Importing for construction office?

[flu007]

Greetings,

new player here, been enjoying climbing the learning curve the past few days, and am nowhere near the top yet.

My situation at the moment: we're making our own food, meat and alcohol to supply our shops and pub, two power stations selling off power to two different border stations, and also set up small scale boards, prefab and brick construction, which we're also transporting to the border for now. As long as we don't build anything, the money ticks upwards, but we're not exactly getting rich.

I'd like to get to the point where we do (most of) our own construction work. So steel and asphalt are the next steps.

The nearest iron and oil deposits, however, are some distance away. Not super far, but far enough to where it would probably make sense to set up a second residential area to cover those industries. I've got 4.5mil left out of 10, which should be more than plenty to set that all up, but still, it'll be a decent chunk out of the remaining budget, and I'm kinda the frugal type...

So I'm wondering if it would be feasible/cost effective to import bitumen and either steel, iron or iron ore from a border station, use that supply to make asphalt (and possibly steel) near my current residential area, and then use my own construction office to set up this second residential area and the oil and iron industries there.
Or even just partially, since there's electronic and mechanical components as well, which I can't make yet, so I'd either have to import some of those as well, or maybe just auto-build whatever needs those.

I'm not too bothered about the time it would take - which, based on the few gravel roads and the tennis field I built so far, would be quite significant. I'm mostly wondering if I'd even save all that much money by doing it that way.

I'm not much of a numbers guy, but if I'm importing steel and bitumen, that's probably more than 80% of the materials cost of any given build, so I'd mostly just be saving on labor cost and maybe material transportation cost? Not sure that'd be worth it.

And that's not even taking into account that if I'd auto-build it all while paused, I could probably start selling off excess oil and iron related materials pretty soon, while if I go the construction office route, it would take quite a while to get to that point.

If I were to take that into account, the choice seems quite obvious. But part of me thinks it'd just be pretty cool to go the slower route and start building it all ourselves. But I want to avoid realizing halfway through that it's a bit of a fool's errand, that I'm barely saving any money and should have just gone the quick and easy route in the first place.

Any insight from more experienced players much appreciated.

[argent]

Hi, I am going to respond to part of your request, I have limited time. Construction. Biggest cost is foreign labour, so using your own people even if importing all materials (conmats) will save you considerably. The materials (purchased near the border) are much cheaper than on-site as you are transporting yourself. It is normal for early game to use CO, but buy in conmats - the set up cost for conmat production can be large. Personally, the first conmat I normally produce is gravel. Others will give you their preferences and insight I am sure.

Also - the most important, constructing yourself for many of us is a very major 'buzz' factor. Enjoy.

[flu007]

That's about all the nudge I needed, hehe.

The learning curve continues, though. I just figured out, for instance, that the custom houses don't actually sell stuff, only buy. (Have a steel and bitumen truck sitting there not getting filled up.)

So instead I'll need to build an asphalt and steel factory close to the border, and set them to import the resources, and their short distance to the border makes the delivery cost of the resources cheaper... correct? (This is one of those crucial, elementary things that I'm just now discovering, heheh.)

Ok, that's going to take some re-planning, but... fun!

[AngerIsAnEnergy]

You "could" build an Oil Tank close to the border - set it to import Bitumen and then truck that bitumen to the Asphalt plant (that would be better served somewhere closer to where you intend to construct the new town and industries) - both the asphalt and concrete plan ts need upto 5 workers/shift too, so they don't want to be too far from your worker base either.

The dumper trucks have to visit the asphalt plant to fill up and then go to the construction site, unload and then return to their office. Bear this in mind to where you site the office in relation to the asphalt/concrete/gravel pick-up points. Those truck use fuel too, so you want to think about where to place some gas stations - again, another Oil Tank close to the border, set to import fuel, with trucks shipping that fuel to your various gas stations. Long term, both of those oil tanks should be connected to a train unloading depot to allow you to have fuel/bitumen storage (for your internal use) on an export route to the border.

On so on and on and on :)

[argent]

To give you an idea (although my funds are more limited as you can see). You can see all the conmat facilities and storage, very close to the border; before I start to produce my own. I then transport it inland to my construction, either through inland staging storage or by assigning these border sources to my CO.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2006002224

[flu007]

Originally posted by AngerIsAnEnergy:

You "could" build an Oil Tank close to the border - set it to import Bitumen and then truck that bitumen to the Asphalt plant (that would be better served somewhere closer to where you intend to construct the new town and industries) - both the asphalt and concrete plan ts need upto 5 workers/shift too, so they don't want to be too far from your worker base either.

The dumper trucks have to visit the asphalt plant to fill up and then go to the construction site, unload and then return to their office. Bear this in mind to where you site the office in relation to the asphalt/concrete/gravel pick-up points. Those truck use fuel too, so you want to think about where to place some gas stations - again, another Oil Tank close to the border, set to import fuel, with trucks shipping that fuel to your various gas stations. Long term, both of those oil tanks should be connected to a train unloading depot to allow you to have fuel/bitumen storage (for your internal use) on an export route to the border.

On so on and on and on :)

Thanks, very useful info! Especially since I hadn't realized yet that you could import into a storage facility. Another one of those Aha-moments. :)
That does make things a bit more manageable indeed. It's basically back to roughly what I originally had in mind, except instead of hauling in the materials from a customs station as I had assumed, I'll be hauling it from a storage facility near the border.

Good tip about the fuel as well. My fuel expenses do seem reasonable so far, but it all adds up in the long run, so probably a good idea to put that pretty high on the priority list.

[flu007]

Originally posted by saliens argent:

To give you an idea (although my funds are more limited as you can see). You can see all the conmat facilities and storage, very close to the border; before I start to produce my own. I then transport it inland to my construction, either through inland staging storage or by assigning these border sources to my CO.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2006002224

Thanks. Yep, I'm starting to grasp the concept a bit more clearly now. Almost makes me tempted to start over from scratch, heheh. Not going to, though; I still make too many beginner's errors, so a bit more money to play around with isn't a bad thing for now.

[argent]

I have certainly restarted occasionally - and play styles are different. Lots of lively thread discussion on those play style opinions. xD

I certainly started my first run-throughs with money for learning mistakes. The other thing I do now is I use my USD as a mistake slush fund, and not as available funds for normal spend. I am still learning too, and sometimes my mistakes are fatal (worst case, a boring slow death) and I do not want to restart. Example? Having auto build on accidentally as I am doing some hypothetical future planning to get spacing.

[Storpappa]

Preevyet!
Welcome to WRSR!

IMHO, search my name for 2 things: Cosmonaut Mode guide. And Lithuanian map mod

Do a run through with vast amounts of oil near a border. And watch as the global economy collapses on you with pricing driving by your oil inflation. It's there to tempt you, because border oil as many have said, isn't worth it for a long term game plan.

I commend you for wanting to work from a source and expand out. It makes the game more realistic, and at times very frustrating, when a fire destroys a critical building, and you suffer for months watching the CY get back out and rebuild that structure.

Every time you get tempted to go 'heck with it, just purchase' is the moment where the game really challenges you as the player.

Search the discussions here
Hop onto Discord
Its a great community

[flu007]

Heheh, cheers. Don't think I'm quite ready for Cosmonaut Mode yet. It'll take some getting used to this new playstyle and pace. I'm also going to allow myself a little bit of leeway for now, in case I mess up something critical. Or in case I figure out along the way that this playstyle isn't my thing. Which I don't think will be the case, so far I'm still enjoying riding along with a truck delivering materials to a construction site etc. But it does take a lot of trips to just build a simple warehouse, for instance, so it might get old. I'll see how it goes. :)