Bottlenecks overlay explanation (with picture)

[jpwrunyan]

Alternative title: How NOT to design a graphical report...

This overlay has caused me no small amount of grief, especially as a new player. I find it entirely unintuitive. Yet the bottlenecks overlay feels like the single most important display in the game. This is my attempt to try to explain it and verify my understanding. I hope to save others some grief. Civilization itself was built upon human suffering so that we might alleviate it for future generations. You're welcome world.

Ok, so first, the way LIS and OP are presented is just never explained anywhere. But basically, where only LIS is concerned you have just one % number on a road segment and it will have a pretty green color. But mysteriously other segments will have a nightmarish black. I *think* this is because this road is indicating it is being used to supply units.

In the picture you will note my black segments have two percentages. The first is a happy 100% LIS. Trucks have no problems on this road. But the second percentage is 0% OP. None of my units are able to get to these segments. Why do I care about segments my units can't get to with OP? Don't know. Good question. Anyone wanna be my hero?

Later down the road, less disturbing colors appear. This is because the road is getting closer to the units. As the OP range for the unit increases. So even though the LIS% is going down, the OP% is going up and counter-intuitively the colors improve. It's better for the unit to overlap with 85% OP to an 80% LIS hex than to overlap with 0% OP to a 100% LIS hex? I think that's the message???

Finally, hexes with a dotted line ONLY contained OP%. Units can walk there to pick up supplies (OP), but trucks cannot drive there to provide supplies (LIS).

Honestly though, I don't care about OP outside hexes of actual units. If I understand this correctly, those black road segments are the worst UI design choice ever. I mean are you going to cover the entire map with angry colors for places my units can't go to get supplies??? Second, even in this VERY simple scenario, the dotted lines make it impossible to tell which line belongs to which unit. What a mess. This information is practically useless.

My suggestion: allow us to click on individual unit stacks to see their individual LIS/OP bottlenecks. Then we could debug our logistics problems. New players would have a means to learn this interface.

In the meantime, I hope this explanation helps and gets the ball rolling to figure out how to read the info. I really wish a *correct* version of this pic was in the manual somewhere. All the examples in the manual are happy Bob Ross green pics. I need examples of how to read logistics when things are going bad. So I can fix them.

So please, check my work and allow me to correct this picture's annotations.

This post contains salt for additional flavor.

[Dubba]

If only you understood the logistics system you would understand.

Its just to hard to explain to you when you have no clue on how it works.

[border10]

I really appreciate the level of effort you've made to gain an understanding of this. I, for one, only understand enough to get by, just barely. I eagerly await the replies of those who thoroughly understand.

[Geezerone]

That black (100%) is indicating that 100% of the truck points in that hex are being used to carry stuff (goods sent to SHQ, SHQ sending goods to the zones, SHQ sending goods to the units, and finally replacement troops). Those other colors just indicate how close you are to using up all your truck points that are actually available in that hex; from green being nothing to worry about here, through blue, red (warning), and black. This Bottleneck View is used to determine where you need more truck points. Other views are there to help you determine how many points are actually in the hex, how many are being used in the hex, and how many may be available in the next turn.

Edited to add: DasTastics Tips and Tricks episodes 10-12 go through the workings of the Logistic system and how to use the various views.

[Jdane]

ORIGINAL: Dubba

If only you understood the logistics system you would understand.

How do you do, Mr La Palice?
Couldn't you just at least humor our fellow here a little, instead of not even trying?

I have stuff to do right know, but I'll come back to this. At least there's a concrete case to study, that's more than people usually give when asking for help.

[springel]

"You will only see it when you get it"

--- Johan Cruyff

[jpwrunyan]

ORIGINAL: Geezerone
That black (100%) is indicating that 100% of the truck points in that hex are being used to carry stuff (goods sent to SHQ, SHQ sending goods to the zones, SHQ sending goods to the units, and finally replacement troops). Those other colors just indicate how close you are to using up all your truck points that are actually available in that hex; from green being nothing to worry about here, through blue, red (warning), and black. This Bottleneck View is used to determine where you need more truck points. Other views are there to help you determine how many points are actually in the hex, how many are being used in the hex, and how many may be available in the next turn.

I've read this paragraph several times now and it still doesn't click. I grock that green is good black is bad. But I yet don't understand why it's black before it turns red and then green. In this example there is only 1 zone, so I feel we can rule that out entirely, right? There should ONLY be goods sent to units here. So by your explanation above, what does the 0% on the black hexes represent?

And in the one green 100% hex I labeled there's no units on that path. So I feel saying "100% of truck points being used to carry stuff" is inaccurate. That's why I said 100% of LIS is distributed there. It's within full AP range. Please correct me though.

Anyway I take it I didn't label the percentages correctly? Does the percentage correlate to the color at all then? Do they measure entirely different things? Am I at least correct that the second percentage is about operations points?

Maybe instead of percentages, it would be more helpful if the display showed you how many points are used versus needed per hex. God, that would be nice.

ORIGINAL: Geezerone
Edited to add: DasTastics Tips and T
ricks episodes 10-12 go through the workings of the Logistic system and how to use the various views.

Thanks, I've watched his videos several times and even spoken to Das directly about it. But this one particular overlay lacks adequate explanation. As an analogy I also understand the theory of general relativity, but cannot read a single Maxwell equation. It's one thing to passively understand the concepts of physics; it's entirely different derive predictions by using physics equations. That's what I'm trying to do here. I don't know how to calculate the relative time dilation of a GPS satellite, but I do understand it's there. I don't know how to solve my logistics problems, but I understand they're there.

Again, I'm trying to find an explanation that "clicks". Sometimes my brain needs manual intervention.

I'm very narrowly trying to focus on learning how to read this *one* display.

[jpwrunyan]

ORIGINAL: Jdane
How do you do, Mr La Palice?

Lol, I admit I had to Google it.

[Destragon]

I really don't understand why you have to make multiple threads about the same exact subject, especially when the first thread already had explanations for the things you're confused about. It's honestly spamming.

Look at any road tile with logistics points on it on the "initial points" overlay, then look at the same tile in the "used points" overlay. If you subtract the used points from the initial points, you get the number on the "current points" overlay.
The bottleneck overlay just shows you this as a percentage. It's the currently available points on the tile divided by the initial points.

The black colour in the bottleneck overlay means all the logistics points on this tile have been used up. If a tile says 50%, it means it had something like 100 logistics points initially, but 50 of them were used up, meaning you still have 50 points on that tile that you can spend on strategic movement.

You got the percentage numbers backwards. The ones in parenthesis are operational logistics on a road tile. The other one is for the actual logistics.

"A: This is a waste actually."
Having logistics points on a tile isn't entirely a waste. You can spend them to strategically move units or, if the supply chain to the SHQ hasn't been severed, to recruit new units there.

I'll write more later. I have to do something else right now.

[Jdane]

So, I took a good look at your picture, read your questions, starting getting confused by those percentages, browsed through the manual only to fail to find where they are explained if they even are, then fired up the game, loaded a save, experimented with the logistics map filters, and then started to make some sense out of it all.

First of all, I think you're getting the percentages mixed up. (100%) pertains to OP, up until the point the operational logistics track leaves the road, at which it turns 100%. It's arguably an inconsistency.
As for the percentage without parenthesis on the road it is the percentage of initial LIS remaining after the supply process is done. You can verify this easily: while keeping an eye on the hex, turn on initial points, (optionally used points,) then current points. Do the math: it fits.

The only think I'm still failing to figure out is the exact meaning of the Operational Logistics percentage. For now I'm assuming it's the percentage of the total requested supplies that could be sourced from this hex. It's not ideal and only makes a little sense, but that's all I've got for now.

A: The Bottlenecks shows green because 100% of the initial LIS is still available. Nothing moved through here during the turn resolution. It's not necessarily a waste if you wanted for instance strategically transfer a unit here: it means there's LIS available to spend.

B: 0% means there's 0 points left from the initial LIS total and thus the Bottlenecks show black. Stuff passed through, all LIS available was used. All the stuff may have passed through, but it as well may not have. This is just telling you the logistics are used at max capacity there. (100%) would mean some unit or units in the surroundings sourced 100% of the supplies it or they needed from this hex.

C: 84% means that the Operational Logistics points of the unit (in this case most certainly the closest one, i.e. the mobile militia regiment) had to spend more than 100 AP but less 150 AP to get to the hex of road it sourced the supplies from, and in this case could only bring back 84% of the requested supplies.

D: We're starting to know the drill, some stuff moved through here but probably not much, there's still 85% of the initial LIS remaining to be spent here. The city's truck station is probably too far away to send enough trucks to bring supplies and thus only 82% of what the unit or units there requested was delivered. (Again, that percentage still is difficult to me to figure out, I'm not too happy with myself here.)

E: The most interesting thing around these parts in my opinion is the gradient of color from black to red to blue to green. It looks like as the Operational Logistics pick up supplies from the road, the load diminishes until there's no supplies left to bring, thus next to no LIS is spent, thus Bottlenecks green. But this still raises more questions than answers for me.

I'm sorry I still left some points in the fog, but at least trying to help helped me figure out the parenthesis thing.

Let me just say I agree entirely that having the ability to highlight the Operational Logistics path of a specific unit would be a desirable feature, if perhaps limited to fringe unclear cases.

Edit: Ach, I have again been typing too long without checking if there were any new messages in the meantime.

[jpwrunyan]

ORIGINAL: Destragon
Look at any road tile with logistics points on it on the "initial points" overlay, then look at the same tile in the "used points" overlay. If you subtract the used points from the initial points, you get the number on the "current points" overlay.
The bottleneck overlay just shows you this as a percentage. It's the currently available points on the tile divided by the initial points.

Thank you, that helps. Is there a way to figure out how many points would be used if they were available? I mean the "used points" is limited by the "initial points" value right? Not having enough initial points causes a bottleneck, right?

ORIGINAL: Destragon
The black colour in the bottleneck overlay means all the logistics points on this tile have been used up. If a tile says 50%, it means it had something like 100 logistics points initially, but 50 of them were used up, meaning you still have 50 points on that tile that you can spend on strategic movement.

I'm still struggling to visualize this. Are you saying if a tile used up 50/100 LIS it would look like (100%) 50% and be yellow?

ORIGINAL: Destragon
You got the percentage numbers backwards. The ones in parenthesis are operational logistics on a road tile. The other one is for the actual logistics.

Thank you. This is the exactly the kind of concrete correction I'm looking for.

ORIGINAL: Destragon
"A: This is a waste actually."
Having logistics points on a tile isn't entirely a waste. You can spend them to strategically move units or, if the supply chain to the SHQ hasn't been severed, to recruit new units there.

In this particular example it's arguably a waste since that hex has no strategic value. I'm not going to move there and I'm not going to recruit units there. I understand your larger picture argument. It's valid. But I'd like to stay in the context of this example.

ORIGINAL: Destragon
I'll write more later. I have to do something else right now.

Please take your time. I marked my annotations alphabetically so people could specifically reword them to be correct. I can then update the image and repost it here. I'd like to refine this so it can be a useful reference to others.

[eddieballgame]

Disregard a few of the negative comments per your postings (thought I accidently clicked into the Steam forums) on a game mechanic that, apparently, few know how it all works. (to include myself)
The Matrix/Slitherine community is, extremely, helpful & polite. (using 'Jdane' is an example)
So don't be discouraged in your quest to get the answers you are looking for.

[jpwrunyan]

ORIGINAL: Jdane
So, I took a good look at your picture, read your questions, starting getting confused by those percentages, browsed through the manual only to fail to find where they are explained if they even are, then fired up the game, loaded a save, experimented with the logistics map filters, and then started to make some sense out of it all.

First of all, I think you're getting the percentages mixed up. (100%) pertains to OP, up until the point the operational logistics track leaves the road, at which it turns 100%. It's arguably an inconsistency.

That makes so much more sense the way you phrased it. And I agree, It would make sense if the OP % didn't appear at all if it's not a problem. Just show it when it leaves the road. But I think the reason is that you can see which lines contain logistics going to troops. That finally clicks.

You also just inadvertently answered a question in my previous post.

ORIGINAL: Jdane
As for the percentage without parenthesis on the road it is the percentage of initial LIS remaining after the supply process is done. You can verify this easily: while keeping an eye on the hex, turn on initial points, (optionally used points,) then current points. Do the math: it fits.

Yep. And now I understand why the road is black *finally*. It's warning me that I have no remaining trucks. Now I'm not sure if the color indicates *how bad* I'm missing trucks or not or if it just corresponds directly to the percentage available.

For example, using 100/100 truck points is *optimal* and I feel black is counter-intuitive, even if remaining trucks is 0%. However, need for 200 trucks using all 100 trucks available is a serious problem. I'd like to know if the color indicates remaining capacity or severity of capacity deficit. Does that distinction make sense?

ORIGINAL: Jdane
The only think I'm still failing to figure out is the exact meaning of the Operational Logistics percentage. For now I'm assuming it's the percentage of the total requested supplies that could be sourced from this hex. It's not ideal and only makes a little sense, but that's all I've got for now.

That's what I've got too. I think something more complicated is going on. I think under ideal circumstances the green range of OP still supplies 100% of troop supplies even if they're off the network. I suspect that the lower percentages on the green tiles indicate that even though they can *take* 100% of supplies, since there's not enough LIS it's a modified percentage to reflect this. So on hex D 85% of LIS is used up. But OP can only utilize 82% of its available points. I need to turn off the units and see the underlying numbers on the hexes the units are present. Con't below...

ORIGINAL: Jdane
A: The Bottlenecks shows green because 100% of the initial LIS is still available. Nothing moved through here during the turn resolution. It's not necessarily a waste if you wanted for instance strategically transfer a unit here: it means there's LIS available to spend.

I know. But in this context it's a "waste" because I could divert trucks from it to the other road where I'm using up all my LIS. I'm highly unlikely to need to strategically move my units there given the situation on this particular map. I think for this to work I need a "before" and "after" picture to show this.

Edit: I realize now some context is missing. I'm at peace with the faction to my east. That's why I'm not worried about this hex or the units along the border.

ORIGINAL: Jdane
B: 0% means there's 0 points left from the initial LIS total and thus the Bottlenecks show black. Stuff passed through, all LIS available was used. All the stuff may have passed through, but it as well may not have. This is just telling you the logistics are used at max capacity there. (100%) would mean some unit or units in the surroundings sourced 100% of the supplies it or they needed from this hex.

Check!

ORIGINAL: Jdane
C: 84% means that the Operational Logistics points of the unit (in this case most certainly the closest one, i.e. the mobile militia regiment) had to spend more than 100 AP but less 150 AP to get to the hex of road it sourced the supplies from, and in this case could only bring back 84% of the requested supplies.

Hmm... so there is no percentage underneath the unit then? Forget what I wrote above. Whoa, where did the AP numbers come from? From the unit's AP total? Did you mean "spend more than 50 AP"?

This is what the manual says:

A Unit can pick up full supplies and replacement Troops up to 50 AP distance range from its initial Hex. After that it will pick up partial supplies up to 100 AP distance range. The exception is Food! Which is always delivered in full if you are within the 100 AP distance range. The AP costs are calculated using the Operational Supply Move Type. In most cases this gives Unit a range of 4 Hexes to pick up full supplies. And a range of 8 Hexes to pick up insufficient but some supplies.

This is where the confusion comes in. He's one hex away from the supply pickup so normally the OP % should be 100%. Is it less because the LIS can't deliver 100% of what he needs? I have to think so...

ORIGINAL: Jdane
D: We're starting to know the drill, some stuff moved through here but probably not much, there's still 85% of the initial LIS remaining to be spent here. The city's truck station is probably too far away to send enough trucks to bring supplies and thus only 82% of what the unit or units there requested was delivered. (Again, that percentage still is difficult to me to figure out, I'm not too happy with myself here.)

Yes, I'm starting to follow as well. I think the percentages continue to throw me off. I'm used to looking at numbers on all the other overlays. I'm going to try to re-approach this. It would be wonderful if the overlay used the LIS/OP numbers and *then* gave you a percentage. Or a toggle between the two.

ORIGINAL: Jdane
E: The most interesting thing around these parts in my opinion is the gradient of color from black to red to blue to green. It looks like as the Operational Logistics pick up supplies from the road, the load diminishes until there's no supplies left to bring, thus next to no LIS is spent, thus Bottlenecks green. But this still raises more questions than answers for me.

Well, that makes so much more sense to me too. If stuff get's taken off trucks, less trucks are needed, even if the total LIS on that road segment is less than further up the road where it's closer to the truck stop. Basically 200/100 LIS demand (0%) is worse than 60/80 LIS demand further down the road (33%).

ORIGINAL: Jdane
I'm sorry I still left some points in the fog, but at least trying to help helped me figure out the parenthesis thing.

Let me just say I agree entirely that having the ability to highlight the Operational Logistics path of a specific unit would be a desirable feature, if perhaps limited to fringe unclear cases.

Edit: Ach, I have again been typing too long without checking if there were any new messages in the meantime.

You have no idea how helpful this post has been. Just having another set of eyes is tremendously useful. I'm going to try to update the annotations based on this. Also, don't worry about fast replies. I'd rather have fewer posts that get ninja'd than a mega-thread that's 5 pages long.

[jpwrunyan]

ORIGINAL: eddieballgame

Disregard a few of the negative comments per your postings (thought I accidently clicked into the Steam forums) on a game mechanic that, apparently, few know how it all works. (to include myself)
The Matrix/Slitherine community is, extremely, helpful & polite. (using 'Jdane' is an example)
So don't be discouraged in your quest to get the answers you are looking for.

I use a certain amount of salt and sarcasm in my own posts--especially when I'm frustrated, so it's all par for the course.

And I certainly understand the point of view of others who feel that they've already explained things or have had someone ignore their previous posts. I've been on that end of the conversation where someone asked me to explain something I already explained once and I'm like "Bruh, did you even read my first post? Were you not paying attention? Why did I bother posting in the first place?!"

I appreciate your positive attitude though! It's easy to misread tone via text and descend into rancor.

[Grotius]

I'm glad you posted this as a new thread; you've distilled the issues nicely, and the screenshot illustrates precisely my questions about this overlay.

ORIGINAL: Jdane

B: ... (100%) would mean some unit or units in the surroundings sourced 100% of the supplies it or they needed from this hex.

This explanation is plausible, but I see "(100%)" on hexes to which no unit seems to be tracing green dots (or dots of any color). E.g., this very hex (Hex B), or the hex northeast of B, or the hex northwest of E. Are units using Operational Logistics to take supply from any of these hexes? If so, which units?

My suggestion: allow us to click on individual unit stacks to see their individual LIS/OP bottlenecks. Then we could debug our logistics problems.

I like this idea. Matrix WIF does something like this. Or perhaps leave the dotted lines as is, but when we click on a unit, its dotted line and % is somehow highlighted? I'd like to know which dotted line (and %) belongs to which unit.

[jpwrunyan]

Ok, so this is just initial until I can figure out how to put together an explanatory/tutorial picture, but these are the 4 overlays showing the LIS distribution and usage that lead up to the bottlenecks picture. I have to admit, working backwards from the bottlenecks view questions has helped me to finally "get" these other three views.

First is a picture of the initial LIS. I feel this is step 1.

[jpwrunyan]

Second is the used LIS.

[jpwrunyan]

Next is the remaining LIS.

[jpwrunyan]

And last again is the bottlenecks. I'm reposting this picture because it aligns perfectly with the others.



Finally I'm starting to see the picture (no pun intended). I've been staring at the bottlenecks overlay for so long wondering what the percentages mean that I failed to put together that you need to merge it with the other three views. I'm still missing information for LIS *demand* but I'm not sure if the game is programmed to calculate those numbers...

Another important thing I think I was missing is that I believe this is only showing LIS usage for units. At least in this example. Even though I have a water mine to the north of my base, and even though it needs LIS in its hex, it does not display a number for used points in the logistics view. That is a really good thing to know.

What also might be a little confusing is that although the bottlenecks view will show 0% where there are no available LIS points, the remaining LIS view will show no number at all. So those road hexes that are blank like the countryside? Imagine there's a 0 written there.

[Grotius]

As I understand it, the mine doesn't consume Logistical points; it just requires them as a prerequisite to operate.

Then again, the mine does ship its minerals along the road, doesn't it? Those shipments apparently aren't included in this screen?