Resource throughput in factories and warehouses

[cdog]

The direct factory connections have some weird behavior. Some things I have learned:

1 - Storage facilities (warehouse, granary) will NOT generate demand, ie farm -> granary -> fabric factory can result in the farm being nearly full, the granary empty and the fabric factory can't pull resources through the granary. This is stupid.

2 - Resouces CAN be passed through any factory that uses it. If you connect a steel mill -> machine parts factory -> electronic parts factory the electronic parts factory WILL pull steel from the machine parts factory. Again, the demand cant "pass through" the middle factory, but as long as you have steel available and the machine parts factory is operating, the electronics parts factory can pull steel from the machine parts factory. This works with connecting one warehouse and daisy chaining factories that need similiar resouces as well.

3 - Storage yards / warehouses can only pull resources from factories that are OUTPUTS of factories that are directly connected. A storage yard connected to a machine parts factory CANNOT store steel, only machine parts, even if the machine parts factory is connected to a steel mill.

Any tips or tricks you guys have learned?

[Akira43]

No tricks and tips from me, just frustration with how wonky the connections are working at the moment. There doesn't seem to be any standard way of functionality and clear logic.

I can only hope that these are bugs and not intentional design.

I keep building (or at least trying to build lol) complete chains with all the time it takes to consider flattening terrain and building placement for the inner connections to realize much much later that some piece of the puzzle is either missing or not functioning as it should (or maybe as I thought it should logically)

Result >> Reload and start over .... MAJOR PAIN!

Early Access pains

[cdog]

Yeah its definitely a trial and error process - i had this sweet triple coal processing plant set up to fuel my steel industry and coal power plants. Then after I had the fiddly roads, paths and conveyers layed out I realized I missed half the connections and had no room to fit coveyors. Fail.

Definitely use the planning mode (uncheck the auto purchase with dollars and rubles) then at least you dont waste 100,000s rebuilding over and over.

[TZX]

I am very frustrated with these issues as well. My werehouses work randomly. For example i connected 2 warehouses to distilliry. One as a input (with crops, also I set limitations to crop only) and 2nd as a output (alkohol). What I get is information that there is no storage so distilliry is not working. Before i set a limitation in warehouse with crop, alkohol was stored there and I cannot take it back even with truck.

[cdog]

Yeah the warehouses and direct connections are very annoying.

For example, you can connnect a meat storage to a train CARGO station and a train can pull the meat - even though the train cargo station itself can't hold meat. If you do the exact same thing with a warehouse, which has a built in rail connection, it will not work. Completely nonsensical.


I also dont like that warehouses can "store 450 tons" but actually can't hold 450 tons of any given material.

[TZX]

Originally posted by cdog:

Yeah the warehouses and direct connections are very annoying.

For example, you can connnect a meat storage to a train CARGO station and a train can pull the meat - even though the train cargo station itself can't hold meat. If you do the exact same thing with a warehouse, which has a built in rail connection, it will not work. Completely nonsensical.


I also dont like that warehouses can "store 450 tons" but actually can't hold 450 tons of any given material.

Agree with You 100%.
Are You sure that if You connect werehouse to cargo, the train (via cargo) will not pull from warehouse?

[cdog]

I meant if you connect meat storage to warehouse the train cannot pull the meat.

I THINK that a train cargo station should be able to pull from a connected warehouse - it seems to be able to pull from any connected storage building, even if it can't hold the material itself.

[rkelly17]

Originally posted by cdog:

I meant if you connect meat storage to warehouse the train cannot pull the meat.

I THINK that a train cargo station should be able to pull from a connected warehouse - it seems to be able to pull from any connected storage building, even if it can't hold the material itself.

I think that is because meat requires refrigeration and as warehouse is currently configured it does not offer refrigeration. Thus meat cannot pass through warehouse. Apparently the train cargo station does have some sort of refrigerated pass through? It is a bit odd that one can and the other can't.

[TZX]

Ok. So it is only the "meat" case.
I did it by connecting meat storage to a train cargo.
There is a lot of mess and lack of logic behind all connections, storage and werehouse...for me at least. in my opinion it shold be a SWITCH to set connector as a "input" or output but that is another story.

[rkelly17]

The factory connections are annoying. Why can't they turn corners?

As to warehouse capacity, most warehouses are actually limited by cubic space, not weight. A warehouse that can hold 450 tons of steel might well not have the cubic capacity for 400 tons of pillows--to use an extreme example. As long as the capacities reflect real commodities to some extent I can handle the differing amounts. The problem is expressing total capacity in tons rather than cubic meters, but the game only measures in tons. Same is true of freight cars, with the exception that freight cars do have a maximum tonnage capacity in addition to a maximum cubic capacity. That's why cars for heavier commodities are smaller--no point wasting steel for a car that will never be full.

[3division]

You still see in warehouse window info on how much percent is warehouse filled :-)

[cdog]

Yeah, but thats my point, the warehouse has a capacity of 450 tons, but can't hold 450 tons of ANYTHING. Max is 300 something for grain I think. Most material its just over 200 tons, very confusing to me why my warehouses kept getting full so fast and messing up my supply chain!

In any case, its a great game and I'm having a ton of fun with it. But I do hope some of these low priority annoyances eventually get resolved