Line transfer, truck to boat and production

[Linus]

posting here a lot today but I can't find the info and solutions I am looking for!
I want to make a line that transfers fuel from one side of the map to the other. To be most efficent I decided to use the river that was near the city I was going to ship fuel to. The only problem was the oil refinery wasn't next to the river! I set up a truck stop next to the river and next to the oil refinery and set up a route. I put a port next to the truck stop and then set up another port in my final destination. Finally set up a route and thought that the trucks would bring the fuel to the port then the ships would bring the fuel to the city! This was not the case, in fact, the factory didn't spit out any fuel to the truck stop and production has slowed from 800 to 150!

First question:
How do I transfer cargo from trucks to rails, or, trucks to rails and vise versa

Second question:
How do I keep production of oil(any industry really) going.
The way I play is I match the speed of production but eventually the factory stops producing over the years and finally none at all then I move on to a different industry

Thanks

[canophone]

Don't count on being able to without mods! What you would need is a mod that has industries which can do storage in, storage out!

[chrisasnyder]

The type of setup you describe will work. However, there are some things to consider. Cargo does have a distance/time limit, (several good threads discussing this topic) and depending on your map size you could be reaching this.

Ships are also tricky to get an industry going because they move so slow. When a fuel refinery first opens it has a few orders placed with. Those orders in turn pull crude to match plus a little extra. More doesn't get ordered until the first batch gets delivered. Once delivered, another order gets placed. With ships, actually any really long distance, the threshold for how long an industry will wait is crossed and it shuts down not order any more. Evenutally the orginal suppy reaches, the next month ticks and industry re-opens, starts filling orders, uses is stored and orders more. etc. This will ping pong for a while until you have enough cargo flowing to sustain the demand.

Plus the frequency of the ships can't be too large. If you have 1 ship, and it's frequency is 60 minutes, the chain will never startup. Keep adding ships until frequency is low enough for the cargo to start moving. The more extra hops you take, the truck hand offs, will factor into how much you need to reduce the frequency.

The effect of adding ships isn't immediate either, especially if the chain has started up, might need to wait over the 1st of the month calculation to see it start up with the improved frequency.

[ancienthighway]

Q1. If you mean reassign cargo that was scheduled for truck to rail, you can't do that directly. You would have to set up the train station and a bus stop or another truck station and reroute the exsisting truck line to include that stop before the station by the ship dock. Set the train station closer to the supplier than the original truck station so it will have priority for shipments. It's time consuming but eventually the truck line will clear and all cargo moved by train.

Q2. A common mistake when using ships is not using enough of them on a line. With trucks and trains we add cargo capacity when we figure out we need more because of cargo backlogs. One train or truck is enough to get the chain started.

Ships though, because of the longer distance and speed, require before adding ships just to get the chain started. I shoot for a frequency of 10 minutes, but it could be a longer frequency.

Now for your actual question. It's not possible to ensure production is never stopped. The product will accumulate on shipping docks at truck and train stations and in harbors. The product will be on transport, and with ships, on transport for some time. The supplier controls the production based on how much of it's product is in the transportation chain in addition to demand from the consumer of it's product.

[GigaQuads]

Originally posted by ancienthighway:

Q2. A common mistake when using ships is not using enough of them on a line. With trucks and trains we add cargo capacity when we figure out we need more because of cargo backlogs. One train or truck is enough to get the chain started.

Ships though, because of the longer distance and speed, require before adding ships just to get the chain started. I shoot for a frequency of 10 minutes, but it could be a longer frequency.

Originally posted by chrisasnyder:

Ships are also tricky to get an industry going because they move so slow. When a fuel refinery first opens it has a few orders placed with. Those orders in turn pull crude to match plus a little extra. More doesn't get ordered until the first batch gets delivered. Once delivered, another order gets placed. With ships, actually any really long distance, the threshold for how long an industry will wait is crossed and it shuts down not order any more. Evenutally the orginal suppy reaches, the next month ticks and industry re-opens, starts filling orders, uses is stored and orders more. etc. This will ping pong for a while until you have enough cargo flowing to sustain the demand.

Plus the frequency of the ships can't be too large. If you have 1 ship, and it's frequency is 60 minutes, the chain will never startup. Keep adding ships until frequency is low enough for the cargo to start moving. The more extra hops you take, the truck hand offs, will factor into how much you need to reduce the frequency.

The effect of adding ships isn't immediate either, especially if the chain has started up, might need to wait over the 1st of the month calculation to see it start up with the improved frequency.

These answers helped me fix my problems almost 3 years later, so THANK YOU.