City importing tonnes of raw materials despite me over-producing them

[NEXUS12]

Title says it all really.

I'm importing 3,000 worth (whatever that numebr represents) of stuff. Exporting around 4,500 with a population of around 85k.

All my industry areas are 5 stars, and forestry in particular has 'not enough buyers for goods'. This is because I am producing 374 tonnes of raw materials, and my factories/indy buildings require only 96 tonnes.

Yet around a quarter of my imports are raw forestry products. Why? I produce so many more tonnes internally than I actually need.

Is it something to do with the warehouse storages? I have them all set to balanced. I'm wondering if setting them all to export will stop my buildings from choosing to import externally.

TLDR I don't know precisely how imports and exports work.

 

[ristosal]

Is it something to do with the warehouse storages? I have them all set to balanced. I'm wondering if setting them all to export will stop my buildings from choosing to import externally.

It probably is, and more specifically with raw material storage. If they're full despite being set to balanced, it means the storage is overwhelmed and exports a lot of raw materials. If most vehicles from these are busy exporting, it means they can't meet local demand and processors are forced to import.

Industries DLC is a balancing act. You don't really need more raw material production than what your processors require; raw forest products and crops in particular have a rather low export value. Unique factory products is where the big money is.

 

[NEXUS12]

It probably is, and more specifically with raw material storage. If they're full despite being set to balanced, it means the storage is overwhelmed and exports a lot of raw materials. If most vehicles from these are busy exporting, it means they can't meet local demand and processors are forced to import.

Industries DLC is a balancing act. You don't really need more raw material production than what your processors require; raw forest products and crops in particular have a rather low export value. Unique factory products is where the big money is.

Interesting, thanks.

Do you think the best solution would be for me to set these to empty? Or should I scale back raw material production? It seems sort of counter-intuitive to do so when I'm also having to import said materials but I guess the current setup isn't working anyway.

 

[Glitcher]

Interesting, thanks.

Do you think the best solution would be for me to set these to empty? Or should I scale back raw material production? It seems sort of counter-intuitive to do so when I'm also having to import said materials but I guess the current setup isn't working anyway.

Ristosal's probably right that you have more extractors than needed, upsetting your supply chain. A common mistake among players is they get overzealous with extracting resources, placing or zoning buildings until your freight network is overwhelmed. On the other hand, the Outside Connections info view sadly doesn't distinguish between extracted resources and processed resources. It's possible you're exporting 3000 tons of extracted resources and importing 4500 tons of processed resources because you don't have enough processors to complement your extractors. Of course, this would only occur with zoned specialized industry, since industry areas can't import processed goods like glass or paper. Without knowing your exact setup, it's hard to tell.

Ultimately, the likely culprit is too many extractors and a poor transportation network that's choking the distribution of freight. Do you have a decent cargo rail system in place? If you want, feel free to share your .crp save file here. I'll take a look at it and tell you exactly what's wrong with your supply chain.

 

[NEXUS12]

Ristosal's probably right that you have more extractors than needed, upsetting your supply chain. A common mistake among players is they get overzealous with extracting resources, placing or zoning buildings until your freight network is overwhelmed. On the other hand, the Outside Connections info view sadly doesn't distinguish between extracted resources and processed resources. It's possible you're exporting 3000 tons of extracted resources and importing 4500 tons of processed resources because you don't have enough processors to complement your extractors. Of course, this would only occur with zoned specialized industry, since industry areas can't import processed goods like glass or paper. Without knowing your exact setup, it's hard to tell.

Ultimately, the likely culprit is too many extractors and a poor transportation network that's choking the distribution of freight. Do you have a decent cargo rail system in place? If you want, feel free to share your .crp save file here. I'll take a look at it and tell you exactly what's wrong with your supply chain.

Here is the savefile, thanks! Be warned that I run a tonne of mods so if you unpause it may cause some havoc.

The issues aren't gamebreaking or anything, the city is running just fine. But my income/expenditure fluctuates massively from + to -50k at times, and I'm almost certain its due to sudden bulk import of goods.

 

[MarkJohnson]

The game shows you are using the old LSM, use the newer temporary one instead.

Steam Workshop::Loading Screen Mod temporary - OUTDATED

steamcommunity.com

You may want to go over the other mods as well.

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I loaded the game and the first thing I noticed was that you had your budgets mostly set to 150%. I typically leave them at 100% as 150% charges overtime, so you only get like 125% worth of services.

Plus if you keep everything at defaults, then it is easier to keep things in balance so you know your budgeting is not your problems. When adjusting budgets, you get a positive effect and a negative effect. so if you adjust mid-game it may take a while to finally fully equalize, then you don't know what things were the cause of your problems from many adjustments earlier in the game.

**************************************************

Then I added a ton of water, sewage, and power and the city has cleared up and stopped stuttering and stammering all over the place.

I'm clueless on why it cleared it up, unless all of that overtime as killing the AI to track it all? lol

but adjusting any of these game settings can have side effects. Same with policies. They should only be set locally per district with the district tool. adjusting them in the main tool bar will set them city wide and could possibly cause negative effects in areas that don't need the policy.

 

[Glitcher]

Here is the savefile, thanks! Be warned that I run a tonne of mods so if you unpause it may cause some havoc.

The issues aren't gamebreaking or anything, the city is running just fine. But my income/expenditure fluctuates massively from + to -50k at times, and I'm almost certain its due to sudden bulk import of goods.

Highly dependent mods by the looks of it. I can't load the save file at all; I get a NullReferenceException error. That's the problem with too many mods: You can't share your file with gamers who play without. In fact, it's possible that some of these mods may be causing conflicts within the simulation and creating the problems you're experiencing. You'll have to make a mod-free save if you want me to review it.

MarkJohnson's right, though. You should never leave your budgets at 150% because you only get 125% service from them. Conversely, setting the budget to 50% lowers the service to 25%. Adjusting budgets should only be a temporary solution until you get more service buildings in place, but you should leave them at the default 100% otherwise. The exception is unique factories, because you can increase their production rate instead of their budget - providing they receive steady deliveries to sustain that pace.

City-wide policies are fine, but just be mindful which districts actually need them. You can change the policies for individual districts.

 

[MarkJohnson]

Highly dependent mods by the looks of it. I can't load the save file at all; I get a NullReferenceException error. That's the problem with too many mods: You can't share your file with gamers who play without. In fact, it's possible that some of these mods may be causing conflicts within the simulation and creating the problems you're experiencing. You'll have to make a mod-free save if you want me to review it.

MarkJohnson's right, though. You should never leave your budgets at 150% because you only get 125% service from them. Conversely, setting the budget to 50% lowers the service to 25%. Adjusting budgets should only be a temporary solution until you get more service buildings in place, but you should leave them at the default 100% otherwise. The exception is unique factories, because you can increase their production rate instead of their budget - providing they receive steady deliveries to sustain that pace.

City-wide policies are fine, but just be mindful which districts actually need them. You can change the policies for individual districts.

All workshop are tied to saved games. You can simply go to content manager then savegames, find the save game and click "Subscribe All" and it will subscribe everything automatically.

It may crash sometimes, but relaunch steam by itself and let it finish downloading everything.

Then just click play and go back into the game and click "enable all" and it should load the game. Just make sure to unsubscribe the old loading screen mod and subscribe to the new LSM for airports dlc. and you should be fine.

Then just unsubscribe all when finished to go back to your vanilla game afterwards.

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I continued on in the game a little bit, but your city is very young and immature. It needs real education schools to educate everyone. School blimps and library are extremely slow and educate very few cims.

There are also a lot on dead end roads that slow down cims and one-way roads delaying cims a lot. This keeps vehicles on the road for a longer period of time and increases traffic a lot.

 

[Ragga Muffin]

not enough customers is solved with more commerse which in turn needs more res
everybody else pretty much got you sorted here
you wont need that good an education for forestry but it wont hurt
zoned specialist indy is always lvl 5 edit (sry max lvl)

 

[Ragga Muffin]

That's impressive, considering there are no level 5 industry.

figure of speech, the zoned specialist indy will be max lvl.
the man talking about stars anyway so thats indy dlc
so if the OP puts warehouses near production buildings, the settings you want are; fill for resources, empty for products
if it is raw goods producers complaining of customers then build more secondarys

and im using my Xbone browser and the On screen keyboard with a tired controller

 

[NEXUS12]

Hi all,

Thanks so much for the above advice. Wasn't expecting quite so much! I do love this community.

I wasn't aware of the 150% sliders being an issue, so that is something I will look at for sure. Apologies for the heavily modded game causing issues though.

Then I added a ton of water, sewage, and power and the city has cleared up and stopped stuttering and stammering all over the place.

I'm clueless on why it cleared it up, unless all of that overtime as killing the AI to track it all? lol

but adjusting any of these game settings can have side effects. Same with policies. They should only be set locally per district with the district tool. adjusting them in the main tool bar will set them city wide and could possibly cause negative effects in areas that don't need the policy.

I tend to be tight with my money and keep water/power just above what is required (though with a huge surplus now, I guess I can afford to spend more).

EDIT: I think I've found the problem (sort of). When I watch my oil and coal profit (forestry and farming to a lesser extent), it fluctuates WILDLY. As in, one day oil indy is making me 80k profit, the next, 20k. My expenses in general remain stagnant, but its the income in fact that is fluctuating so much.

I'm presuming this may be due to the fact that I am producing so much oil, that there are some days where there simply isn't a buyer for the raw materials?

 

[Ragga Muffin]

Yeah, importing raw will flucuate your "displayed" income a lot, you learn to not worry, as soon as you start selling uniques you make stupid cash
Placing warehouses with the fill order will dent your income a bit as they fill up (cause that is you buying raw)

 

[MarkJohnson]

Hi all,

I tend to be tight with my money and keep water/power just above what is required (though with a huge surplus now, I guess I can afford to spend more).

Yes, this is very helpful in the early game, but once you have steady income, this moving of sliders can upset cims as lower slider can make them happier, while lowering them can make them unhappy, then you can start getting complaints and other issues.

EDIT: I think I've found the problem (sort of). When I watch my oil and coal profit (forestry and farming to a lesser extent), it fluctuates WILDLY. As in, one day oil indy is making me 80k profit, the next, 20k. My expenses in general remain stagnant, but its the income in fact that is fluctuating so much.

I'm presuming this may be due to the fact that I am producing so much oil, that there are some days where there simply isn't a buyer for the raw materials?

Yes, this can wildly fluctuate from many things. imports/export can hog up your delivery vehicles as they leave the map then come back, so you can be without many trucks for a long time. This can really hamper Unique factories as well. Which makes the most money.

You can likely smooth things out by balancing exports/imports by reducing excess export by removing raw materials like ore, oil, crops, and , etc. as it will free up delivery trucks.

You can also reduce imports by reducing the zoned, yellow, generic industry. They can't use the raw materials from Industries DLC and won't accept the Industries DLC processed materials, so generic industry will need to import all of its oil, ore, agriculture, and forestry.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I wasn't aware of the 150% sliders being an issue, so that is something I will look at for sure.

Yeah, in general 100% is the most efficient. When increasing the budget, the cost goes up faster than the benefit. When decreasing the budget, the benefit decreases faster than the cost.

There is a graph here that shows it:

Economy - Cities: Skylines Wiki

skylines.paradoxwikis.com

There are exceptions of course, like water in particular in the early game. Your first pump generates far more than you need, so reducing the cost makes sense. And setting services to 101% gets you extra vehicles for almost negligible cost increase, well worth it.

When you place service buildings, and the road area goes green to help show the area of effect, this is the area that will help level up due to the services. The services will drive beyond that green, but the green is what helps make more tax income due to the leveling up. If you decrease budgets, these green distances will reduce, and well, that's bad.

I recommend leaving them at 100% (101% for anything with vehicles) for the most part. Water (and electricity) is worth saving on early game, but as you increase back up as demand increases, you're best to keep going up if you can't afford new water pumps / power generators, and only until you can. At 150% cost, you only get 125% service.

 

[Ragga Muffin]

You can also reduce imports by reducing the zoned, yellow, generic industry. They can't use the raw materials from Industries DLC and won't accept the Industries DLC processed materials, so generic industry will need to import all of its oil, ore, agriculture, and forestry.

Generic/specialist indy uses all primary and secondary goods, uniques are the only resourses out of the loop with generic/specialist
Commerse within your city also sells these goods, if you dont have the commerse base to sell all of them then they are exported
Cruise ships are the only unique that are not sold in city

 

[MarkJohnson]

Generic/specialist indy uses all primary and secondary goods, uniques are the only resourses out of the loop with generic/specialist
Commerse within your city also sells these goods, if you dont have the commerse base to sell all of them then they are exported
Cruise ships are the only unique that are not sold in city

This isn't true. The only shared resources between zoned industry and industries DLC are the raw resource (that generic industry doesn't use) and the final goods that goes to commerce. The rest of the chain isn't interchangeable at all.

Just look at your warehouses and all of the individual freight storage types available. they are all completely different, because they are not interchangeable.

Here's a little more info if you care to examine it more closely.

Supply chain - Cities: Skylines Wiki

skylines.paradoxwikis.com

It also has all costs and amounts produced so you can better preplan your industry, so you don't overproduce and flood your streets with freight.

 

[Ragga Muffin]

This isn't true. The only shared resources between zoned industry and industries DLC are the raw resource (that generic industry doesn't use) and the final goods that goes to commerce. The rest of the chain isn't interchangeable at all.

Just look at your warehouses and all of the individual freight storage types available. they are all completely different, because they are not interchangeable.

Here's a little more info if you care to examine it more closely.

Supply chain - Cities: Skylines Wiki

skylines.paradoxwikis.com

It also has all costs and amounts produced so you can better preplan your industry, so you don't overproduce and flood your streets with freight.

And that flow chart clearly show products from indy dlc going to generic indy.
And zoned special indy will supply secondaries from dlc, although exactly what they produce is labled different
Easiest test is wood, "extractors". The total wood produced it also counted on the indy zone

Biggest tip i can give is rail that freight

Its not exactly right, nor im I, but both are close enough to get idea of whats happening

 

[MarkJohnson]

And that flow chart clearly show products from indy dlc going to generic indy.
And zoned special indy will supply secondaries from dlc, although exactly what they produce is labled different
Easiest test is wood, "extractors". The total wood produced it also counted on the indy zone

Biggest tip i can give is rail that freight

Its not exactly right, nor im I, but both are close enough to get idea of whats happening

I'm sorry, I can't follow you. making up your own terms are too confusing. try reading the chart and use the proper terms, so I can make sense of what you are saying.

 

[Ragga Muffin]

I'm sorry, I can't follow you. making up your own terms are too confusing. try reading the chart and use the proper terms, so I can make sense of what you are saying.

View attachment 822663

Making up my own terms???
These terms used are the same terms used for about 5000 years, what other terms should i be using???
Someone clearly didnt pay attention at school, just like the person that did that chart, its 8th grade geography

But for those that dont know, (i didnt think it was that hard to work out)
Primary indy is farming, fishing, mining, forestry (raw extraction)
Secondary indy is processing of primarys
Tiertery indy is the "final" step, it uses processed goods and sometimes primarys to create goods for sale / use

So grain is a primary
It is processed into flour in a secondary (mill)
It is further processed into bread at a baker

Dont blame me for the terms, blame the Romans