Ability to modify/set the stockpile on a production slot

Production Line Suggestions
1

So this could have been mentioned before and there’s every chance I’ve missed it being relatively new on here but I thought I’d ask how other people are dealing with the issue and make a suggestion. I noticed that Cliff mentioned this before in one of his video’s on YouTube talking about logistics (#38) which was a couple of months back now.

This isn’t a massive issue or even a bug with the game but it’s something that would potentially make it more elegant in terms of efficiency

I’m having a lot of issues further on into a game when I start adding upgrades to slots on the line. A key example in my current game is the Fit Wheel slot along with the manufacturer of wheels. My factory has been running fairly efficiently with little delays in terms of getting resources to the slot and it’s been comfortably producing enough wheels to supply the demand. I’ve just researched Alloy wheels and bought the upgrade for both the fit and manufacturer slots (not considering that it now only manufacturers alloy’s until after the fact). As soon as this was enable the fit wheel slot has started to stockpile the alloy wheels (now being produced) and has filled to capacity. I haven’t however spec’d a vehicle to even fit them yet and even if I had due to the size of the factory its going to take a while for a newly spec’d car to reach it anyway. As I’ve still got a couple of hundred none Alloy car’s to go through (plus I’m probably not going to spec every car with them either) every car now has to wait for some none alloy wheels to make it from the relevant importer.

Now I understand having a stockpile nearby reduces the wait time to get the item there but personally for me that doesn’t seem like the most elegant solution to the problem.

So I suppose I should get on to my suggestions:
1 - the ability to override the automatic stockpile on a production slot and manually configure it. My intention with this is that it could work in a somewhat similar fashion to a stockpile block. This way you could have two manufacturing slots one for alloy and one for non-alloy and then you have a stockpile ready.
2 - the ability to set a schedule on a manufacturing slot so that it produces the standard or none standard item. For this one I was thinking something similar to the very first block of the factory where you set the schedule of what you are going to produce.
3 - or ability to set which direction certain cars should go on the conveyors. So you can have 3 fit wheels, 1 without the upgrade so you set the none upgrade cars to that and 2 with the upgrade where you send the cars with the upgrade.

Not sure if any of these would even be feasible or worthwhile in terms of time to implement but thought I’d make my suggestion.

2

This is interesting, I’m currently on a factory mission to produce as much in house as possible. I’ve not quite gotten to Alloy wheels yet, but I had this issue when going from standard brakes, to having brakes that require servos, sensors and camera’s as well, the local stockpile for the “Fit Brakes” unit only holds so much, so I overcome this by using a “Stockpile” next to the “Fit Brakes”, to stock the brakes, the cameras, servos and sensors. I then set the “Fit Brakes” Import to “Local Only”

I think to compliment this, we should have the option to edit the number of each item that is held in the local stockpile.

3

Ok so not necessarily a solution but that’s an interesting point that I might not have picked up on… Does the Fit Brakes slot then pick up the stockpile as a local source even if the brakes and other components got to the stockpile from an external source?

4

Yes, On the “Fit Brakes” you can individually set each item’s location. So you could be producing brakes locally and set this to “Local Only”, but have the others “Prefer local” so that if you happen to have a supply stockpile with some, it’ll get them from there, otherwise will import from external.

5

So I’ve just watched the new video log and looks like suggestion 3 was already in the pipeline anyway so this would potentially resolve the issue.

In smaller factories and to save cash though it would still be nice to have the other features.