Trucks doesn't unload/load properly.

[JonD]

Got a stupid problem/bug here.

This is my line:

1. Oil Well
2. Refinery
3. City 1
4. Stone Quarry
5. Construction Mat. Plant
6. City 2
-Back to 1.

I wanted to make a line where the trucks weren't empty on their way back so I found the quarry and mat. Plant on the way back to the Oil Well, and the City 2 is next to the Oil Well so in that way the trucks would have a load almost all distances.

The problem however is:

When bringing fuel to City 1, some trucks doesn't unload all their fuel, but keeps 1-2 fuel in their inventory.

Because the trucks still have fuel in their inventory when going to the quarry etc it won't pick up any stone.

Which means no construction materials either.

Some trucks doesn't unload at all, drives around with their 1-2 fuel or 1-2 construction materials full circle.

I suspect the reason for this is that I have 2 cities in the same line, and the trucks want to deliver to both of them but it makes it impossible to create a line that will keep trucks filled up both back and forth.

None of the cities are maxed out in Jobs, so there's plenty of space for the cities to accept both fuel and construction materials.

Please fix this.

(I am using bus stops in the Cities as I read u can only unload cargo at passenger stops but not pick up cargo)

[philmo]

Regarding "I suspect the reason for this is that I have 2 cities in the same line, and the trucks want to deliver to both of them but it makes it impossible to create a line that will keep trucks filled up both back and forth."

I am not sure if this is correct if the 1 or 2 pieces are not being dropped at City 2, as you say the 1 or 2 pieces are completing the whole circle.

Is the drop in City 2 in a catchment area that will take fuel - if it were not it might help ?

Correct - "u can only unload cargo at passenger stops but not pick up cargo"

[pat]

Originally posted by JonD:

Please fix this.

I would say the same thing to you. The problem here is that you believe this is Transport Tycoon Deluxe Deluxe. You cannot force a vehicle to unload. You set up a line and the cargo is determined by supply and demand. There is a building at City 2 that wants fuel. There is a truck available that can transport it. End of story. The truck is doing what the game mechanics have defined.

IMO, it's a mistake to create complex, multi-cargo lines. Define a line to take crude to the refineries. Define another line to take fuel to the cities. Define more lines to handle construction materials. Have fewer trucks on each line dedicated to that task.

Everyone is so afraid of vehicles traveling empty or partially empty that they shoot themselves in the foot to avoid it. Ask United Airlines how that's working out for them.

[Thork]

I doubt anything goes "full circle" but fuel might indeed be delivered to city 2 and construction material to city 1. If something really goes full circle, make sure that the source is not the destination. This can happen if you pick up your products on a station that has demand for that product in its area.
Imho it would be good to have an option to assign cargo type to each waypoint on a line.
However, there are few cases when it is needed/beneficial.
Having several seperate lines is usually the better option, considering that it is rare to have matching frequency requirements on these complex setups.
Your example might actually be one where a complex line works rather well.

A solution/workaround could be to provide a better path for the end-products that disturb your setup.
Make a seperate, fast line to deliver fuel to city 2 and do the same to deliver construction material to city 1. If these are more effective/faster than using the "circle", cover the same area and can handle demand, it will sort itself out.

[chrisasnyder]

I would say the trucks are loading and unloading properly. You need to consider the demand paths that cargo is wanting to travel, on those paths it will get on a truck and travel to that destination. You loop actually has 6 different demand paths that all overlap.
Crude - Refinery
Fuel - CIty 1
Fuel - City 2
Stone - CM plant
CM - City 1
CM - City 2

Each path is going to have a slightly different demand level. Which will make balancing the line capcity difficult because of the overlap. The overlap demand paths will compete with the other demand paths for line capacity, which means for this to run without competion you need to have capacity that is the sum of the demand for each path.

Loop chains do work, but you need to be careful to not overlap demand paths. In your example, a line the went Crude-Refinery-Quary-CM Plant would work just fine provided you create lines with enough capacity to move the final products to the cities. For small cities, these demand paths will always be smaller than the raw material path. For this reason have a unique line for each path means you can size the capcity based on how much it is really moving.

You could in tweak your setup to add a truck line that goes from Refinery-City 1 cargo station-City 2 cargo station-CM plant.
then from the cargo hubs at the cities run lines to different points in the city.
In this setup you have one line running raw materials in both directions and another line running the cargo in both directions.

Again this will work only if the CM plant and Fuel demands are about the same. You will always need to balance for the largest demand, and if one grows higher, then half of the loop will run with more capacity than it needs.

[Robbedem]

I would advise you to split the route in 5 parts:

route 1: City 1 - City 2
route 2: stone quarry - City 1
route 3: refinery - City 1
route 4: constr mat plant - City 2
route 5: oil well - City 2

most trucks will be needed on route 1, the other routes are only there to bring the goods to the mini hubs.
In a later fase in the game, you might want to change route 1 into a train line.

[CZS]

I agree that there needs to be some ways to control what cargo goes where, and what doesn't. If I'm running the transport company, I should have say on that, and also on whether I want my vehicles travel 90% empty or not. :-)

It's a problem in late game when you have a lot of stations connected together; the game will detect new paths for various cargo types you didn't even think of, and so your cargo will start to get hauled all over the place against your will. Should I really have to spend time carefully measuring catchment areas and building multiple stations of the same type just outside the reach of each other, in order to prevent that from happening?

Like it is with cameras, an automatic mode will not suffice for everything - occasionally a manual mode is needed for more control.

[Metacritical]

you can decide what cargo your trains can carry by allowing one type of cargo per wagon when you buy/autoreplace the trains.

[LTChance]

The trucks are loading and unloading properly. As others have said, you have to be careful about putting depots that create demand further down your line. It might be possible to design the game to have intelligent truck drivers that figure out where goods need to be picked up and taken to, but then it wouldn't be much of a game. You'd just buy some trucks and go eat some nachos while they do all the work. Definitely a more realistic simulation of real life, but not much fun.

[76561198346064236]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, this is a bug. I have a more simple line - quarry for stones - brick factory - bricks to the city - back to the quarry. It does not work. Often some stones left in the truck, they cannot load any bricks. The city needs bricks, the factory wants to grow, but: no! If you have a simple line, you dont even recognize when some stuff is coming back sometimes - only your transport rate and money income fails.

[Dirkels]

In modern times I would recoment using this mod
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1251483797
that has trucks that can carry, dependend on truck used, up to 4 different products at the same time.

[76561198346064236]

Hey, I found the clue: There is really a depot in the city that is reached by the unloading truck there (supposed to deliver bricks) that takes the stone! There is a line transporting them to another depot, another line ... to the second brick factory - yeah, I had to follow the trucks - its amazing :-) My solution: Put this other line on unload only at this depot (it is not supposed do laod, its a city-provider form outside) - and its OK. So, no bug :-)
I played too much last time, its always the feast days (holidays).

[Blackdragonbird]

It would be easily resolved if the devs have gave us the option to set what cargos we wanted transported between every point of the line. If you have vehicles in the line that can transport that cargos, only set what you want loaded and what not and done. If you have choose a cargo that no vehicle in the line can carry, you got a warning. But no, you only set the type of cargo in the vehicle, what make impossible to have the vehicle carry something back in the line.

Maybe someone make a mod that allow it.

[Dirkels]

The above mentioned truck mod lets you transport 4 different products, when needed 4 specific ones. Not exactly what you wanted but comes close I think.

[canophone]

Originally posted by Blackdragonbird:

It would be easily resolved if the devs have gave us the option to set what cargos we wanted transported between every point of the line.
Maybe someone make a mod that allow it.

Currently the only way to do this is to set replace vehicle for the line each time it approaches the next stop, and to select "replace now" for specific vehicles... But you still need to have at least one vehicle able to collect for any type of cargo you plan to transport on the line.

[SBGaming]

The simple soluton to any problem is to understand how the game handles things, and setup your routes appropriately. You either want closed loops (Farm-Food Processor-Town) or Point to Point setups. Cargo will find a way, though a Force Unload option might be useful. Until such a feature is added, you need to adapt to what the game expects rather than expecting the game to do something different.

In the original post the simple solution is to split the line into two separate lines (one product for each city, and then a third line connecting the two cities to allow excess cargo to flow. The only way, ensuring that you deliver the Fuel to whichever town is closest to the Oil Well and ConMat to whatever town is closest to the Quarry.

Alternatively a Hub and Spoke setup where you connect City 1 and City 2 with a line, and then run point-to-point lines from each resource producer or factory to a transfer point where the intercity freight is located.