possible bug/am I missing something?

[Zolnova]

Hello, I am fairly new to this game.
I do understand how getting a working freight train route to work.
However, I have noticed that after a while my trains (which wait until they are 100% full before leaving) suddenly stop gaining more supplies from my coal mine(s) etc.
I wait for a while and nothing happens at all.

Is it possible that after a while coal mines and other sources for resource become 'empty' after a while?
If so, how can I tell when they are full and not?

Many thanks for reading

[sdog]

The reason is most likely that your receiving factory is full and does not require new coal. If it is a power plant, it will just burn it, after a while it will request new coal, wich automatically makes coal available at the station near your mine.

If it is a plant that's producing something, like a steel, cement or glass mill, you have to supply the other materials it needs too. It will then start to produce it's product and use up it's stores. But only until it's internal store is full too, the products have to be transported to the consumers too. When that happens production commences again, requiring more goods.

As a consequence, in order to have a stable state, you need to address the demands for a full supply chain. This can get quite large for some chains, eg steel, car chains.

Please let us know which pak-set you are using (eg. standard pak (aka pak64), pak128 etc) and the factory at the end of your coal line.

[Zolnova]

I am using the default pak64

route i have is set up like this

iron ore mine connected to a steel mill which is also connected to a 2nd iron ore mine

[sdog]

click on the steel mill, you should get a dialogue that shows you how many tons of iron ore are in the steel mill. If it equal or exceeds the maximum amount (printed next to it after a slash) the steel mill does not order any new iron ore from the mines.

You will also see two other categories, coal and steel. If you have not delivered coal to the steel mill, it will show 0t at those stores. If that is the case read on, else we have to analyse it in more detail.

To resolve the assumed issue, you have to find a connected coal mine. They are listed in the steel mill dialogue, the closest on the top. A press on the triangular button will bring you to it. Find one that is suitable for your transport and bring the coal to the steel mill. As soon as it arrives, the mill should produce steel and consume both coal and iron ore.

If that happens, you have to take care of carrying the steel away, but that's something for another posting. (and someone who is more accustomed to pak64 industry chains should preferably explain it.)

[Zolnova]

I see!
That is actually quite cool, and complex.
Took ages to have a route fully working, ended up with 2 million after I woke up.
Thanks very much for explaining this to me.

Now I have freight worked out, I'm gonna have to work out the enigma known as passenger transportation (failed twice, lost a million on the second go)

Again thanks very much fro your help!

[sdog]

that's good news then!

be careful though, when setting up such a chain, you can at first get very large revenues, but after a while they diminish. This is due to bottlenecks somewhere:

At large you have overcapacity, but at some point one link of your chain does not have enough capacity. You do not notice it at first, as all the stores at the factories are full. But after a couple of years of operation the rest of your network stands around while everything is waiting for one good. If the network is grinding to a total standstill, this will also prevent the needed good from arriving. The network is in a stable state.

This happens particularily often, when you increase the number of trains a lot in the initial 'boom' phase.

You are playing in a network game, where this can be a bit problematic, since when you log off you won't notice when this happens. Also the very high revenues you report, look to me a bit like this is not too unlikely to happen.

In the long run, you will get the balance. If you use too much trains, your network grinds to a standstill when inevitable bottlenecks appear. If you have too few trains all stations get completely overloaded with goods and you don't use the capacity to the full.

For large very highly interconnected networks, you get a very very nice complex nonlinear system. Tweaking it to run perfectly becomes non-trivial, which is the real game here.

[Zolnova]

I think I understand what you are saying.
It does get annoying waiting for goods because they are waiting for goods, which in turn are waiting for goods.
However I do make sure my engines do gain profit.
So even a bit of money is better then no money.