Trucks/Trains fuel usage

[Incrediblejimmy]

Does anyone know how the game calculates how much fuel a vehicle needs, so my glorious soviet econy can run a bit cheaper?

Is it simply the more kw the more fuel, or is it based on weight, so i'ld need to look for the best empty weight/capacity-rate, a mixture of both, or do most vehicles just have a fixed fuel consumption i.e. per time or distance?

[forzion]

Well, this is a mechanic I would also like to know how it works. I was not able to test it until now but had an idea how to test that just not enough time to do it. I can ask the developer about this.

[tea_bush]

I tested it some time ago. Weight doesn't seem to matter at all. The more kW the more fuel describes it correctly. At least it was so several weeks ago.

[Bautz]

Originally posted by tea_bush:

I tested it some time ago. Weight doesn't seem to matter at all. The more kW the more fuel describes it correctly. At least it was so several weeks ago.

The KW and weight ratio also affects accelleration. So if you are going more mountainy, you need more fuel than on a straight road. High KW should save you some fuel with driving uphill with full load (you get to topspeed faster, so less full throttle). But the consumption effect is low and i think it could be ignored compared to speed and capacity.

[Incrediblejimmy]

Originally posted by tea_bush:

I tested it some time ago. Weight doesn't seem to matter at all. The more kW the more fuel describes it correctly. At least it was so several weeks ago.

That means lowest kw/capacity is the way to go... that leaves a very important question:
Is fuel usage X+Y*KW or is it just Y*KW ... or to put it another way: Do two 100kw trucks use the same amount of fuel as one 200kw truck would...

[tea_bush]

Ok, so I conducted more experiments.

The setup is this: a bumpy asphalt road goes from Silo A at the foot of the hill to Silo B at the top.

We have two trucks: an IFA W 50 and a ZIL-133. Both of them have a maximum speed of 80 kilometers per hour, both of them carry 9 tons of cargo. IFA weighs 7 tons and has a 92 kW engine. ZIL weighs 14 tons and has a 132 kW engine.

Experiment 1: truck goes from A to B empty, is loaded at B and goes back to A with the cargo. Experiment 2: truck is loaded at A, goes to B, unloads and goes back empty.

Average results for IFA:

Time (mm:ss) to go uphill: 01:08 empty, 01:12 loaded.

Fuel consumed while going uphill: 0.029 tons empty, 0.030 tons loaded.

Time to go downhill: 00:48 empty, 00:55 loaded.

Fuel consumed while going downhill: 0.021 tons empty, 0.024 tons loaded.

Average results for ZIL:

Time to go uphill: 01:09 empty, 01:11 loaded.

Fuel consumed while going uphill: 0.043 tons empty, 0.044 tons loaded.

Time to go downhill: 00:50 empty, 00:54 loaded.

Fuel consumed while going downhill: 0.031 tons empty, 0.034 tons loaded.

As we can see, the average speed of the truck depends quite a bit on whether it goes uphill or downhill and to a lesser extent on whether it is loaded or not. But it pretty much doesn't depend on the power of its engine.

What depends on the engine power greatly is fuel consumption. ZIL eats nearly 1.5 more fuel than IFA and that is exactly the ratio of the power of their engines. Uphill/downhill and empty/loaded factors also influence fuel consumption, but to a much lesser extent.

So the conclusion is that the ZIL truck is pretty useless. IFA needs nearly 1.5 less fuel to do the exact same job.

[forzion]

I was doing testing with some trucks running them a long road. They were bought with about 20% of tank filled and the absolute amount of fuel depended on kWattage of their engine. All of them turned at the same spot to go back to fuel station when the fuel level got too low that means that everyone of them can do similar distance with full tank but the fuel tank size differs a lot.

IMO the speed does not matter so much with truck as it matters with busses. Few seconds will not save you but few second delay with bus can matter a lot. Then I think that not all of those trucks are to be effective in fuel consumption. We are in soviet republic in 1960-1990 where enviroment does not matter so much. But those trucks just are there to help you replicate the historical setups in your city.

[Incrediblejimmy]

Originally posted by forzion:

I was doing testing with some trucks running them a long road. They were bought with about 20% of tank filled and the absolute amount of fuel depended on kWattage of their engine. All of them turned at the same spot to go back to fuel station when the fuel level got too low that means that everyone of them can do similar distance with full tank but the fuel tank size differs a lot.

IMO the speed does not matter so much with truck as it matters with busses. Few seconds will not save you but few second delay with bus can matter a lot. Then I think that not all of those trucks are to be effective in fuel consumption. We are in soviet republic in 1960-1990 where enviroment does not matter so much. But those trucks just are there to help you replicate the historical setups in your city.

Did you test if the type of road has any impact?

[tea_bush]

Originally posted by forzion:

Then I think that not all of those trucks are to be effective in fuel consumption.

"The economy must be economical - this is the demand of our times." L.I. Brezhnev, 1981

[archiver213]

the types of roads do make a difference, all vehicles would be extremely slow on dirt roads, & the speed increases as you progress up the chain of roads.

[tea_bush]

Originally posted by Incrediblejimmy:

That means lowest kw/capacity is the way to go...

That depends on the task at hand. If you just need to move a certain amount of cargo from A to B, than yes, you need trucks with lowest power/capacity rate.

If time becomes important, e.g. if you produce some goods at a factory and instantly sell them at the customs house, than you also have to include truck speed in the equation.

And if you use the truck only occasionally, e.g. at a construction office, then power becomes unimportant.

[tea_bush]

Logging trucks are another issue since they don't go from A to B, they just crawl around at a very low speed and occasionally return to base. Pragas (73 kW) deforest an area 1.5 times longer than Urals (132 KW) while using nearly half the fuel. So if you want efficiency, use Pragas, and if you want to get rid of the forest as quickly as possible, use Urals. All other logging trucks fall somewhere in between.

[forzion]

Here is the answer from developer about vehicle consumption as I understand. You have different size of tanks according to engine power (higher wattage means more fuel need to fill the tank). Then there is the same time for all vehicles to spend that fuel. So the fuel consumption depends on vehicles wattage and also average speed.

For example if you have two trucks with same wattage and different top speeds the faster gets further with full tank. If you have the same truck on differen roads the one riding on the better road gets further with full tank. If you have trucks with different wattage and the same top speed the one with lower wattage gets further with full tank.

That how it works simplified. I just cannot put acceleration and load into examples so easily but you can imagine that loaded trucks accelerate a bit slower so they have lower avererage speed with full tank than if there were empty.

When the vehicle is waiting it should not consume any fuel.

[Fiend]

Are any of the trucks better than others on dirt roads? There are expensive, military looking ones that look like they would be better off-road, but I'm not sure they actually are. So far I've only noticed tractors are better on dirt roads.

If this is not currently implemented, is it planned to be?

[forzion]

I just do not think that game mechanic is so detailed that road type would be implemented into equation behing fuel consumption. If there are any advantages on dirt road it is really relative I do not think they were meant to be there as the dirt road limits all the vehicles similarly. The only difference can be in acceleration but even then we talk about second saved for a full tank.

And currently there is no work related to fuel consumption. It works fine in this stage.

[keeperofsword]

Originally posted by tea_bush:

What depends on the engine power greatly is fuel consumption. ZIL eats nearly 1.5 more fuel than IFA and that is exactly the ratio of the power of their engines. Uphill/downhill and empty/loaded factors also influence fuel consumption, but to a much lesser extent.

Great thanks!