Porter station

[directorguy7]

Just to clarify before I spend the resources:

If I put a porter station at the quarry (assume there is a specific spot it goes?) And assign a zombie, the mining zombies will automatically place their stuff at the porter station and the porter zombie will then take it to my house yard?

If this is incorrect, can somebody explain in detail the production line (right now I just need stuff at my house, not looking to go advanced yet and sell, etc..) and whats needed.

Thanks!

[olivander]

Yes. You will also need an iron ore stockpile and/or stone stockpile for the mining zombies to deposit their blocks onto.

[directorguy7]

Originally posted by olivander:

Yes. You will also need an iron ore stockpile and/or stone stockpile for the mining zombies to deposit their blocks onto.

Nice. I have two mining ore, and one mining stone. Right now I have all types checked at the station. How does the porter decide what to take? Or does he just pick at random if all 3 (stone, Iron, Coal) are waiting for him?

[EVIL Shenanigans]

Originally posted by olivander:

Yes. You will also need an iron ore stockpile and/or stone stockpile for the mining zombies to deposit their blocks onto.

+1

Any materials mined need to be stored locally before they can then be picked up by the porter. So, up at the Quarry, you'll need to build at least one Stone stockpile (for any stone or marble slabs), one Iron stockpile (for any iron slabs), and one Trunk (for all the smaller stuff; coal, pieces of stone / marble / iron, etc.). Likewise, you'd need the same constructs in your primary Workyard, so your porter has a place to deposit what it's transporting when it gets there.

Originally posted by directorguy7:

How does the porter decide what to take? Or does he just pick at random if all 3 (stone, Iron, Coal) are waiting for him?

At each station, you can dictate what types of things should and should not be transported (though it sounds like you've already figured that out). If you're talking about the quantities, it'll take the maximum it can, which is supposedly dependent on the efficiency of the particular zombie. There doesn't appear to be a question of inventory space (such as the player's character), but more a limit in regards to each type of item (ex; a max of 2 of each kind of slab).

Edit; So, you inspired me to do some troubleshooting, as there is not information in regards to the particulars listed out anywhere, particularly on the wiki. Thus, I present:

[EVIL Shenanigans]

The Rules of Zombie Porters

1) The efficiency of the zombie in regards to being assigned as a porter has no significance. My tests were done with a 10%e and a 40%e zombie, and each carried the same amount of materials, traveled at the same speed, and appeared to behave identically to each other. Thus, be sure to assign your highest efficiency zombies to alternate, more-meaningful tasks.

2) The carrying capacity is identical between zombies. They appear to have 10 slots of inventory, half-that of the player's character. This translates to a single trip having the potential of transporting 1000 coal (100x per stack), 300 iron / stone / marble pieces (30x per stack), 100 gold / silver / repair kits (10x per stack), or some assortment of the above.

2a) Unlike the player's character, the various slab-type materials take up precisely 4 slots of the zombie's inventory. Thus, each zombie can carry a maximum of two slabs (of any variety), with a further 2 slots available to carry a small assortment of the smaller materials.

3) Whether or not the porter station has been altered, the zombie will pull materials 'from the top'. Not only is this in regards to how items are organized in a given Trunk (coal and iron near the top, repair kits near the bottom), but also the sequential order of the storage containers themselves.

3a) In a given area where storage containers exist, one can open up their inventory and view the order each storage container is in, along with their contents. So, at the Quarry, a given zombie will pull materials from the trunk/stockpile that's higher on this list, when allowed to. This is precisely why one may build up to 3 porter stations at the Quarry - 3 different slab-type materials.

Let's Assume...

...that your Workyard has every construct required, but is empty, and at the Quarry you have:
Stockpile #1; with 3x Marble slabs.
Trunk #1; filled with nick-nacks, 5x gold nugs, 5x silver nugs, and 15 repair kits.
Stockpile #2; with 2x Iron slab.
Trunk #2; filled with coal and iron pieces.
Stockpile #3; with 4x Stone slabs.

Ex#1: You instruct a single zombie porter to take everything down to the Workyard.
It's 1st trip will consist of 2 slabs of marble, and the gold and silver nuggets (1 stack each).
It's 2nd trip will consist of 1 slab of marble, the repair kits (2 stacks), and 1 slab of iron.
It's 3rd trip will consist of 1 slab of iron, and 6x stacks of coal and iron pieces.
It's 4th trip will consist of 10 stacks of coal and iron pieces.

Ex#2: You instruct a single zombie porter to take Iron slabs, Stone slabs, gold, silver, and coal.
It's 1st trip will consist of 2 slabs or iron, and the gold / silver nuggets from Trunk #1.
It's 2nd trip will consist of up-to 10 stacks of coal from Trunk #2.
It's 3rd trip is the same as before, assuming you have > 6 coal stacks.
It's 4th trip, assuming < 3 coal stacks remain, will consist of 2 slabs of stone.

In the first example, the zombie will pull the 'low-priority' repair kits from Trunk #1 before the 'high-priority' coal from Trunk #2, while pointedly will *not* start pulling stone slabs from Stockpile #3 until it's pulled everything it can from everywhere else.

In the second example, the zombie will ignore Stockpile #1 with it's Marble, as well as the repair kits in Trunk #1 and iron pieces in Trunk #2, as it's been instructed to do so. However, it will still prioritize the coal in Trunk #2 over the stone slabs in Stockpile #3.

These examples are also assuming the zombie is able to drop everything off at the Workyard. If, for example, the Workyard is filled with marble slabs, then the zombie in the first example will get stuck carrying it's slabs of marble, and potentially never deliver any iron or stone slabs, until the player either starts utilizing the marble again, or resets the zombie (dropping the contents of it's inventory) and limits the porter station (un-check marble slabs) before restarting the zombie.

Hope this is helpful.

[olivander]

Originally posted by EVIL Shenanigans:

The Rules of Zombie Porters

Very nice. Thank you for taking the time to work this out and write it up!

[Ext.]

is it me or this game needs a dedicated Marble stockpile ?

[GlassDeviant]

Originally posted by Extrenix:

is it me or this game needs a dedicated Marble stockpile ?

Both.

[EVIL Shenanigans]

Originally posted by Extrenix:

is it me or this game needs a dedicated Marble stockpile ?

It's a very common request ...and on the one hand, I perfectly understand where it's coming from. Let's say you have zombie miners at the Quarry, one on stone, one on marble, and a zombie porter pulling only marble slabs - those stockpiles will eventually fill up with stone, and you're suddenly not moving any marble. You'll have the same problem at home, if you're having stone and marble slabs delivered, but only utilizing marble.

However, once you reach late-game and get your marble production up and running, stone becomes nearly useless; aside from a few workstations, most everything that was once stone is now marble. So, you can just ...ya-know, stop producing stone - it's that simple. Then you don't even have to worry about hypothetically making two different stockpiles for similar building materials. Surely this is why the devs didn't bother with it, and I can't help but agree with them...

[GlassDeviant]

I see your point about mid vs. late game materials, but it just seems like a simple thing to add. Copy the one item and alter them both to make each one specific to a certain kind of block. Low effort, high user satisfaction.

[Dosbilliam, Boring but Practical]

Might be a programming thing, but unless the person coding that was really drunk that day or there's a crapton of different variables at play, it should be a simple fix.