Still Trying to Figure Out Freight

[KG_Chipaev]

Hi Guys,

I know this has been discussed ad nauseum but I was wondering if someone could explain a specific freight situation that is happening to me in the Velikie Luki scenario. I loaded up this scenario to test factors that affect transfers of supply from depot to depot in a simplified manner. Basically I wanted to isolate 2 depots, a national source and a frontline depot and see what I could do to optimize delivery. I have attached 2 situations below which I have difficulty reconciling. They are taken on the exact same turn that I re-ran but in one I had set up the closer Depot (Idritsa) as a Level 4 depot and in the other I had constructed a depot further down the rail line closer to the front (Depot #1) as a Level 4 depot. All other depots on the map are set at level 0. In this situation I would imagine that the rail capacity of the NSS would fill up either in essentially a single turn but that is not what happened. Although Idritsa indeed filled up in a single turn, the second depot did not. Now I ask: why not? All rail lines are green and I have essentially limitless rail capacity coming from the NSS at Rezekne as it has a level 9 railyard and is an NSS. Can someone help me explain this? Thank you in advance and I am sorry if there is anything that is unclear. I have attached a couple screenshots below and am happy to clarify anything if that helps. Thanks!

Capture 1.PNG (5.85 MiB) Viewed 757 times

Capture 2.PNG (6.78 MiB) Viewed 757 times

[loki100]

key here (I think) is that freight doesn't move between depots at the same priority. So in your case the pri 0 NSS (which is the correct setting) can't send to the pri 0 (so Idritsa in your second eg).

In the second set up if Idritsa was 1 or more it would pretty much fill up with the freight that can't reach the end of the line

So, in a larger set up a pri4 depot can't send freight depot-depot but can send freight depot-unit. You can use this to your advantage as if these are some distance from the front they fill up and hold their freight, when you need more (say a major offensive) drop their priority

hope this helps

One conceptual bit is to separate out the process of moving freight depot-depot (almost always by rail, usually determined by a mix of priority and depot/rail capacity) and depot-unit (determined by HQ priority and usually via truck)

[KG_Chipaev]

Hi Loki, THank you for your reply but I was asking something slightly different.

I have 3 depots in this example: the NSS, Idrirtsa and one called Depot #1 (named by the game because it is not located on a named settlement which is set up closer to the front on the same rail line but a few hexes further.

In one running of the turn I have NSS (Priority Zero), Idritsa (Priority 4) and Depot #1 (Priority 0).

In this situation Idritsa filled up in 1 turn.

The second time I ran it the following settings were placed: NSS (Priority zero), Idritsa (priority 0) and Depot #1 (Priority 4)

In this situation Depot #1 only got a small fraction of the supplies that Idritsa got. My question is: Why?

All rail lines are green and the NSS should have more than enough rail capacity.

[homer82]

Because freight allocation is influenced by demand, my thought is Idritsa filled because of the demand of the operational airfield.

[loki100]

ok, as above there are a lot of parts to the system, some fixed, some conditional

a) depot capacity, to process (ie receive/send out) freight is fixed and keys off the railyard size - can be reduced if the railyard is damaged, improved by HQ placement
b) freight moves up to 200 SMP, as the cost of a hex increases (congestion) it demands more rail capacity (from railyards>1) to move, or it moves a shorter distance to compensate. There is, as such, no limit as to how much can move through a particular hex
c) priority influences pull to that location (as does deployment of the rail repair HQs)
d) local demand (as in the post above) influences allocation, in the main the system won't send freight where there is no demand. Note this is different to there being no units, they may just not need supply at the moment
e) demand is of course influenced by deployment pattern and HQ priorities

So, there are a lot of variables at play, but at the simplest you can't separate supply from demand so its never a linear system.

[Joel Billings]

The depot 1 shows an actual capacity of 4500 (number in parenthesis), so it can't unload more. This is probably due to the railyard having just been created with the depot and starting damaged. Over time as it is repaired (constructed), it will be able to unload and store more.