Please help with truck cargo routes

[gulfsierra]

I'm playing the American campaign, Great Depression, and having some issues shipping by truck. I decided to haul fuel prduced at the refinery outside Houston by truck to the port. I had hoped to set up the line so that instead of returning to the refinery empty, the trucks should pick up the goods supplied at the port and deliver to a station in Houston. But because the catchment for the station in Houston encompasses some industry, as well as commercial, the trucks do not drop off all the fuel at the port, and instead carry some to Houston, and no goods are every picked up. I haven't been able to fix this, even by setting trucks to wait for full load at the port. They just sit there with 1 or 2 loads of fuel. What can I do?

[larry_roberts]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=814485092&searchtext=campaign

[chrisasnyder]

When I did it I had a lines to take goods to the different cities from the port. I also had a line from the port to the fuel factory. My Crude oil would drop off at the port. I used a train for the crude and a small train for the port-fuel factory line. Profit was not a problem.

[Liq]

The easiest solution is to break the line up.

I've never found multiple point truck usage to be any good. They will only ever hold one type of item. So as long as there is demand for fuel, they will cart it, spliting it up as it goes.

[Bramborough]

I think my setup was pretty similar to chrisasnyder's, from the soudn of it. I used rail to deliver Fuel from refinery to port. Most of the time this meant an empty return trip, but occasionally would take some Crude back which had been delivered from the Louisiana offshore rig. But the route is short; the small ALCO HH engine (dirt cheap running cost) worked fine even with 12+ car trains, and was one of the most profitable lines on the map.

Trucks hauled goods out of the port to the cities (Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans). The New Orleans route is long, but necessary to unlock the offshore site, plus of course the long distance results in big paydays on delivery; was also a lucrative route. Obtw, I think it's worth unlocking that offshore rig; unlike the other oil wells, it doesn't get depleted...or at least if it does, it takes longer. Never ran dry on either of my two playthroughs.

I can't speak to specific mechanics remotely as well as Vimpster and other more experienced players. But I do know that multiple truck stations within each others' catchment ranges - coupled with "automatic" rather than designated-item payloads, does indeed cause weird and often undesired freight flows. Similar things happen with ship lines when there's several different freight types moving through a single port. One campaign scenario where this is particularly evident is the Europe-series "island Paradise". Played this morning, and there were wacky things happening with freight around the Las Palma dock, lol. Did get the 5 medals (on second attempt)...and now that is one scenario I will NEVER touch again, ha ha.

[ancienthighway]

Start by bulldozing the train and truck stations, along with the rails and roads in the area of the port.
Build two truck stations side by side with their catchment area covering the both harbors.

The trucks delivering goods will go to one truck station. Set the cargo type to goods so no fuel pops into the station for commercial use. Send the fuel to the second station. Since no goods trucks will be using it, none will pop up to clog the fuel line. If you aren't going to use the off shore oil rig, the fuel truck station could be a bus stop.

Goods delivery trucks don't get access to the fuel and deliveries can be made to Houston, Beaumont and Lake Charles. Make sure you delivery 6000 good before you deliver all the oil if you want the medal. I didn't even start working on the oil until I had roughly 4000 goods delivered (10 years) and still finished well ahead of the deadline for the last medal.