Import - How does it work?

[Subudai]

Hello.

I am providing two screenshots with this question.
In the background of them both - you can see my three Rum Distilleries. These get their sugar from imports.

I am importing sugar from two trade routes and I got two docks as well.
However, when dock 1 recieves a shipment of sugar - it is only getting 314 units.
Dock 2, shortly after, gets it's shipment. This one is getting 716 units of sugar.

Together this is 1,027 units. I thought you only imported in chunks of 1,000 units - is this wrong?
Also, if you have more than one dock - does the import volume get divided between all docks?

So, in an extreme example; If I had 1,000 docks - these would all, only, get one unit of sugar each?

I have a feeling this is not working as inteded - but I wanted to ask to make sure.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1832404398

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1832405173


EDIT: In the second round of a shipment each to the two docks, I recieved 846 and 428 units, a total of 1,274 units. I am not receiving a solid 1,000 units/shipment.

On a side-note: I have two import contracts for sugar. One is 5% above the standard price, and the other is 10% above. The game is however importing from the more expensive one first, even though the 5% fee one was setup first.

[Subudai]

I am playing in sandbox mode. Currently on year 35 under the Crown,
My economy is good, people are happy and crime is non-existant. I have turned Foreign Aid off - as this really is not how the world functions and I do not like to be given free money in games.

I like to play for a while in Colonial Era - to setup my city in a way I enjoy.
I am really, really, sick and tired of starting a new map - due to the game effing up and not me.
Have had different kinds of bugs that has forced me to restart, one save was crashing due to too many arrests at once, another I had to quit because the raids got bugged and I could not go on heist for World Wonders.

So I hope this is not a bug and that it is not gonna stick around my save, forever.
Either way, if this is how imports functions - please change it.

[Liralen]

My experience in Tropico 6 has been that strategy matters less randomness, which you can counter via the Pirate Cove and its upgrades, the Broker, and Foreign Aid.

And so I never rely on random factors like Imports, i.e., avoid Imports as a means to make your economy work. Choose another industry instead that you have resources to self-supply.

[Subudai]

I am not building an economy around imports - even though this should be a valid thing in a game like this. I am merely wanting to produce rum in my nation - without having sugar plantations all over the place (with how fertility and such works as well as the things taking up space in general.).

But my question was not regarding the big random factor in this game - the question was if my imports are bugger or if they are working as intended. i.e the import contract is divided, in some weird way, between the different ports.

I read somewhere, one these forums, and I have also experienced it myself - that imports always comes in chunks of 1,000 units. Which is not happening for me in this save.

I have no interest in building a production chain that rely on Loot Raids with the Pirate Cove - as this is definitely not a smart thing to do, not only is the departure for the pirates random, but I know for a fact that the raid system is currently bugged and will eventually stop working.

Originally posted by Liralen:

My experience in Tropico 6 has been that strategy matters less randomness

Are you claiming that imports are not strategy though? Because that is very much wrong if so.

[Liralen]

Imports should be a strategy.

I just don't think that Tropico 6 is a strategy game, in view of all the random crap that occurs.

[Subudai]

Originally posted by Liralen:

Imports should be a strategy.

I just don't think that Tropico 6 is a strategy game, in view of all the random crap that occurs.

Ah, yes. I misunderstood you then.

I completely agree with what you are saying here.

[Subudai]

Seems that whenever I got more than one docks - the import order gets messed up and divided across the different docks, giving me random numbers. If I only use one dock it goes back to 1,000 units per shipment.

No idea if this is as intended - but some work on this system would be nice.

[jlking3rd]

Originally posted by Subudai:

Seems that whenever I got more than one docks - the import order gets messed up and divided across the different docks, giving me random numbers. If I only use one dock it goes back to 1,000 units per shipment.

No idea if this is as intended - but some work on this system would be nice.

I am pretty sure that is as intended. I was surprised that you got over 1000 units. In my look at it with one dock I got 1000 units, with two each got 500, at three it was 333 per port and with four it dropped to 250. It probably does work better this way, otherwise the ports would be way over powered. You could run your islands on just imports alone and never build anything else.

If you think about it the other way, unless you are producing more than 20,000 units of rum per year, you can only export the amount of rum you produce. Building a second dock is not going to increase that amount.

[Subudai]

Yeah, how it works for you is probably how it is intended. I seem to have a lot of different and strange bugs and issues going on in my saves. Part of why I am getting so frustrated with the game as I do enjoy playing it - is just that the amount of bugs I run into, minor and big, is taking away from the fun.

The reason I am using more than one dock is that I like the frequency of the ships and how it looks with a larger dock area. I would assume that if I import the same good from two different nations - this would most likely give me 2,000 per shipment.

Imports should not be a superior way of running your nation - but it should be a valid option as well. You do still pay for the imported goods, so it does take away from your overall profit of the refined product, but then again, you save money on the upkeep and wages you would have had if you had the whole chain in your production.

[Constantine]

There is warehouses, you can store the units in there, then order your teamsters to move them to the dock. You'll see it'll increase

[Subudai]

Any particular reason as to why you felt I needed a reply, over a year, after I asked this?

[Constantine]

Because i have found nothing since gathering info about this particular issue. Can you tell me if you've found any? Unless i reach a clarification about the case, i mark this as a bug.

[Subudai]

Aha, it came across as you pointing out a solution to the issue.
Either way. I haven't played Tropico 6 for a very long time. I don't know the state of it today or if there are other issues going around as well.

The game had way too many bugs and issues for me to enjoy it - so I just moved on.
I hope you solve the issue you are having so that you can enjoy the game.

[spike86]

I just solved the second mission in Caribbean Skies through imports, since I had loads of money e no workforce to emply in the way too many plantations required to finish the mission, I've just imported everything that I was unable to produce.

It worked flawlessy, i don't know exactly what you are talking about.
Import route was 2000 tobacco? I got 2000 tobacco and so on.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by spike86:

I just solved the second mission in Caribbean Skies through imports, since I had loads of money e no workforce to emply in the way too many plantations required to finish the mission, I've just imported everything that I was unable to produce.

It worked flawlessy, i don't know exactly what you are talking about.
Import route was 2000 tobacco? I got 2000 tobacco and so on.

This really has nothing to do with the original question in this thread. Imports have a functional limit of not just per ship, but it's also divided among ships if you have more than one dock.

Retrieving things from the dock once delivered is not the issue, it's by design that you can't get multiple imports of the same product at the same time, they will trigger in sequence not simultaneously just like the volume you get over time will be split among all the ships you have incoming so that you are capped at a set volume over time.

How you get it from the docks (drones or teamsters) has nothing to do with it. And if you are only importing a small amount like 2,000 you aren't even going to really notice this issue. It's a problem when you are trying to do 10's of thousands because there's no way to scale the timed import volume no matter how many ships you have coming in.

Originally posted by Constantine:

There is warehouses, you can store the units in there, then order your teamsters to move them to the dock. You'll see it'll increase

This is a pointless extra step, all you are doing is moving things from the docks to the warehouse instead of directly to where it was needed, useless time wasting.

Warehouses are only useful for long term storage to manipulate the markets and only if you need storage capacity beyond the 10,000 you could have had sitting at your docks (with auto-exports turned off) it doesn't help at all with improving import volumes, you are just making your teamsters do two trips instead of one.

Originally posted by Subudai:

Aha, it came across as you pointing out a solution to the issue.
Either way. I haven't played Tropico 6 for a very long time. I don't know the state of it today or if there are other issues going around as well.

The game had way too many bugs and issues for me to enjoy it - so I just moved on.
I hope you solve the issue you are having so that you can enjoy the game.

The game has vastly improved in many ways, however the issue of limited imports is by design and is (unfortunately) not considered a bug so it's unlikely to be changed. No matter how many import routes you contract they will be done in sequence, not simultaneously and no matter how many docks you have for more ships, the import shipments will be split among them so that you get a fixed amount of import per product over a time period.

I won't go into the full list of actual improvements since that's beyond the scope of this thread, but there's been quite a few documented patches in the past year, but none of them have changed this core import design factor.

[spike86]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

The game has vastly improved in many ways, however the issue of limited imports is by design and is (unfortunately) not considered a bug so it's unlikely to be changed. No matter how many import routes you contract they will be done in sequence, not simultaneously and no matter how many docks you have for more ships, the import shipments will be split among them so that you get a fixed amount of import per product over a time period.

That's also how EXPORTS works, you can sign 3 exports for the same stuff, but they'll be fullfilled one at the time. IIRC Tropico 5 worked the same.

For imports it's better it stays that way. If I need to import 20.000 sugar to make my distillery work, I prefer that to be on a long period of time, otherwise, particularly at the start, the risk is to get deep into debts and never be able to recover.

But as I said, I think it's the basic mechanics of ships and contract in this game: you can sign how many contract you wish, however the ships will import and export only one contract per time for the same good in the same direction.
I think changing that will require rewriting a good portion of one of the basics piece of code of the game.