Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

No, the system is as intended, with priority being the mechanism by which players can influence the shipments.

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

Therefore yes - I believe the game needs an improvement to the Freight routing system among other things.
Something I'd suggest is pretty simple - non NSS depots push and shove Freight to the closemost higher priority ones.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yogol

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

Therefore yes - I believe the game needs an improvement to the Freight routing system among other things.
Something I'd suggest is pretty simple - non NSS depots push and shove Freight to the closemost higher priority ones.

I agree with this.

I have cases where a unit draws freight from Tilsit using (and losing) trucks instead of Gumbinnen which is within 3 hexes, because depot Gumbinnen is sending all it's freight to units north of Jekapils that are... closer to Tilsit!

Or a case where a unit near Riga is drawing freight all the way from Suwalki instead of Memel even when Memel still has 14000+ supply.

I do not know how to calculates which unit gets freight from where, but I doubt that it optimises correctly.

quote:

Something I'd suggest is pretty simple - non NSS depots push and shove Freight to the closemost higher priority ones.

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

@Joel

The real problem is that the priority system here does not really 'work'.

Here in this turn Talinn receives Freight from Kiel, via rail and not via sea.
Next what Talinn depot does? Send Freight from there to ... Orel? When they could just rail it eastward to depots toward Leningrad?

Sorry but there is no way on earth to claim that the priority system here works.

Sonda - the depot on the coast to the side, is well stocked up. (Since Russian winter, it served the Narva line...)
As soon as that one goes down to anything that is not a 4, that Freight will just reflux in all the wrong ways, steal railroad capacity and end up in places like Rostov, Kursk, or Orel... when all I need is that it takes the rail to the east, journey a tenful of hexes and gets to fuel the Leningrad offensive.

The very same is for Pskov depot. I cannot litterally drop it to any other priority, or I am sure that freight will go to other places so it may as well sit here for whenever I need to retreat to this line.

At the same time I cannot tell the depots to 'stop stocking up' because to do that I need to lower the priority of the depots. Which means dispersal of supposedly needed accumulation.

To me that is not normal, highly illogic and disfunctional as system.

Therefore yes - I believe the game needs an improvement to the Freight routing system among other things.

quote:

ORIGINAL: AlbertN

Talinn is an example - it's not a specific.

And it seems to have some port-routines wonky as posted in the AAR.

I am not a logistic expert, but I can see the obvious. In general a Berlin to Orel and Berlin to Leningrad sector plus Talinn to Leningrad sector is better than a Berlin and Talinn to Orel and Berlin to Leningrad. With the due percentages.

quote:

I know that the amount of Railroad capacity available is a function of { if (Railyard_size >= 2) then rail_capacity += (Railyard_size * 10k) } for all Railyards within 30 hexes.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sir.Arnold

In a word, there are some small problems in the depot system.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yogol

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sir.Arnold

In a word, there are some small problems in the depot system.

I wouldn't call it small. Because of the system, there are far-away depots in my game that use 14000 trucks (!!!) in a single turn to get freight to units, instead of having those units draw freight from closer depots that have stocked freight in them and thus needing lesser trucks.

And I have no way of stopping that.

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yogol

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sir.Arnold

In a word, there are some small problems in the depot system.

I wouldn't call it small. Because of the system, there are far-away depots in my game that use 14000 trucks (!!!) in a single turn to get freight to units, instead of having those units draw freight from closer depots that have stocked freight in them and thus needing lesser trucks.

And I have no way of stopping that.

well you do - unit supply priority, and a well laid out depot system.

Quite simply apart from in the opening turns I have never ever seen this sort of thing.

quote:

Quite simply apart from in the opening turns I have never ever seen this sort of thing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Sauron_II

I'm so retarded.

I should have inspected Albert's map example to better understand the issues you guys are running into.

Why is there so many Priority 4's?

Of course P4s are going to accumulate supply. They cannot forward it on to another depot.

I am not seeing the same issues because I am very careful about dropping P4 depots everywhere.

IMO, you have way too many P4s.

Unless you are intentionally trying to accumulate freight stockpiles, the only place you need P4s are those depots directly servicing the front-line.

Otherwise, you will run into distribution issues.... like the ones you are encountering.

I am with loki on this one.

quote:

Quite simply apart from in the opening turns I have never ever seen this sort of thing.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

...


And the problem is that having system like NSS 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 and 4 4 on the front is less effective than 0 0 1 1 4 3 3 4 4. As for unknown reasons, for me, stockpiling freight and then dropping priority of that depot is more effective then just having an incremental line of priories. I would expect that if there is enough trains and rails capacity to deliver freight to both frontline with #4 and #4 in the middle, then in case of leaving some depots in the back to #3 would make no difference as all of the freight that could get to a #4 will get there and rest will stay in #3.
But as i said, i do not understand that logic and i made some topic showing that, IMHO, super depots somehow can get a lot of freight, while without a super depot you will get MUCH less freight for now obvious reasons.
I did not try it, but i guess that even when setting all depots at 0, and only 1 depot on a front to #4 (simulating that all freight should go there) will produce worse result than a super depot.
Personally to me it looks like that without a super depot - rail transport is not working in full power. Unfortunately you can not afford such a luxury as keeping FBDs on top of a depot.

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

...


And the problem is that having system like NSS 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 and 4 4 on the front is less effective than 0 0 1 1 4 3 3 4 4. As for unknown reasons, for me, stockpiling freight and then dropping priority of that depot is more effective then just having an incremental line of priories. I would expect that if there is enough trains and rails capacity to deliver freight to both frontline with #4 and #4 in the middle, then in case of leaving some depots in the back to #3 would make no difference as all of the freight that could get to a #4 will get there and rest will stay in #3.
But as i said, i do not understand that logic and i made some topic showing that, IMHO, super depots somehow can get a lot of freight, while without a super depot you will get MUCH less freight for now obvious reasons.
I did not try it, but i guess that even when setting all depots at 0, and only 1 depot on a front to #4 (simulating that all freight should go there) will produce worse result than a super depot.
Personally to me it looks like that without a super depot - rail transport is not working in full power. Unfortunately you can not afford such a luxury as keeping FBDs on top of a depot.

Since this has become a depot/freight thread, lets stress the basics. A Super-Depot does not pull more freight into the Soviet Union for the axis player, it distorts where a finite batch of freight goes.

The amount that can be sent in any turn is a capped number that may not be met.

The cap is fundamental, the freight is at the NSS, there are only a finite number of railyards of 2 or more in 30 hexes - that is a limit you can't break.

The amount that is actually sent out is likely to be less for a few reasons:

a) the malus on axis rail transport till April 42
b) You entrained reinforcements around Berlin in the turn - this have grabbed some of that finite rail capacity (lets call them trains)
c) Your rail net is congested, remember that congestion on dual track rails clears at volume/6 (if its 30k or less) and /4 for anything 30-50k. So crudely if you stress your system in one turn, it works less well for some time afterwards.
d) this matters as the 'trains' are represented as SMP, if there is no usage penalty, the freight can go up to 200 hexes, as soon as you generate usage penalties then it quickly becomes far more expensive for each unit to try and make that journey (in other words it calls on more trains to move 1 tonne so there are less trains left).

Why does that 'Minsk at 4' trick work?

Basically at some stage rail penalties have impacted so freight can't reach the front lines but can reach say Minsk. Since Minsk is a 4 it sticks there - very limited combat units are accessing it. When you release it, this batch of freight is not competing with the railyards in the Reich, it takes its 'trains' from the railyards around Minsk - and they have shorter journeys to the front so can overcome larger SMP penalties.

Why does this matter?

Well its all out of sight, but the more you know how to trigger the system to behave with very simple tools (on both the supply and demand side) the better your logistics will be.

And never forget, the system assumes SNAFU, so don't fuss at the occasional oddity. Your dispatcher got lost, couldn't read the writing, was having a bad day, got shot by the partisans ...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb
...
I really appreciate all the answers.
You described this flow in some other posts. And i remember it.
And i still do not understand why having some depots at 4 instead of a 3 makes such a difference.
In my opinion if front depots are at 4 and if freight is out of SMP it will be stored in a closest depot (in my example it will be 3). And in the next turn it will be sent to a #4.

So what is the reason to keep some depots in the back at 4 and let them accumulate freight and only then releasing it, if having them at 3 for all turns should work the same?

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

...

basically the 3s will do that role but with 2 small problems (that add up). First the freight doesn't stick so you don't get a controlled build up (usually the freight stays one turn and completes its move the next), second you have lots of 3s (most likely) so the freight has no clear rule to say 'come here - not there'.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Stamb

quote:

ORIGINAL: loki100

...

basically the 3s will do that role but with 2 small problems (that add up). First the freight doesn't stick so you don't get a controlled build up (usually the freight stays one turn and completes its move the next), second you have lots of 3s (most likely) so the freight has no clear rule to say 'come here - not there'.

how all of this freight that was stored somewhere in the back can get to a front if during all of the previous turns there was not enough trains or rail capacity (but probably trains as rails usage is around 5.5k for double lines) to get that same freight to a front. This is what bothers me.

and in case of my expected setup which is the following:

0 1 2 3 3 4
NSS 0 1 2 3 3 4
0 1 2 3 3 4


I expect some freight to get to a 3 which are placed all over the map, as you told. And its fine, as in the next turn that freight will be forwarded to a 4. Which is where we want the freight to go.