Slot Stockpiles

I first thought this was a BUG an posted it in the other forum. Then I found others here discussing similar problems on their slots/lines.

I pick the [Fit Windows] Slot as an example here…

When I set up lines and slots early in the game I do not have a lot of upgrades available.
The stockpiles at all the slots work out fine at that time.
After a few more hours/days I am able to build new lines or upgrade already build slots to include options like “Electric Windows” at the [Fit Windows] Slot.
At first the stockpile at the slot fills as expected with enough windows for at least 2 production runs and some additional servos. Behavior as expected.
After 3 to 5 runs - cars going through and getting windows - the ratio between windows and servos gradually change to 12 to 14 servos and only 2 to 4 windows.
2 windows aren’t enough for a Sedan or SUV… even not enough for a compact car… and it takes time to “delete” the excess servos and order more windows. It is possible to compensate for that a little bit with placing a stockpile thing next to the slot, but I think that shouldn’t be necessary to get windows for each run regardless of the “predictive stock control”-upgrade or not.
Yes, the windows stock at the slot might be almost depleted after a run for a sedan or suv, but shouldn’t be filled up with servos even with the windows stockpile next to it.

That behaviour is not only with the [Fit Windows]-slot, but several others too. They start out with a nice ratio between basic parts and parts needed for upgraded designs and after a few runs that ratio changes and there are not enough basic parts available anymore for even one run.
To be honest that is a bit frustrating for me…

Disclaimer:
Englisch isn’t my first language and I hope you still understand what I mean…

Yes. Same problem with all upgraded slots…

PS: l’anglais n’est pas ma langue naturelle donc ce message est peut-être incompréhensible.

i know this issue is extremely frustating.

In my own build i have made a new station (that has all the upgrades in the plant)

The station has a 0s assembly and you are only counted towards what you tell that station to fit.
Since the “electric windows” update is a simple and quick thing to describe here i will use this.

Its simply so that i do NOT upgrade the “Fit Window” station (stockpile is to small, there are some bugs to how it calculates volumes of parts etc described above) i will instead put this upgrade in my own station named “Fit Extras”

i will tell this station to only add electric servos to the vehicles demanding electric windows (basicly by upgrading “electric windows” in the upgrade options) so now every car will have the update if it requires it and there will be 16 slots of stock.

Once cliff release the next version of the game i will release my modded version of final assembly to give you the option to put on “optional” upgrades later. i will have to rebalance the issues were it would assemble one additional set of something (electric wingmirrors would require an additonal set of wingmirrors etc)

Hi, its worrying that this is a problem, as I thought I had basically fixed it a few versions ago. ideally the game is sensible enough to know what upgrades you have installed and to only order the components that are needed (taking into account what you already have. It has to be said that with some of the slots, if enough upgrades have been fitted things get a bit overcomplicated.

One solution might be to split apart some of the tasks so that we have mini-lines like we do for the ‘powertrain’. So for example instead of fitting electric motors (servos) to the car at the fit windows slot, maybe they should be attached to the windows themselves at a separate slot, and then the ‘electric windows’ got attached in one motion instead?

Think that splitting them up is the best course of action. I have previously mentioned this in regards to the wheels and tires. Having two slots to fit the wheels and then the tires is not correct. The tires are fitted to the wheels and then the wheel/tire assembly is fitted to the vehicle.

The same is true with the doors. All the options and features for a door are assembled into the door assembly which is then fitted to the vehicle.

The issue that I see with how the program is designed is that having a separate sub-assembly line for items like the doors would require syncing those to the correct vehicle when it arrives at the door installation slot.

This might be something to look at for a future version of the game, but would make more sense as it’s how things work in real life.

I think you are right with that statement, although I startet playing around 1.26 and missed earlier builds and not sure when you fixed it the first time… I think I really noticed it with 1.31 when suddenly production slowed down at certain station once I had some upgrades on those line…

@cliffsky:
I try to upload a savegame somewhere where there are already some of those upgraded slots with “not optimal” stockpiles and pm you the link (if that is ok for you)…

Edit:
Interesting, with the new build (1.33) this does not to be a problem anymore. A Window slot ran for a full game-day with a nice ratio of 6 servos / 10 windows…

We already have an effective mini production line of sorts for the powertrain, so having a system where we change resources from:
Tires
Wheels
Alloy Wheels

to
Wheel Rims
Alloy Wheel Rims
Wheels (with tires)
Alloy Wheels (with tires).

Would be no big deal. We just have a ‘make wheels’ slot which combines the tires and wheels together, then a single slot to fix them.
TBH its door panels that are the real nightmare bottleneck.

I have encountered this problem at the fit door panel assembly with the car alarm upgrade. It doesn’t always have an optimal ratio of alarms to car doors as shown in this picture :

edit : maybe this could be fixed with a way to manually set the stock in the stockpile ?

What about something similar there…
Although the combinations are somewhat more with alle the upgrades going into the doorpanels it looks similar to the “WingMirrors” with its 4 different types to me…

And then you can build a similar thing you did for the engine and have fully assembled doorpanels in the production line itself…
Maybe in combination with a larger local stockpile?
Better would be if the player puts a stockpile next to the production slot…
Not sure if that is the right idea though…

Or maybe split up the Doorpanel with all the upgrades into two with doorpanels and maybe one upgrade in one slot and all the other upgrades in a dedicated between doorpanels and windows…

HELP… :wink: