Problems with iron and coal mines

[CondorDrake]

Hi there,

I'm currently on a penny pincher run and it's going well so far. Got 50M in my account at 1920, so money is not an issue anymore.

However, what is bugging me is my attempt to add a goods factory into my network, which consists of 5 fully supplied towns. The planks and plastic production works well, but the steel mill can't produce anything, because the coal and iron mine I attached via ship lines simply refuse to produce anything.

When I created this line, both mines initially produced normally and even upgraded to 200 max production, but maybe 1-2 years later, the production of both mines dropped to 0 and just won't do anything anymore. So all the trucks I set up to bring coal and iron to the nearby cargo port just keep driving empty, the steel mill can't work any more, the goods factory production dropped to 0 as well due to lack of steel and the chemical plant complains that it can't ship any more goods. Only the planks factory is still producing like crazy despite the stores of the goods factory are completely filled with planks already.

Any idea how to fix this? Is this a known bug or something and is there a solution to it? Would adding more mines help?

Thanks...

[Havan_IronOak]

First, are you talking Goods Factory ? or Machine Factory?

The Goods Factory desn't absolutely NEED steel.

Details
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1296819626
Overviews
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1296819269

What are your inventory levels and the potentials for the factory?

A screenshot would help diagnose this problem
I've shown you mine, now show me yours.

Second, I'm curious about the steel mill, does it have a non-zero potential?
Does it have an inventory of both iron ore and coal?
Dioes it have an inventory of steel that it's just not shipped?

One possibility to add a few truck lines that each ship in a bit of the component items in addition to the ships. and make sure that you have a line shipping the finished steel out.

I have seen odd shut downs in my lines from time to time but there's always been an explanation if I dug around a bit.

[chrisasnyder]

Havan_IronOak is correct. For a goods factory you must ship planks, and either plastic or steel. If the plastic line is cheaper than the steel line, the goods factory will generate demand for the plastic before the steel. If you are not shipping planks than the demand for plastic and steel will drop to 0. I do not recommend shipping both plastic and steel to a single goods factory. It's hard to ballance the lines.

[T3kx]

There's many possibilities
What's weird in that (not particular at all) case, is that you hitted 200 produdction, meaning the chain is/was complete to begin with.

Usually troubleshooting a line means checking :

- Everything is still road linked.
- Right coverage % for the right industry type.
- Right wagon / truck load.
- Did the city layout changed dramaticly?
- Try avoid pushing your luck with catchment area, stick it in the obvious bright gray, not the very edge so it barely reach it (same goes for train station and the platform's gray lines should at least reach every platform in the middle.

- Decent frequencies / ticket price / Maximum time from raw to industry not exceeding (approx, to be confirmed) 48 min.

- I discovered here recently (to be confirmed) that truck lines might not register properly inside cities (Demand) and adding a 2nd line one/ two blocks away from the drop zone kind of "extend" the catchment area. I tried one line with 2 drop stop, seems to work too.

- Sometimes a station upgrade, or the road connecting to it look ok, visually and functionnaly, but some very close/narrow intersection with station sometimes just dont seems to register properly.

- When you're sure you checked everything end to end, given enough time for industry to ajust, personally, I bulldoze and re-plop truck and train station, delete all vehicule, and re-do the whole line (orders). Works 9/10 times.

I 100% understand that feeling of WTF, why!?, was perfectly working not a year ago... Most of the time I'm the cause but many MANY case remains unsolved/possibly broken.

Goodl luck !

[Thork]

Originally posted by T3k_Qc:

I 100% understand that feeling of WTF, why!?, was perfectly working not a year ago... Most of the time I'm the cause but many MANY case remains unsolved/possibly broken.

Most of the time this happens when you upgrade your vehicles and the max (ticket) price for the route (until conversion) now exceeds the limit. There are a couple of workarounds. F.ex., you can jump-start a line with a low-price vehicle (then park), use cheaper vehicles or mods that reduce cost/speed, or straighten out your routes with more direct/less transfer nodes.
Maybe someone could collect all possible problems/solutions/workarounds into a post/guide, but I'm not the one who will do this ;)

[CondorDrake]

Thanks for the replies, I think the reason was that plastic was "accidentially" transported to a nearby truck depot, so the goods factory decided to order plastic instead of steel and the production of the mines dropped to 0, because the steel wasn't needed any more. At least that's kind of how I explain it to myself lol. The goods factory dropped to 0 once no more steel was delivered, but rocketed back up to 400 by now as soon as constant plastic shipments rolled in.