Raw material production.

[Wai]

Is this a glitch? Or, am I missing a key factor?

I set up collection of raw materials, stone, corn, cattle etc. The production steadily increases for three or four years and I add additional vehicles to cope with the increase in production. This has the add on effect of adding additional vehicles on the manufacturing to town depot routes. Then, suddenly the raw materials drop off to less than 100 and I have queues of waiting vehicles loosing money and potentially (or inevitably in the case of trains) blocking routes with devastating results.

I have tried different combinations on the vehicle set orders. ie: full load, minimum waiting time variations. I have tried different transport types, road, rail and ship. This does not happen with all raw materials and never happens with passenger transport.

I have also tried setting a simple supply line with no other vehicles on the routes and no further construction simply to watch this happening. It seems that growth increases in years one to three than spikes in year four drops slightly in year 5 then collapses and remains low indefinately. I have the message "Try to ship more..." and the industry eventually downgrades back to 100! And, still my vehicles cue to collect the raw materials which are not being produced.

HELP!

[Autocoach]

Yes this will happen if you are not doing enough with the processed goods . For example crude - fuel - town . If you build the crude - fuel leg it will start and demand crude and start to ramp up . If however there is nothing or too little being done with the fuel and not enough is being shipped to towns as soon as the refinery has a full stock of fuel , processed oil and some crude ready to go it will stop demanding crude oil .

This is what you are seeing - deliver more of the processed goods .

[Fortune Calls]

Each final product factory should deliver to at least two different cities. A single city's demand can easily cap the production of a factory.

It is much easier to achieve full coverage of a city by using bus stops as delivery targets, since bus stops have wider catchment area compared to truck stations

[Wai]

Thank you, but, I have, of course, tried that. My goods trains simply end up queing for goods which are not being produced because the raw materials are not arriving. Right now, I have six ships collecting grain and corn and five trains to collect food. Four trains are currently waiting while train slowly loads as there are no goods waiting at the station. My town is mediocre for goods supply, so, needs more. And, yes, the goods depot covers all the commercial area. So, I am none the wiser. But, thank you for trying.

Sorry tactical, our posts crossesd. I did not know that goods can be delivered to bus depots. Or do you mean that delivery is more efficient if the city has bus routes available?

As I have already said, my city is far from fully supplied, but, thank you, I will try adding a second city and see if that helps.

[Autocoach]

Call up the factory tab and see what is in stored and what is the potential . These numbers will help analyse what is happening . Also the line manager shows the rate of throughput (estimate) of each line . In the set up as you describe it the train and ship numbers should be similar .

[danielenfemke]

If you are shipping stuff out than the issue the factory has a enough or to much of raw materials or a lot of end product stored which won't ship out due to A; a surplus of the same in a truckstop waiting for delivery B; the town doesnt need the product anymore as there is enough in the shops/industries.

Try to match the frequency of the A-B-(C) lines to the end target, industrie or commercial in the city. If I have 3 cities supplied with food, each 1000 a year, why on earth would I try to get 10.000 raw mats every year to the factory when the end user only asks for 3000? No I try to keep in mind that something delivered in Oktober might not ship out before the end of the year, so I keep the supply rate of the mats a little over the requested number. Other ways goes the same, but thats obvious, dont deliver 500 raw mats when the cities need 3000 food.

[Wai]

I restarted the map with four connected cities, two road and two rail. They are currently, Good, Mediocre x 2 and poor. But production has once again halted with zero potential in both slots with both 71 stored.

I have decided to start again and consentrate on passengers until I have built up some capital and grown the three main cities a bit then I will try the industries again perhaps using road even though the distances are huge as I have been successful doing this on a previous small map.. If I am still having trouble I will start on another map.

Thank you all.

[Fortune Calls]

Response time of shipping is important for upkeep of demand generation. Transporting cargo by ship are slow in general; in the early game trucks are better suited to transport your cargo efficiently. Using the "full load" option is usually a bad idea because it lowers the rate of shipping.

Click on all the truck stations and cargo destination bus stops in a city and leave each pop-up window in place to see the highlighted areas. What you want to see is that all the yellow (industrial) and blue (commercial) ares are highlighted.

[Mr Felidae]

Wai, are you perhaps using the New Industries mod? Someone once mentioned a logistics issue concerning production and demand in that mod. Don't know if this may have been resolved by now. If you're using this mod, try a map without it to see if you run into the same issue.

[Wai]

Thank you, yes I understand the zoning (been playing Sim City since first release at least 25 years ago). I have also worked out that small loads on trains are better early on and use 5 wagons as a default (Used to play TTD. This is the very best re-incarnation I have ever come across including Open TTD, and in spite of this little problem.)

This map has the same problem whichever transport I use. I have even used road, rail and sea together for delivery to different destinations but still I glich out before 1865 and money is swallowed up.

Thank you, Mr Felidae, but, I have never used a mod in my life. I am sure there are some good ones, but, have read about too many which cause more problems than they are worth. Too suspicious I guess. But, thanks for the heads up on the New Industries mod.

[Valti Rentarix]

Just out of curiosity are you transporting just one type of cargo to the town?
if so for example you may have satisfied the fuel demand for example but as you have not satisfied tools or food it will still say mediocre. i have found that generally factories will only ship out enough to keep the demand satisfied meaning after a while the amount of goods being shipped will decrease thus you need to bring another town into the mix or remove a couple trains from the line =) hopefully you find this helpful, if not give me some extra info and we can work this out.
is it a producer, materials (steel mill etc) or factory your having trouble with?

[MagnusA]

Useful guide

Long story short: Do not deliver more than what is demanded in the next step. The factory at the next step will happily produce until its output inventoriy is filled up. When the factory cannot produce more, no more stuff can be delivered to there. You have to haul away the produced stuff. Just like in the real-world economics.

This game is demand driven. Ulitemately the cities dictates how much can be delivered all the way from the raw materials. The farms, mines, etc can produce a lot, much more than a single city demamds (at least in early game when dities are small).

[Wai]

Thank you all, I uninstalled and re-installed the game and everything seems to be fine. I also started a new game on another map, so, either my install was glitched or the map.

Thank you all for your replies.

[Super Fegelein]

Good to hear, just don't forget, NEVER use the option to wait for a load.

This does nothing but hurt you. Your lines rely on good frequency, so all of your vehicles, trains, trucks, whatever, should constantly be in motion.

[Proteus]

It would make sense if you can enter a certain percentage of wagopns filled till the train departs (like: "Wait for at least 20% filled till departure"), so that you can keep totally empty trains from moving.

But as it is, with the only option being 100% full, it definitely is more of a nuisance than a useful option. Especially since trains on the move don't seem to be more expensive than trains standing at a railway station