Some of these may be obvious, however I cannot find a guide or answers to these:
when making parts (like axles), I see that crafting time is 5ish minutes. It takes about 2 minutes to fit a front axle. Does this mean I need multiple crafting setups to keep up with short fitting time? How exactly does the inventory flow, and what is a good set up?
Can someone describe local vs import? Does setting to “local only” mean that only my own crafted axles, horns, air conditioners, etc. will be used? Or is there some sort of national vs international supply?
How do stockpiles work? Am I able to set specific items to be stored there? It sounds like it would make sense to craft axles and store them in a stock pile until they are ready to be fitted, but see question #1 regarding timing of crafting vs fitting.
If these have been answered via youtube or forums, please direct me there. I’ve only been playing since the previous update. Love the game. Keep up the good work.
Yes, you’ll need multiple crafting setups to keep up with demand from your assembly line. Inventory works as you’d expect: Resource importers bring in raw materials which go to the crafting bay’s “in” stockpile, the item is crafted and is moved to the “out” stockpile, which is then moved to the “in” stockpile of whatever assembly line requires it. It doesn’t really matter too much where you craft the items, though you might want to keep them close to where they’ll be used to help keep it simple. Do note that many crafting bays require multiple items to create one, putting extra pressure on your conveyor system, plan accordingly.
This is correct.
This distinction is not in the game. I’m not aware of any plan to introduce such a feature.
Yes, you can store any item in the game in them.
Most assembly bays don’t really need additinal stockpiles. However, some particularly resource-intensive bays will benefit from having stockpiles located as close as possible. I believe “fit windows” would be one, particularly when you’re adding electric windows to the mix.
Be careful with where you place the resource stockpiles of manufactured goods (stockpiles with the intention to act as a hub between the parts manufacturing section and the assembly section) because there is no way to assign “prefer local” to a stockpile.
As a result what you will find is, depending on your setup and how close everything is to everything else and how the resource conveyors are set up, the stockpile will import the finished good from the import slot, then your assembly section will take it, even if set to prefer local or even local only. This results in the parts manufacturer sitting idle.
Hopefully a prefer local/local only feature for stockpiles will be added in a future version.