What is the purpose of grain silo?

[TimFisher]

So I built my first industry, agriculture. I noticed that the animal farms don't use any of the crops/raw materials produced by my farm fields and greenhouses. They always import their raw materials even if I am producing them. I built a grain silo to store these raw materials thinking that the animal farms would get their raw materials from the silo instead of importing, but that is not happening. This doesn't seem right. There appears to be no purpose to the silo.

I would like my animal farms to stop importing raw materials and use the crops I am producing but there doesn't seem to be any way to do that. Not least because importing takes so long that it sits there idle most of the time, waiting for raw materials to truck across the map. Meanwhile right next door there are fields exporting crops, but they won't use it. Something is very wrong here.

 

[Promethian]

They will take from the silo. They just won't until the silo fills up to at least half (if on balanced). You will get the result you want, you just didn't wait long enough for the system to become primed.

 

[Broe]

i got full storrage in both woods and other game in silos with balanced on and they (industry sawmill etc) stll run dry and buy from outside.
is this a bug??

 

[IZob]

i got full storrage in both woods and other game in silos with balanced on and they (industry sawmill etc) stll run dry and buy from outside.
is this a bug??

I think so. I have 8 crops. 2 silos and 1 cattle farm. The silos are usually 85-100% full, being topped up by the crops. While the cattle farm complains about not having enough raw materials (crops afaik). I notice that it also gets its crops from other cities. Reeeeeee

I have checked the number of workers (ok) and the facilities are right next to each other (ok) so I am unsure why the cattle farm is acting the way it is (traffic mod?).

 

[co_emmi]

There is some waiting times. If the building has already ordered the resources from outside connection, it takes a while to be served (= the trucks to drive all the way there). Next time the building asks for resources the silos will probably serve the building if they have resources available at that time (which they probably have if they are on balanced or empty mode).

 

[TimFisher]

Okay I'll wait longer. Yes it does take a very long time for orders to be filled by truck, from the edge of the map all the way to my city and then from the highway to the other side of the city where the farms are located.

Edit: I waited many cycles and it doesn't seem to work. The silo sits around 96% full, yet continues to order crop material from outside. The small animal pasture also continues to order from outside. I moved the silo to inside the industry area. When that didn't work I moved it to the other side of the small animal pasture thinking it might be a pathing issue. All to no avail. The only thing that works with the silo is that small crop fields and greenhouses do deliver to it, but it doesn't ship to the small animal pasture like it's supposed to.

I will try deleting it and trying a new silo.

 

[sprites]

yeah there are some problems with the silos/ stockage if they are full the trucks seem to wander i don't know where and the processing buildings struggle

 

[co_emmi]

yeah there are some problems with the silos/ stockage if they are full the trucks seem to wander i don't know where and the processing buildings struggle

On this screenshot you can see that all the trucks are in use. In this case it could help to have more of the raw material storage so that there is one storage that can serve when all the trucks from the other one are already in use.

 

[TimFisher]

Is it possible that the grain silo only delivers crops to the small animal pasture using silo trucks and not pasture trucks?

If that's the case then this could explain the behavior. If 12/12 silo trucks are in use exporting crops from a 100% full silo when the small pasture orders resources, the silo cannot deliver them since it doesn't have enough trucks. So the order is fulfilled from the edge of the map.

This happens because there are four fields feeding the silo, keeping the 12 silo trucks constantly busy exporting.

Edit: Yes the consumers only get resources from silos if the silos have unused trucks. If not, then the resources get imported. This leads to a perverted situation where increasing your production of resources leads to *more* imports, not less.

I'd like to see this fixed. The silo storage mode should also apply to trucks. If set to Balanced, half the trucks ought to be reserved for local delivery only.

 

[sprites]

maybe not half but yeah i'd like to see 2-3 trucks alvailable for local deliveries and not for exports which is halp the map away and take a load fo time if you don't have a fret train nearby....
oh you produce too much? well you will lose all!

 

[Tobasco da Gama]

Edit: Yes the consumers only get resources from silos if the silos have unused trucks. If not, then the resources get imported. This leads to a perverted situation where increasing your production of resources leads to *more* imports, not less.

Ah, this is a very useful observation! It explains why I've seen many reports that plopping additional storage next to processors resolves supply chain issues. More storage = more storage trucks for moving goods internally.

I had also noticed that my industrial areas would be more profitable when I lowered their budget. I assumed this was just due to reduced upkeep expenditures, but reducing imports by freeing up silo trucks could also explain the observation.

 

[Catashe]

It really is a shame they didn't make a setting on storage for crops,ore, etc. Telling it that this building will only serve local stuff or export only.. That why you can have some storage units for local factories and storage that will sell your excess materials... =\

 

[Turjan]

On this screenshot you can see that all the trucks are in use. In this case it could help to have more of the raw material storage so that there is one storage that can serve when all the trucks from the other one are already in use.

I wonder how many you would need. I have the feeling that this DLC's agriculture has an issue with Green Cities' "Organic and Local Produce" specialization. I have lots of these organic grocery stores in the city, which basically occupy all the trucks the DLC gives me. In the end, crop producers complain that there aren't any buyers and the animal product producers next door don't get any crops. I have a huge surplus of crops that don't move, the silos and barns are full, and the cattle starve. Funny enough, the zoned agriculture is doing great. I expected them to abandon, but no. Of course, the processing plants of the zoned agriculture seem to suck additional trucks out of the limited pool.

The other industries are doing fine. They don't cause that much traffic, either (they are rather quiet actually). Only forestry has some zoned specialized industry in my city though, aside from agriculture.

 

[Promethian]

I wonder how many you would need. I have the feeling that this DLC's agriculture has an issue with Green Cities' "Organic and Local Produce" specialization. I have lots of these organic grocery stores in the city, which basically occupy all the trucks the DLC gives me. In the end, crop producers complain that there aren't any buyers and the animal product producers next door don't get any crops. I have a huge surplus of crops that don't move, the silos and barns are full, and the cattle starve. Funny enough, the zoned agriculture is doing great. I expected them to abandon, but no. Of course, the processing plants of the zoned agriculture seem to suck additional trucks out of the limited pool.

The other industries are doing fine. They don't cause that much traffic, either (they are rather quiet actually). Only forestry has some zoned specialized industry in my city though, aside from agriculture.

Ah so the green commercial takes the crops and not the flour/animal products? That is good to know. Your solution is probably to make a big fat pile of crop producers.

 

[Turjan]

Ah so the green commercial takes the crops and not the flour/animal products? That is good to know. Your solution is probably to make a big fat pile of crop producers.

It's a transport issue. I have a ridiculous surplus of crops. At least, the export limits seem to be higher than before (I don't think I have seen over 11,000 in this city before). I'll see whether the benefit of having more producers (more trucks) outweighs the surplus issues.

Next, I will try and build another agriculture area a bit less in the corner though.

 

[Joonnnyy]

try adding a good amount of small silos(like 20 or so), as these give the highest density of trucks per tiles

 

[IZob]

Hello all. My issue was I didn't have enough trucks. For the small silo's, they were 12/12 trucks being used (mostly travelling to other cities). This meant I didn't have enough trucks to share some crop with my pastures (they would run out of crops/raw materials). Im not sure why the trucks don't priortise the pastures over the cities.

In any case, as a guide (with 'Balanced' filling), with every 2 small crops I build, I also build them 1 silo. With every medium crop, I also build it one silo. And so on.

It also helps to have a silo next to the pastures (or wherever you want your crop materials to go).

This way there's enough trucks for any logistics.

TL;DR: Not a bug. You just need more trucks and more space (silos or storage areas).

 

[Tobasco da Gama]

It really is a shame they didn't make a setting on storage for crops,ore, etc. Telling it that this building will only serve local stuff or export only..

Actually, "Fill" pretty much does reserve the building for local deliveries (processors will pick up from storage buildings even when they're on "Fill"), while "Empty" pretty much reserves a building for exports (though I'm not clear whether extractors will still deliver to a building on "Empty").

 

[Promethian]

Actually, "Fill" pretty much does reserve the building for local deliveries (processors will pick up from storage buildings even when they're on "Fill"), while "Empty" pretty much reserves a building for exports (though I'm not clear whether extractors will still deliver to a building on "Empty").

They do. It frustrated me when I was trying to get rid of a warehouse because I was upgrading that resource to a bigger one (side note, the largest warehouse is horrifically space inefficient but the small and medium are good, skip the yard if you can). Don't bother with empty. I figured out the solution though. Set the resource allowed to none and the warehouse will do a full dump and no longer take deliveries.

 

[Turjan]

Regarding the warehouses, I can see that some level of abstraction is necessary, but even the largest one has only one loading bay that processes goods with the same glacial speed as the smallest ones do. There should be at least a speed multiplier for processing, probably the same as the capacity multiplier. At the moment, the resulting queues are ridiculous. You can speed the process up by using multiple small warehouses, but that should not be necessary.

I see appreciate all the well-meant suggestions, but in my case, nothing has helped with the farming situation yet.