A blog post on problems with the games current design (specifically relating to fitting complex components…
Stupid question:
What if you increase stockpile only? Now each stockpile contains 16 slots, why not making it in that way that eacht slot can hold $n items of the same type? So you can keep up to 16 different items on one station, containing up to ($n * 16) items? That should be enough for many variations?
Why not restrict assembly slots to only add a specific type of item, rather than bounce between the various options? This solves the stockpile management problem completely.
Have cars that are designated as a specific type (luxury, budget, etc) only use assembly slots that add the components their specific model needs. It’ll be down to the player to ensure they have the requisite slots in the right amount. Mismanagement leads to too many cars blocking up the assembly line while slots sit empty or possibly worse: The cars simply can’t find the next slot because the player didn’t place any appropriate slots.
The downside to this approach is that real life production lines aren’t this limited, being capable of adding different variants of the same components at the same assembly slot.
I have no idea how to code or anything, so maybe it’s just impossible but;
Normally speaking every assambly line works with a schedule.
In PL it begins with the first station. As most assambly lines.
(I work with one). Without this schedule, the whole line stops.
So, the first station handles according the schedule. If everything is going to that plan, no station should have problems. They all know what will come, and the logic departement will work according this same schedule to bring the stations whatever they need for that order.
This is how a normal line functions in real life. Again, I really don’t know how complex it is to code, but IF stations know what will come, they all can act before the car will arrive at there station, and order the parts they need. Maybe this requires a little minimum order of say; five for each type. But that’s fine. Normally speaking a assambly line push out big numbers of the same type anyway. 1, 1, 1 etc isn’t effective in production lines. It’s about speed and big numbers. Smaller sets or specific wishes cost more time. And therefor sold for much higher prices
Solution F:
Fit the expensive wing mirror, give this car a “Free Bonus Feature(s)”-entry similar to “Uninstalled feature(s)”.
Should you implement Solution D, please add a stockpile option for such ‘flushed’ resources, so that they can be used for something else.
Splitting the stockpile up so it have stockpile for at least 1 car of each type would be the basic solution, Step 1.
Then you research/unlock stockpile manangement (or whatever you want to call it) and have the option to control the balance. That´s step 2.
Step 3 is to lock a slot to only do a specific typ of car(s), and thus speeding up the mounting of the part(s). This would also be an unlockable option whihc may, or may not, add a small speed bonus if you assign less car types to a slot.