do we need post service?

[failsafe]

I've been building a new city with newly purchased Industries DLC. When it became possible I've started doing all the infrastructure necessary to let letters flow around. And at some point I've just forgot about my postal services. I think it happened around 50k citizens... now my city has 110k. Half of districts in the city dont have any infrastructure for postal services, other half has some. So... my city seems to be doing well without post. I get no notifications, no unhappiness anywhere. Honestly, I really forgot about doing post things and realising this made me thing "do I need postal services at all"?

Am I missing something or all this postal stuff is just to make DLC look bigger?

[maciek.slon]

It is not necessary at all :) It gives some minor benefits to the citizen happiness, but produce a lot of additional traffic. On the other hand - it adds a little bit of realism to the city.

[luther84695]

the main problem with post service is you can longer see how much import you are actually getting. Everything will be mail. To have the best traffic, you want your import to be zero ideally.

[failsafe]

Ah, so this is just a decoration. Hmm... okay, another reason to highly value this DLC ;-)

[failsafe]

Decoration with disadvantages, to be precise ;-P

[maciek.slon]

How important it is can be also deduced from the last DLC - there is literally no way to collect mail from pedestrian zones ;-) Mail is not processed by service centers, and postal vans can't enter the zone.

[failsafe]

Im slowly loosing my trust in devs ;-)

[wraithrider]

Originally posted by failsafe:

Im slowly loosing my trust in devs ;-)

I hear that. In any event, I would like to see a mod that makes the mail service work somewhat like garbage pickup except the player has to place mailboxes around the neighborhood. The more mailboxes, the higher the contribution to happiness in the neighborhood/district. The mailboxes could flash 'mail pickup' icons like other service icons until a mail truck passes by. To make it interesting a player could select what kind of mail vehicle would be used and plan their route from and back to a post office - much like with the buses and trains. As well, an overlay that could be selected showing where all existing mailboxes are placed, in addition to the post office and sorting facility locations, could be very useful.

[failsafe]

I think there are other ways to make postal services important. Like, for example, slowing down upgrade of office or commercial districts if no service is operating. At the end of the day post itself is needed mostly for companies, I dont really see why "normal" people would need this.
Placing mailboxes and creating pickup routes... Hmm... I dont think so. Industries already offer a lot of micromanagement - it is a small economical game but with no data-flow system. So, it is more like the arcade-business-manager than anything near real business-manager. Situation with postal services is just something that has been done with even more laziness than most of this DLC. But I dont see this fitting to main game anyway.

[Pezehgehmer]

i am very annoyed by the heavy traffic of the post trucks. with the post vans it is alright, but the trucks clog my streets and also my city is so big that i have a "citizen instances"-problem that could maybe be softened by less post trucks? i already heavily increased the mail capacity of the trucks in the "Advanced Vehicle Options"-Mod, but now the trucks drive around with 2% load.

what would you guys say is the best solution?

1. no more post services?
2. maybe decrease the post-import-capacity in the "Advanced Outside Connections"-Mod?
3. i remember i once saw a mod that is optimizing the loading of trucks importing stuff, but i cannot seem to finde it anyway

thanks in advise!

[Pezehgehmer]

an impression regarding my recent message:

https://ibb.co/Y342Q0L

[failsafe]

I think I will just skip post in my next city. I think I will want to spend money on another park or something like this - at least this would be visible on screen.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

As with any service you provide, their function is not necessarily useful, but serves as a way to increase the land value. Parks main use is to provide entertainment coverage (and make a wee tad of money on the side in Parks DLC), nothing more if a place is already at 100% entertainment it will give them no more landvalue.
Similarly Postal Service main function is to provide Postal coverage.

Landvalue is the sum divided by all coverages and you need to hit at least 50% for tier 5 land value that can be achieved through a mix of coverage types.

Of course mountains and water provide a natural boost to landvalue which let's you not hit 50%, but in all other cases it is a necessity.

Postal service is extremely easy to get to 50%. There's no reason not to do it as you don't have to plop down fire stations, hospitals and police stations galore.

If a few postal vans are causing traffical issues, then the fault lies in your infrastructure design - not the post service.

[wraithrider]

Originally posted by Professor H. Farnsworth:

As with any service you provide, their function is not necessarily useful, but serves as a way to increase the land value. Parks main use is to provide entertainment coverage (and make a wee tad of money on the side in Parks DLC), nothing more if a place is already at 100% entertainment it will give them no more landvalue.
Similarly Postal Coverage main function is to provide Postal coverage.

Landvalue is the sum divided by all coverages and you need to hit at least 50% for tier 5 land value that can be achieved through a mix of coverage types.

Of course mountains and water provide a natural boost to landvalue which let's you not hit 50%, but in all other cases it is a necessity.

Postal service is extremely easy to get to 50%. There's no reason not to do it as you don't have to plop down fire stations, hospitals and police stations galore.

If a few postal vans are causing traffical issues, then the fault lies in your infrastructure design - not the post service.

Well, Professor, what do you know? You and I are in agreement on this.

[Gregomoto]

afaik post service is not really needed although it adds happiness (esp. for offices)

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by failsafe:

I've been building a new city with newly purchased Industries DLC. When it became possible I've started doing all the infrastructure necessary to let letters flow around. And at some point I've just forgot about my postal services. I think it happened around 50k citizens... now my city has 110k. Half of districts in the city dont have any infrastructure for postal services, other half has some. So... my city seems to be doing well without post. I get no notifications, no unhappiness anywhere. Honestly, I really forgot about doing post things and realising this made me thing "do I need postal services at all"?

Am I missing something or all this postal stuff is just to make DLC look bigger?

Yes, almost all of the DLC is optional, let alone the base stuff.

commerce is optional as are shoppers.

Industry is optional as well.

office are also optional.

Heck, even residential is optional in some cases.

With the right mod, services are optional too.

The only requirements in this game are the ones you create by placing them on the map.