How do I ensure a supply of crude oil?

[fhaag]

I am playing on a large sandbox map, trying to build somewhat efficient road networks and lines. The map is currently in year 2024.

One difficulty I am facing is that plenty of industries require the products of oil refineries (mostly petrol and chemicals), but the oil refineries say they cannot produce without raw materials. Now, those raw materials - apparently crude oil - are nowhere to be found on the map.

I have tried manually building a couple of oil wells (listed as "obsolete" - but I'm not sure where else to get crude oil from) using the public player and successfully linked them as suppliers of the oil refineries - just to see them close down and dismantle after a rather short period of time. I have tried this three times already, which sometimes also led to the oil refineries themselves getting closed down, leaving the other industries without anyone to supply them with petrol or chemicals.

The third time, the closure was really massive, with more than 180 industries suddenly closing at a time (essentially, a considerable part of the industries on the map) - not sure whether this was a particular ripple effect from the lack of crude oil.

So, how do I ensure a supply of crude oil and prevent entire industry chains from closing due to a complete lack of raw materials?

Simutrans verison: Simutrans 123.2 Extended nightly 14.23
Pak128.Britain-Ex (v 123.7, e 14)

[209CATrus]

I FOUND LEFTOVER BEER FROM TWO DAYS AGO, WHAT AN UNFORTUNATE TIME TO POST QUESTIONS. I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE AUTHENTICITY OF THIS MESSAGE
I actually never try playing that far time-wise, but what can i say:

• Industries are biomized. That means, each, as far as i recall, raw producer industry, goes to specific biome. That means, You need non-flat (for example, emerge on higher elevation than the rest of the industries) and sufficiently big map to ensure that you have complete chain
• Given point 1, you need to crank up both map size and industry count, to ensure production and consumer diversity. Can you check industry list for available crude oil producers and their respective dates?

There's that cool industry distribution PR that got merged, but ex-15 unfortunately. Nontheless, 2024 is basically endgame, there's no more content, given historical+realistic approach of pak128Britain, but if you can confirm there are no oil producers available at that time period, it's a bug report. Unless James went THAT far as to include abysmal eco-industrial practices of contemporary UK.
MATTHEW SAVE HIM I'M DRUNK AS **** (F-WORD SO I DON'T FORGET) I CAN'T HELP HIM MUCH

[fhaag]

That means, You need non-flat (for example, emerge on higher elevation than the rest of the industries) and sufficiently big map to ensure that you have complete chain

My map is 2000x2000 fields, spanning elevations -3 to +8, as far as I can see:

Would that be large enough?

Can you check industry list for available crude oil producers and their respective dates?

In the Factory legend window, I see that when I select Oil refinery on the consumers side, no producers are highlighted:

I'm not quite sure how to see dates in the industry list.

However, I have browsed the entire list of industries I can build in the Build industries dialog box, and there, the only producers of crude oil I can find are:

• Oil rig (1955 - 1975)
• Oil rig (1975 - 2005)
• Oil well (1909 - 1925)
• Oil well (1925 - 1955)
• Oil well (1955 - 1975)

Nontheless, 2024 is basically endgame, there's no more content, given historical+realistic approach of pak128Britain

Admittedly, I had the game start in 2020, precisely because I wanted to focus on building a large road network with lots of diverse traffic, without having to deal with changes in the availability of industries or rolling stock, and just have the most advanced options available.

[209CATrus]

I believe the cargo list, specifically the consumer/producer tickbox shows obsolete industries in blue HEIL RANRAN11111
But *******, i don't know shutdown conditions for obsolete producers, so JAMEEEEEEEEEEEES THIS IS PROBABLY A BUG
I believe 70s is a pretty good time to build road network, since this is realistic pakset with historical progression, 2010s (and later) is basically an endgame of endgames, where naturally you just stare at it.
Diverse traffic? At 2020, really? But have you heard about horse-driven ~15 km/h coaches blocking 56 km/h trucks in 1940? Oh, and did you know that in 1940 hauling 12 units of iron/coal through less-than-perfect 220km stretch of the road will only pay for just one-way trip? Really makes you think about highways
Besides, James tuned the pak against multiplayer, and multiplayer is supposed to progress through all stages.
Also, the highways are practically evil, since that's how citizens naturally avoid using public transportation. It's a feature that the vehicular traffic gradually rises through years to pressure the players

[fhaag]

I believe the cargo list, specifically the consumer/producer tickbox shows obsolete industries in blue

This makes it even more explicit that no-one is producing crude oil on my map (highlight by myself):

But *******, i don't know shutdown conditions for obsolete producers, so JAMEEEEEEEEEEEES THIS IS PROBABLY A BUG

I have read that they randomly close down within a window of (by default) 30 years after becoming obsolete. But that is not so much the problem, it's more that there is nothing non-obsolete I could replace them with after 2005, it seems.

So, will that "James" you keep summoning read this thread at some point, or should I report this anywhere?

Diverse traffic? At 2020, really? But have you heard about horse-driven ~15 km/h coaches blocking 56 km/h trucks in 1940?

Of course - lots of long-distance buses (unfortunately, all of the same type - the large white bus - as that's the only passenger vehicle fulfilling the minimum speed of 80 km/h for motorways), different kinds of mail vehicles, mixed with (so I hoped) plenty of different kinds and sizes of trucks that transport different goods. All nicely travelling large parts of their itineraries on my access-controlled motorway network, where they can enter and exit without any traffic lights and without crossing the lanes of any vehicles driving in another direction, while nicely overtaking slower vehicles in front of them.

[Isaac Eiland-Hall]

So, will that "James" you keep summoning read this thread at some point, or should I report this anywhere?

Jamespetts is the lead on Extended. I'd imagine he'll catch up when he's around.

[209CATrus]

I have read that they randomly close down within a window of (by default) 30 years after becoming obsolete. But that is not so much the problem, it's more that there is nothing non-obsolete I could replace them with after 2005, it seems.

Just another proof that 2020 is basically unplayable from the beginning. But the last oil producer is around 2005, so that's a lot of room. Just switch for earlier time period for the time being, ev&tho i believe James has a 60-page talmud somewhere on this forum regarding how green-loving 100% natural and locally-produced UK government absolutely ruined the hydrocarbon part of the domestic economy by 2005, hence the obsoletion date.

Isaac already stated that factoid, but James is the author, maintainer, the source of most good and most bad in Extended. He has a final word on balance and features. And the reason why it takes a PhD thesis and at least 1 thousand dead crash test dummies to rebalance/PR something.

James, if you read this, there's still an industry-rebalancing PR from Martin509 hanging around on Github, i'm pretty sure everyone would like to see it in Ex-14 too, as Ex-15 is too raw to be playable