Factories suffering from lack of resources next to a warehouse!

[Glitcher]

Ever since Industries DLC came out, my zoned oil and ore industries have been suffering from lack of resources. These are districts that have milked the land dry of resources long ago, so now they depend on imported oil and ore to process. To alleviate the shortfall, I placed a medium or large warehouse next to these districts and set them to store the respective resources. Problem solved, right?

Actually, no. My factories are STILL complaining about lack of resources! My warehouses are 85% full (balanced mode), but my industry is still trying to import oil and ore instead of sourcing it from the warehouse right next door. And when the import doesn't arrive, the factory fails. Why? Is the simulation bugged or am I doing something wrong here?

 

[Turjan]

I think you should set the warehouses to "fill" if you don't produce the stored resource. It doesn't make much sense to export stuff you have to import first. This should at least free all the trucks for deliveries. That said, in a mature city, this may still not work.

I usually don't bother with zoned oil or ore industries after resources are gone. Too much traffic, too much hassle.

 

[barrygreybeard]

I use the built in Mod for infinite oil and ore.

 

[Promethian]

Your problem is likely the warehouse doesn't have enough trucks to do its job. Look at its infopanel I bet its trucks are all sent out on jobs. When that happens you need more warehouses.

 

[Glitcher]

Your problem is likely the warehouse doesn't have enough trucks to do its job. Look at its infopanel I bet its trucks are all sent out on jobs. When that happens you need more warehouses.

Huh! I never thought about that. You might be right, since my warehouses appear to be maxed out on freight truck deliveries.

I think you should set the warehouses to "fill" if you don't produce the stored resource. It doesn't make much sense to export stuff you have to import first. This should at least free all the trucks for deliveries. That said, in a mature city, this may still not work.

But is setting the warehouses to fill really the solution? If an oil factory requires resources, a full warehouse won't supply it with any because it's supposed to stay at 100% capacity. Is there a flaw in that logic?

 

[Avanya]

As far as I can tell Fill isn't a good choice. I observed a bunch of storage buildings set to fill for a while and once full they just sat there with no trucks in use at all. They don't seem to deliver around the city at all, they just sit there greedily with all their resources stockpiled. I found Balanced to be the best option, perhaps with a few set to Empty (I consider this a "focus on export" setting).

 

[Turjan]

But is setting the warehouses to fill really the solution? If an oil factory requires resources, a full warehouse won't supply it with any because it's supposed to stay at 100% capacity. Is there a flaw in that logic?

No, you are right. I checked a bit more, and balanced is better. In my big city I just have too many destinations, with hundreds of Green Cities commercial stores.

I'd just like them to speed up the loading animation. Those queues are epic.

 

[Tennyson]

Warehouses seem to complicate things more than they help things.

 

[Glitcher]

Warehouses seem to complicate things more than they help things.

I'm starting to get the same feeling too. What Industries DLC really boils down to is just a more complicated way of doing exactly what you were doing in vanilla. Is that a fair assumption?

 

[Turjan]

Warehouses work okay for the most part, at least as long as you use them for processed goods. On the other hand, those storage facilites for raw materials definitely need some tweaks. I think they tanked my traffic rating by 10 points. I don't get agriculture to play nice. The rest sort of works.

 

[Promethian]

I'm starting to get the same feeling too. What Industries DLC really boils down to is just a more complicated way of doing exactly what you were doing in vanilla. Is that a fair assumption?

Yes and it is exactly what many of us have been asking for for a long time. What you are looking at is iterative game development except instead of happening behind closed doors we get to play it at each step. Its the Paradox model. They make a good game with room for improvement and then keep improving it for years to come. Somewhere along the way it becomes the best game of its genre. They already basically own the Grand Strategy genre because of this.

 

[Avanya]

Warehouses seem to complicate things more than they help things.

Absolutely not. Warehouses are extremely helpful in avoiding any factory or commercial complaining about getting resoures/goods in time. But they need to be used properly, it isn't enough to just dump one and ignore it. Honestly that goes for the whole new industry - it's something we're supposed to check on and balance out. If that isn't something you enjoy doing or just want to avoid, I would suggest sticking to mostly zoned industry. I would still use warehouses though, they'll make your life easier.

The trick with warehouses is to understand how they work. The 3 settings have targeted values for how full they aim to be - Empty 0-20%, Balanced 40-60%, Full 80-100%. Empty doesn't import and will use all trucks to get rid of its supply - consider this a "focus on exporting" option. Balanced will import (if needed and possible for the resource) until the target value is reached, then deliver goods around to factories/commercial as they need it. If Balanced is too full it will use all trucks to export to try and get down to its target value. Full is just greedy and will import or wait for deliveries until it's full and then it will just sit on it - consider this a sort of stockpile option to be changed later (having full warehouses just sitting on the resourece is a waste).

Having most storage buildings set to Balanced with maybe a few on Empty is the best way to go in my experience. If you're producing the resource they store, you need to make sure they don't get too full - you'll want at least one storage building of a given resource to have around 5 trucks sitting around doing nothing at any point you check it. This ensures that there are free vehicles to deliver goods when buildings in your city need them. And once that's the case you will barely ever see the complaints about resources or goods - no more having a commercial collapse because of a little more traffic or bad timing.

 

[Geraldo (CA)]

Sorry to dig this after so long, but I respectfully disagree with your conclusion on some things.
"Fill" is keeping this warehouse between 80 and 100%... but when you explain, fill is keep your warehouse at 100% (not between 80 and 100...)
For me, this is a bug in the way these are behaving, read your guide and you even say:
""

Here is what I tried to set up:
I have a furniture factory, that can hold 26 tons of paper, 29 tons of planned timber, and 13 tons of product, cool.
I've set two warehouses just beside it, to watch that factory... set them to fill, they can hold 200 tons each, I was expecting that they'd get filled with orders from my Specialize industry zone, up to 100, and when my factory would need the product, they'd deliver (8 tons per truck, so wouldn't even make a dent into them)... And potentially they'd order from the processing area...

For me, this behaviour would make more sense than fill just being "hold all resources".
Using Balanced is too risky as if I produce too much of a resource, I can easily overload the delivery trucks from the warehouses (all of them over the whole city) which is cumbersome to manage for a huge city.

I still believe there's a bug on the AI, when I have a warehouse sitting idle, filled with resources, and a factory right beside it is in need.. I'd expect at the very least, that the warehouse would fulfil that delivery quickly, and order from the processing building to keep its level.

Am I too dumb or missing some weird point here?