What do combines do for the fields? Thanks!

[nickandjess2008]

I, obviously, know that they do 2 jobs, however, which 2 jobs are those? I am not a farmer, but, (online it says that they do ) it says that they harvest, thresh (?) and plows. Also, what is the ideal setup for an agro-farm--vehicle wise? Thanks for reading and any comments or help, it is appreciated!

[ottoVonRibbentrop]

it depends of course of your setup (distance from fields to farm, type or route used, size of fields)

I usually have like 24 medium field for each agro farm, 2 tractors, 6 harvester and 4 trucks

[nickandjess2008]

Wow! That seems like a LOT of farms for 1 agro-farm! Does that work ok? It also doesn't
seem like enough trucks. Is it a very slow process for harvesting? Or does that end up working out just fine? Thanks for the quick answer! It is appreciated.

[ottoVonRibbentrop]

Originally posted by nickandjess2008:

Wow! That seems like a LOT of farms for 1 agro-farm! Does that work ok? It also doesn't
seem like enough trucks. Is it a very slow process for harvesting? Or does that end up working out just fine? Thanks for the quick answer! It is appreciated.

it depends, sometimes I need 3 tractors and 5 harvester are enough, I use the trucks which carry 9.6 tons if I recall, and gravel road.

make sure you have farm in the center of the fields if possible, and a gas station close to the farm, since tractors and harvester speed is really low

If I see crops stay on the fields even after next sawing phase, then I tune the setup adding a truck, it really depends too much on the setup, but usually I can handle 24 medium fields

[Thermobaricus]

25 medium fields, gravel roads, 3 tractors, 5 harversters, 4 trucks (bigger possible). Gas station near the farm and I link the farm to a silo.

It works fine, the idea is to never have any of your vehicules unemployed.

I'm just wondering if there is a way of ordering the trucks to go straight to the silo ?

[ottoVonRibbentrop]

I forgot: don't worry if 1 ton or 2 of crops remain in the field, they will be gathered on next "season", they don't disappears or get rotten, it happens when trucks are really busy, they go on fields which can full the whole truck first. Do worry if more than what a truck can carrie stay on the field

[wHAT]

I tend to have 5 tractors and 5 harvesters the last two are trucks with alot of space for the harvested crops

[TheAmishStig]

In terms of game mechanics, Combines count as "virtual workers" for the Harvesting phase...in each "work shift" (8 hours of time at the 'Workplace' scale...the game has several time scales and it gets complicated), they'll harvest as much crops as their speed rating's worth of workers. Tractors work the same for the Sowing phase, and trucks are, well, trucks.

There's a lot of discussion over the 'ideal' ratios, because things like travel time play in...but 3-5-4 (tractor, combine, truck) is pretty popular, and personally I try to give each farm 18-24 fields to work with so they're never sitting around waiting for crops to finish growing.

[pryt]

I like to put 4 farms in the same spot, each farm linked to a silo, all 4 silos linked to a train station, and the farms are 10 big ones per agro farm. It's a slow start, but once it's running, it runs!

Setup for vehicles: 3 tractors, 5 harvesters, 4 trucks (the big Skoda ones). It's slow with the beginner tractors, but later just switch to the better ones, and, use the western Germany harvesters for dollars, if starting in 1960.

And yes, it needs a lot of flattening.

[nickandjess2008]

Thanks everyone for the repolies! I appreciate the ideas and suggestions. I will try to do all of them on different games to see which one works the best for me. Question-- Do you stagger placing the fields? Or plop them all down at once? Thank you again for the suggestions everyone!

[TheAmishStig]

Originally posted by nickandjess2008:

Thanks everyone for the repolies! I appreciate the ideas and suggestions. I will try to do all of them on different games to see which one works the best for me. Question-- Do you stagger placing the fields? Or plop them all down at once? Thank you again for the suggestions everyone!

Happy to be of help! It usually takes forever and if not using my own bulldozers costs a fortune, but I like to flatten a ridiculously large area to make an H-shaped set of roads, with fields attached to both sides of each leg and the support buildings (farm, train station, silo, gas station, etc) in the middle.

[nickandjess2008]

I have never flattened an area like that, but, I have to try that. I saw an awesome pic of a great city on here and all of the buildings were really close together and the guy who made it said that if you level out the land, you can put the buildings super-close together. It makes it look really cool! Point being, I will just have to try that, so, thanks for that tip! I am somewhat new to this and am still trying to get the hang of it and, well....having a little trouble with the learning curve, but, I will get there!

[TheAmishStig]

Originally posted by nickandjess2008:

I have never flattened an area like that, but, I have to try that. I saw an awesome pic of a great city on here and all of the buildings were really close together and the guy who made it said that if you level out the land, you can put the buildings super-close together. It makes it look really cool! Point being, I will just have to try that, so, thanks for that tip! I am somewhat new to this and am still trying to get the hang of it and, well....having a little trouble with the learning curve, but, I will get there!

Pre-flattening is the single most important habit to get into when playing this game. Have younoticed when you build buildings without a "resource scouting" mode (the overlay that tells you whether or not it's a good spot to be mining), there are big squares and little dots?

The big squares are the building's footprint, the space it'll actually take up. The little dots are the game saying "Hey, the nearby terrain isn't flat, you have to leave me room to create slopes".

If you pre-flatten those little dots go away, and it becomes possible to put buildings so close to existing roads that you can't connect them [as road segments have a minimum length].

And don't let it scare you! It does have a pretty steep learning curve...there are a lot of moving pieces and things to consider even right at the beginning...but we're here to help!

[nickandjess2008]

Well, thanks for the offer and if I have any more questions, I will just ask here in the forums. Thanks, I am having a LOT of fun learning this game (trial and error) and I really do like it. I see a lot of people saying that the pre-flattening is a big help and that it helps a ton with getting the buildings closer together, so, other than setting up the farms correctly, that will be my next step. Thanks for all the help and if you have any other tips or help, just list it here, I appreciate it. Thanks again!

[pryt]

One you get used to flattening, even huge flattening projects are no issue:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1820168833

Yes, there was a huge mountain once.

Have fun! :)

[ottoVonRibbentrop]

I have issue placing fields where there was rocks, even if perfectly flat, instead I can place field on not at all flat terrain as far as rocks/mountains are not involved