Non-renewable resources

[Cymsdale]

The concept of non-renewable resources certainly adds a realistic aspect to the game, but as designed they run out unrealistically fast. It doesn't feel fun to have an aspect of the game that essentially gets removed from the map forever after a short period of time. I feel like it would be a worthwhile fun-over-realism sacrifice to just make them not run out at all.

 

[TimFisher]

I agree the non-renewable resources run out much too quickly, but this doesn't mean they should last forever.

 

[Pyoro]

Should imo at least be a mod/option. It's not like the balance of the game right now is so perfect nobody would ever think of screwing with it...

 

[Baro]

Yeah I just don't bother with them, too much micro-management. Maybe I'm a slow player butby the time I zone and build a specialized industry then do something else and look back,it's all run out. And when an area runs out it becomes absolutely choked with importing truck traffic. It's just not worth the micro.

 

[AngelOfPassion]

Yeah a mod to make these unlimited would be nice. I don't want to have to worry about it later honestly. Once I build the industry I just want to leave it and let it do its thing.

 

[DEY123]

I only put in like 1 or 2 industry 4 by 4s to make it last longer. What is really needed is increased supply and something that holds back how much you can extract from a field of ore/oil at once...so either greatly increase supply or decrease rate of getting the item from the ground. I think if you have a good amount of oil on the map you should be able to use it to power oil plants for 100+ years, but what I think happens is it gets extracted super fast and then exported out. instead of used by your internal power plants.

 

[Cymsdale]

More I think about it, more I think they should just be unlimited. What amount of time is too long or too short/long for having them last? Five minutes? Way too short. One hour? Two hours? 10 hours?

Just makes me wonder what the real gameplay point is of having them run out at all. So you have to press a button a district to make the industry switch over at some arbitrary point in time?

 

[Ri0Rdian]

They bring in much more money for almost no tradeoff, the fact that they run out is what makes them balanced against the rest. But the current rate of extraction/consumption is certainly crazy, it should be MUCH slower than it is.

 

[Beric]

I already made the request here to make them infinite, but didn't get any response.

I just want to have a full chain of all 4 zone types working at once, exporting to generic industry, and then transporting to the commercial district.

 

[zyphial]

I agree the non-renewable resources run out much too quickly, but this doesn't mean they should last forever.

I don't know, it's down to how time is interpreted. Estimating a real world life expectancy of 84 means a game-year is 14 years.

An example lies in the Los Angeles City Oil Field, which unfortunately is quite old but the only oil field I know of in a city. It took 10 years to hit peak oil back in 1890, but we can be generous and assume technology hasn't improved that much (it has, but lets be generous!). It still produces oil, but almost none now. By 1961, it had less than 10% of the peak oil wells, so lets call that "depleted" even though we can argue back and fourth on when it should be considered "depleted" and what "depleted" should look like in Skylines.

So that gives us about 70 real years of production which is only 5 in-game years. That's crazy short but I think I was quite generous with the estimates.

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Edit: Now, a cool thing would be to allow Fracking as a district ordinance. Fracking factories should have a huge radius of ground pollution, water pollution and it should spew polluted water into your pipe system, but it should produce oil anywhere.

I don't know of a good model for renewable ore. I don't think ore is depleted as fast as oil in reality, though. For something a bit fantastical, you could have Coal Mining as a district policy which has a huge fire risk and, if disasters ever work their way in, a coal fire (I wanna make Silent Hill!!!!).

 

[tk-093]

Yeah, if you make it unlimited, there should be a trade off, like maybe not quite as much money, or more pollution or workers have higher chance of dying because of increased danger? (Do they have accidents on the job?)

 

[zyphial]

Yeah, if you make it unlimited, there should be a trade off, like maybe not quite as much money, or more pollution or workers have higher chance of dying because of increased danger? (Do they have accidents on the job?)

You caught me editing, hahaha.

 

[Mithkabob]

Hmm, maybe. I'll have a look at what I can do with a mod. It would be a lot easier to do a few mods I have in mind if there was modding API hooks in the resource managers.

I think I can do a quick fix by dumping the resource back into the ground at a slightly faster rate than it removes it.

 

[ivmichael]

It's not that they should be infinite, but that you should be able to produce and supply locally without it all being exported and depleted that way, perhaps some way to set it so that production is set to match your local needs ? (And I'm guilty of plonking down too much and it going way too fast)

 

[Kagemusha]

IMHO it would already be great if we wouldn´t always have to move industrial areas along inside a mining district (in order to mine all resources within the district),
but instead would be able to declare 2 different zones:
The industrial zones (where, as before, you would have the buildings for the mining conpanies)
and the mining zone where the mining takes place (and the activity of the mining companies of the industrial zone lowers the resources contained therein)

As an example, look at real underground mining.
The hoist frame and all other buildings of a mine are localized at just one specific area ...
but the mines themselves, underground, can stretch along a huge area

 

[Mithkabob]

I made a mod for infinite resources.

It's not as cool as a fully fleshed out specialized industry system, but maybe someone will make one of those... or CO will make an expansion some time that focuses on the natural resources. We will see.

 

[Azraeil]

I made a mod for infinite resources.

It's not as cool as a fully fleshed out specialized industry system, but maybe someone will make one of those... or CO will make an expansion some time that focuses on the natural resources. We will see.

Doing god's work.

 

[AngelOfPassion]

I made a mod for infinite resources.

It's not as cool as a fully fleshed out specialized industry system, but maybe someone will make one of those... or CO will make an expansion some time that focuses on the natural resources. We will see.

Thanks, will look at it when I get home.

 

[Miraboreas]

They should've been unlimited without special bonuses for income to begin with. I made my 2nd city almost office free, so generic industry there need a lot of resources.
So I make my specialized industry here and there, make proper connection between specialized and generic industries to avoid heavy traffic everywhere else and... they run out of resources eventually, then my generic industry starts to import those resources, which causes terrible traffic between those zones and outside world. And I have to convert specialized industry to generic one as well, which causes even more traffic, plus I have to rebuild a big part of my roads, cause now they are essentially useless.

Gonna try that mod later though, thanks Mithkabob.

 

[Cymsdale]

I made a mod for infinite resources.

It's not as cool as a fully fleshed out specialized industry system, but maybe someone will make one of those... or CO will make an expansion some time that focuses on the natural resources. We will see.

Thanks. This seems like a good stop gap.