Beginner - managing coal

[tuslacmaile]

Hi,
I'm on my 7th restart and sloooowly getting the grasp of basic concepts. This game is really special :)

Now, how do you set up your coal chains?
Do you put the dedicated coal processing plants for each chain with separate storage for electricity, heating, construction industries etc, or do you just process all ore to one big pile and set the distribution from there?

[ryantheskinny]

Imho best to have the processor close to the mine, connected by conveyors if possible. Remember that one mine can supply more than one processor easily!

[tuslacmaile]

Yes, I have 99% efficient mine and it needs around 3 processors.

I play on Brechtia map . Due to the topography of my Greatest Republic I cannot really process the coal up in the mountains. It would screw up my carefully balanced mining town nearby and introduce new problems such as supplying the heat.

I transport ore down to a planned massive industrial complex (5 year plan), which should consist of processing plants, power plant and construction chains (gravel, bricks, asphalt).
Initially I wanted to have separate processors (and storage) - one for power plant, one for construction chains and the third for a pile of coal needed for heating plants in my republic. Now I wonder if it's a good assumption, because such system won't balance itself.

[frank.j.beckmann]

One coal mine can feed up to four coal processors. It is a good idea to have two storages in parallel for the processed coal. One storage to feed one or more power plants, cement factory etc. and the other for exporting the coal.

It is recommended to have more than one power plant. That prevents power outages when one power plant goes down for a moment.

You can set priorities in the conveyors. That helps to feed the important storages first.

[tuslacmaile]

I'll try two separate storages for all processed coal from three processors. One for industry/power, other for heating/export. I'm curious how it will run. Thanks for the tips, should help to get past first year :)

It took two restarts to understand basics such as electricity, another two for the cableway which was beautiful when finished (almost 3 km snaking through pristine mountains and valleys), but completely useless as ore transport, and another two for the basic "A to B and back to A" train route... Wish me luck on my 7th attempt ;)

[Shrike]

It takes many restarts, and even when you get everything right you'll play for 8 hours and find your main street feels 'off' and you'll restart anyway

Maybe that's just me

[tuslacmaile]

Yeah, no, it's not just you. I'm the guy who spent over 4 hours on a single 3 km track to curve it properly. And by properly I mean not infuriating to look at.

[Dave]

Connect 2 storages to the coal processing plant, but also have a conveyor engine to pump coal from one storage into the other.

The storage being pumped into is for heating and electricity, and the storage being pumped out of is for construction (or for a train to deliver it to the construction industries).

You can turn the conveyor engine on and off to micromanage it. In the "off" setting, both storages will hold an equal amount of coal, but if one runs out, they both run out. In the "on" setting, the electricity/heating storage will always have coal, but the construction will only have coal if electricity/heating is full.

Micromanage it by turning the conveyor engine on until there is nice buffer of coal, and then off and just watch the levels. If the construction industry is using too much then turn the conveyor back on to top up the electricity/heating. When you have too much to worry about to micromanage, just leave the conveyor engine on.

[tuslacmaile]

Thanks @d_mess157. I did exactly that:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2333886340

It has a place for additional power plant, I can use one loading station to transport coal and gravel out for construction, but.... IT'S IN THE WRONG PLACE. Should be moved away from town, couple hundred meters southwest. And should be perpendicular to the main road.

Damn.

[MG83]

mine > conveyor>storage>conveyor>processing plant>conveyor>storage > usage

[MrTwister]

I agree with MG83. Storage between any mine (either coal, uranium, iron) and processing plant are must have option because sometimes some members at this chain might not work at full power (not enough workers as example).

[tuslacmaile]

Thanks for all the help. After few more resets I've managed to squeeze the coal and gravel chains together into one big combine. All based on conveyors and occasional forklifts.
I does still require a bit of tweaking (like removing one unnecessary intermediate storage) but it works nicely when properly manned.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2347972704

Should look better with proper city attached - I expect another couple of resets ;)

[MrKrabs]

Nice work bro.

[tuslacmaile]

Thank you, much appreciated. Nothing like those proper big cities that keep popping up on steam screenshots, but it was fun playing with concrete fences.