What's the difference between a truck depot and a warehouse?

[KDR_11k]

I know truck depots are meant for long range trade... but what are the actual differences between them and warehouses?

[Alex, Master Penguin]

Depot is for Trade Routes. Warehouse automatically collects and distributes in its range. Totally different purpose

[KDR_11k]

Ah, okay, turns out the problem was me using the destinations panel to ship between depots, that makes them use different trucks than using the trade panel...

[Alex, Master Penguin]

Correct :)

[SirDrinksalot]

So what is the best use of one versus the other, so far I havn't used one truck depot and made my first million.

I tend to create zones, so a crop zone which sends all its products to either food, cows, production. I send this from the farms to a wheat warehouse, and I send the wheat warehouse to the food.

I have also done an alcohol zone though with wood, wheat, yeast etc. all in the one area but sent the output to a warehouse to distribute. Should the truck depot only be used for tier 2 despatch?

As a truck cannot pick up from a warehouse, am I supposed to use the depot as a warehouse?

[Brasato Al Barolo]

You need truck depot to move goods from city to city faster, because every truck in a trade route can ship 2 units of goods.
On top of that, you don't need a full build permit for a track depot to be built, but only a logistical permit.

[[NcK]MasterShake|CM]

I've found warehouses should be used for local queue storage [ie: factory production materials / water etc] while goods intended for sale should be distributed via truck depots, almost without exception.

[KDR_11k]

Originally posted by SirDrinksalot:

So what is the best use of one versus the other, so far I havn't used one truck depot and made my first million.

I tend to create zones, so a crop zone which sends all its products to either food, cows, production. I send this from the farms to a wheat warehouse, and I send the wheat warehouse to the food.

I have also done an alcohol zone though with wood, wheat, yeast etc. all in the one area but sent the output to a warehouse to distribute. Should the truck depot only be used for tier 2 despatch?

As a truck cannot pick up from a warehouse, am I supposed to use the depot as a warehouse?

Regular dispatches can only send out a limited number of trucks and have to wait for them to return, trade trucks go one way and despawn. I think they are slightly cheaper for mass transport, at least with the +1 capacity upgrade.

[Vermilicious]

I've just played the demo a little bit, so I don't feel entitled to have any big opinion on the game's workings, but things like this confused me a bit too and got me thinking a little.

This game seems to follow a style used by older games, in that there's a different building for every conceivable thing. This is usally okay, because it adds some level of challenge when it comes to optimizations and such.

Common logic, however, tells you that there isn't anything inherently wrong with shipping goods directly from a farm to a shop on the other side of the country, if you really want that. It's not financially sound, of course, but that's not the point. At least, when you start out with a small business, you don't build a warehouse and a truck depot for shipping your wares to the local (or neighboring) town's consumer store. Another curiosity is that all these buildings seem to spawn vehicles even if you never built a truck depot or are managing vehicles in any way. It seems you are supposed to think big industry even from the meager start. Normally, logically, one would do those things only when the business reach a certain size.

If a game won't let you do as you wish like that, and feels natural, it has to be absolutely clear why, and how you are meant to do things. I think this has to improve if the gameplay model doesn't change.

[[NcK]MasterShake|CM]

Well, nothing obligates you to start with truck routes early. Logically, you'd begin near a town and just ship directly. It's somewhat meta, but if you know you're going to be revising in the long run-- it just makes more sense to build out the infrastructure from the get-go.

... but nothing obligates you to do so.

[Vermilicious]

I realize that truck depots and truck/trade lines aren't required. A warehouse seems to be required to service shops though.

Of course you can go big from the get-go, but that's now how you grow a business. Normally, anyway. Somehwat amusingly, the game is named Rise of industry. I dunno, it just doesn't seem natural how things work.

[KDR_11k]

Originally posted by Vermilicious:

I realize that truck depots and truck/trade lines aren't required. A warehouse seems to be required to service shops though.

No, you can set a factory's destination to be a shop. You can manually wire all the paths up, it's just fiddlier but theoretically more efficient because you pay extra to ship it first to the warehouse and then to the consumer rather than producer to consumer. Warehouses only become somewhat mandatory if you have more consumers than destination slots on your producers. Otherwise they're just a convenience feature.