Distribution office and harvests?

[polcorp]

I recently discovered that a Distribution Office can be used for wheat crops. The advantage: no purchase of a truck on the farm. This allows for more vehicles to sow and harvest.

But concretely, I'm not sure I understood: how do you use the Distribution Office? If I am not mistaken, we should assign each field to the Distribution Office with 0% as the storage limit and designate a silo or a warehouse as the delivery point, right?

And subsidiary question: does this method allow several harvests per year?

Thank you in advance for the answers.

[forzion]

Currently you can have only one harvest in year with seasons turned on.

You undestand the setup right. You set fields as source with 0% and destinations like silos, warehouses, factories to whatever but I use 90% because I need ot collect as much crops as possible. Just keep in mind you can have only 20 buildings assigned to single distribution office.

[polcorp]

Thank you very much Forzion for your response. But suddenly, I have another question: what is a Distribution Office for in this case?
I ask this question because trucks are expensive, especially with a large capacity.

In the farms that I build, with fields of maximum or medium size, my farms manage to harvest everything before winter, since there is only one harvest per year. And without having to resort to a Distribution Office.

So what is the advantage / disadvantage of using (or not) a Distribution Office for harvests?

I specify that I use V2 farms, a workshop mod with 16 vehicles. I divided these 16 vehicles into: 6 tractors, 6 harvesters, 4 large capacity trucks (10 tons of grain).
But even with the vanilla farm, I manage to harvest everything before winter, without having to resort to a Distribution Office.
What I don't understand is what is the benefit of using a distribution office? I must have missed something.

[OffTheRailsGaming]

The main advantage to using DO's is that you can max out fields per farm and just have tractors and harvesters. I prefer to use smaller farms myself as they are a lot more efficient due to much less travelling distance for the vehicles. My typical set up now is a small farm with 2 tractors, 2 harvesters, 12 medium fields, 1 DO 5 trucks. There is a 2nd DO set to collect grain from the silo once it starts coming in and they transfer to a more centrally located storage area. I have several of these farms dotted around usually.
I did some testing when the seasons first came out which will show you their efficiency and how much they can produce https://steamcommunity.com/app/784150/discussions/0/2567564692467935310/

[forzion]

It is simple. Distribution office offers you options for additional capacity. From my gameplay and observation I estimate that tracktors can sow 2x the fields harvesters are capable to harvest and with seasons on you can reliable sow and harvest fields of size of 2 big vanilla fields and one such can contain 3 medium fields and three small fields fit into one medium.

But this only shows you how much can you sow and harvest in time. It does not speak about how much crops are you able to collect and if you do not collect them in time they decay in fields.

With this in mind I have vanilla farms with this setup:
3 tractors, 5 harvesters, 4 trucks.
And I can harvest about 2k tons of crops with that but those 4 trucks are not capable to collect all in time so I use additional 5 trucks from distribution office.

Other possible setup is this:
4 tractors, 8 harvesters and no trucks.
That way I woukd be able to harvest at least 33% more crops but I would need a medium distribution office to collect that. But problem is the distribution office has max 20 connected buildings limit and if there is more than 19 fields it is not able to collect all, only if I would use 2 small ones with 38 fields limit.

Now you mentioned you have the modded version of the farm with 16 slots. The setup for such can be according my observation:
4 tractors, 8 harvesters, 4 trucks.
You could have the sowing, harvesting capacity of vanilla farm without trucks but you need an additional small distribution office to collect those crops.

Can you see the number of trucks required there? First case 9 trucks in total. Second case 10 trucks in total. Third case 9 trucks in total. In second case you can equalize the modded farm with adding only one extra distribution office with vanilla buildings only. In addition you can deliver crops from fields directly to factories if they are not too far not only to silo or farm.

Then there is the large farm I use in the workshop which has rail connection and 24 slots. With that I am running this setup:
6 tractors, 12 harvesters, 6 trucks and an additional medium distribution office with 12 trucks.
That way I am able to harvest and collect crops from double the size of field compared to vanilla farm.

Worth mentioning is that the distribution office does not matter as much without seasons as you have more time to collect crops before next harvest as it takes 3 months for crops to grow up but with seasons you have quite limited time sometimes less than a month.

And another thing worth mentioning is that as long as I do not add more farms I am harvesting the same amount of crops each year. I just cannot tell how much has decayed.

[Bastardo]

I would say the magic comes when you start to use several distribution offices interlinked. Together they form a kind of programming/scripting logic built with IF-THEN functions.. Here also the "road cargo station" found in the workshop could be useful - for example one acting as unloading terminal, and another for loading. Both connected to the same coupled grain silos :)

[Punishher_-_]

I use for one vanilla agrofarm aproximatelly 6 or 7 big fields and 4 medium, inside farm there are 6 tractors and 6 harvesters,medium DO one per each agrofarm just to be sure..works fine and maximize amout of crops harvested. Also use workshop silo for 60k tons of crops. My last season score from 20 agrofarms were 34k crops . More than enough for 12 cattle facilities to work at 80% whole year.

[polcorp]

A big thank you to all for your very comprehensive answers! And thanks to Offtherailsgaming for the link to the topic he created.

I understand better how to properly optimize farms and I see all my mistakes reading you.
Until now, for me, farms were useful and necessary, but they were absolutely not profitable.
For example, in an attempt to achieve something profitable, I came to build 3 V2 farms that share 20 fields (15 large 5 medium), with bus stops between fields to bring workers downtown. And a distribution office to transport the grain from the silos to the ranching area.
With such a configuration, I barely manage to harvest 70% of my cereal needs for breeding. And above all, with such a configuration, the grain harvested in the end is very expensive in investment !!! My cattle eat gold !

Thanks to your answers, I will finally be able to optimize my agricultural production, without having to create several farms to try to achieve a very average yield. And I will finally have cereals that no longer require huge investments.

[polcorp]

I want to point out that so far I have played with unlimited money to discover and learn the mechanics of the game, doing it in this way:

1. In the first year, I borrow to build my first urban center, a coal-fired power station and heating plant, a logging and sawmill, farms and livestock (with food and meat factories) , construction offices.

2. In the years that follow, I take care not to borrow anything and to develop myself, by gradually exporting (wood, boards, etc.). The unlimited money then serves me as protection in the event of a supply disruption. And this is what happens to me regularly with food because of my unprofitable farms.

Thanks to all of you, I will be able to play a real game without unlimited money. A great adventure :)

[Punishher_-_]

Originally posted by polcorp:

I want to point out that so far I have played with unlimited money to discover and learn the mechanics of the game, doing it in this way:

1. In the first year, I borrow to build my first urban center, a coal-fired power station and heating plant, a logging and sawmill, farms and livestock (with food and meat factories) , construction offices.

2. In the years that follow, I take care not to borrow anything and to develop myself, by gradually exporting (wood, boards, etc.). The unlimited money then serves me as protection in the event of a supply disruption. And this is what happens to me regularly with food because of my unprofitable farms.

Thanks to all of you, I will be able to play a real game without unlimited money. A great adventure :)

If u have problem with money i suggest u to build oil refinery, oil that is needed there requires no workers to extract. You are able to make out of one resource two additional ( fuel and bitumen) which both will pump you economics from the start if you sell them, that way i never had problem with money. Then u make another refinery just to be sure. After i build 10 chemical plants and economics is raising very swiftly.

[Punishher_-_]

https://ibb.co/djCKxgr


https://ibb.co/Sc7HSb6


https://ibb.co/H4N9L7g

[polcorp]

@ Ragnarook: thank you very much for your advice and for the screenshots.
Usually, the first year, I just build a derick connected to a storage of pure oil, which I export (this allows me to reduce my debt). It is only after that I build the refinery (which is expensive).
I will modify this approach that I had.

[Punishher_-_]

Problem with oil is that more u sell cheapest is, this should be rule even for fuel or bitumen and i had some thiner years but as u sell two product instead of just one it is still.profitable. now i am year 1995 and my year import of fuel is 23 milion and export of fuel 30 milion and bitumen 38 milion, so even if you buy raw oil its profitable.

[polcorp]

Very good advice! I understood the process well.
In my first approach, I was too obsessed with the cost of the refinery, having multiple farms to build.
But with your advice and the above explanations regarding farms, I'll totally change my approach early in the game.
Thank you very much to all !!!
This game is of a richness that one hardly dares to imagine. This is the best game I know.

[polcorp]

When I see the screenshots of Ragnarook I understand another mistake I was making.
In each farm, I take the workers by bus to the fields. However, this is of no use, since I don't see any bus stops in the middle of the fields on Ragnarook's screenshots.
And these workers that I sent to the fields are more useful in a refinery or in a food factory.
Really: thank you all for your answers. I understand my mistakes and I will completely change my start of the game.

[Punishher_-_]

Exactrly, farms and oil rigs are the only things that work without workers, u have to take that advantage. i would just recommend u to place some fire station near agrofarms..i need to do that too beacause fires are a problem and without firemen its really annoying...