Cableways and Waste

[Invicator]

A little while ago, I settled an inquiry for another player how you could use cableways not only to transport people to a mine uphill, but also carry off the waste produced there to be recycled/burned downhill.
Tests quickly unveiled to me, however, that all cablecars belonging to a cable car line can only carry 1 type of waste at any given time, with pick-up and drop-off-filters within the stations being prioritised over what you set for the individual waste cars to do, and I think this may need honest readjustment.

An iron mine produces construction waste, biological waste, burnable waste, and miscellaneous waste, and I personally prefer mixing the latter three, ending up with a total of 2 types of waste for the cable cars to collect in the end. Yet, with the cable car line being able to transport either mixed waste or construction waste, I feel like the game misses out on some creative, and genuinely fun ways to handle industries in inaccessible locations.

Are there any chances this could be adjusted? I don't think it's nearly as satisfying to have two sets of pylons handle this matter, when a single line would have been doing reasonably well enough.

[Blue_Thunder]

I totally support that idea. Have the same issue.

[Sirius Czech]

That would be awesome. And I am adding that cable car stations NEED more factory connections for such matter.

I have set up a hotel on the mountain (Ještěd if you are looking for it in workshop). Absolutely beautiful both IRL and ingame and it has (like irl) it´s inbuilt cable car station. However, I am not able to supply both meat and food+alcohol for the hotel, as there is simply no way of connecting the cable car to both storages (only 1 factory connection).

[moodster3137]

In the UK, mines all over had this thing called a "SPOIL HEAP", were they just dumped mountains out of it nextdoor to the mine, built via an extendable conveyor as it grew. Maybe something like this can be implemented in the future?

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

If they add spoil heaps I hope no one builds anything in the slipzone, Spoil heaps are deadly and can move fast with little to no warning.

[Silent_Shadow]

I'm not sure its really needed. You can already send all of the construction waste down the cableway and have a truck collect the rest (or vice versa) or you can send the construction waste down an aggregate cableway with the ore and the other trash down with the people cableway.

Even just sending all the waste down and separating it is fine, as it reduces the amount of construction waste you need to dispose of by 35% (and that 35% becomes "other waste" at the separating plant, which can be burned at 80% efficiency for energy/heat).

Originally posted by moodster3137:

In the UK, mines all over had this thing called a "SPOIL HEAP", were they just dumped mountains out of it nextdoor to the mine, built via an extendable conveyor as it grew. Maybe something like this can be implemented in the future?

Connect a dump to the mine, set it to construction waste, and it will automatically do this. The problem is that construction waste doesn't decay, but someone could easily make a mod dump that does.

[RyanFireball]

The vanilla cableways can carry 2 different aggregates at the same time, into different storages.
r/Tom

[Silent_Shadow]

Originally posted by RyanFireball:

The vanilla cableways can carry 2 different aggregates at the same time, into different storages.
r/Tom

They can carry more than two types if you use vehicles or conveyor engines.

[tsfx]

Originally posted by jan.mitiska:

I am not able to supply both meat and food+alcohol for the hotel, as there is simply no way of connecting the cable car to both storages (only 1 factory connection).

There's a stupid, inefficient solution: Drive the meat trucks into the cableway stations themselves. You can use the trucks as your meat lockers if you choose to go with permanent lines. But even DOs do work, since the stations have the tiniest storage built in. I think it's half a ton for the small one.

Now your mod might make this weird (set a truck to load and unload, or something) or not work at all, but it works with the vanilla buildings.

[Sirius Czech]

Originally posted by tsfx:

Originally posted by jan.mitiska:

I am not able to supply both meat and food+alcohol for the hotel, as there is simply no way of connecting the cable car to both storages (only 1 factory connection).

There's a stupid, inefficient solution: Drive the meat trucks into the cableway stations themselves. You can use the trucks as your meat lockers if you choose to go with permanent lines. But even DOs do work, since the stations have the tiniest storage built in. I think it's half a ton for the small one.

Now your mod might make this weird (set a truck to load and unload, or something) or not work at all, but it works with the vanilla buildings.

Thanks, will experiment with it a little

[RyanFireball]

Originally posted by jan.mitiska:

That would be awesome. And I am adding that cable car stations NEED more factory connections for such matter.

I have set up a hotel on the mountain (Ještěd if you are looking for it in workshop). Absolutely beautiful both IRL and ingame and it has (like irl) it´s inbuilt cable car station. However, I am not able to supply both meat and food+alcohol for the hotel, as there is simply no way of connecting the cable car to both storages (only 1 factory connection).

This storage building can store both food, alcohol and meat:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2343225630

r/Tom

[Invicator]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

I'm not sure its really needed. You can already send all of the construction waste down the cableway and have a truck collect the rest (or vice versa) or you can send the construction waste down an aggregate cableway with the ore and the other trash down with the people cableway.

Even just sending all the waste down and separating it is fine, as it reduces the amount of construction waste you need to dispose of by 35% (and that 35% becomes "other waste" at the separating plant, which can be burned at 80% efficiency for energy/heat).

Matter still stands that you simply can't assign one half of waste cars to pick construction waste and keep the other half reserved for mixed waste or any other custom configuration inside a single cable car line. I see no bad in being allowed to do this, regardless if it's technically not needed, for it otherwise limits what I am allowed to do as I please in a game I often tend to view more like a sandbox.
I really like the idea of using a container pick-up/drop-off, so that waste gets separated to how I desire (with decent buffer to boot) before it's moved off, whilst also taking care of passengers. Doing all of this with one, single line of cablecars sounds clever, compact, and brings me joy. I don't want to be effectively forced to spend a lot of my time handling a potentially very steep mountainside for a winding road.

[Silent_Shadow]

I have found a way to move citizens and multiple types of waste with one cableway, but it is a bit limited.

To do it, you need to set up the cableway like so:
• Both cableway stations need to be connected to their own waste transfer station.
• One cableway station is set to load, while the other is set to unload.
• No waste type is selected for loading or unloading.
• The loading cableway station cannot be set to "wait until loaded."
• Both waste transfer stations need to have specific bins for the waste types.


This setup will then move all types of waste that have a bin specified for them, but there is an issue in that cable cars will prefer to take some types of waste before others, notably mixed waste. If you connect the loading cableway station's waste transfer station to a building that continuously produces mixed waste, then cable cars will only load up on a fraction of a ton of mixed waste and neglect the other types of waste to pile up and overflow their bins. Checking "wait until loaded" does not fix this, because then the cable car will only wait for a full load of mixed waste (or whatever waste you checked for loading) and will ignore all other waste types.

The solution I found was to have a truck or train shuttle over batches of waste so that cable cars will not always have mixed waste available to haul. No matter what, it seems that the waste transfer station needs to have a mixed waste bin or the cableway cannot haul it, so to run multiple loads of waste down a cableway automatically, we have to separate the waste transfer station from other buildings than the cableway loading station. The unloading cableway station can have buildings attached that create/consume waste though.

As a consequence, some garbage cable cars may leave with less than full loads and at least one waste truck is needed at the loading end of the cableway, which will need fuel to be delivered somehow. Theoretically fuel usage could be eliminated through the use of two pairs of short cableways; with one delivering just mixed waste in batches via the wait to be loaded option, while the other cableway delivers waste as outlined above, but this is not very practical.

[Sirius Czech]

Wow, thanks. I´m gonna try this :)

[Silent_Shadow]

You're welcome, but I still think it is better to just send it all down as mixed waste, at least for mines:

• Garbage cars can be told to wait until loaded, which means more cabins can be on the cableway for a given level of waste generation and so more workers can be delivered.
  
• You can sort mixed waste with a lot of construction waste in it to convert a third of the construction waste to "other waste," which can be burnt for electricity.
  
• No trucks are needed at the mine's end of the cableway to move waste.

[Invicator]

Thank you very much looking deeper into the mechanics. It's unfortunate that such limitations are there to begin with, but it's good to know what can all be done regardless. I hope it can be rectified sometime in the future by the devs.