Synthetic Materials Plants don't work anymore since 1.11

[Von Klugge]

The title is self explanatory. Weirdly enough Synthetic Oil plants still work.

Step to reproduce: load a later start with US or Germany. No rare produced with plants.

 

[Pang Bingxun]

This is probably because of a lack of fuels. 1.11 introduced some limits when AI stops to use synthetic plants. A human steered country however should still be able to use those plants while there is no hard lack of the needed inputs.

Edit: But it is not. Seems like the AI rule applies for a human steered country, too.

 

[Pang Bingxun]

Further testing shows that Synthetic Material plants work only to the extent that the national oil stockpile exceeds twice the national stockpile of rare_materials. If it is less than twice, then no rares are synthesized. If it is just a bit above twice, then only that much oil will be used to fuel the synthetic plants and output is limited accordingly. It is possibly to reach a steady state where only a portion of the Synthetic Material plants are utilized. For a human steered country that is bad design, as there is a slider for making the determination which portion of the plants are to be utilized. For a human steered country it is the slider that should make the determination.