I have grown to hate steel. My motor factories get starved if there is a large distance between them and the steel factories, but a short distance between the steel factories and a construction materials warehouse. The fact that the construction warehouse is bottomless means that the factories will always be able to send product there. The result is that I have to have dedicated steel mills for construction and others for motors. Ideally, the ones used for construction are disconnected from my main transportation grid so that they dont muck up my other balance.
Recommended solutions:
A selector on steel mills/factories that allows you the steel to construction warehouse or just to factories (con: a new UI feature that isnât available elsewhere - complicated).
A âreserveâ function that always keeps 10-30 steel for factories, then pushes overflow to the construction warehouse (con: slows down burst capacity for construction)
Separate âConstruction Steelâ and âFactory Steelâ resources (Rebar vs steel? - Carbon steel vs Stainless? - Construction Grade vs Material Grade?).
Something else entirely that Iâm not able to visualize, yet.
(sry for translate mistakes ,using google translator :D)
1 solution exists. figures outside the main chain transport another steel factory for the construction warehouse, and in the main chain remove the warehouse: D in the main chain there will be steel when not used in the warehouse of the steel factory + you will eliminate the possibility of carbon traffic jam inside the city (can also create same method for research to improve main transport for city/cities)
You can set up districts pretty easily to direct certain steel mills to only go to the storage facility, and others to go to your motor factories. Itâs super easy UI to set up the districts, the only downside is that the minimal size circle is kind of big. Trust me when i tell you that the districts will make your headaches go away (mostly - traffic will still be a nightmare)
I tried similar things, but youâll find that the logic doesnât seem to account for traffic jams in its route decision making, so having more than 2 construction warehouses close together means the middle ones arenât used.
I have been using small cells of steel production with a straight road with iron miners at one end and the construction warehouse on the other. Then in the middle I will put 3 steel factories and either 3 carbon processors or 6 atmospheric processors. Its important that they all sit on the right side, when traveling from the iron to the construction warehouse, to eliminate turns across the road, which are slower than turns to the near side. The side for the warehouse is ideally on the right (it matters far less), but the iron miners donât really matter, at all. Then add a solar generator or windmills and a few poles to power it.
I do the same with sulpher and concrete, with sand instead of the carbon processors. It just takes more sand to balance out.
PS: Putting high volume of any production resource in one location means traffic. Spread it out as much as you can tolerate. If you have a ton of steel being manufactured in one place and then place a building that requires steel, they will all send out trucks at once and clog the roads from the factories, since theyâre all coming out together and following the same route. Overproduction of steel is a killer, if you do this. Better to produce EXACTLY enough of it (and most other resources) to eliminate potential sources of trucks.
You will find that the most limited resource on the map is road space.
The best solution to avoid steel shortages in motor plants is to limit the capacity of the warehouse. For example, one warehouse building - 50,000 units, with a choice of what to put there - steel or concrete. When the warehouse is filled, the production of concrete and steel stops, but if some factories need steel, it moves to where it is needed.
(sorry for the mistakes - this is a Google translation )
I built this as one of my first priorities and since it was in operation from the beginning, I had the opposite problem. It is situated at long distances from my motor factories, but there is zero supply problems, once I noticed that priority was being given to the storehouses located in the district.
It was obvious I could have rigged up something involving districting a small number of refineries just for storage, but by that time, I already had something close to 60k steel stocked up and it was easier to simply cut the connection and retire.
As long as transportation networks are adequate and you have enough supply, distance isnât going to factor in as much as you think, at least for industrial consumers.
)