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Also you absolutely can simply oversupply the power plant with workers slightly, using minibuses or similar low volume high regularity transport, and it's worth doing given how critical the power plant is. Same with heating plants which you really can't afford to have go out because they are localized, you can't pump heat across the map. You could also consider the value of renewables. Solar plants require minimal staffing and also don't polute, so you can put them in walking distance of houses, they don't produce at night but can provide quite a bit of power during the day which will also cut your fuel costs for fueled plants. Wind farms are a bit fiddly to set up (you want to wire each turbine into a transformer backwards to get HV output and then connect the HV lines together to get a single line with a bunch of MW in it) but they work without any staffing at all, just put them in range of a fire station. Again not super reliable but they will provide some power most of the time and will again cut down on your fuel bills. Each one outputs very little but the more of them you connect into the network the better it will perform. You can also just slap them down near structures and they will automatically supply power. They make good power sources for petrol stations and things on your highways that you don't want to run a power line to. The next patch is going to introduce priority switches for power so it will be more practical to just connect to the border and export excess while importing in case of underproduction. Unfortunately at the moment if you try to do both it will just maximimally load the network sending power in one border connection and out the other. But the buy/sell price is the same if you do this so I don't think you actually lose money and it does prioritize domestic producers, it just looks very weird and makes it hard to track how much you're actually making/selling. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Mar 13, 2023 |
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Mar 13, 2023 16:24
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OwlFancier posted:Solar plants require minimal staffing and also don't polute, so you can put them in walking distance of houses, they don't produce at night but can provide quite a bit of power during the day which will also cut your fuel costs for fueled plants. Added quirk: if you're like me and play with "always day" turned on because the night cycle is way too dark to see anything, solar plants produce 24/7 with no drawbacks except cost. I opt not to build them much as a result (my largest republic had a single plant and even that felt mechanics-abusing).
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Mar 13, 2023 17:09
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SkyeAuroline posted:Added quirk: if you're like me and play with "always day" turned on because the night cycle is way too dark to see anything, solar plants produce 24/7 with no drawbacks except cost. I opt not to build them much as a result (my largest republic had a single plant and even that felt mechanics-abusing). Yeah, I wish they had batteries for power storage. I'm like you and keep night turned off because the pretty night graphics aren't worth not being able to see to build half the time, but I'd use solar a lot more if it didn't feel so cheap. At least wind has some kind of variation on output based on wind speed, even if I don't get exactly how it works.
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Mar 13, 2023 17:12
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Entirely unrelated: what industries can ships actually feasibly support, other than oil and bauxite (both of which I've used already)? Trying to get more than two ships, maybe three, going to a port keeps resulting in traffic jams regardless of how I lay out buoys, so I'm trying to think of what else can handle that large of shipments, that infrequently. Crop-based stuff processes too fast for the limited number of ships, both of my experiments there failed. I guess the other ore based stuff would work, though deposits are rarely convenient for shipping... I really want to like boats (mostly because I despise the implementation of rail construction but don't want to live in truck hell), they just seem like "use tankers or skip them" for the most part.
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Mar 13, 2023 18:11
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Ships make sense for anything in bulk but for me that seems to mostly be tankers and aggregates. In this save I’m going to do a container port but I don’t know if it’s actually the best way to export that stuff or if it’ll just be roleplaying, essentially.
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Mar 13, 2023 18:15
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Anime Store Adventure posted:Ships make sense for anything in bulk but for me that seems to mostly be tankers and aggregates. I've actually tried to work out where containers would make sense, and as far as I can tell, they don't. You need a special packing/unpacking facility and loading/unloading times are never really a problem in this game, which is what makes containers actually useful in real life shipping. I haven't actually used them, so maybe I'm missing something, though.
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Mar 13, 2023 18:19
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Shipping is good for anything you're producing in vast quantities because it's less sensitive to market shocks if you import/export by boat. If you try to import/export huge quantities via border posts the market will grossly inflate/deflate the price. Tankers and aggregates are something it's easy to build the storage for, but if you download some modded big grain silo arrays it'd be fine for crops as well. You probably want the port to be part of a fully integrated distribution center though, so it needs rail access and probably a bunch of rails just to offload stuff from the port into larger storage facilities.
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Mar 13, 2023 18:20
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They don’t sit in border buildings unloading and backing up traffic which is a big plus
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Mar 13, 2023 18:21
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That too, they and airports are the only way to add more export capacity to the map.
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Mar 13, 2023 18:25
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grate deceiver posted:If you need it to go up a mountain to a mine it's forgivable. In any other circumstance it's a cardinal gadgetbahn sin.  Electrical powered transportation types which do not use roads, like cable cars and electrified trains, will always provide a continuous, reliable source of workers. This is less useful for trains, where the workers reliably all come at once as a bundle (assuming you don't have any concerns about traffic). They're great for things like steel mills or fuel refineries that can process enormous amounts of resources, but the delivery time guarantee doesn't matter as much there. Cable cars, otoh, provide a reliable, continuous trickle of workers. This is important for buildings like power plants, heating plants, and fire stations, where an interruption in service can be catastrophic (less so for fire stations since you have some leeway and fire fighters teleport to their trucks on the scene already). Because power and heating only need about 1/2 of their maximum workers for maximum productivity, providing a continuous trickle via cable car will help ensure there are never outages. It would be nice if the trolley or something could be set to be more like this, but for now cable cars it is. They're not very useful in most other circumstances, since you'll already have roads to wherever you're building them to if you need materials for construction. Takanago posted:Are there any tricks for speeding up asphalt road construction? Or is it inherently kind of a slow process. Roads are constructed in phases 1) Lay gravel and distribute evenly, optionally via bulldozer or backhoe 2) Lay asphalt via asphalt dump truckers and optionally pavers 3) Flatten the asphalt, optionally via rollers 4) Construct electrical lights for lighted sidewalk roads What's important to note is that each of these stages is performed individually, to competition, before moving to the next. The paver will not start its journey until the gravel is fully distributed, the roller will not come until the asphalt is laid, and the covered goods trucks will not come until the asphalt is rolled. This means that your nice asphalt highway is being constructed in phases, which can be split up by section, manually. If you lay (e.g.) 30m of planning for an asphalt road, you'll want to split it into 3 10m segments by running a dirt road to each intersection (and parallel to the highway). Preferably, you can do this after the bulldozer starts moving gravel; you can intersect the road that it's already finished, which will separate the road into two separate strips, one of which will be ready for step 2. Dump trucks will now come with asphalt, but critically, will come with enough asphalt for the entire segment; be careful not to starve the other areas of trucks to bring gravel! Once the first segment has finished laying asphalt, bisect the second segment so that it is now split into parts 1 and 2, while your first segment is now on step 3. It's extra work, unfortunately, and it would really be nice if it could be done this way automatically, but here you are. Consider placing a couple "free" construction yard spots near these roads or even intersections, so that your dozer / paver / roller can start from there.
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Mar 13, 2023 22:24
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Also, as far as playing goes, taps the title again
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Mar 13, 2023 23:01
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Log082 posted:I've actually tried to work out where containers would make sense, and as far as I can tell, they don't. You need a special packing/unpacking facility and loading/unloading times are never really a problem in this game, which is what makes containers actually useful in real life shipping. I haven't actually used them, so maybe I'm missing something, though. They don't make sense for intra-republic transport (beyond some vague ability to standardize on flatbed trucks and railcars isntead of having to use them in conjunction with covered vehicles for some goods), but I have found them useful for export play. Especially if you can truck a bunch of resources to a central-ish container packing site. I noticed a significant uptick in export value once I shifted to using containers, but that may well have been just the added hauling capacity. I am always surprised when people mention that they export aggregates. They seem so cheap to me, and the bulk does not make up for it. There is an opportunity cost as well as a very real fuel cost to shipping stuff around, even on electrical vehicles.
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Mar 14, 2023 00:19
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ArchangeI posted:
I’ve only done it by ship in a way that was basically roleplaying on an island map which I started with the idea that the settlement was a coal mining effort, thus the initial export. Exporting directly to from conveyors to the dock seemed to be profitable, but not dramatically so.
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Mar 14, 2023 00:36
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Given the talk about shipping, I wanted to post pictures of the port I'm working on. It's not quite finished yet, but it's close enough to show off (and take any ideas on how to improve the look.) A lot of the buildings are modded in, but none do anything game breaking; it's mostly for visual variety. Drydock and fishing pier with cold storage warehouse.  Naval pier (foreground; no ships yet) and breakbulk cargo loading (background).  Aggregate dock with coaling loop (foreground), container/vehicle loading dock (mid-ground), fueling dock (back hidden behind the vehicle dock). Edit: I haven't figured what to do with that spit of land next to the naval pier. I'd intended it for more berths, either for a second naval pier or just general shipping, but it's too small and I haven't decided if I want to landscape it larger or do something else.
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Mar 14, 2023 01:58
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ArchangeI posted:I am always surprised when people mention that they export aggregates. They seem so cheap to me, and the bulk does not make up for it. There is an opportunity cost as well as a very real fuel cost to shipping stuff around, even on electrical vehicles. If you have a big producer you can make a decent little chunk of money with them. It's not a lot but if you already have the infrastructure you might as well use it. 600t of gravel will sell for about 20k in the late 80's and you can ship it around by train very cheaply. Almost anything you export a boatful of will be worth it just through sheer volume. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 05:56
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"this time I will not make my railway horrible spaghetti"
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Mar 14, 2023 14:04
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how's the game state these days, I bought it two years ago, played it a bit, found it cool but the bus transit system seemed a bit obscure and apparently everyone was using mods to make it work?
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Mar 14, 2023 14:07
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Game is fine vanilla. You may want tho some smaller buildings for services like a small theater, hospital etc
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Mar 14, 2023 14:09
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Yeah smaller buildings are useful, as frankly are larger buildings and there's also a little pack I have that adds alternate ways to produce things which I will look up. E: first one in this list. https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2841422306
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Mar 14, 2023 14:10
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I just can't play without bigger kindergardens at least for larger towns.
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Mar 14, 2023 14:36
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what sold me on the game when i first started playing were the little pathways you could make for your soviets, the whole infrastructure stuff when i played seemed way too complicated so i just left it turned offOwlFancier posted:Yeah smaller buildings are useful, as frankly are larger buildings and there's also a little pack I have that adds alternate ways to produce things which I will look up. thanks ill check it out
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Mar 14, 2023 14:38
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commando in tophat posted:Yo, thanks for the replies. Just to make sure how workers function in this game, is this like this? To add to this, doesn't the worker also look around AGAIN for a job within walking distance once they arrive at a transportation station, meaning you can extend the walking distance to jobs with your bus stops? And same for needs like grocery/recreation.
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Mar 14, 2023 15:26
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sloppy portmanteau posted:To add to this, doesn't the worker also look around AGAIN for a job within walking distance once they arrive at a transportation station, meaning you can extend the walking distance to jobs with your bus stops? And same for needs like grocery/recreation. Not to my knowledge, they do it when they are dropped off at the stop by a transport vehicle, but not if they have walked to it with the intent of boarding a vehicle, or have been transferred to it by a vehicle in order to be picked up by another one. If they arrive at the stop with the instruction to board a vehicle they do not appear to look for work.
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Mar 14, 2023 16:08
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I think I got over the initial brain damage (I say, as I will inevitably run into something more stupid), and game is great even on realistic (with medium citizen complaining). It still has some funky behavior like all the trucks using one gas stop, and when it runs out they refuse to drive 500m to other one that is fully stocked  , including the truck that distributes fuel. It still could use a lot of UI work, like displaying icons over structure that won't get built because it has no footpath to it (looking at you 15m poo poo elevator), or that electric substation is not connected because I didn't quite connect two cables at different depth (even overlay didn't complain about that), but hey, early access and all that I guess
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Mar 14, 2023 16:38
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 Very much enjoying the henri sauvage toblerone buildings, they're grid aligned so super easy to set up.
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Mar 14, 2023 17:13
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OwlFancier posted:
Terrifying! I should grab those buildings.
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Mar 14, 2023 17:24
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Have fun! https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198166777397/myworkshopfiles/?appid=784150 Draw the roads first and you can stick the buildings over them so they go under them through the tunnels. I do like them for making this neat more vertical/megastructure style city. I've mentioned it a few times but I wish the game leaned more into the futurist/idealist stuff, if we're doing alt-soviet it would be nice to be able to actually try and build some of the crazy stuff that people imagined would make the ideal society. 
OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 17:26
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The fact that cable cars are considered the best way to staff key infrastructure should tell the devs that their system may need a tweak.
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Mar 14, 2023 17:33
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Minenfeld! posted:The fact that cable cars are considered the best way to staff key infrastructure should tell the devs that their system may need a tweak. Much of it's superiority comes from the superiority of all things tracked and cabled but the mini bus works just as well minus snow delays. Minibus also get a discount in infrastructure planning time for the amount of time it takes for you to set up a cable car run versus road and if you're on realistic all the fiddly cable car importing. The minibus is probably more indicated even if we get the following tweak but if we're asking for tweaks I'll sign the petition for minitrams seating the same as a cable car.
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Mar 14, 2023 17:49
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I personally use the minibus for things like power plants. But the fact that your society will collapse because of weird transportation jank means something needs updating.
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Mar 14, 2023 17:53
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I'm not sure what really could be done to fix that though, because the issues are all things that the game makes a point of getting you to do. You literally have to micromanage moving your workers around unless they can walk, if you build the plant outside walking distance then you have to move them and road transport is simply less reliable, especially if you don't plough the roads. Some sort of dedicated walkway that moves people significantly further might be interesting, possibly as a tunnel or something. But otherwise I dunno what you really could do. A possibility, perhaps, could be a transportation hub that works like a DO, it stores transport vehicles and accepts workers like a normal bus stop, but dispatches them with workers based on anticipated demand from industries it's assigned to. With a priority system (which regular DOs should also have, frankly) so you can prioritize critical infrastructure. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Mar 14, 2023 |
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Mar 14, 2023 18:12
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Minenfeld! posted:I personally use the minibus for things like power plants. But the fact that your society will collapse because of weird transportation jank means something needs updating.
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Mar 14, 2023 18:15
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That is also a point, the literal self declared best country in the world cannot stop people freezing to death due to winter power cuts in tyool 2023 so frankly my personal shithouse republic is doing very well for itself if we only lose a few people because I forgot to turn the nuclear heating plant on (because I turned it off cos the bastards kept using all my very expensive nuclear fuel in 20 degree weather, that's mafting you dickheads why do you have the heating on?)
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Mar 14, 2023 18:17
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Respectfully request to not use tyool in the communism thread.
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Mar 14, 2023 18:18
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imagine the l stands for lenin
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Mar 14, 2023 18:20
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OwlFancier posted:If you have a big producer you can make a decent little chunk of money with them. It's not a lot but if you already have the infrastructure you might as well use it. 600t of gravel will sell for about 20k in the late 80's and you can ship it around by train very cheaply. Almost anything you export a boatful of will be worth it just through sheer volume. I get that, but 20k in the 80ies is, like, a single truck load of electronics. Now, electronics sit at the end of a very complex production chain, which gravel generally does not, but if you want to maximize export value aggregates seem like a terrible idea.
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Mar 14, 2023 19:02
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The balance point in selling dirt is you often have a gigantic dirt industry to satisfy your construction needs but your construction needs ebb and flow. Workers are at the dirt factory whether you're building stuff or not without some extra micromanagement. Why not sell the extra dirt?
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Mar 14, 2023 19:05
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The point is you're producing it anyway and if you've already built a port and have downtime on your aggregate wagons, why not export it? Even moreso if you've built a coal mine or a bunch of bauxite or something, you can produce vast quantities of them very easily and they're worth more than gravel.
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Mar 14, 2023 19:06
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Especially since the cost for all of the resources to build the infrastructure is probably going to eclipse most of the gains, especially if you consider the opportunity cost of other things you could be building with that steel.
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Mar 14, 2023 19:07
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It all depends on how you do your accounting, too. I may never earn back the value of the infrastructure to sell gravel, but I do have to support continuing costs of feeding workers and transporting them to the gravel factory. I need that industry, it may as well operate at a more constant thrum and barely offset itself constantly rather than save some money on infrastructure but sit idle for 80% of its duty cycle. If you can stuff enough on the end of the chain to not need to export gravel and keep a decent duty cycle, that’s obviously more ideal, but I try to keep all of my industries at least slightly churning, except for like crop-based ones where if they worked at 100% labor and productivity they’d chew through a maps worth of crops in a few months. If only there was some way I could like, just pay workers and they could then pay for food and transit. Then they wouldn’t want to work somewhere that wasn’t paying well because of lack of incoming profit, and it would create a more efficient economic system. Wait, oh gently caress…
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Mar 14, 2023 19:18
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