[Fixed 1.06][Bug 1.02] Dual station is not balanced.

When I starting splitting the paint section I would make 2 drying sections to try and speed up that process.

As you can see in the picture one side is being preferred over the other. THe cars are going to both sides but it’s more like 1/3 to one side and 2/3 to the other. Also when I first built it I accidentally made the left side one extra square away. So since the conveyor was longer to that side no cars were going to it.

Hi, is this version 1.01 or 1.02? (Top right of main menu) I think I fixed this in 1.02?

I don’t know which version the OP is using, but in 1.02 the load balancing problem still persist:
cars will only routed to the non-preferred drying slot if the path leading up to the preferred slot is filled up with waiting cars. Making the path between the split and the slot intake as short as possible can minimize this problem (actually doesn’t just applying to drying)

I obviously don’t know how you implemented this, but the most straight forward way to do this is to calculate a weight for each direction, which may be empty distance to next slot + a weight on how soon the slot will be available. The first part should be way smaller than the second part, which should be very high for an idle slot. I guess you have further have to take into account how far done the slot is with its current task, and if resources are present/requested.
Approximating this correctly would require a full forward model (simulating ahead of the current frame), which I guess is too computational intensive for this simple matter, so a heuristic suffices.

Alternatively, set the turntables to fixed splitting rates (even to the left, odd to the right). Might be even configurable by the player.

This was on 1.02.

This problem is pretty infuriating in terms of gameplay: you spend money to increase the number of stations, in order to have a better workflow and faster production, and cars seem to completely ignore empty stations. It defeats the entire purpose of the game.

Case in point, the latest dev blog video at 5:50:

youtu.be/zHZ-ht18u_M?t=358

Look on the top-right the incoming cars completely ignoring 2 free stations out of 4, while the 2 other ones already have a long line of cars… :slight_smile: And that happens for the entire duration of the video, at various other stations too…

Cliff I run into this problem in 1.03 as well, definitely saw a lot of it in 1.02. As a matter of fact, you can see it in the 1.03 dev blog you posted today. Watch the orange car come out of the painting station, skip the drying station and get in line.

youtu.be/zHZ-ht18u_M?t=1m5s

The routing will go (in my experience) to the nearest station “as the crow flies” ignoring the actual number of steps it takes to get there. You can see here (from a1.02) where a car comes out of the painting area and turns left at the fork, going much further to get to the station that is literally closer.

youtu.be/Ug7YzWGua6k?t=28s

I had similar experiences while playing today with 1.03.

Just bought and downloaded the game yesterday, and I’ve had this issue as well.

Just coded and tested a fix for this now…expect it in 1.04 soon.

i had a similar issue, hope it will work better with the next patch, i am looking forward to it.

Just to add an additional build style… I have an area with 5 dryers arranged unconventionally. The game sends lines of cars to ONLY to the north-west dryers, never to the ones south-east of those.

Hi KoS!

I found that they will eventually go to spare dryers but only if they are blocked from entering the “preferred” one, being busy doesn’t mean anything to the line only when there is an actual queue do the cars get sent to the other dryers, think this has been patched (or very soon will be) so will play tonight.

And thanks for the videos, your playlists look a lot like my games library, will have to sub :slight_smile:

Hi Grumpage!

Thanks! Ahh, interesting! I’ve been having holdups in the previous part of my factory, so I’ve not experienced a huge buildup at the dryers just yet, unfortunately. I am very much looking forward to playing with the new patch!

It is indeed better in 1.04! It used to be using 2 out of each 3 dryers, now it’s using 3 out of 3 on the first set, but still only 2 out of 3 on the second set:

Still the priority system seems to prefer going to a queue

This will keep happening til both the north and south queue is full then it will go into the central dryer

My dryer assembly seems to work almost flawlessly now in 1.04. The cars will rarely form a queue, and seem to go to empty stations 90% of the time.

I definitely see improvements in the splitting decisions, but like Grumpage above I am still seeing times where an open drier is skipped in favor of getting in line.

You can game the system a little by packing the dryers close together like this. Using them this way you get almost 1/3 per dryer for 3 dryers.
image

the balancing works if you have at least one converyor between the station and the splitter.

if you haven’t it don’t splitt correctly.

cu
caleum

oh interesting… that may be my screw-up. The code essentially evaluates and makes a ‘balanced’ decision once it is in a tile with more than 1 exit. It might be a quirk of the code meaning it need at least one tile between the exit and the eventual slot…