Logistics problem

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: compactset

Not to open another thread, I also would like to ask you about the following matter regarding logistic here.
The problem is the following: I simply want to redirect the logistic points of my rail network in one direction, to do this I simply put a sign where the rail line diverges so the rail points coming from my capitol are sent preferabily to the other direction without any sign. But the points previewed by the system tell me that I would get less points in such direction next turn. Here are the screens



The hex where I am putting the sign is the one selected, directly north of my capitol. I want to sent most of the logistic to the N-E direction, but if I put a restriction on the rail going to West then the game computes less available points going to NE next turn.

I tried to modify the traffic signs already plenty of time, and it worked as intended. So it should not be a a bug but rather there is some complication which I am not expecting. On the West there is another city with a rail station level 2, while on the E a city with a level 2 magnetic line station. So it is not a problem regarding the absence of a train station or train head at one of the terminal points of the rail. What could it be?

You mean the route to the North/east is the one where you want more, but get less?

Maybe the assets were not fully supplied this turn, meaning they produce less logistics next turn?

IIRC Zones produce pull points equal to last turns consumption (to account for anything not yet retreived by the SHQ). So maybe there is a lot of pull on the northwards route? Anything happening in the north wich might produce a unusual amount of traffic/pull?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: compactset

I never quite understood: Why do people put railways to assets near the city?
- excessive Branching will still penalize the Railway Capacity
- you need to have a road to those assets anyway. At least last I checked Railways did not satisfy the "I am connected to a SHQ/City" checks - only roads did
- I put a T1 Truckstation into every city. Under the SHQ I propably hit Tier 3 before even considering Railway. Those can deal with any assets near the city

I would clean this whole thing up quite a bit so those nearby assets are only connected via a dedicated road.
Only if the main railway/road happens to run through their hex, I would have them use that one. Everything else would trace a connection directly to the city whenever possible.
All the big branching would happen in my City, under the SHQ and right on top of the Logistics producers.

[compactset]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
You mean the route to the North/east is the one where you want more, but get less?

Maybe the assets were not fully supplied this turn, meaning they produce less logistics next turn?

IIRC Zones produce pull points equal to last turns consumption (to account for anything not yet retreived by the SHQ). So maybe there is a lot of pull on the northwards route? Anything happening in the north wich might produce a unusual amount of traffic/pull?

The city at N-W is fully supplied, I had so many logistic in excess (+5k) that this is why I decided to put a traffic sign. The city at E is the one needing more stuff to construct more advanced structures. So redirecting points to N-E should not leave assets not supplied.

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
I never quite understood: Why do people put railways to assets near the city?

In my case the two rail stations outside my capitol are magnetic line stations, since the city had already a normal train station I could not built it inside the city hex. I needed desperately more logistic since on the Eastern front I had an ongoing war with 2 major regimes. The distance to that front is +30 hexes, so rail stations are the only solution. I am not think that my logistic system is optimal at all.

[yutowap33]

So far my general rule of thumb:
* Rail is for connecting cities/zones, Road is for connecting assets inzone.
* Rail line should connect just city to city, no merging to other lines if possible (**)
* No more than 3 connection per city.
* cities on the outskrits push 100% inward, hub cities (with more than 1 connection) push in the direction needed
* If you have created a ring for redundancy push just in one direction.
* always keep in eye for bottlenecks and be proactive in upgrading infra.

(**) this avoids some AP loss due to refocusing at stations (see DTurtle guide) and allows easier traffic mangment by setting just few rail logistics at cities and mostly ignoring everything else.

ORIGINAL: compactset
In my case the two rail stations outside my capitol are magnetic line stations, since the city had already a normal train station I could not built it inside the city hex. I needed desperately more logistic

See: fb.asp?m=4932670

[compactset]

ORIGINAL: yutowap33
See: fb.asp?m=4932670

This is basically what I did. Instead of adding just one station I added two in two different hexes, I had the rail converge in a hex before the capitol and I took care to place the appropriate signs so no logistic goes to the outside stations.

[yutowap33]

Branching - Logistical Points will decrease if you branch your tracks too much (penalties starts after 4).
Refocusing - Logistical Points will decrease by 25% with each logistical asset(rail stations etc) they reach.

It's very hard to tell from the screenshot, but:

* Anything less than 100% block means that you have an extra branch on the line, so suspect that your action causing extra branching penalty.
* if your two stations are on the siderail bellow the capital, then that's a waste they always start with 25% refocusing penalty because they have always to go through the capital. See the example in the guide, you want to connect the stations to the line you want to strengthen.
* Also try remove the rail connection between NE and NW rail, so they only go into the city this should reduce.

[compactset]

1) the point is that all the rail lines involved are open (not closed at 100%). I just blocked 60%-80% of the flow in direction to N-W and that happened: I get more points going through N-W instead of E. But since I never blocked rail lines there should not be any additional refocusing penalty.
2) The examples and suggestions proposed by the post you linked still suffer from refocusing. Even in the scheme proposed via the Paint image the logistic points starting at the station outside the city and going through it suffer from refocusing. My case is no exception, I know, but this problem is intrinsic to all the suggestions proposed by the guide.

Also, I state it again, I adopted that solution because I needed to build immediately magnetic lines and I needed a constant stream of logistic. Normally you would have to close your rail station and wait for it to be destroyed by negligence. Since it can bear 1400 points of damage and it receives only 100 pts of damage every turn it stays closed you have to wait 14 turns to be able to construct a magnetic rail station at the city.

Maybe you do not know this but you cannot build a rail station and a magnetic rail station on the same hex: for how it is coded the game considers them the same type of asset. It was requested a lot of time ago to change this but it was not yet implemented. So if your city has already a normal rail station you have to close it and wait for it to disappear. This really disrupts your logistical network so I opted for the approach I explained above.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: yutowap33

So far my general rule of thumb:
* Rail is for connecting cities/zones, Road is for connecting assets inzone.
* Rail line should connect just city to city, no merging to other lines if possible (**)
* No more than 3 connection per city.
* cities on the outskrits push 100% inward, hub cities (with more than 1 connection) push in the direction needed
* If you have created a ring for redundancy push just in one direction.
* always keep in eye for bottlenecks and be proactive in upgrading infra.

(**) this avoids some AP loss due to refocusing at stations (see DTurtle guide) and allows easier traffic mangment by setting just few rail logistics at cities and mostly ignoring everything else.

ORIGINAL: compactset
In my case the two rail stations outside my capitol are magnetic line stations, since the city had already a normal train station I could not built it inside the city hex. I needed desperately more logistic

See: fb.asp?m=4932670

That picture is pretty much my ideal Logistics setup as well. Most Branches are in the city, so there is only one hex with branches.
And no pointles spamming of Railroads to every Ruin little asset, leaving it to the Trucks to deal with such minor stuff.

I am a bit unsure about your "No more than 3 connection per city" rule. I already know the city hex will incur the "branches" penalty. AFAIK the number of branches in one hex does not mater, just that there is a effecivel splitup.

[DTurtle]

ORIGINAL: compactset
The sign on the capital are the ones in the third picture. I am only blocking the flow of logistic points on the sides, so they go only North or South.
I tried to put a sign for 60%-80% in the hex above the capital and that strange effect appears. Both towns at the two ends of the rail are not dead roads but have other roads where the logistic can flow, so there should not be problem like the system ignoring my signs not to have points wasted.

The problem is not actually crucial since I won the game 10 turns ago but I wanted to understand what is happening.

Could you link the save? I'll take a look at it and try to figure it out.

[compactset]

Here is the save
https://filebin.net/z9t0klc9qsy7n9yy
I should mention that the rail line going to NE goes in circle and comes back to the south of the capitol. Also I played most of this game on version 1.06.05.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: compactset

Here is the save
https://filebin.net/z9t0klc9qsy7n9yy
I should mention that the rail line going to NE goes in circle and comes back to the south of the capitol. Also I played most of this game on version 1.06.05.

That Logistics network is less understandable then those Stairs from McEsher:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_(M._C._Escher)#/media/File:Escher's_Relativity.jpg

I as a human have no idea how the supplies should flow in that madness.
It is a maze of dead ends, circles, 100% block and branches with no apparent rhyme or reason.

[newageofpower]

Your image doesn't work. Try rehosting that screenshot on Imgur or something.

[compactset]

Ok, like I said before I am not claiming it is a good network. I just wanted to understand that strange behavior to have a deeper knowledge of the mechanics and avoid future trouble.
That said in m defense I would add:
1) at the East of my capitol, after the mountain ranges, the zone with 4 nearby cities was originally of 3 mayor regimes. There you have a lot of non-sensical road which the AI built. I usually prefer not to destroy infrastructure but to regulate with signs. It is a purely psychological habit of considering that a waste, but I know that other people would prefer to have a clean road network.
2) Some road were constructed only to supply my units: this planet is mostly desert and there were a lot of raiders which constantly threatened my supply lines.
3) In some city I had the rail line connect from an edge different from a main road: this way I can use the sign mode without having to bother to set the sign working only for trucks or rail.
4) Except for the above facts, the system should be functional. After conquering Alba and Dierkenfield which formed the first skeleton of my rail line, I moved to E toward the mayors and attacked both at North and South on that front. Doing so I could isolate Monfield from the other two cities and effectively cut off 1/3 of one army from its supply source. So I connected with rails first Monsfield, then another city to the South with tso different rail heads coming from Inlandtown and Alba respectively. After clearing also the middle of that front I decided to join the two extremities together to form a ring. After that I expanded to the zone S-W of Alba and went in that direction straight. This is why at Alba the rail line splits.

Maybe the system could be configurated in a more efficient way, but this is what I constructed progressively during the course of a game of 140 turns, during which I had a lot of minor fronts with minors regimes, independent units and raiders.

[compactset]

If you right click and open in another tab you can see it without problem, it is just a dawning by Escher posted as joke.

[DTurtle]

Haven't figured it out completely, but there is something weird (aka buggy) going on with partially blocking everything (including pull points) directly after the junction and then having assets with pull points there. If you don't block pull points, it is correct. If you have the rail roads going slightly differently, it is correct. If you block some of the pull points, it is correct.

I'll try narrowing it down and then I'll make a bug report about it. I can replicate it around the SHQ to a certain extent, but still want to see if I can provoke it elsewhere. It seems to need some extremely specific circumstances in order to pop up. But I do recall having some weird interactions with partially blocking pull points before. So this seems like a chance to track down that bug.

[arvcran2]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: compactset

Here is the save
https://filebin.net/z9t0klc9qsy7n9yy
I should mention that the rail line going to NE goes in circle and comes back to the south of the capitol. Also I played most of this game on version 1.06.05.

That Logistics network is less understandable then those Stairs from McEsher:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_(M._C._Escher)#/media/File:Escher's_Relativity.jpg

I as a human have no idea how the supplies should flow in that madness.
It is a maze of dead ends, circles, 100% block and branches with no apparent rhyme or reason.

ROFL!

Recursive refocusing, ew.

[yutowap33]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
I am a bit unsure about your "No more than 3 connection per city" rule. I already know the city hex will incur the "branches" penalty[..]

This is more about encouraging planning ahead (and aesthetics) not due to ingame mechanics. Overall non of these rules are set in stone just general guide lines I follow.

ORIGINAL: compactset
4) Except for the above facts, the system should be functional. [..]

Maybe the system could be configurated in a more efficient way, but this is what I constructed progressively during the course of a game of 140 turns, during which I had a lot of minor fronts with minors regimes, independent units and raiders.

I don't know about functional.. You seem to be in the process of upgrade to highspeed rail, I think you either not finished or unintentionally overlooked few things:

* Your SHQ capital is in the black, it doesn't produce nearly enough rail points.
* Thousands of SHQ capital truck points are wasted on the long NE road (better use truck station in middle and divert truck to alba ?)
* Most of your rail points arriving at SHQ/Capital are generated elsewhere. Alba to the south only produced 4 rail points (its station is mouthballed). So if you trying to push more to NE track, try diverting some out of mosfeld..

Overall, you have very large network spaghetti, with rail stations affecting stations in other zones, any change can ripple across the whole system.. which is impossible to track properly. That why I suggested the rules above, so you can easily deal with one section at time.