospital and police hubs are probably useful. but usually you have more housing building slots than you know what to do with, and more than enough space to fit more, so, eh.

We are talking about Captain Difficulty? Because I find myself usualy trying to avoid building too many Districts (and Frostbreaking the space for them), because Heatstamps and space keep being a bottleneck even with +50income.
I could use heatstamps from raising Funds on my two devoted Factions, but Im using them to try to get the minor groups to Devoted too by paying for projects, so I cant really work with them.

[Dealer]

I disagree.