A quick guide to Industry and Supply Chain rule.

[JustaGamer]

The last couples day I noticed quite a few people claiming Industry doesn't work, or bug, or they can't stop their industry from exporting. As someone who had build 8 Industry area all reach max level, I can assure you it does work, you just have to understand how it works. And supprisingly, the logic behind the DLC is based on real life logic.

First: let me define a few terms I will use to clear up confusion:

- Resource extractor (RE): the building that generate the raw resources.
- Resource dropof point (RDP): the 'defaut' warehouse you found under each industry type, and store only the raw resource of that industry type.
- Warehouse (WH): these are the 4 customizable warehouse that are in their own seperate catagory.
- Refinery (RF): factories that consume raw and turn them into materials.
- Factory (FA): the end chain factories that product luxury products from materials.

Second: the most important thing - leave every warehouse setting at Balance. The other two option Filled and Empty have very limited use for micromanagement, and frankly pass that first few factories it becomes a nightmare. As long as you set up your chain correctly, balance is sufficient. In fact I have a suspicious idea the people who are having problem are the one trying to fiddle with this setting


Third: the rules

- The supply chain only move in one direction: it means the trucks regardless of where they come from, will only do delivery, not fetch. Just like in real life, the sellers is always the one bring the product to the buyer, the buyer not gonna send their own vehicle to pick it up from the seller. It mean:

+ RE will send truck to RFs, or WH, or export it.
+ WH will send their truck to RE / FA or export it.
+ RF will send their truck to WH / FA or export it.

- Only raw resource can be imported, all material must be produced locally. All can be export.
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It sounds like a lot, but to apply them you only need to follow a couples simple rule:

- Keep the layout in one direction. (don't put your RDP after your RF)

- IMPORTANT: try to keep your RE and RDP on the same lane of traffic, so they don't have to loop. Most people use one way road anyway, but I had found that I have no problem with 2-way lanes as long as I'm being smart about it, it's also less spaghetti and headache. In another words: don't put your RE one one side and your RDP on the other side of the road. You may think "oh it's just across the street" but it means your trucks will have to do a big loop for their delievery, and might decide to just export it.

- Have WH as the final stop for your chain, and let them do the long distance delivery (export/commercial). If you see trucks from your non-WH facilies on the other side of the map, you're doing it wrong. Another suspicious of mine is people are probably ignoring this type of warehouse, and end up having all of their factories's trucks all over the map. Trust me, I did the same on the first day I played the DLC.

The idea is you want trucks from your RE, RDP, RF going as little as possible. Not only it helps with traffic, it also help with keeping the chain working at max productivity. If your RE, RDP have to send all of its truck to the other side of the map, they won't be around to delievery the raw to your factories when they need, that's why you see them having to import. The picture below is my most recent/compack oil zone.

https://imgur.com/a/gGqpywB

Red: RE zone.
Blue: RDP zone.
Green: RF zone.
Yellow: WH zone.

As you can see,

- The entire chain is on one lane of traffic. Minimizing distance. Most of my building only send out 1-2 trucks at a time.

- Since I produce a lot of raw, some of the RDP still exporting them (the one closest to the RE). This is fine because it's the RDP truck that exporting, not the RE truck. While the other RDP (the ones closer to the RF zone) take care of my local need.

The idea of this set up is your RF will always get first pick for service, and the export is only what excess. That's why it's recommend you have at least 3-4 RDP, not ONE or TWO! The reason is with balance setting, some of the first couple RDP still gonna export, and might end up sending all their truck out to farcorner of the map. Having a couple more RDP further down will ensure you have a supply fleet locally.

Also, by having those WH at the end (in this case to collect products from the RF zone), I prevent any back flow traffic. Those WHs always send out all of their truck for exporting/delivering to other zone, and those traffic are kept OUTSIDE of my industry zone.

Here is a the output screenshot of the zone above + two other zone. As you will see, they all hight level with large output, and all use 100% local supply:

https://imgur.com/a/Iaabwpp
https://imgur.com/a/uHkkxjP
https://imgur.com/a/84K9YFj

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Two common mistakes:

One: not having enough RDP.

- I have seen people suggested set RDP to empty. DON'T DO THIS. Only thing this accomplished is to have your trucks going to far corner of the map.

- If you feel you are producing more than enough raw and yet your RF still importing. Good chance you don't have enough RDP. Because what happening is your RE are overflowing them too fast, which cause the RDP to send out all of its truck for export. And also once they ran out of space to drop, your RE truck also end up exporting. This end up leaving your RF starve of resource, not because you don't have them, but because there is no truck from your RDP or RE around to delievery for them. Remember, RF and FA can not fetch resource by themselves.

- I think what most people do when facing with this situation is instintly add more RE. This WILL NOT help your problem, in fact it gonna make it worse.

- Very easy to fix: add a couple more RDP closer to the RF zone, and your problem will dissapear. The best way to gauge whether you have enough RDP or not is to check your REs, most of them should not have to send out more than 1-3 trucks at a time.

Two: having yoru chain on the same lane.

- Can't stretch this enough. Remember "close" is not just a matter of proximity, but lane distance. A RE on one side of the road an RDP right across the street are technically "next to each other" in term of proximity, but it could very well mean a truck from your RE having to do an entire loop around your zone in order to get to your RDP.

If you hae question, let me know. Or if someone want to use this text as a basic for a more formal guide, go ahead.

[Krik]

@Raven2015
Thank you! I was already suspious about the importance of the storage buildings but you proved it.

What's a good ratio of the buildings?
1x RE - 3-4x RDP - 1x RF?

[kristofburger]

Originally posted by Raven2015:

Two: having yoru chain on the same lane.

- Can't stretch this enough. Remember "close" is not just a matter of proximity, but lane distance. A RE on one side of the road an RDP right across the street are technically "next to each other" in term of proximity, but it could very well mean a truck from your RE having to do an entire loop around your zone in order to get to your RDP.

This is limited to small industrial roads where vehicles can't cross the center, which is a bug. This will not be a problem when using non-DLC two-lane roads (dirt included).

[Dead-Can-Dance]

You should turn this into a guide, this will surely help many player!

[bmrigs]

Time to cut and paste this to wordpad....

[JM]

Great guide.
Thanks a lot!
I suspected I was doing something wrong, but could not figure out what.
This guide clears it up.

[Stjarl]

Okay, I know what to do now in my oil and ore industries areas, but there's still one point which is making me going crazy.
All my industrial areas stand in different points of the map, so 5-6 of the unique factories are place in another zone. So I placed different WH around in order to supply the production (+ a cargo train station to transfer and a direct acces to the highway), but rather than using WH and train, my FA still waiting for trucks to deliver them, and so they don't operate half of time.

So if you got ideas to fix this, I'll take notes ^^"

[Detail]

Thanks, my biggest issue right now is not supplying my commerce. I added more cargo terminals, but the trucks for the most part just exit the city, going elsewhere. I'm actually starting to make some money now on the new industry, I just don't have a solution for this, I can't seem to get the trucks to supply the commerce outlets.

[Detail]

I also put 4 small warehouses in the old indiustry area, one for each industry product, they are all set to balance and seem to help.

[JustaGamer]

Originally posted by Aqua:

@Raven2015
What's a good ratio of the buildings?
1x RE - 3-4x RDP - 1x RF?

I don't work it out, plus I somehow doubt it'll be reliable. A perfect ratio would only work if we can somehow have a close loop system, which is not possible in this game. Plus most RE/RDP have different size so it's hard to guess. Like I said, as long as no more than 1/3 of your RDP sending out all of its trucks (they're the one exporting your raw), and 2/3 of your RDP only send 1-3 trucks out at the sametime, you know you have enough.

Originally posted by kristofburger:

This is limited to small industrial roads where vehicles can't cross the center, which is a bug. This will not be a problem when using non-DLC two-lane roads (dirt included).

I see this even in 4 lanes avenue and 6 lanes boulevard as well. They will always go until they have can loop back to the other lanes (either a round end of road corner or an interesection). The only time I see trucks cross the street is when they exiting a factory on the return trip.

Originally posted by Dead Can Dance:

You should turn this into a guide, this will surely help many player!

Never wrote one. Only reason I make this one is because I see quite a few people having troubles. Tbh I didn't expecit it to be that long, but seem the issues is the lack of info, I tried to provide as much as I want. Like I said if anyone want to use this as the basic to write an actual guide, go ahead I don't mind.

[kristofburger]

Originally posted by Raven2015:

Originally posted by kristofburger:

This is limited to small industrial roads where vehicles can't cross the center, which is a bug. This will not be a problem when using non-DLC two-lane roads (dirt included).

I see this even in 4 lanes avenue and 6 lanes boulevard as well. They will always go until they have can loop back to the other lanes (either a round end of road corner or an interesection). The only time I see trucks cross the street is when they exiting a factory on the return trip.

That behavior is expected with four-lane roads though because there's a physical median. The two-lane road doesn't and the industrial version should logically be the same.

[JustaGamer]

Here is a couple more example:

My rework timber industry:

https://imgur.com/BMzipCJ

The RE zone started from the top right, flow through the main RDP area, then into the RF area. Finally end at the WH area. The WH either gonna export the stuffs, or feed it into other factories "without looping back in into zone".

Here is my new farming area:

https://imgur.com/algvoxZ

Same idea. As you notice there are very little traffice in these zone despite lots of production activties. Most building only use a few trucks on short distance.

So the tl:dr here is that:

- Make sure your RDP is before your RF on the traffic flow. (RE -> RDP -> RF). It maybe tempting to put RE - RF - RDP if you follow the instint of trying to prevent the RDP from export, but this'll create a lot of back flow traffic when your RDP try to supply your RF.

- Always always always put some WH at the end of your chain for two reasons: 1-keep all your production truck from venturing out too far. 2-ensure exporting/delivering traffic doesn't back flown and clog up your zone.

[wirgleys]

I get what you are saying, but that means that it doesnt work as the way they showed in the wee videos they shared - showing a warehouse an a factory in the city away from the Resource extractors and refineries. It also means that it doesnt work as per the real world really....and yes I get its a game! for example oil - refineries are not near the wells....and the plants are not all located together.
You can have a toy factory or car factory no where near where the parts they need come from.

There needs to be an update or mod that allows for you to set supply chains and allocate requirements.

[JustaGamer]

Originally posted by rpovio:

Thanks, my biggest issue right now is not supplying my commerce. I added more cargo terminals, but the trucks for the most part just exit the city, going elsewhere. I'm actually starting to make some money now on the new industry, I just don't have a solution for this, I can't seem to get the trucks to supply the commerce outlets.

AFAIK most of your RF can't support commerce. They either export them, or supply your FA which are the one gonna supply your commerce, which is when you making the big buck. Remember household don't buy 'plastic', we buy something made from plastic.

And I "think" you need to have high level commercial building as well to generate local demand. So basically it's a scaffolding process.

[JustaGamer]

Originally posted by wirgleys:

I get what you are saying, but that means that it doesnt work as the way they showed in the wee videos they shared - showing a warehouse an a factory in the city away from the Resource extractors and refineries. It also means that it doesnt work as per the real world really....and yes I get its a game! for example oil - refineries are not near the wells....and the plants are not all located together.
You can have a toy factory or car factory no where near where the parts they need come from.

There needs to be an update or mod that allows for you to set supply chains and allocate requirements.

Uhm ... except the game let you do exactly that? In fact, it encourages it.

Here is an exanple:

https://imgur.com/eT8fKZU

Here my ore and oil zone are next to each other. The oil is produced on site, but the ore is being shipped in off-site via that cargo terminal on the top right, the feed into those red RDP on the top left, then flow into my refinery zone like usual, and supply my Electronic factory nicely.

Here is the entire overview of my city:

https://imgur.com/cq1iWGE

- Top left: that combine ore/oil zone.
- Near center: another ore/oil zone.
- South of that: Timber zone.
- South edge of the map: farm zone.

And they all feed supplies into that industry complex I have (red circl) that is my soft-paper, car, snicker factories are, since these fabs use basically all refined resources.

What you should also notice is I have a large network of warehouse dotting across the maps, this is what I bet people who are having problems lack. If anything, the game is actually fairly releastic in this regard. Like I said in my first post, you don't see a farmer trucking his crop all the way to the market or factories, but industry logistic is a network of drop-off and distributing point.


I'm still experiementing, but eventually I probably gonna try to build a centralize industrial part once I have the Airport cargo terminal unlocked. So the game does work, and work faily well at that. And this probably will be virtually something as close to a close-loop as you can get. Sure, I bet modders can come up with someone to refine it furthers, but as of now the mechanism behind the DLC is sound, you just have to undertand it. :)

[JustaGamer]

Originally posted by MustHang57:

Okay, I know what to do now in my oil and ore industries areas, but there's still one point which is making me going crazy.
All my industrial areas stand in different points of the map, so 5-6 of the unique factories are place in another zone. So I placed different WH around in order to supply the production (+ a cargo train station to transfer and a direct acces to the highway), but rather than using WH and train, my FA still waiting for trucks to deliver them, and so they don't operate half of time.

So if you got ideas to fix this, I'll take notes ^^"

For some reason I missed this question. But you can refer to my post right above this one for a suggestion.

To be more specific, you can either collect the raw inside the zone and produce it, or you can produce the material off-site and ship it in to those unique factories. They key part here with either option is make sure you have some warehouse AT THE BEGINNING of the zone your unique factory is in. Do not rely on direct long distance transport.

So basiciall: offsite resource -> cargo terminal -> cargon terminal -> onsite warehouse -> unique factories.


Or ... there is a trick if you want to strickly limit those truck. This is something I used to do whenever I want to build a self-contain neighboorhood with no road access:

- Step 1: Create an area with no road access. Link a passenger and a cargo train terminal to it.

- Step 2: Put only warehouses for needed resources and your unique factories in this area.

- Step 2: ????

- Step 3: Profit?

If you're been playing C:S for a while, I'm sure you know what I mean. Once my city get bigger and I unlock all the tile, this is exactly how I gonna create my mega industrial park. :)


Edit: eh the one right before this one, it jumped a page :(