Forest Industry: Cannot make money I don't get it

[Fumbles]

Exactly like the title says, I have Excavators producing more than I need, my storage is either half full or full on Balance (I assume that's good so nothing gets imported). My money goes up and down into the negative like crazy, I do not understand and at this point its just a turn off.

[buda atum]

I so love how the game makes one spend days trying to get some things that.........

Belows is my forestry. Not made a profit since built.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3021293483

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2685974449

[Hodor]

Originally posted by buda atum:

Belows is my forestry. Not made a profit since built.

Are they designed to make a loss but supply raw materials for generic industry? I don't have the industry dlc so im curious for its purpose in the base game.

[AoD_lexandro]

If you are not making profit, you have too many extractors. Almost everyone over scales the size of extractors and under scales processors.

As for fluctuations, that is supposed to happen. It is not a steady income stream, you have to wait on exports getting to the map edge before you get paid.

Simple rule of thumb is; The center bar in the industry overview should be zero. You do not want any excess getting sold as raw mats unless absolutely required (ie lemonade factory requires crops). The more you have in the middle bar the less money you earn. Your extractors should never be pumping out raw materials for sale, it should always be converted to processed mats for profit.


Example;
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3021366725

My forestry still has an excess of raw products to be used, and its only 3 large and 5 small extractors needed for the whole operation which spans almost an entire city tile tile.

Originally posted by Hodor:

Are they designed to make a loss but supply raw materials for generic industry? I don't have the industry dlc so im curious for its purpose in the base game.

Vanilla industries are feeders for your goods factories, so you never really see any profits from them directly unless you go big and zone a ton of it. Even then its minimal. The main profit is from taxation, not from production.

[Fumbles]

Originally posted by AoD_lexandro:

If you are not making profit, you have too many extractors. Almost everyone over scales the size of extractors and under scales processors.

As for fluctuations, that is supposed to happen. It is not a steady income stream, you have to wait on exports getting to the map edge before you get paid.

Simple rule of thumb is; The center bar in the industry overview should be zero. You do not want any excess getting sold as raw mats unless absolutely required (ie lemonade factory requires crops). The more you have in the middle bar the less money you earn. Your extractors should never be pumping out raw materials for sale, it should always be converted to processed mats for profit.


Example;
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3021366725

My forestry still has an excess of raw products to be used, and its only 3 large and 5 small extractors needed for the whole operation which spans almost an entire city tile tile.

Originally posted by Hodor:

Are they designed to make a loss but supply raw materials for generic industry? I don't have the industry dlc so im curious for its purpose in the base game.

Vanilla industries are feeders for your goods factories, so you never really see any profits from them directly unless you go big and zone a ton of it. Even then its minimal. The main profit is from taxation, not from production.

Nice, I will have to give that a try

[buda atum]

Originally posted by Hodor:

Originally posted by buda atum:

Belows is my forestry. Not made a profit since built.

Are they designed to make a loss but supply raw materials for generic industry? I don't have the industry dlc so im curious for its purpose in the base game.

It depends on the design of your city. Mine is geared to supply Industry. I've built them all, So I'm not concerned if trees make money or not. As AoD_lexandro showed, it can make money.

That said, vanilla trees do make money. You've likely zoned where there's trees though. Try zoning some forest industry where there's no trees at all so they build processors instead of extractors.

[buda atum]

Originally posted by AoD_lexandro:

If you are not making profit, you have too many extractors. Almost everyone over scales the size of extractors and under scales processors.

4 of each processor. And importing.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3021390422

[AoD_lexandro]

As I said, not enough processors. You have 80 tons of excess raw forestry going to waste as basic products at stock price. The imports are your generic industry feeding your DLC storage (bad move imo). You need to increase both paper and timber processing to make profit. Four is not enough for 100+ tons of raw materials. You also need to add generic forestry processors to take the "import" excess.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Fumbles:

Exactly like the title says, I have Excavators producing more than I need, my storage is either half full or full on Balance (I assume that's good so nothing gets imported). My money goes up and down into the negative like crazy, I do not understand and at this point its just a turn off.

You have to make sure you are on fertile forestry resource. Just because there is a bunch of trees in one spot, do not make a forest. But you can add trees and make your own forest resource. I like using the little bush, it seems to have a strong forestry output and turns it dark green quickly. Make sure there are no roads, so you can plop enough trees. then when you plop roads, the trees still count as trees under the road for stronger forestry resources.

I hope that makes enough sense. it is past my bedtime. LOL

[WhiteKnight77]

How To Create A Forest In Cities Skylines.

[Fumbles]

Originally posted by AoD_lexandro:

As I said, not enough processors. You have 80 tons of excess raw forestry going to waste as basic products at stock price. The imports are your generic industry feeding your DLC storage (bad move imo). You need to increase both paper and timber processing to make profit. Four is not enough for 100+ tons of raw materials. You also need to add generic forestry processors to take the "import" excess.

Is there a equation or anything to make sense of what you need so you don't go negative? at this point I have to use the unlimited money because it has tanked my profit and I really wanted to build a "green" city

Edit: do you always keep your storage on "Balance" or do you use another setting?

[AoD_lexandro]

Yes I always use balanced storage. I don't have any specific maths, Its simply a case of add some processors slowly till you get close to zero.

[buda atum]

Originally posted by AoD_lexandro:

As I said, not enough processors. You have 80 tons of excess raw forestry going to waste as basic products at stock price. The imports are your generic industry feeding your DLC storage (bad move imo). You need to increase both paper and timber processing to make profit. Four is not enough for 100+ tons of raw materials. You also need to add generic forestry processors to take the "import" excess.

It's a work in progress.

Despite all the Industry, I'm still importing commercial goods because I'm very low on generic industry that would have mopped up the excess raw materials. I've built all 3 campuses, so my 13% unemployment is for highly educated in anticipation of Industry 4.0 which I'm testing for a different thread.

And that's my point. I "love how the game makes one spend days trying to get some things that" take up one's time, like the profitability of felling trees. It's just so awesomely engaging that the added options and complexity in 2 have me salivating already.

[AoD_lexandro]

Not criticising your work mate, just pointing out the details. "To each his or her own", as Earl would say. I am the same with industry atm. Need to expand it to mop up excess supplies and plug some importing gaps.

[WhiteKnight77]

A good rule of thumb for industry areas is for small extractor is to have at least 2 raw storage areas and at least one processor with one warehouse. As you add extractors, you need to add more storage and processors.

A good way to look at this is way you have a large ore mine. It will extract 11,200 units of ore per week at level one. Now you get your ore industry area to level 5 with 20 workers barracks and proficiency increases to 200% and now that large ore mine produces 25,984 units of ore per week. That all needs to go somewhere so you need 6 to 8 large ore storage areas (they look like a woman's breast). You also need at least 2 ore grinding processors and a rotary kiln to process them.

Something else I have been experimenting with is adding more than just one industry maintenance building. Adding more increases the amount of storage that your extractors and processors can hold. Adding 20 buildings will increase the storage to its maximum. I haven't figured out how much that is yet though.

Having level 5 industries also means you need more warehouses or even larger warehouses.

[buda atum]

Originally posted by AoD_lexandro:

Not criticising your work mate, just pointing out the details. "To each his or her own", as Earl would say. I am the same with industry atm. Need to expand it to mop up excess supplies and plug some importing gaps.

It's dynamic and constantly evolving, so no one formula fits all gameplays.

The generic forest is my "mop up" (buffer). Plan to build unforested forest zone at some point too. With Factories all ramped to 150% the need might grow if imports.

Forest is on edge of map right where rail enters city with good transport to export and warehouses I have all over the place. I am aiming for a large population so expect it will grow.