Technical Offices

[In_The_Heat]

Absolute n00b here so I appreciate your time if you answer this. What is the use of technical offices? I understand construction offices but not this. What do they do that is different from construction offices?

[bajecznie nawdychany]

Plow Your roads during winter.
Deliver water to the locations with no water.
Take sewage from location where there is no sewage pipes.
Take garbage from containers and trash bins.

[Titule]

bajecznie nawdychany said it.

Most usage (for me) is waste collection and snow clearing (winter service)
The other two only temporary when building up the city or for very remote locations.

[Risuga]

I feel like TO's could be expanded to take care of fuel too. Maybe wrap in vehicle and building repair/maintenance too. Tow trucks to take care of out of fuel or traffic accident disasters that don't exist yet...

[Titule]

I think fuel supply is precisely the domain of distribution offices

[Stele]

They have three functions already. Why the hell would you merge them with all other service buildings? You'd need three to do anything anyway due to vehicle limits and building window would be enormous with 3x the lists.

[m4rek]

I don't know why you'd want to add more functions to a building that is already massive with limited parking space - Technical Services for four vehicles is larger than a construction office for twelve, and there's no real reason for technical services to be so large. if they at least needed resources to do what they do, or maintained their own vehicles, or anything more than (in my case) be parking for snowploughs, it'd at least make sense.

[Silent_Shadow]

I usually just use them for snow plows and maybe water and sewage delivery (if not on lines). I always have waste collection on lines because I can typically make it more efficient that way.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Titule:

I think fuel supply is precisely the domain of distribution offices

DOs do handle that. I'm not exactly sure why it's partitioned as it is. Maybe because technical offices support lots of locations and special targets like snowy roads, while DOs support a relatively small set of buildings each. (Which is fine for fuel since only discrete locations, mainly gas stations, need it supplied.)

[Titule]

TOs have a range in which they operate, DOs don't.
TOs handle everything in range, DOs only the assigned locations and only as defined.
That's why fuel supply is better organized in DOs: you can say how much fuel you want to have and for what purpose.

[Risuga]

The way I saw it DO's are for logistics and transport while TO's are for maintenance. TO's simply don't have much to do as it is in my opinion. Not that I expected any of that to be changed, just some random thoughts.

Fuel in particular: there are so many buildings that need or can use fuel, it's tiresome for me to add every one to a DO (besides the DO target limit), for something I generally want to keep mostly topped off everywhere anyway. It would be nice if I could throw a fuel truck into a TO and have it automatically go.

They serve different functions, and are not mutually exclusive. Just like you can have water and waste in DO to set manually if you want, or have it in the TO. I just think having fuel be an option to be taken care of by a TO would be nice.

[In_The_Heat]

Thanks folks. Very comprehensive.

[Alukat]

Is there a way to get them to dump stuff at places outside of working range?

[gwahazar]

Originally posted by Alukat:

Is there a way to get them to dump stuff at places outside of working range?

Of course, you can define source/sink facilities whenever you want (of course it is not advisable to have dump far away, but possible).
But automatic pickup/delivery from/to houses is defined by range (which can be increased/decreased)