Some observations on the Make Wheel tile
– An alloy wheel is 4 steel -> 1 wheel. With 4 wheels per car, this keeps the resource transports very busy. It also takes far too long to make 4 wheels.
– The same problem exist for standard wheels, 2 steel -> 1 wheel, but not as bad.
So I wonder why the 4 steel to 1 wheel ratio on alloy wheels? The price for an allow wheel is about $600 and a load of steel $110. An attempt to offer a discount, but not too much?
Also, allow wheels are made from aluminium (mostly). An aluminium load cost $600+ .
Technically, steel is an alloy. When someone says “alloy wheels”, which is a poor phrase, they are just referring to a different alloy, usually non-ferrous.
In other words, I agree, an “alloy wheels” upgrade would be made from an aluminum alloy with no iron, not steel. Steel is the cheaper standard. And 4 of the same material to make one wheel is too much anyway, switching to aluminum allows using just one item as it costs much more. A little too much in fact, you would then have to make the wheels more expensive for us to have any incentive to manufacture them. Or, even better, and more realistic, it could make two wheels from each stack of aluminum. Then the incentive is double, you avoid paying the markup and you import fewer items. Generally, any manufacturing that requires many more items than what it makes is not worthwhile because it ties up the importers.
This gives me another idea, about importing raw materials in bulk, I’ll add it to my suggestion thread.