[Idea] Deliveries, Garbage and Exports a true bottleneck

[McCloudy]

Hi there,

Recently I've run into quite some trouble running my prison. I've tried a couple of things to solve it like putting deliveries way on top of the map so that they unload first and then send the train of trucks down to garbage and exports. Nothing seems to really work and now with my forrestry and workshop fully running it seems that this problem is only getting bigger and bigger.

Maybe there is something that can be done about this, but I am not sure what in the current situation. Some input from you guys would be nice in this matter!

Also I have a solution, but I am not sure how easy this would be to develop for the devs.

My solution:
There are two sides to the road, it would be really cool if I could place the exports area on the right and that there would be a special line of trucks only for export. This way most of my bottleneck would be solved, because the export trucks are the ones that keep the rest waiting.

Or even better if you could get trucks on both sides of the road and put these special pick up and drop off zones left or right whatever you please.

Some input from you guys would be great!

Regards,
Mc

[McCloudy]

To make this a bit more interesting you could consider about adding a whole new module to the game. In bureaucracy add a researchable Logistics section. Only after researching and hiring an expert in logistics you can research the next step which will allow you to use the second half of the road or something.

[DigitalImpostor]

Originally posted by McCloudy:

put these special pick up and drop off zones left or right whatever you please.

From Alpha 14 to Alpha 18 you could put the Deliveries and Garbage zones wherever you wanted. When they introduced the Exports zone the functionality of those zones reverted back to how it worked pre-Alpha 14.

[McCloudy]

You can still put them where ever you want,, but only on the left side of the road now as you just said. What I would like to see is the ability to use both lanes for pick ups and deliveries, to take off the pressure of all the trucks coming, going and queueing

[Mendacious Calamity]

The hearse that collects dead bodies uses the right hand lane (as we look at it). Personally I think a better solution to the trucks queuing would be to have the trucks carrying their own workers that offload everything into the delivery area instead of waiting for the prison workers to do it all.

[McCloudy]

Oh I see, never had a dead body so far hehe, didn't know that..

That's a good idea too, part of the problem is also the slow work of these workers... I tried to hire a couple more, but it costs more money than it generates at some point and even then the problem is still there

[TacoTaco]

These things are sent to test us. Managing how busy your construction workers are is the key to ensuring that garbage or exports are being loaded. Either pace your construction, hire more workers or wait for the trucks to clear, which they will once the other tasks subside.

[griesch]

It would be cool to have a loading dock that trucks could pull up to load/unload and maybe you could hire a loading dock guy who only takes care of deliveries. Maybe that could be researchable as mentioned above for logistics. The major issue here isn't putting all that on one side or the other, its that one worker can't unload the whole truck. So say you have 8 trees coming in. The first guy to get there unloads the crate and leaves. Now there are 7 more crates to take out and this process carries on for some time until finally the last crate is unloaded and the truck moves on. That first guy could have unloaded the whole truck in a matter of 30 seconds where as it took minutes for all 8 people to figure out they need to run across the map to unload a truck. This gets very noticable when you expand the map area or have many buildings to run through. Awesome job for an alpha thus far, keep the updates coming, and give the electric chair purpose! :)

[Dosedmonkey]

Just a side note, if you have ideas, post them in the official alpha forum on IVs website, and then the dev team will look them up and quite possibly put them in.

[McCloudy]

Originally posted by Smeagol:

These things are sent to test us.

That's good to know! About the workers I agree of course. At some point tho it is really problematic and causing a loss of money even when you balance it out..

Originally posted by Leo'5to?|Dosedmonkey:

Just a side note, if you have ideas, post them in the official alpha forum on IVs website, and then the dev team will look them up and quite possibly put them in.

Good tip, thanks!

[Smashing]

I'd like it if you could assign workers to certain jobs/areas like you can with guards. That way you could have some just for unloading, some just for loading, some just for taking stuff to and from certian areas etc.