Am I doing something wrong? Factory is often without workers, despite a constant supply.

[Kingdark]

Okay, so first thing, I've got a boatload of mods active, but I don't think a mod is the culprit here.

But anyway, here's the problem. I have a coal mine a ways a way, I've got it supplied with power, water, sewage, the works. Now, obviously, the only thing missing, are workers. So, I've got a dedicated bus line to pick workers up and a dedicated line to drop them off.

The problem is that my coal industry is often without workers. Despite the constant supply. I've tried dropping them off directly and I tried dropping them off on a bus stop, so they can work as needed.

What am I doing wrong? My industry shouldn't be without workers, because I've made sure to supply plenty of them.

One solution i can think off, is to adjust the game to work in shifts. Say, the factory needs ten workers, this is at full capacity. Then there's a second need for a night shift (or just another shift) another ten workers. If this is full too, they will replace the other workers, who will then go home via... whatever method they have available.

I've been playing on and off since the game first released in early access, it's been awhile since I last played. I'm fairly sure it's something >- I -< am doing wrong though...

But should I drop my workers off at a bus stop or should I drop them off directly? Perhaps a good solution might be some sort of workers baracks. Temporarily housing basically.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

[GoRun]

Send 3x-4x more workers than needed and use end station to balance buses frequency. Or just make them wait between 2 stations next to mine and balance number of workers needed.

[Silent_Shadow]

Do you actually have enough workers?

You'll need around 700 citizens just for that coal mine.

[Philosophrog]

OP sounds like there may be *two* dedicated bus lines in use for one factory? It can be tricky to get workers moved from one bus to another. Try a single dedicated line for any given pair of pickup-dropoff locations.

Are enough workers waiting to be picked up at the Bus Stop? GoRun and Silent_Shadow address this aspect. In addition, workers tend to prefer local jobs rather than waiting at the bus stop. Having enough citizens / workers helps with the supply, or you can assign the bus stop as the workplace for some workers in one or more residences.

Are workers getting on the buses?
Are workers disappearing off the buses before reaching the workplace? This can happen if the commute is too long, or workers have to wait too long for a bus.

Dropoff either directly to a workplace or to a nearby bus stop works equally well. Using a bus stop allows serving several workplaces near each other, but there must be a walking path from the bus stop to each workplace, and the distance must be within walking range.

If that doesn't lead to a solution, tell us a little more about what's going on. Good luck.

[Kingdark]

@Silent_shadow: I decreased the amount of workers in the factory, because I don't need the full production capacity yet. And I'm pretty sure I have enough workers, given that there's always workers waiting at the bus stop in my beginning city.

@Philosophhag: Wait, workers can vanish from buses if the commute is too long? How long is too long?

(Or should that be, how far is too far?)

I don't think the frequency of the buses are the culprit here either. Because I slowly ramped it up, until the bus stop is always empty or if there are workers waiting, it isn't for long. Also, I don't like that my buses are barely half full when they drop workers off. Should I stick with smaller busses, or get the bigger ones, even if they aren't anywhere near full capacity?

So, it doesn't matter if I drop the workers of at a factory directly or if I drop 'em off at a bus stop?

I still think SOME sort of shift system would be a good idea. At least something that might tell you if they're about to abandon the factory, leaving it empty.

A light update, since my last post, I wanted to continue my game, but the game won't let me load it anymore? :shrug:

It's annoying, but I wasn't too attached to the save game. I think I'll start a fresh game and then I'll see if having MORE workers will do the trick.

[Philosophrog]

@Kingdark I'm not an expert on this topic; maybe one will chime in? But this forum occasionally has posts that discuss it. A search of this forum for "teleport bus" turned up several relevant threads (plus a lot that aren't relevant).

From a thread dated Dec. 2019 (but still valid, I think) "How to get buses to work?", one of the responses follows:
"you cant think the the workers as being people that will hang around until a bus arrives as might happen in other games. Think of it this way."

"Person A reaches point in time they are to start work. A timer starts covering a 5 hour window for all transport. They go to a bus stop. there is no bus there. They wait for 4 hours of their time for the bus to arrive. They get on the bus. The bus trip to the work site is 1.5 hours. 1 hour into the bus journey they teleport home as they were unable to reach a work place. They now show as an unemployed stat. The bus arrives and you wonder why there are no workers on it."

"The far away will be the bit killing you. Your only option is to put enough buses on the route that there is nearly always a bus waiting at the bus stop near home."

I don't vouch for all the details in that quote, but the general concept seems right (and maybe the details are, too).

[Pfirsich1966]

That's what I do when I want factories to be busy all the time.
.pick-up point 100% loaded
.factory 100% unloaded
.station near the factory 100% force to get out.
.end-station

[GoRun]

Worker waits 1h/1day for bus, travels 4h/4 days max or 4km at 60kmh and works 8h/3-4 days. Total travel is unlimited but 2 days is best because he works 3 days and doesn't have time to shop every day. When he walks 0.5days/400m to job he works 8h/1 day. Shift can be 7-9h probably random.

[Silent_Shadow]

Citizens will wait for 60 IRL seconds (shown as "one hour") before they give up on public transportation and teleport home.

If they board a vehicle, they will have "4 hours" to exit it or they will teleport home again. The rate that this time elapses at depends on the types of citizen (tourists will travel for longer) and vehicles (on ships, citizens will wait much longer, I am not sure about other vehicles).

If citizens travel (wait at stations and riding vehicles) for more than "5 hours," they will get upset, but that is it.

There is also a mechanic in the game where citizens will work for a longer time dependent on how long their "total time traveling" timer gets to (up to 4 hrs it seems), but they will also have more substantial needs (more consumables, longer service times).

[John Moridin]

Does this help? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2882904800

[Kingdark]

Super! Many thanks for the referal to that guide, it'll come in handy!

[Tar-Mairon]

best thing to do is to build citys close to such factories or mines. If they can walk there, or bus needs only short way to destination, everything should be ok.

[John Moridin]

Pollution though.

[Railsplitter]

Make sure the bus stop where the buses load has workers. Quite often too many buses loading at one stop will take all the workers, and sometimes other buildings that need labor will draw from it as well.

One other solution is to build housing very close (within walking distance) to the mine. This requires markets and schools, but sometimes it's the only way to ensure a steady labor supply.

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by Railsplitter:

One other solution is to build housing very close (within walking distance) to the mine. This requires markets and schools, but sometimes it's the only way to ensure a steady labor supply.

It is also a good way to kill citizens.

[Railsplitter]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

It is also a good way to kill citizens.

I don't follow.