Has anyone made a mod yet for import/export control?

[Jim Bob]

As the title says. The feature that would make Industries a good DLC, import/export control, is missing and makes me hate the DLC. While my own resources are being exported, processing buildings are importing foreigners resources and using them to produce the Goods.

[grapplehoeker]

Why do you expect a mod to be made to make up for your own inability to make it work?
What does it matter if your factories and processing buildings are importing?
What is it costing you? And, those exports aren't going to be making a lot of money, so they're not really important either.
The problem you need to solve is how to ensure your extractors and processors can both meet the demand for supply of goods to your generic industry. It doesn't matter if some surplus is sent to be sold outside as long as the buildings that require that goods receive a consistent supply. Because ultimately, it is the sale of the unique consumer products to your own commercial which is where the best money is to be made.
A mod isn't going to change your strategy. That's something you have to do yourself ;)

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Fist Of Zen:

As the title says. The feature that would make Industries a good DLC, import/export control, is missing and makes me hate the DLC. While my own resources are being exported, processing buildings are importing foreigners resources and using them to produce the Goods.

Buy Green Cities DLC. It converts IT offices into generic industry with no freight systems. It teleports all of your goods to commerce, then you don't need to worry about the freight traffic system!

[scpool1986]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Why do you expect a mod to be made to make up for your own inability to make it work?
What does it matter if your factories and processing buildings are importing?
What is it costing you? And, those exports aren't going to be making a lot of money, so they're not really important either.
The problem you need to solve is how to ensure your extractors and processors can both meet the demand for supply of goods to your generic industry. It doesn't matter if some surplus is sent to be sold outside as long as the buildings that require that goods receive a consistent supply. Because ultimately, it is the sale of the unique consumer products to your own commercial which is where the best money is to be made.
A mod isn't going to change your strategy. That's something you have to do yourself ;)

I have to agree with everything said here. What it sounds like is you’re depending on your extractors releasing their product the same time a processor needs it; that’ll never happen. You need to have raw material storage (silos, log yards, ore storage, etc) to act as a buffer between the extractor and processor. Yes, right after construction these storage buildings will import but after that the extractors in your city will refill them and the extractors will order from them.

I highly recommend you look through this guide for how to make Industries work for you.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1550292479

[Jim Bob]

ok, walls of text, but this DLC is still missing this important feature of import/export control.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Fist Of Zen:

ok, walls of text, but this DLC is still missing this important feature of import/export control.

It's simple. Self control. It is you that is placing the buildings that create the traffic. So you are the one controlling the import/exports.

All that is needed is balance, and it will work fine. The balancing act is a bit tricky, but the new dlc list outputs, and the wiki list inputs and amounts.

He's another wall of text with charts of production to help balancing (it's a little easier to read):
https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Supply_chain

[Hempman]

there is no control over import or export or where it goes,or how it is transported,no way to control expenses,or pricing,and the fps is slow like stop motion,and tour buses dont work,and parks dont make money,need electricity( city parks are free)and no reason to go to park nothing really to put in them,and the reserve cant see any animals,and no body uses it,and buses create traffic jams!it seems their are those that defend the game no matter what,but really what they are saying is that by forcing the game to work like it should,by doing certain things,but it should not be that hard,fact none of the dlc works like they should,winter with no snow,parks that do nothing,buses that cause traffic problems,stacking,tour buses dont work,there is no real control in the game no matter what the traffic is a nightmare,and no control over the economy!

[scpool1986]

As always with these posts we see the people who understand the mechanics of the game and accept that it is working AS IT WAS PROGRAMMED TO are dismissed but we see more of the same "the game doesn't work the way I want it to so it's broken" post. Well, here's the problem with that; none of us helped make the game. I've seen several people who are successful with their cities and yes, the buses do cause traffic jams when they stop but guess what, they do the same thing in real life if the stop is on a 2 lane road. Simple solution: Don't put bus stops on 2 lane roads. That way traffic can get by them when they're stopped. The tour buses work if there are things worth looking at along the way, same with the walking tours. There is snowfall on the winter maps (Screenshot 1 below) as well as the parks (at least the ones from Parklife) have the potential for income if done the right way and have something for the people to do (Screenshot 2 below). As for no control over the economy, show me one city where the mayor has direct control over the local economy. Expenses can be controlled through the "economics" menu (green stack of money on the bottom tool bar) and wildlife is visible both in and outside of the nature reserves if you look closely enough (Screenshot 3). Overall, the game isn't as bad as people make it sound and by focusing all your energy on just the negative and making no effort to accept advice (OP posting "ok, walls of text, but...) when a guide that would answer the majority of the questions about how the DLC works then you're going to continue to not see what can be done and how to do it. Even the Industries DLC areas can be highly profitable if done right (Screenshot 4). It's all a matter of how you approach it, hence the guide suggestion. I hate to say this but if you were building a house and you kept bending the nails you were hammering into the wood would you blame the tool because you didn't know how to use it? That's where this DLC pretty much sits.

Screenshot 1
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1457277106

Screenshot 2
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1659165189

Screenshot 3
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1621868301

Screenshot 4
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1572163419

[Catratio]

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Why do you expect a mod to be made to make up for your own inability to make it work?
What does it matter if your factories and processing buildings are importing?
What is it costing you? And, those exports aren't going to be making a lot of money, so they're not really important either.

I still have the same issue as Fist Of Zen and totally still agree. Industries is a great DLC but it needs to be tweaked. If you rely 100% on DLC industry and build slow you can manage to avoid importing entirely. My issue is that once you build a DLC farm you can no longer use the base game's zoned farms or else they will use your silos and it costs you money. In reality it should work the exact opposite. If they are using your facilities they should pay rent for it, making you more money, but instead the game treats it as if you are buying their crops even though you don't need them and end up just exporting them again anyway.

I'm going to experiment with it some more tonight but I don't think there's a way around this. Farms don't make a lot of money to begin with, so $1,000 of unnecessary imports can either mean you make no money on your farm, or negative money. Money is incredibly abundant in this game so it's really more of the principle of it. I want to set up an efficient farm, not have pretty assets of a farm that cost me weekly to maintain. There should be a way to make zoned farms not negatively impact DLC farms. It seems an easy fix would have been to make it work like the warehouses, where there is an option for zoned farming goods versus your silos which are "crops". Unfortunately zoned farms also produce "crops" and it interferes with the DLC farms' crops. But having just one relatively small DLC farm is unrealistic. A good farming economy would have lots of little zoned farms sprinkled around, but that is what messes up the efficiency and makes the DLC suffer.

[Catratio]

Okay I did a little experimenting, here are my results.

I have no zoned farmland and my DLC farm is made up of: 3 cattle sheds, 2 pastures, 1 milking parlor, 2 flour mills, 1 medium orchard, 1 small fruit greenhouse, and 5 small orchards. I also have 1 small barn and 1 small silo for storage. It is totally self-sufficient with 0 imports and makes about $3,000.

If I move the barn and silo outside my farm boundary I get charged for imports when I need to bring those crops back in for my cows. That makes no sense because all of those crops in there are mine to begin with. I have to pay to use what I grew. Some of these loads were costing me over $800. Maybe it evens out and I "exported" them for the same price I re-introduce them in for, I don't know, without a clear receipt it's impossible to say. Regardless, having your storage units outside your DLC farm's boundaries is not a good idea since you gain nothing, and potentially lose money.

So I moved my barn/silo back inside my farm boundary and built one 4x4 zoned farm. It became "Phil's Field".

I'd noticed every few days Phil would take 8 tons of crops to dump off at either my barn, pasture, or flour mill. I know it's 8 tons because my Acquisition went from 53 to 61 after I saw his truck leave and afterward it would drop back down to 53. So for Phil's 8 tons it cost me $160 to import that, or $20 per ton, or $10 per 1 square of zoned farmland. That is not very much, but if you have zoned hundreds of farms that will really add up fast, and my DLC farm was only making about $3,000 profit to begin with. It's easy to see how non-DLC farms will quickly bankrupt me. Basically I am paying to use zoned farms, $10 per square. That doesn't seem how it should work. They were free without the DLC.

Again, maybe I am making that money back on exports, it's hard to say where the money trail goes since my farm was already exporting my own crops, mine and Phil's just get all mixed in together. Even if imports = exports perfectly by the end of the day it still amounts to a lot of excess truck loads going in and out of the area that nobody wants to have to deal with. It would be much simpler if zoned farms do their own produce type and DLC farms' "crops" are their own unique type of goods and are kept entirely separate. As it is, the only real fix here is just not to use zoned farms after you get the DLC which is really too bad because it would be cool and more realistic to have both.

[grapplehoeker]

@Catratio
What is the purpose of either type of farm?
Specialised agriculture = to supply generic industry
DLC farm = to supply unique factories and generic industry

Export is not their purpose in either case. They produce an intermediate component in the production chain. That isn't meant for export.

[Catratio]

That's true, but it is nice to make money in the process. A lone DLC farm is profitable and will supply generic industry and unique factories. A DLC farm combined with zoned farms will supply both but end up losing money in the long run. It ends up not being worth it and corrals you into choosing one or the other. It's just too bad a city can't have both since I paid extra real money to get both.