I know you mentioned in one of your recent note releases that the priority for delivery was to shift to closer users, but there is still plenty of cross map shipments of materials where the trucks have to drive past a critical need to reach some other more distant destination.
A bigger issue seems to be mines/factories/labs will fill up and not ship to any need. A rocket motor factory is shut down for need of copper and a copper mine next to it is full. If you choose to save the game at this point and then reload it, that mine will dump all or most of its store to fill the rocket motor factories need and many others. You might also see a group of computer factories also flood the road with trucks that they have been holding onto. I find that I am saving and loading on a regular basis in order to fill material needs.
I see. There is one bug here and one thing that seems to be normal behavior:
If all of the nearby factories have enough resources, producers will start supplying factories that are further away. This is normal, since otherwise you’d have idle workers that leave some productivity on the table.
However, a full copper mine should supply the motor factory. It’s interesting that the behavior changes when reloading. You could try running the game for 10 minutes without touching it (turn on “run in background” in the settings for convenience). If those kind of non-deliveries are happening all by their own, I’d be interested in seeing your save so I can reproduce the issue. You can send it to me at daniel@dionicsoftware.com
!. Prior to reaching 1000 residents, I always start a new sub-division. I have learned that in order to keep traffic somewhat under control, I must have one central area where appliances, electronics, computers, etc will be located. The down side to this is that the extremes of both communities might be under served, maybe to the point of downgrading. If I add a small area of these (say appliances since its needed first) , that single factory will fill up and sit idle MOST of the time while the major hub will perform the supply. The problem happens with the iron and copper that might be feeding the local factories. With that factory full and nearly idle those materials are sent back to the central manufacturing area where they are really not needed. ?If I also have that same set up in the other sub-division, the cross feed my be across the full community). There is plenty available from the main mines. Kept at a minimum, this might not cause a traffic problem, but if you add microchip and computer, etc to the remote manufacturing areas you are asking for criss-crossing of materials as the mines cross feed the factories and this will eventually lead to traffic jams.
I’m not sure what the intention is for space port placement, but with one at each of my 2 sub-divisions, if I add new habitats to each of them, the 2 space ports will cross feed approx. 50% of the time, with pink trucks passing midway between them. This is a smaller view of what can happen with all of the other materials. Maybe a parameter that limits shipment to a variable diameter. There are no distance, or any other types of parameters available now, so I know it would add a new level of complexity to the game. Just a thought.
Traffic jams at individual factories or labs it still happening. If I let the game sit for long enough, the jam will extend out in all directions causing all sorts of material shortages. I have learned NOT to perform the “same and reload” function. When all the supplies dump there materials onto the streets, jams can happen in multiple places. This gets worse as the community size increases.
For some reason, motor factories stand out as being the most frustrating. One place across the road from a neural prossessor/yellow lab combo will fill up and sit idle while one placed in another area continues to supply the needed motors. The labs will be displaying need for motors, but that factory will not fill the need. I imagine this factory is not unique, but like the space ports, there is small number of them so they are easy to monitor.