Vehicle schedule option

[6toros6]

I have a, I suppose, typical schedule for a truck:
1) It loads iron from the iron processing plant (wait until full)
2) It unloads iron at the steel mill
3) It unloads the rest of the iron, if any, at the border.

Sometimes, the steel mill requires all the iron and the truck goes empty to the border blindly following its schedule.

Would it be possible to add an option in the stops in the schedule that says: "only if not empty", so that the stop is ignored if the vehicle is empty? It would apply to step 2 of the schedule above.

In loading, it also would make sense, "only if not full", but I can't find an obvious use case.

[tea_bush]

Forzion saying that it would be useless and is unneeded in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

[Dave]

I guess its a meme to shoot down ideas like this, or at least for Forzion to do so, but roast me all you want, I still think its worth answering....

This option wouldnt hurt, but the functionality you want is mostly handled by distribution offices. If you havent used distribution offices before, give them a try.

To handle your example set up a distribution office with the following tasks:

-Iron Processing Plant: Load Iron 0% (load iron until/unless the source is completely empty)
-Steel Mill: Unload Iron 50% (keep the Steel Mill's Iron supply half full - you can make this fuller or emptier depending on how large of a stockpile of Iron you want at the Mill)
-Border: Unload Iron

Dump truck(s) in the distribution office will unload at the Steel Mill when it needs Iron, and Unload at the border when the Steel Mill has plenty of Iron.

[David]

I use distribution offices, and I find that multiple small offices work well.

The first is set to: iron processing plant, load at 0%; steel mill unload at 50%

2nd is set to: iron processing plant, load at 50%; customs office unload.

This works better than set schedules because the vehicles only move when there is something to transport.

Multiple offices are needed because for each office, you can only set one percentage for loading.


The workshop has some good small distribution offices.

[TheAmishStig]

That could cause some real headaches with the pathfinding, but theoretically it's possible. DOs and Forklifts already have some sort of destination-evaluation code.

I don't know if I'd use it personally though...newer players have enough problems with rail traffic as it is, I can't imagine how much worse it'd be with them having to consider that many more orgin-destination permutations yet too.

One thing I will note: as your republic grows and covers more land area, giving each vehicle a customs-house endpoint gets untenable just for the traffic, let alone the effect on your delivery routes thanks to them needing to take long trips from the midlands to the border. In addition to David's really nice suggestion, it also wouldn't hurt to scatter "distribution hubs" around the country, places that can collect any overflow of materials after the last delivery and have dedicated border shuttles...if nothing else, it keeps the vehicles supplying your factories on shorter routes, meaning faster cycle times.

[forzion]

Just some surprise for those who do not know me. I think this can be usefull especially for trains as I think that DO for trains would not work very well. Something like skip the next stop for loading if the train is already full or skip the next unloading if the train is already empty.

With coming update the custom houses will be even more overloaded as you could send buses there to pick up or drop off tourists.

[Bastardo]

Originally posted by forzion:

Just some surprise for those who do not know me. I think this can be usefull especially for trains as I think that DO for trains would not work very well. Something like skip the next stop for loading if the train is already full or skip the next unloading if the train is already empty.

Agree! Much more useful and relevant to add logic conditions to vehicle schedules (and then not limited to freight vehicles/trains) than to implement DO for trains.

[6toros6]

Distribution offices are a very nice feature, but not optimized for all scenarios.

I prefer, like in real life, to have trucks that load at the industry, have a route to deliver the product to several consumers and dump the surplus at the customs. A feature like the one I propose would serve that purpose very well.

Constructions offices could also apply that feature by default. Now, I can see concrete mixers sent to the Concrete Mixer factory and arrive there and have no concrete. Nevertheless, they go to the construction site to unload nothing. The same with buses sent by the Construction Offices that happen to find no people at the station and run empty to the construction site.

Of course, there can be gotchas. Imagine this schedule:
1) Load coal at the Coal factory
2) Go to the Coal Power Plant and unload. (skip this stop if empty)

What should the truck do if there happens to be no coal at the Coal Factory?

[forzion]

Because of that it would be an optional feature not mandatory and then the player is responsible if he uses it but of course it is useful only with multiple loading or unloading stops with same material loaded/unloaded in a row.

[DaveOath]

One option could be to implement some scheduling mechanism.

Example: tell a train to execute a route every 4 days. In the meantime, the train rest in a depot.