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.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by 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.

Exports work "slightly" different, yes it will only complete 1 contract at a time, but it will at least move ALL of a product from the docks up to the full amount per ship (unlike imports which are divided across all ships). This is the only reason to ever consider additional docks (or cargo planes) outgoing is that you get the full volume of exports per ship on a faster cycle (assuming you have enough product made) while only fulfilling a single contract at a time.

So, exports work slightly better in this regard.

[Subudai]

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.

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.

Hey.
Thanks for the information. I might give it another go.
When I was not having any issues/bugs I was having fun with the game.

Looking at my original post - it does not really seem like I was seeing this as a bug, but rather was wondering how exactly it worked. But, again, this thread is over a year old, so I can't really go into a discussion about the import system. Been too long and I am not into the different parts of this game at the moment.

I am glad that they worked on improving the game though.

[Constantine]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

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.

You are not able to export more than 1000 or 1500 at the same time for a same unit, but if you store them in a warehouse and deliver them by "send dock" button, it will stack up to the amount of warehouse and eventually a lot of money'll come. Otherwise teamsters'll not carry them from the storage to the dock. So there isn't an extra step. That is what i wanted to point out. Let me know if there is a way to empty factory's storage completely to the dock all the time.

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Subudai:

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.

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.

Hey.
Thanks for the information. I might give it another go.
When I was not having any issues/bugs I was having fun with the game.

Looking at my original post - it does not really seem like I was seeing this as a bug, but rather was wondering how exactly it worked. But, again, this thread is over a year old, so I can't really go into a discussion about the import system. Been too long and I am not into the different parts of this game at the moment.

I am glad that they worked on improving the game though.

The biggest change is that the developer was replaced, the publisher (kalypso) that owns the franchise dropped Limbic and hired Realmforge, they've fixed more bugs in the last 2 months than the original team did in 2 years and the recent expansion (Caribean Skies) which is from the new team, is larger than all 4 previous DLC.

I wouldn't say the game is perfect, but it's actually playable now and I've enjoyed the last 500 hours of my time with it more than the first 500 hours. (and have worked through every mission now that they all function with the major bugs fixed)

[Kunovega]

Originally posted by Constantine:

Originally posted by Kunovega:

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.

You are not able to export more than 1000 or 1500 at the same time for a same unit, but if you store them in a warehouse and deliver them by "send dock" button, it will stack up to the amount of warehouse and eventually a lot of money'll come. Otherwise teamsters'll not carry them from the storage to the dock. So there isn't an extra step. That is what i wanted to point out. Let me know if there is a way to empty factory's storage completely to the dock all the time.

For one thing your original comment was about imports, so my response was about imports.

You've now tried to "correct me" by talking about exports?

Your original comment was off topic to this thread (because the thread was about import contracts, not how to move product from the docks) and your new comment is off topic to my comment (since you're now talking about exports, when I was commenting on import use), I'm not sure you fully understand what's actually being discussed here.

However, if you want me to comment on exports which you've just brought up: No, you're wrong anyway. The amount a teamster can move anywhere has an individual limit per teamster trip, this has nothing to do with anything being discussed. The amount that can sit at the docks is 10,000 per product, it doesn't matter at all whether that came from a production facility or a warehouse. Moving more than what 1 teamster can hold will take more than one teamster trip, but the total sitting at each dock is 10,000 each. The amount that can leave by export is a per boat amount (in contrast to the split-amount that happens when you import ~ which is what this thread was originally talking about)

How import/export contracts work is unrelated to how teamsters move product which is unrelated to how much product can sit at a dock.

Warehouses in either direction are just extra work for your teamsters and serve only to hold overflow beyond what your docks could have held. If you turned off auto-export of a product you would see the same build up of product at the docks as you would get from ordering it moved to a warehouse and without the side-trip to the warehouse. That storage value is only of use if you need more space than the 10,000 units the docks can store on their own.

Obviously if you build up a large amount in storage you will see a large lump income when it exports, you would have seen the same thing with that amount sitting at the docks with exports off, all you did with the warehouse was fraction off part of it with extra teamster trips and then release it later. I could explain this in more detail but it's way off track of what this thread was talking about and I'm not sure you understand the distinction anyway.

[Subudai]

Originally posted by Kunovega:

The biggest change is that the developer was replaced, the publisher (kalypso) that owns the franchise dropped Limbic and hired Realmforge, they've fixed more bugs in the last 2 months than the original team did in 2 years and the recent expansion (Caribean Skies) which is from the new team, is larger than all 4 previous DLC.

I wouldn't say the game is perfect, but it's actually playable now and I've enjoyed the last 500 hours of my time with it more than the first 500 hours. (and have worked through every mission now that they all function with the major bugs fixed)

Oh, wow. Now that is interesting.
I will for sure give it another look then.

Thanks again.