Forklifts

[Domestic Life]

I like the concept of forklifts, but even after this recent minor update, I still find them getting caught up on one another, to the point where the whole line gets shut down, and they do not carry nearly enough to keep up with factories.

When are these going to be fixed?

[Prometheus]

Eventually. I'm pretty sure someone put up a mod with forklifts that have higher capacity. That should help.

[jcmiller101]

You can easily mod the forklift values (or any vehicle...) just be careful if you are new to coding stuff.
Go to SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\SovietRepublic\media_soviet\vehicles\forklift ...(choice of 2)

Then in script.ini change this value -

$RESOURCE_CAPACITY

It is near the top of the file.
Use Notepad or similar. Make a backup copy FIRST e.g. script.ini.bak just in case.

E.g.
$RESOURCE_CAPACITY 1.4
to
$RESOURCE_CAPACITY 2.45

Be careful not to add any extra characters e.g. spaces, tabs or <CR> etc.

I changed mine from 1.xx to 2.xx. Not quite double so as to keep it balanced but you can try anything & see how it works out. More weight capacity can mean longer waiting to load extra weight especially for slow factories like Chemicals.

The queueing behaviour can be tweaked a little when you set up the routes/goods values (& things like wait until..) via the forklift garage, instead of allowing full auto, when routes are added.

Obviously $MOVEMENT_POWER_KW is another key value relative to capacity. I didn't alter that myself but you could obviously give them steroids with that. :)

[RP-BOOST]

There are several mods to make your life easier, until a new game update comes out, adding more forklifts in the warehouse.

[gusgblaw]

The way I workaround this is, 1 cargo for loading, one for unloading, I have a spoof truck running the two wait to load/unload, 100% anything, this little guy get to collect what is left on the forks and the returns it on lower priority so the pallets can start moving again.

[TheAmishStig]

Originally posted by jcmiller101:

You can easily mod the forklift values (or any vehicle...) just be careful if you are new to coding stuff.
Go to SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\SovietRepublic\media_soviet\vehicles\forklift ...(choice of 2)

Then in script.ini change this value -

$RESOURCE_CAPACITY

It is near the top of the file.
Use Notepad or similar. Make a backup copy FIRST e.g. script.ini.bak just in case.

E.g.
$RESOURCE_CAPACITY 1.4
to
$RESOURCE_CAPACITY 2.45

Be careful not to add any extra characters e.g. spaces, tabs or <CR> etc.

I changed mine from 1.xx to 2.xx. Not quite double so as to keep it balanced but you can try anything & see how it works out. More weight capacity can mean longer waiting to load extra weight especially for slow factories like Chemicals.

The queueing behaviour can be tweaked a little when you set up the routes/goods values (& things like wait until..) via the forklift garage, instead of allowing full auto, when routes are added.

Obviously $MOVEMENT_POWER_KW is another key value relative to capacity. I didn't alter that myself but you could obviously give them steroids with that. :)

You might be able to save me some trouble over the weekend: Have you experimented with what the 'skill' tag at the bottom does...is it load/unload rate?

[jcmiller101]

Originally posted by TheAmishStig:

Originally posted by jcmiller101:

You can easily mod the forklift values (or any vehicle...) just be careful if you are new to coding stuff.
-------


You might be able to save me some trouble over the weekend: Have you experimented with what the 'skill' tag at the bottom does...is it load/unload rate?

As far as I can tell it's efficiency related. I'm not sure how that pans out across the values (better driving; faster interactions - un/loading; etc) at the moment I'm just making some small alterations to see how it goes.
I haven't started trying to push it to extremes/break it - I will have to start a test map & do some timed trials.

[TheAmishStig]

Cool. Thanks much!

I forget who was working on it, might have been you, but at one point I was reading and 3000lb/6000lb (1.35T / 2.75T) came out to be about right for the ones modeled in game. Might be a decent starting point for testing capacities.

[jcmiller101]

I had mentioned the heavy capacity Russian forklifts in a post
http://www.techstory.ru/du/all_pogruz_avto_bok.htm
These are 5 & 10 ton rated. I set my FL to 2.75. I think this has made the load carrying more reasonable & in-game the FL stats show the max load around 2.x ton subject to item size (volume).

I got to thinking about power relative to load & so I just upped the power KW to 60 today. Only had a short time observing this change but it looks smooth, it's not doing anything super-arcadey.

On the skill thing I cannot recall where I'd seen info. I obviously don't know if or by how much that modifier is implemented.
It presumably allows you to have bonuses for highly skilled workers, eg the vehicle req's a worker skill of 1.0, the worker has a rating of 2.2, so gets a % performance bump. Trainee workers with <1.0 get negative %.
I can imagine the devs using that as a means of down-grading worker efficiency in times of unrest etc. A negative modifier on skill for disaffected workers would have some really interesting side-effects.
I will have to test it & see which of my theories is not only supposition. Halving it seems like a good start.

[Adyen]

Speaking of forklifts... is this actually as intended? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2009484161

[Prometheus]

Originally posted by Adyen:

Speaking of forklifts... is this actually as intended? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2009484161

I see nothing wrong here. What is your problem precisely? Do note those forklifts aren't hauling for free. They consume fuel which they restock at their depots.

[Domestic Life]

Even with the larger capacity warehouse, the forklifts run into traffic issues where if one catches up to another one, it stops. Sometimes these stops are quite long and the entire line gets backed up. I have seen in a few cases the forklifts permanently get stuck. I am sure this was not how it was intended. I

The concept won't be able to realistically simulate how actual forklifts work because normally you'd have large numbers of them working simultaneously rather than single file.

So, while I appreciate the advice about mods, I generally think an essential game mechanic should work and mods used for customization rather than fixing an unusable critical feature to how resources are managed.

Just wanted to report this to the dev with the hopes it can be fixed in the upcoming patches.

[destew69]

I played around with forklifts some with 4 chemical factories, 1 warehouse, 1 open storage and a single forklift garage. What I found, everything ground to a halt when all 4 forklift had about half a ton of crops, but all the factories were full of food. The factories stopped working because they were full of chemicals that needed to go to the warehouse.

I'm currently trying forklifts again with my clothes, but this time, I'm building 3 forklift garages (one for each resource - with fabric going direct from fabric factor to 2 different clothing factories). We will see how this works out.

[RP-BOOST]

I haven't had any problems with forklifts yet, I use only one, which is the game itself, and under construction one for the mod.
The one I currently use is one that is connected to a grain warehouse where my 4 forklifts load and leave it in my chemical factory (mod) and in the clothing factory (mod). I use modes because they are for making clothes, (also mod), for domestic consumption, I don’t really like exporting clothes, even though I know that it gives me a lot of profits, but since I don’t need to import clothes, consequently I will have more profits by exporting other things.
My other forklift (mod) that is under construction is for sbaster my construction industry.
Therefore, for the current levels of internal consumption the game forklift (without mod) works very well, I never had problems with a population of more than 10k inhabitants in 3 different cities.

[Domestic Life]

Four forklifts cannot even remotely keep up with a food factory or a distillery working at capacity. I even tried with 50% of the workforce and they failed to keep up.

[jcmiller101]

Originally posted by TheAmishStig:

Cool. Thanks much!

I forget who was working on it, might have been you, but at one point I was reading and 3000lb/6000lb (1.35T / 2.75T) came out to be about right for the ones modeled in game. Might be a decent starting point for testing capacities.

This is my modified media_soviet\vehicles\forklift_lza\script.ini I've aimed for 30+% increase in performance but the SKILL value was increased to 5. I went up to 50 to see what would happen but I think 5 is actually enough to make it more robust. Using these values didn't break anything in my current game ...
Original values commented out for reference.

$TYPE VEHICLETYPE_ROAD

$SOUND_PARAMS sounds/car1.ini
$SOUND_PARAMS sounds/car_truck3.ini

$NAME 5471

$COST_RUB 4300

$LIGHT_FORWARD -1.0372 1.2358 1.1872
$LIGHT_FORWARD 1.0372 1.2358 1.1872
$LIGHT_BACKWARD -0.5548 2.3311 -0.4081
$LIGHT_BACKWARD 0.5548 2.3311 -0.4081
 
$RESOURCE_CAPACITY 2.75  //1.75

$RESOURCE_TRANSPORT_TYPE RESOURCE_TRANSPORT_GENERAL

$MOVEMENT_SPEED 65  //45

$MOVEMENT_POWER_KW 60  //40
$MOVEMENT_EMPTY_WEIGHT 1.4

$AVAILABLE 1959	2005

$COUNTRY 39011


--$PARTICLE_MOVEMENT vehicle_medium 0.6237 4.3580 1.6635


$RESOURCE_VISUALIZATION
rotation 
-0.035 0 0
min
0.000 0.3213 3.0317
0.721 0.721 0.721 
max
0.000 0.3213 3.0317
0.721 0.721 0.721 


$SKILL_FORKLIFT 5  //1

 

Ref - Queueing behavior - serial not parallel - Peter said that restricting item types in warehouses/storage (eg one WH for each item type) helps prevent traffic jams where the FLs cannot decide which route to prioritize in a complex industry chain.
I've found that having multiple FL garages & restricting each to specific routes/loads is really important for smoother activities.

Anyone wants to try this script - as always backup any important saves & make a script.ini backup if you do. Use at your own risk!