[Question] Understanding Freight and Rails

[Wiedrock]

Hey, I try to understand the Freight system and encountered an possible issue with the rail network.
First of all I noted, that all "dual tracks" which are coloured yellow seem to have the exact same rail usage of 5416 in the whole controlled area. That's why I started some testing.

Setup:

• Grand Campaign
• Human vs Human
• Warsaw depot = 4
• set all other depots to 0
• removed all air commands (added some to warsaw area later on)
• moved units in the direction of Warsaw
• placed 4th Army in Warsaw (increasing capacity from 50k to 60k)
• placed FBD in Warsaw (to increase "pull effect")

What I encountered:

In screenshot 1 you can see that Warsaw is the only Depot which isn't set to "0" and I activated the "freight flow" option using the "8" key.

Screenshot 1 (Setup and Paths)

warsaw_freight_setup.jpg (920.29 KiB) Viewed 1076 times

In screenshot 2 you can see the rail network around Warsaw with rail usage of neighboring Hexes. I edited the picture to show results of several screenshots. I'd like to know how Warsaw is able to get 58913 Freight from Prague using this rails, since the sum of all neighboring rails is ~14,5k.

Screenshot 2 (rail usage)

warsaw_freight_rails.jpg (725.96 KiB) Viewed 1076 times

In screenshot 3 you can see the Freight data (maybe this helps with analysing/explaining)

Screenshot 3 (Freight Log)

warsaw_freight_log.jpg (310.02 KiB) Viewed 1076 times

To sum up:
1.Why do all yellow double tracked rails show the same usage of 5416?
2.How can a Depot get ~60k with surrounding rails only showing a usage of ~15k?


I'd rly appreciate if some veteran of this game series could enlight me, since I am more than just confused at the moment.

[Jango32]

Multiply 5416 by 6 and that's the real amount of freight that passed through those double-rails.

[K62_]

Can you share this section of the logistics report?

logi.JPG (89.55 KiB) Viewed 1050 times

[Wiedrock]

Thanks for your answer, I guess I found the paragraph.

During each logistics phase, accumulated friendly
rail line usage in each hex is reduced to the higher of
either current rail usage divided by six or the enemy air
interdiction value (the actual value of this is shown in a
hex pop-up) times 500, with the latter being maxed out at
45,000 tons of rail line usage. In cases where there is no
enemy air interdiction, at the start of the movement phase
the max rail line usage will be 5,000 tons (for a dual track
line and 2,000 for a single track line).

...and I guess the interdiction phrase explains why partisans/interdictors are unloading the trains in one hex and reloading them in the next one

[Wiedrock]

Sure
Prague sends 58914. Which fits, the other ~1k received may be some rounding errors or just some left overs from other Depots which are not listed since it's too few (i guess).

warsaw_supply-report.jpg (122.95 KiB) Viewed 1029 times

[Joel Billings]

Two things. Gary build randomness into each hexes usage intentionally, so you won't see a smooth line of usage in every hex. He had a reason why he did this, but I can't explain it. Second, depots receive freight from units that send back damaged equipment, with some of the equipment going to the pools, and some of it converted to freight to represent useful stuff in the damaged element that can be used by other units. That freight is listed as received in the rollover, but we don't track how that got into the depot.

[Wiedrock]

Thanks for further elaboration.
The note about the sent back equipment helps a lot! I did not think about that. And the recycling factor makes WW2 somewhat "green"

[Zovs]

Gary build randomness into each hexes usage intentionally, so you won't see a smooth line of usage in every hex. He had a reason why he did this, but I can't explain it.

For some reason in my minds eye I had a vision of Gary looking and sounding much like Ozzy Osborne lol, when Ozzy talks your like what the heck is he saying? But when he starts singing his voice cuts through load and clear.

[robinsa]

Multiply 5416 by 6 and that's the real amount of freight that passed through those double-rails.

I sometimes think this game would really benefit from better tooltips/reports. There are too many things you have to remember from the Manual that cannot be found in game. The rail system is one of these. Another one is different modifiers that are dependent on situation and time of year.