[proposition] cargo storage system rework

[CaptNaim]

In my opinion cargo storage needs rework :
- passive connection are too good vs active (w forklift).
- Passive connection can't be scaled up, while active can't handle large flux of ressources (forklift jams).

A system That could work is :
- building that can handle cargo can store forklift and use them for "passive connections".
-forklift garage should be used to speed things up.
-forklift carry weight & unload speed should be buffed or be able to unload in parralel.

What do you guys think about it ?

[Silent_Shadow]

Forklifts are fine; they are a cheap alternative to truck DOs, like cableways are to trains or conveyors or tiny trucks are to large trucks.

If you want a higher throughput between facilities you can always build a small local railway, use trucks, cableways, or some combination of the two.

[Blueberry Muffins!]

The one thing that irks me about forklifts affects lots of things, they'll deliver factory supplies then before picking up their next order from *right frikkin there* they'll clog the lot leaving, clog the road turning around, clog the lot parking again and only then, when they've literally caused as much congestion as they possibly could without outright not doing their jobs, will they deign to pick up the factory output.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

[Forklifts] are a cheap alternative to truck DOs

I cannot think of so much as a single situation where I would even for a moment consider using (vanilla) forklifts instead of a truck DO. Factory connections are very inconvenient to work with over anything more than very short distances due to their need to be laid directly from one building (including the crossing pieces) to another within some relatively short distance and the inability to cross over them with anything else at grade, virtually anything that accepts or produces cargo is going to have a road connection regardless of how you're moving things around so you're not saving yourself any trouble on that front by using forklifts instead of trucks, the forklifts themselves are comparable in cost to vans and pickups with similar load limits, and the cost differential between the forklift garage and a truck distribution office is rarely relevant, especially considering that the distribution office is significantly more flexible, easier to work with, and - unlike forklifts - not strictly inferior to direct factory connections in virtually every scenario where you'd want to use them.

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by Blueberry Muffins!:

The one thing that irks me about forklifts affects lots of things, they'll deliver factory supplies then before picking up their next order from *right frikkin there* they'll clog the lot leaving, clog the road turning around, clog the lot parking again and only then, when they've literally caused as much congestion as they possibly could without outright not doing their jobs, will they deign to pick up the factory output.

Yeah the circling bug happens when you load and unload at the same warehouse. Separate warehouses for loading and unloading fix this.

Originally posted by joeball123:

I cannot think of so much as a single situation where I would even for a moment consider using (vanilla) forklifts instead of a truck DO.

Forklift's main strength is that they can handle four types of goods (open-hull, closed hull, refrigerated, and dry bulk), so you can buy a set of forklifts for a given amount of money and all of their throughput can be utilized at a given time no matter what goods need to be moved, whereas trucks in a DO will just sit until their resource type is called for. The forklift garage and its FC roads are also a lot cheaper than the small DO and you can connect multiple storages to one small cargo station, so you can save a decent amount of money with forklifts if the low throughput isn't an issue.

I tend to use forklifts for shopping centers, chemical plant complexes, electronics factories, and small distribution centers.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Originally posted by joeball123:

I cannot think of so much as a single situation where I would even for a moment consider using (vanilla) forklifts instead of a truck DO.

Forklift's main strength is that they can handle four types of goods (open-hull, closed hull, refrigerated, and dry bulk), so you can buy a set of forklifts for a given amount of money and all of their throughput can be utilized at a given time no matter what goods need to be moved, whereas trucks in a DO will just sit until their resource type is called for. The forklift garage and its FC roads are also a lot cheaper than the small DO and you can connect multiple storages to one small cargo station, so you can save a decent amount of money with forklifts if the low throughput isn't an issue.

The low throughput of forklifts is in my experience almost always an issue, even for low-volume industries like electronics. An Electrical Components Factory takes 4.7 tons of inputs and produces 3.4 tons of outputs per day, for a total of 8.1 tons of stuff needing to be moved every day while an Electronics Assembly Hall is even worse, with 5.9 tons of inputs and 4.1 tons of outputs yielding 10 tons of stuff needing to be moved every day, and you're not going to have just one factory - or even several, because with just two or three factories you can often give the factories direct connections to whatever local storage you're using or just put up to four of them around a road cargo station, use dedicated lines for deliveries, and treat the delivery trucks as 'local storage' - if you're bothering to set up some sort of vehicular internal distribution network for your production complex.

As to the cost differential between the distribution office and the forklift garage, I already stated that that's basically irrelevant - yes, it's something like 900 rubles for a forklift garage versus 13,000 for a small distribution office at game start, but when does this difference matter? Starter industries are very unlikely to benefit from any kind of local distribution setup, construction costs largely cease to matter a short time into the game as you'll either have set up everything you need domestically (at which point it's essentially free) or are exporting enough to pay for whatever you want to do, and even if you for some reason still care about the cost difference a distribution office is significantly more useful - it's not like those trucks have to be dedicated solely to supplying some low-volume industry unless you're somehow using all 20 of the DO's connections for that one complex, and if you are doing that then you're probably doing something way too big to reasonably manage with forklifts anyways.

Also, I'm curious as to how you arrived at the conclusion that factory connections and forklift garages are "cheap." Insofar as I can tell from the numbers I see in game, a factory connection is as near as matters identical in cost to an asphalt road - a quick check gave 9 tons of gravel, 6.8 tons of asphalt, and 81 workdays for a 27-meter stretch of factory connection and 9 tons of gravel, 6.7 tons of asphalt, and 80 workdays for a 27-meter stretch of asphalt road, or 30 tons of gravel, 22 tons of asphalt, and 273 workdays for a 192-meter stretch of factory connection and 30 tons of gravel, 22 tons of asphalt, and 272 workdays for a 192-meter stretch of asphalt road. Moreover, unless you're producing all of the inputs on-site, you're going to need some sort of longer-distance delivery service to supply the factory, which - given the consumption rates for chemical and electronics plants - is probably going to be truck-based and isn't going to care that much, beyond DO task slot utilization, whether it's delivering a truckload to a local storage facility every day or a truckload to each factory every couple of days as long as the trucks are appropriately sized. 10 tons of grain per day to a warehouse and 10 tons of grain every 10 days to each of 10 factories are the same total throughput, and if you'd be using the same truck either way it's also the same amount of traffic and the same cost.

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

I tend to use forklifts for shopping centers

Something's gone wrong if you need to have external storage attached to your shopping centers.

[Blueberry Muffins!]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Yeah the circling bug happens when you load and unload at the same warehouse. Separate warehouses for loading and unloading fix this.

I can't make sense of this. Help me out, please, what am I missing? The way I read it you're saying, the problem we both see, forklift arrives at food factory with crops, then unnecessarily leaves food factory, unnecessarily does a short road trip and unnecessarily returns to the very same food factory before picking up food is *fixed* if it instead unnecessarily leaves the food factory, unnecessarily takes a short road trip and unnecessarily goes to an entirely different pickup site built just for the purpose of avoiding the unnecessary trips that it's still doing?

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by Blueberry Muffins!:

I can't make sense of this. Help me out, please, what am I missing?

I found that forklifts would unload some of their goods, leave, and then make a U-turn back to unload the rest, which typically got in the way of other forklifts and slowed down their throughput. This behavior stopped when I had the forklifts unload at one warehouse and load from another instead of having loading and unloading taking place at the same warehouse.

Originally posted by joeball123:

The low throughput of forklifts is in my experience almost always an issue, even for low-volume industries like electronics.

You don't need to handle all the goods with just forklifts. I use forklifts with electrical component factories to handle the electric components and plastic, as these goods have less than three days worth of storage in the factory and the throughput needed for just them is not that big. Steel and chemicals have more days of storage and large trucks can about fill them with no problems, so they can get their own lines with a truck each. I set up electronics factories similarly, but with forklifts supplying just electronic components and plastic and lines with one truck each covering everything else.

Doing it this way frees up parking slots at the factory for service vehicles (fire, police, & repair) and other logistic trucks and concentrates the low throughput deliveries for larger, more expensive, and more efficient vehicles to handle at just one point instead of building a warehouse for each factory.

Originally posted by joeball123:

because with just two or three factories you can often give the factories direct connections to whatever local storage you're using or just put up to four of them around a road cargo station, use dedicated lines for deliveries, and treat the delivery trucks as 'local storage'

You could use trucks as storages, but they are very expensive for that purpose compared to warehouses and factory connections, and they will use up parking slots needed by emergency services, repair crews, and other logistic trucks unless you pay extra for a cargo station for them to wait at.

You could just connect all the factories to the same storage building, but this gets a lot less feasible as more factories are connected, and much less feasible if you want to connect two or more storages to all these factories or if you also want them all to have a connection to the same cargo station (for trains/ships especially).

Originally posted by joeball123:

Moreover, unless you're producing all of the inputs on-site, you're going to need some sort of longer-distance delivery service to supply the factory, which [...] if you'd be using the same truck either way it's also the same amount of traffic and the same cost.

Except that the individual chemical plants do not have enough storage for 10 tons of grain, and even if they did, you would want a few days surplus to maintain production despite delays or the effects of long distances on DOs. You could use smaller trucks for the long haul to match the truck's capacity to the storage with some safety margin, but that results in more traffic and is less fuel/capital efficient. You could also have the truck supply multiple factories per trip, but that means your big expensive truck is spending less time taking stuff from point A to point B in favor of also making small deliveries within point B, and so you end up buying more large trucks to keep up with the long haul logistics.

A central un/loading point helps keep big expensive trucks (or trains/ships) covering the long haul and minimizes the amount of them you need to keep things running. If the individual throughput is low enough for each factory and there are multiple types of goods moving between the central un/loading point and factories, forklifts can be a cheaper solution than small trucks, especially if a local DO is involved.

Originally posted by joeball123:

Also, I'm curious as to how you arrived at the conclusion that factory connections and forklift garages are "cheap." Insofar as I can tell from the numbers I see in game, a factory connection is as near as matters identical in cost to an asphalt road

You only need workdays, asphalt and, gravel. Workdays can be cheaply provided with machines or citizen labor, gravel is very cheap and easy to make on your own, and asphalt becomes cheap and easy to make after you get a refinery up and running. Even if you need to buy asphalt, it isn't that expensive for short factory connections; 1,000 rubles will get you around 120m, and this is plenty if you keep the connections short, which also makes forklifts more efficient. Contrast that with the cost for the amount of steel (~4,500 rubles) required for each DO and the cost of more/larger trucks.

Originally posted by joeball123:

As to the cost differential between the distribution office and the forklift garage, I already stated that that's basically irrelevant [...] unless you're somehow using all 20 of the DO's connections for that one complex, and if you are doing that then you're probably doing something way too big to reasonably manage with forklifts anyways.

The more money you save, especially early on, the faster you can grow your republic, and chemicals and electronic components can be made pretty early on, if not right at the start. 10k+ rubles is a big chunk of the cost for most of the industries.

The main limitation of DOs is usually not the task limit but the number of vehicles slots they have and the distance to each of the tasks' buildings. This is further compounded by servicing differing storage types (open hull, closed hull, refrigerated, etc.), as trucks of the wrong storage type cannot be used, and by the capacity mismatch of large trucks with small factory storages. You might be able to share the purpose of the DO with more than the complex or you might not, but for just the complex's needs, a forklift garage may be a sufficient and much cheaper option.

Originally posted by joeball123:

Something's gone wrong if you need to have external storage attached to your shopping centers.

You don't need it, but local storages and their "notify if empty" alerts are nice backups to deal with mistakes, earthquakes, and random fires; and if you do have them, then you'll want a vehicle to force goods into the shop (with high amounts of visitors, shops alone cannot restock fast enough). One forklift is the cheapest option for that.


TL;DR: Forklifts are a niche budget option. They are suited for performing low throughput, short range deliveries within a complex for little cost, especially if the alternative involves a DO.

[CaptNaim]

Thanks for all the suggestion guys ! maybe I'll start to use DO for large factory complex management :')
But I still think factory connection should be buffed, DO is fine to use but imo factory connection are much more realistic and aesthetic.
Since it's more difficult to set the perfect factory placement so that everything is connecting perfectly (that the part of the game i like the most), it should be more rewarding to set factory connection (low cost / higher speed) (still imo).

[CaptNaim]

Anyway since this game is so realistic in many ways, it seems counter intuitive that passive connection are always faster than active connection (even though each one has its advantage and disavantage).
And last thing forklift can't handle waste :'(

[Strategic Sage]

To my mind the difference between active and passive connection has nothing to do with speed. Passive is limited in range (i.e. adjacent warehouse but not a chain of warehouses), while active extends that range. In other words, I don't look at them as two ways of doing the same thing, they are doing quite different things.

From a practical dev perspective, it's really too late in the game to be reimagining this kind of thing. 2 or 3 years ago it might have been able to be considered more. Having said that I don't really think there is a problem here. Passive connection moving resources instantly is just an abstraction so you don't have a zillion other vehicles zooming all over the place messing up the rest of the sim, traffic, etc. Like workers teleporting back home from their destination or vehicles working without drivers or many other examples, some aspects are just abstracted by gameplay conventions.

[ginugagap]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

You don't need it, but local storages and their "notify if empty" alerts are nice backups to deal with mistakes, earthquakes, and random fires; and if you do have them, then you'll want a vehicle to force goods into the shop (with high amounts of visitors, shops alone cannot restock fast enough).

what do you mean by "force goods into shops" and "shops alone cannot restock fast enaugh"? do you mean restock by DO?
I used forklifts for shops too, but now i just juse one storage with a direct factory connection
and a cooling truck by route as external storage. Shopping center has two parking lots, so one always will remain vacant. and it saves A LOT of space where you need it most, right in a citys heart.
i still am happy with my old forklift setups too, its works fine and they are really, really cute;

[Strategic Sage]

If there are no spare shopping center employees, they can't restock from connected warehouses.

[ginugagap]

Originally posted by Strategic Sage:

If there are no spare shopping center employees, they can't restock from connected warehouses.

oh. good to know! thanks!
thats bad. this means i just spent like 100 hours planning my capital all wrong. and the roads and some parts are allready built. realistic mode of cause. mh. this will be a lot of mess or reloading. woud have really been nive to tell this in the tutorial. or anywhere.
do the workers in factorys also get things "by hand"?
so in the future i will just work with road cargo stations and truck lines....
i am feeling a little frustrated. glad i have been procrastinating in discussions instead of actually building this, i think i had gone mad once i realiced my shopping centers dont work.

[Strategic Sage]

I don't think you really have to re-do everything. You can just make sure you always have slightly more workers than you need and just accept having the shopping only be able to serve 90-95% of what it would otherwhise, or whatever. You can also make a mess as well, just saying you don't *have* to.

It's only a shopping center mechanic to my knowledge. Factories definitely don't have an issue with it. It might affect other services but I think shopping center is the only one it's common to use storage for.

Personally I didn't even before I knew about this, I just deliver via a line from a 'staging warehouse' near the city.

[joeball123]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Originally posted by joeball123:

Also, I'm curious as to how you arrived at the conclusion that factory connections and forklift garages are "cheap." Insofar as I can tell from the numbers I see in game, a factory connection is as near as matters identical in cost to an asphalt road

You only need workdays, asphalt and, gravel. Workdays can be cheaply provided with machines or citizen labor, gravel is very cheap and easy to make on your own, and asphalt becomes cheap and easy to make after you get a refinery up and running. Even if you need to buy asphalt, it isn't that expensive for short factory connections; 1,000 rubles will get you around 120m, and this is plenty if you keep the connections short, which also makes forklifts more efficient. Contrast that with the cost for the amount of steel (~4,500 rubles) required for each DO and the cost of more/larger trucks.

A "minor" detail that you seem to be intent on ignoring to make your argument: I need those trucks regardless of whether I'm making deliveries to each factory or to a central drop-off, because I need some way to get the inputs from wherever I'm sourcing them to wherever I'm using them. A local distribution setup for the complex is literally just added cost, especially early on when it's pretty unlikely that I'm setting up more than maybe four chemical plants or electrical components factories or electronics assembly halls or whatever in one place.

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

Originally posted by joeball123:

Moreover, unless you're producing all of the inputs on-site, you're going to need some sort of longer-distance delivery service to supply the factory, which [...] if you'd be using the same truck either way it's also the same amount of traffic and the same cost.

Except that the individual chemical plants do not have enough storage for 10 tons of grain, and even if they did, you would want a few days surplus to maintain production despite delays or the effects of long distances on DOs. You could use smaller trucks for the long haul to match the truck's capacity to the storage with some safety margin, but that results in more traffic and is less fuel/capital efficient. You could also have the truck supply multiple factories per trip, but that means your big expensive truck is spending less time taking stuff from point A to point B in favor of also making small deliveries within point B, and so you end up buying more large trucks to keep up with the long haul logistics.

A central un/loading point helps keep big expensive trucks (or trains/ships) covering the long haul and minimizes the amount of them you need to keep things running. If the individual throughput is low enough for each factory and there are multiple types of goods moving between the central un/loading point and factories, forklifts can be a cheaper solution than small trucks, especially if a local DO is involved.

You don't need a local distribution service to have a centralized drop-off; a road cargo station works as a centralized drop-off for up to four factories (and, since it 'sees' the internal storage of all connected factories, there is no obstacle to using the largest-available early-game vanilla trucks for deliveries when at least two factories are connected) while a warehouse can usually manage more than that. Chemical plants are a bit awkward since you can't put logs, oil, or gravel in a (vanilla) warehouse or deliver oil or gravel through a factory connection from a road cargo station, but a local distribution service doesn't do much to help with that and if you want one anyways trucks would probably still be preferable to forklifts because you can put a small or midsize covered hull, dumper, flatbed, and tanker in a Small Distribution Office and take care of everything rather than needing forklifts for grain, logs, and chemicals, conveyors for the gravel, and pipes for the oil.

Also, I'm so terribly sorry that I forgot the extremely important detail that the default chemical plant only holds 8 tons of grain and consumes 7.8 tons of it every 10 days rather than the 10 tons every 10 days that I used as an illustration. It's almost like this is an irrelevant nit-pick that makes no difference to the point I was trying to make, which is that delivering X*Y tons of freight every Z days to a central drop-off and delivering X tons of freight to each of Y factories every Z days requires the same throughput, and that you can very often use the same truck either way unless you're bone-headedly stupid about how you set things up.

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

You could use trucks as storages, but they are very expensive for that purpose compared to warehouses and factory connections,

Trucks that I'm probably going to have to purchase anyways are very expensive compared to warehouses, factory connections, and forklifts that aren't even remotely essential? I mean, fair enough, a lone chemical plant probably doesn't merit a dedicated truck and parking the truck in the factory's loading bays is problematic for emergency services, but with three or four plants operating at something like capacity you're approaching consumption rates that can keep that truck reasonably busy even if it's a relatively large truck, especially if you're sourcing inputs from anywhere but right next door to the plant complex, and since you're so inclined to quibble over costs I'd note that the cost of a road cargo station is less than the cost of the smallest warehouse plus a small open storage.