[v1.20t] Logistics/Supply Bug?

[mroyer]

What could be going on here?
Is this a bug?

At the start of turn 64, supplies were flowing normally southward along the road across the mountain range to units beyond. The unit shown below is a unit on the southern side of the mountains and it is in good order and fully supplied. During turn 64 I began construction of a new truck station in the selected hex.

I loaded turn 65 and no supplies are flowing southward across the mountains or past the selected hex that contains the truck station under construction. Also, the asset symbol in the hex is missing. The unit south of the mountain range has received no supply. What's more, not only did it consume a turns worth of supplies, but has lost all of its food stocks and is completely out of food, double normal consumption.

Is this a bug - or is something unusual going on that I don't understand?
Thanks for any thoughts.

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[Vic]

Difference between turn 64 and 65 is that there are much more rail points available.

At the crossing on 150,20 the rail can only go south, presuming it will reach the pull points. Same crossing the truck points go east because looking at the rail point logistics already going south all is fine. But the rail logistics only can go a few hexes before they run out of rail.

Best way to move forward:
Either (a) put a (truck) logistics block to east-exit of 150,20 or (b) continue the rail track further south.

The unit food consumption seems fine by the way.

[mroyer]

Difference between turn 64 and 65 is that there are much more rail points available.

At the crossing on 150,20 the rail can only go south, presuming it will reach the pull points. Same crossing the truck points go east because looking at the rail point logistics already going south all is fine. But the rail logistics only can go a few hexes before they run out of rail.

Interesting... I'm curious Vic -> do you view this as intended behavior or an issue to be improved in the future? From a player perspective, it's very counterintuitive and a subtlety that players need to keep in mind.

Best way to move forward:
Either (a) put a (truck) logistics block to east-exit of 150,20 or (b) continue the rail track further south.

What I ended up doing was ripping up the logistics infrastructure in the hex just north of the rail head, then rebuild the road until the truck station was complete. Then I rebuilt the rail line. It occurred to me later, a rail-road LP block might have had the same effect.

Once the truck-station was complete, all was back to "normal".

Thanks for looking at this and explaining, Vic.
-Mark R.

[Don_Kiyote]

From a player perspective, it's very counterintuitive and a subtlety that players need to keep in mind.

I just had a discussion about logistics on Reddit, where the other party also said something about 'intuitive'-ness. The subject there was "re-focusing", but I think the other guy had missed some important stuff (or I have).

Its hard to tell what went on here, above, just by reading this post.

I cant see where (15,20) is for instance, and I don't see any "crossings" at all. Maybe higher up.

---

One thing we should keep in mind, is that using rail to assist truck-based logistics (aka intermodal) is vey difficult. Its difficult to design, and difficult to think about. I tried doing both once. But the trucks need to transport themselves to the target intermodal point anyways, so you have to be careful.

I guess that, looking at those mountains, and knowing the metal cost of building rail over high mountains, an intermodal operation is what you tried to do here. Building a Truck Station right on a railhead at the base of the mountains should work.

But if the truck station were further back on the rail line, instead of at the very tip of it, at the base of the mountain, you would see a problems like what Vic describes: lets call it a 'quantity mismatch'. As the mode change causes total available logi points on the route to drop sharply, gaps in the network appear.

[Vic]

I am considering adding a Midcore Logistics option to the game setup that simplifies the rules & maybe even allows the AI to use the same ruleset.

Best wishes,
Vic

[Don_Kiyote]

The logistics system is wonderful.

Its beautiful just the way it is.

Maybe some players become frustrated while learning it. I play very slowly, so when my early logistics networks started to tank, as they got bigger, as they're supposed to, it didn't bother me to interrupt the game I thought I was playing to figure out why, by deciphering the logs and so forth. I enjoyed it, because all of the information and tools to successfully find the thing I didn't know or misunderstood or assumed or didn't consider are all there, in the game.

If you're seeing blowback, about logistics, from a recent influx of new players, that just makes sense. They came to a wargame expecting it to be challenging, wanting it to be, and were surprised by the way it became difficult. Some react, as consumers are expected to, by complaining.

A midcore logistics ruleset might make sense to those players, or seem to at first. Individual players will either investigate and fix their own games after a one or two sessions, or move on. As you will recall, SE was renowned in the first place for being interesting specifically because of its logistics challenges, and still is. So seeing some future new players move on because the logistics system was too un-intuitive, may just be nature at work.

More effective tutorials could help. New players with logistics-related issues are genuinely interested in the logistics system too. They aren't just complaining. And, at least on reddit, they have definitely read the manual. The manual is very good. But a single, well-developed and comprehensive instructional document, focused on logistics and capable of answering these questions, has yet to emerge.

More annotated screenshots, perhaps.