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I also just banged my head against it and screamed at people in the thread until it clicked. So feel free to do the same! We're all here to get the very specific brain damage it requires to play this game but once you do it's a lot of fun!
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May 3, 2022 16:02
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LeFishy posted:I'm trying to get a handle on how I would approach this game if I didn't read about it constantly and theorycraft because doing that has made the game totally impenetrable and terrifying to me. One thing not super obvious about this game compared to other similar games is that you do not need full production uptime from most industries. What you need to do is look at how much you're producing. Is it enough to supply your current needs and exports? Good, you're fine. Is it too little and the building is not fully staffed? Get more people. Is it too little and the building is as close to full uptime as transport will allow? Build another. Both a strength and weakness of this game is that there's much more "slop" in needed production. It's a weakness because how much of a given resource or population you need isn't usually clearly communicated. It's a strength because you'll pretty much always be fine just eyeballing it.
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May 3, 2022 16:02
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Also that slop is an excuse to build more storage because much like real life, if you can't do JIT logistics, you solve the problem with bigger warehouses. You can look for solutions back to the age of sail when a boat might turn up eventually, I dunno, give or take a month.
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May 3, 2022 16:04
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OwlFancier posted:Also that slop is an excuse to build more storage because much like real life, if you can't do JIT logistics, you solve the problem with bigger warehouses. You can look for solutions back to the age of sail when a boat might turn up eventually, I dunno, give or take a month. Absolutely. Storage everywhere. The game is great about giving you storages that connect to everything even before mods and new players should take advantage of that. Building stores are more spacious then you'd expect, but not spacious enough. Get used to having conveyor belts and factory connections and sending your logistics connections to the storages, not to the production building.
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May 3, 2022 16:08
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For me doing cosmonaut challenge (I think that’s what it’s called ) taught me the game up to building a steel mill
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May 3, 2022 16:09
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Genuinely one of my best big brain moments was slapping a coal pile attached to the heating plant and then trickle feeding it with a truck, it doesn't run over summer so it builds up a stockpile and then runs reliably during winter when the roads are blocked.
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May 3, 2022 16:12
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OwlFancier posted:Genuinely one of my best big brain moments was slapping a coal pile attached to the heating plant and then trickle feeding it with a truck, it doesn't run over summer so it builds up a stockpile and then runs reliably during winter when the roads are blocked. no trucks only trains In all seriousness though that's a good plan, but it's also feasible to set up a rail aggregate unloader and use the new distro offices to feed your heating plants. It's a bit of a pain though so trucks are probably best unless you're like me and ideologically opposed to non-rail vehicles.
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May 3, 2022 16:32
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Well yes but at that point I feel like the logical conclusion is to give every citizen their own personal train and do away with roads entirely. The point is that you don't need very much throughput at all on average, just very reliable and comparatively high throughput during the cold season, so either you can make a bespoke solution (like a rail line) or you can just use the great soviet invention of "putting the coal in a big heap" and use one or two trucks instead  Also I am having fun with the new advanced traffic simulation so I am definitely going to use more highways and trucks for things.
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May 3, 2022 19:29
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Okay so forgive me if this is W&R 101 but I've never really gotten past the stage where everything is run from one single construction office but now I'm on a huge map and have to spread out and look more into trains I think. Essentially my Asphalt plant is very far away from my towns and I need a better way to get asphalt to constructions jobs rather than a dozen dumptrucks. Can I load asphalt onto a train, move it down the tracks, and have a construction office look there for their asphalt needs, unloading it from the train as needed? I think asphalt is unique since you can't bulk store it or conveyor it around so I'm just sort of at a loss how I effectively distribute this stuff far away.
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May 3, 2022 20:12
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explosivo posted:Okay so forgive me if this is W&R 101 but I've never really gotten past the stage where everything is run from one single construction office but now I'm on a huge map and have to spread out and look more into trains I think. Essentially my Asphalt plant is very far away from my towns and I need a better way to get asphalt to constructions jobs rather than a dozen dumptrucks. Can I load asphalt onto a train, move it down the tracks, and have a construction office look there for their asphalt needs, unloading it from the train as needed? I think asphalt is unique since you can't bulk store it or conveyor it around so I'm just sort of at a loss how I effectively distribute this stuff far away. No, but you can attach a helipad to the asphalt plant by building it right next to it (there's a little green outline that pops up around connectable buildings when you go to build the helipad) and then you can load asphalt into helicopters and use them to deliver to construction sites, if you have a helicopter construction office. This also allows you to attach helicopters to the fire station, hospital, and the helicopter construction office if you want more helicopters per office (though this comes at the expense of other vehicle slots) Failing that you do just want more dump trucks or a closer asphalt plant, but asphalt is a good one to put helicopters on, because especially for road building, they can just dump the asphalt at the site, rather than queuing up to be connected to the paver machine. You can do the same for gravel but gravel needs a cargo helipad and you have to connect it via a conveyor. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:19 on May 3, 2022 |
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May 3, 2022 20:17
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You can also move your bitumen and gravel in bulk and build a new asphalt plant closer to your ongoing construction.
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May 3, 2022 20:18
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OwlFancier posted:No, but you can attach a helipad to the asphalt plant by building it right next to it (there's a little green outline that pops up around connectable buildings when you go to build the helipad) and then you can load asphalt into helicopters and use them to deliver to construction sites, if you have a helicopter construction office. I was going to have a followup question about this because I was trying to do exactly that but couldn't figure out a way to attach an asphalt plant to a helipad for pickup. There's no output or anything so do I have to park it next to it and drive a truck back and forth or does it just magically make the connection when you build near it? E: I see, I think I was trying a cargo helipad but didn't try just a plain old helipad. hailthefish posted:You can also move your bitumen and gravel in bulk and build a new asphalt plant closer to your ongoing construction. Yeah this might be the way I suppose
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May 3, 2022 20:19
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explosivo posted:I was going to have a followup question about this because I was trying to do exactly that but couldn't figure out a way to attach an asphalt plant to a helipad for pickup. There's no output or anything so do I have to park it next to it and drive a truck back and forth or does it just magically make the connection when you build near it? Helipads magically connect to valid buildings and essentially just become a docking slot for that building. Thus:  The exception, somewhat confusingly, is the cargo helipad which works the same way as all the other cargo loading/unloading stations, in that it connects via conveyors, pipes, or factory connections and simply allows access to the storages of the relevant building. For specifically concrete, asphalt, and non-producing buildings however, you build a normal heliport (or the triple one) directly next to the building so it's touching the green outline, and it joins them into basically one building, granting that building the ability to use helicopters. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 20:25 on May 3, 2022 |
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May 3, 2022 20:20
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OwlFancier posted:Helipads magically connect to valid buildings and essentially just become a docking slot for that building. drat that's great to know, thanks! I was trying to do a cargo helipad and it had me wondering about just how feasible that idea would be but that looks far easier.
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May 3, 2022 20:22
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explosivo posted:drat that's great to know, thanks! I was trying to do a cargo helipad and it had me wondering about just how feasible that idea would be but that looks far easier. Yeah I edited in above, because the asphalt/concrete plants do not have a cargo connection for their products, they use the same model as the non producing buildings. But everything else that uses factory connections etc, would use a cargo heliport the same way you have road cargo stations or train loading/unloading stations etc. It's unintuitive but it sort of makes sense why it's like that once you understand it, asphalt/concrete cannot be stockpiled, transported, or otherwise turned into cargo, they are produced on demand and transported directly to the destination by construction vehicles.
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May 3, 2022 20:26
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Ok so I have my first tangible issue! I've built a distribution office (wow they're pretty cool) and set it up mostly but for whatever reason it refuses to let my check the unload box for gravel at my concrete plant. Also food at my grocery store. It's let me check the other boxes for each of those buildings, so meat and whatever raw material goes into concrete. I have gravel unloading elsewhere and I definitely have the trucks for food... Any ideas?
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May 3, 2022 20:26
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LeFishy posted:Ok so I have my first tangible issue! Can you post a picture of the window with the options showing? Usually that means you don't have the ability to transport it or the building does not accept the cargo. You do know that food needs covered hulls, not refrigerated trucks btw?
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May 3, 2022 20:28
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OwlFancier posted:Can you post a picture of the window with the options showing? Usually that means you don't have the ability to transport it or the building does not accept the cargo. You do know that food needs covered hulls, not refrigerated trucks btw? Here's the vehicles and the loading options  Here's all the unload places  I hope it's something incredibly stupid and obvious that I'm missing. I do only have one covered hull truck, and a couple of dumpers... do I need to have the number of vehicles to match possible routes? I thought the office would sort that out for me based on priority or something.
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May 3, 2022 20:33
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LeFishy posted:Here's the vehicles and the loading options So it just... doesn't let you tick the leftmost box under the concrete plant? You shouldn't need to have more trucks, it will try to fill orders with whatever you give it, but I was thinking it wasn't showing the option at all.
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May 3, 2022 20:34
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OwlFancier posted:So it just... doesn't let you tick the leftmost box under the concrete plant? Exactly. Well sort of. It'll let me tick it if I untick the cement box.
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May 3, 2022 20:35
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No checkboxes is treated the same as "everything is checked" so it might just be grumpy about that. Only thing I can think of, since it doesn't show options for materials you cannot transport.
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May 3, 2022 20:38
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Oh erm... I wonder if it's treating those as like, a filter. So if you want to unload everything you just leave everything unticked? I could have sworn it was the other way around though, usually it's everything ticked by default.Volmarias posted:No checkboxes is treated the same as "everything is checked" so it might just be grumpy about that. Only thing I can think of, since it doesn't show options for materials you cannot transport. Yeah that's my thought too, but for loading passenger types it's the opposite... Weird design choice, let me build a distro office and faff about.
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May 3, 2022 20:38
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Aha! Exactly correct. So it's an "Everything unless something is ticked" filter. Good to know. It worked as soon as I unticked the boxes. Thank you.
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May 3, 2022 20:42
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Yeah it looks like the distro office works entirely backwards from how the passenger filters work lmao. Very UI, much consistency.
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May 3, 2022 20:45
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"How many people will I need" in itself is also a trap question, because it will vary--the actual length of a shift gets tweaked subtly by weather and traffic; the output per worker-day in a successful game will first decline and then rise as it's tied to loyalty, which has a lower base equilibrium than new immigrants start with but will be boosted higher as you expand into broadcasting and luxuries; your population will grow on its own and require more services even if they're not doing anything; and most importantly, industries are almost never 1:1 along the chain. Sometimes this is a simple "farms have several fields, bakeries draw from several farms", but more often it's something like the chain for electronics where one plant wants 39% of an electronic components plant, 10% of a mechanical components plant, and 15% of a plastics factory, which themselves require 4.01 chemical plants, 1.34 oil rigs, 0.01 woodcutting posts, 0.07 steel mills, 0.22 coal processing plants, 0.05 coal mines, 0.13 iron processing plants, 0.3 iron mines, 0.02 gravel plants, and 0.02 quarries to run at full. Flipped around, you can see that if you're just hiving the electronics industry off as solely its own thing, you will need 100 plants and 401 chemical plants to justify a dedicated woodcutter with no slop. Not a very easy thing to do in a test game. The best way to get started is to spin up fully automated oil or bauxite export so you'll always be able to import in a pinch, and then lean into the slop, using it to identify what you can do next. You have the one electronics plant because you need electronics, and it's not running at full tilt, but that's okay as long as your people are getting the electronics they want; in the meantime it means you've got a ton of electronic components, mechanical components, and steel that can be turned into cars.
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May 3, 2022 21:37
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Or you can use the distribution offices to skim off the excess at all points of the industry chain and shove it out the border to whoever in exchange for cold hard roubles.
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May 3, 2022 21:54
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The modded railyards look really cool and work great except for one fatal flaw: there's no way to set how many cars they take out of the yard, up to the maximum length each yard can build a train, which for the big yards is 450 m. (If you need a sense of scale for that, recall that workers can only path for a 300 m walk.) This means my attempt at building an industrial switching railroad for my steel mill/manufacturing area is doomed to have poor little 0-4-0 tank engines hauling 20+ car trains full of steel. I'm going to have to demolish it and redo the whole thing with the smaller yards, I guess...
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May 3, 2022 22:36
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I cannot even begin to fathom a rail network that could handle trains that long, I think my stuff would jam up at about 100m lmao.
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May 3, 2022 22:40
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Fixed my steel mill. The old setup (incomplete, I didn't save an image of the finished version):  The new setup, with two shorter yards:  The poor switcher (also seen post-trip in the lefthand yard in the image above) hauling way too many cars, as I played train tetris micromanage fixing my routes:  The same switcher on its light engine move from the faraway depot, before picking up the cars (and crossing the same bridge) shown above: 
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May 3, 2022 23:32
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Of all the weird things in this game that I’ve never touched the “Long Train Depot” is one of them. The short trains max out at 150m and I usually build my network around that max length for signaling, and even then do I rarely need long rear end trains other than for exports, which usually end up having a long loiter time to fill anyway so could be shorter.OwlFancier posted:I also just banged my head against it and screamed at people in the thread until it clicked. Funny enough I recall two years ago or whatever telling you “I dunno what to tell you man maybe the games just not for you” and now you’re one of the game’s most frequent posting pals that I see, lol. Hopefully that inspires any lurkers or new folks to try and power through if you’re hung up on the start of the massive learning curve.
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May 4, 2022 00:03
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Yeah that's why I tell everyone that it's hard to get into, cos it is, I'm quite serious that I think you have to gently caress up your brain slightly to enjoy it, the game has a way that it is and you have to mush your head into that shape to get it, I do wish it was more approachable, especially as some of the issues also are generally detrimental, especially in the startup phase of the game.
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May 4, 2022 00:39
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Anime Store Adventure posted:Funny enough I recall two years ago or whatever telling you “I dunno what to tell you man maybe the games just not for you” and now you’re one of the game’s most frequent posting pals that I see, lol. Hopefully that inspires any lurkers or new folks to try and power through if you’re hung up on the start of the massive learning curve. I'm not sure it's even that hard to learn, so much as it wants you to think in a different way than other "industry" games. That's not to say it's easy to learn - there's a lot of foibles to the UI and routing of vehicles to figure out - but the core gameplay loop is pretty simple. I think people come into it with the idea they need to figure out the ideal ratios of production building to homes to power plants, etc. when really the game just wants you to eyeball it and think, "Good enough."
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May 4, 2022 00:40
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The population management side is also very opaque and unforgiving, and I also think that the self powered construction is a key part of the fun, and that's also kind of optional, because you can just buy everything with money and the game is playable like that but not very fun. I hope once they add proper cosmonaut support it will help with pacing out the population needs and also making the bootstrapped construction route more viable.
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May 4, 2022 00:42
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OwlFancier posted:the self powered construction is a key part of the fun, and that's also kind of optional, because you can just buy everything with money and the game is playable like that but not very fun. This. If you're just buying everything with money, it's a crappy over-complicated transport fever. This is the part where things get fun. Also yeah, if you have factoriobrain and try to exactly match your outputs and inputs for zero waste you will lose your mind, slop is good! Store it, ship it, export it!
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May 4, 2022 01:03
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Population side, too. Okay, you only need the steel 50 workers can churn out? You're too lazy to ship it to the border even so you're just sitting there at can't export - storage full? That plant is still keeping 450 extras employed and happy while you figure out something useful for them to do. Run too lean and you deathspiral hard through unemployment into disloyalty and crime, provide makework and you're out at worst the cost of the extra buses.
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May 4, 2022 01:11
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I can only assume they either spend all their time dancing to hardbass in the break room or take the finished I beams out of the factory and then lob them back into the blast furnace for another go around.
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May 4, 2022 01:14
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OwlFancier posted:I hope once they add proper cosmonaut support it will help with pacing out the population needs and also making the bootstrapped construction route more viable. You say once they, not if they. Have they promised better support on this?
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May 4, 2022 01:20
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I'm sure it was on the roadmap they published a while back? E: yeah it's on there but they seem to be going past it a bit, possibly it is proving complex. https://www.sovietrepublic.net/roadmap
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May 4, 2022 01:23
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OwlFancier posted:I can only assume they either spend all their time dancing to hardbass in the break room or take the finished I beams out of the factory and then lob them back into the blast furnace for another go around. Want to know why my population is at an average >90% happiness? It's because I provide all of their needs, ensure they have good quality housing, and also the average citizen does actual work for approximately a single hour per week unless they're randomly assigned to a construction crew when showing up at the train station to get the day's work order.
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May 4, 2022 01:56
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drat these helicopter pads are a life saver!
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May 4, 2022 02:26
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