Why is auto-warehousing cheaper transport costs?

[vefme]

If I switch to manual the transport cost is nearly double to the same destination?

[Alex, Master Penguin]

Because it needs to bounce (origin - WH - target). In the end, it's the same

[Jonesmz]

I don't think that makes sense.

From a real-world perspective: origin -> WH -> target should only be cheaper if the warehouse provides either significant economies of scale, or if the warehouse is already almost directly en-route.

It's true that in the game the WH trucks support 2units per truck, so that's an advantage. But it shouldn't automatically be cheaper to send trucks to the warehouse.

@vefme: More than likely the cost for shipping direct is double the cost of shipping to warehouse and then from warehouse, because the warehouse trucks carry more than one unit per truck.

[Alex, Master Penguin]

The Warehouse, amongst other things, is a helper tool that automates stuff, at a cost. It's for those players who don't want to micromanage every building

[Jonesmz]

vefme was asking (If I'm reading their question correctly) why turning off the automatic-distribution of warehouses (and thus sending products directly to the store) doubled their cost.

It's not intuitive to many people that adding an extra step would decrease cost.

Since the warehouse can send trucks with two units per truck, there's a break-even point between using a warehouse and sending directly.

[Alex, Master Penguin]

Well, normal buildings use normal trucks (1 capacity). Warehouses send high capacity trucks (2, and 3 if researched). So you can say that sending final dispatches via WH trucks is indeed cheaper, but it's depending on so many things (WH initial cost, distance, traffic, etc)

[Bartleby]

Originally posted by Alex, Master Penguin:

The Warehouse, amongst other things, is a helper tool that automates stuff, at a cost. It's for those players who don't want to micromanage every building

why do we build a warehouse in the tutorial if its just optional?
i learned that u dont need it and that 3 targets are way to less to be useful. but because i atm try to avoid it - do i need it for trucks? well... i will figure it out if i need it, but... plz add tooltips, tutorial and UI. those basic gamefearures should be so clear, that u dont need that much testing. i love to test things to optimize things (reason i play startup and am still planning th ebest start), but i can believe that many player dont want to test baiscs and use pen and paper and wikis to get the basics going.

[Jonesmz]

Originally posted by Alex, Master Penguin:

Well, normal buildings use normal trucks (1 capacity). Warehouses send high capacity trucks (2, and 3 if researched). So you can say that sending final dispatches via WH trucks is indeed cheaper, but it's depending on so many things (WH initial cost, distance, traffic, etc)

I agree with you that there are tradeoffs (as there should be).

I just spent the last hour reading through the forums here on steam, and I think that the very large number of questions that people have asked about how warehousing works indicates that there's a lot of potential value to your customers in doing some work on the warehousing system to make the way it works more understandable to players.

Some things you might consider:

Document in the warehouse description or enhance the description of the warehouse having higher capacity trucks. If it's documented somewhere, I didn't see it. I played the game for about 10 hours the other day and this was *not* obvious until I discovered that i could click on trucks to see what and how much of things they are carrying. To me this indicates that the game could be improved by more clearly pointing out this important aspect of the warehouse feature.

When a warehouse is selected, draw an overlay on the roads showing what buildings are feeding into the warehouse. For example: If I have a warehouse connected to 3 farms, when the warehouse is selected, draw a dotted line (traced over the roads) connecting the warehouse to the farms. Bonus points if the line is slightly animated showing the direction that the good's are flowing.

The reason a player would want this is that it shows, very obviously, that things are connected to the warehouse. If they didn't realize that warehouses automatically pulled products from nearby producers, the *new* visual element on the screen would be an obvious signal "Hey, something's changed!", and they'd be able to investigate further.

The above thing is actually something I'd really like to see for the entire game. Tracking which farm that's connected to my Farmers Market is named "Crop Farm 5" isn't really easy. Tracking a line from the Farmers Market -> That farm over by the hill, that's super easy.

[Jonesmz]

A further suggestion.

Being able to click and drag the endpoint of a destination from one place to another.

"I want to stop selling this product directly, and instead send it to the warehouse instead."

This is *way* faster to click and drag than it is to open a menu and click 5 times

[Alex, Master Penguin]

Working on expanding the help systems of the game. For now, keep in mind there's a wiki (links in the main menu and el the pause menu, bottom right).

The click and drag solution was tested many times, and it was incredibly awkward to use. Forced to use this other, more simplistic, system

[Toca]

Originally posted by Jonesmz:

When a warehouse is selected, draw an overlay on the roads showing what buildings are feeding into the warehouse. For example: If I have a warehouse connected to 3 farms, when the warehouse is selected, draw a dotted line (traced over the roads) connecting the warehouse to the farms. Bonus points if the line is slightly animated showing the direction that the good's are flowing.

This feature is implemented and I only found it this week. Click on the warehouse, on the top right the are icons whith further information on the building you selected, the second one, from left to right, is the one you're looking for, it highlights the products coming and going of the warehouse and their routes.

What i found lacking is that this feature isn't present in the distribution buildings, like the harbor or the truck depot.

[Alex, Master Penguin]

Or Ctrl+hover a building, yes :)

[Ketamarine]

Originally posted by Alex, Master Penguin:

Well, normal buildings use normal trucks (1 capacity). Warehouses send high capacity trucks (2, and 3 if researched). So you can say that sending final dispatches via WH trucks is indeed cheaper, but it's depending on so many things (WH initial cost, distance, traffic, etc)

Bro I so appreciate you hopping on these forums and explaining this stuff...

However, where in the game are we meant to learn any of these concepts? Or be shown the cost and benefits of the differing logistics setups?

[Alex, Master Penguin]

It's all in the wiki. I know it's technically an external source of information, but having it ingame would mean translating to 8 languages, incurring in several thousands of euros of costs. Please understand...

[rightfn]

To the players asking about warehouses - I don't really use the warehouse for early game, I dont recommend the added cost, complexity, and traffic. Where it does become useful is later on, when transportation costs are less of a problem, and when you have an irregular number of buildings producing and consuming things in a small area, at different rates. Dropping a warehouse allows you to more easily understand the balance of whether things are overall being produced or consumed too quickly, so you can see if you need to adjust things and you only need to examine a single building to find out.

[rightfn]

Originally posted by Alex, Master Penguin:

Working on expanding the help systems of the game. For now, keep in mind there's a wiki (links in the main menu and el the pause menu, bottom right).

The click and drag solution was tested many times, and it was incredibly awkward to use. Forced to use this other, more simplistic, system

Since I am too lazy to give my buildings names, it would be nice if, when I hovered the mouse over a destination in the destination list, the map would scroll to show it, so I know if I am picking the right one from the list. Then it can scroll back to where I was before, when I am done picking a destination.

Auto-naming buildings might help. 'Farm 2' and 'Farm 3' is not as descriptive as 'Farm 1 (Shelbyville)' and 'Farm 1 (Newtown)'