How does Productivity work?

[Onbird]

I haven't been able to find any post on this, dev or otherwise, so I'll ask here. Is it known how Productivity actually works? As in, how is it determined and how does it affect the outcome of the work citizens do?

Like, every industrial workplace has a listed maximum daily output and corresponding input, or daily output per worker. Is this for workers with 100% productivity, i.e. you're always below in practice? Or can you go over 100% productivity, and what happens then? Full production with less than full crew, or actually more than nominal max production?

[Karma]

It's my understanding that productivity is affected by happiness & loyalty of a worker (and possibly health?). The higher each of those, the more productive the worker.

Now, for industrial buildings, as far as I can tell the listed max daily output is for 100% productivity. I *believe* that workers with more than 100% productivity cannot exceed that max output, but can let you meet it with a workforce less than the full staff. I know that I frequently see industrial buildings reporting 100% production rate even at ~85-90% staff levels.

[Silent_Shadow]

Factories/refineries and power/heating plants seem to follow a logistic curve when it comes to productivity with a given amount of workers. Few workers may not even be enough to make the building run at all, while the last amount of workers adds very little productivity, if any.

I think fewer citizens of higher productivity can produce the same amount of building productivity as more citizens of lower productivity can.

[Deco Boladasso]

You would almost never get 100%. It only happens when you supply the factory/building with everything it requires, plus a steady supply of loyal workers. After some point, I didn't see much difference loyal citizens, but unloyal ones are a headache. Anyway, its very hard to keep a big building staffed and with all the resources (if not on autobuy). Shortage of power could be a pain, as the plants with low staff can impact everything. So, you're always getting a little less; when having a chain of factories, it could create a bottleneck easilly. I usually tend to build a storage for goods between them to avoid this.

Remember, you can see the production of a building: its that red bar. Problems are usually low staff, not enough materials (or they taking some time to be delivered), or power shortages.