Is there a way to directly control the factory production rate?

[T/C]

Is there a way to directly control the factory production rate? This strikes me as an important and necessary feature for a "transport simulator".

When I create a supply chain, I can calculate the maximum throughput of that supply chain for every good produced. If I want the supply chain to operate smoothly, then the logical next step is to configure every factory so that it is introducing its products to the supply chain at the maximum throughput for those products, and not faster.

However, I can find no way to do this directly. For instance, there could be a text box on the Factory window asking the rate at which I'm willing to pick up products at that factory (where the pickup rate must be less than or equal to the "Max units per month"). Alternatively, there could be a table in the Schedule window asking for the rate at which factories should produce goods dedicated for pickup by that schedule. But neither of those controls exist, and I can find nothing equivalent. Am I missing something?

Of course, I've observed that there are ways to control the factory production rate indirectly. First, if you run parts of the system over-capacity, they will eventually correct themselves as the input queues of downstream factories reach their limits. As a technique for managing a supply chain, this is inefficient, unrealistic, and a perfect example of what NOT to do for aspiring supply chain professionals. Another way to indirectly control the production rate of factories is to limit the capacity of the transportation system, so that the production rate is effectively capped at the transport rate. Again, this is inefficient and unrealistic, and would be regarded as insane if practiced in the real world. Furthermore, Simutrans offers only crude tools for implementing this second type of indirect control. Unmanageable factors like travel time and vehicle capacity make it hard to achieve a specific transport rate for any given step in the supply chain. (Experimental's "convoys per month" feature helps with this, but doesn't fully solve the problem.)

Because of this conspicuously convoluted method of managing throughput, my impression is that Simutrans is not a "transport simulator" in which players simulate the management of supply chains, but is instead a "game" in which players are faced with the challenge of balancing a supply chain given inadequate and unrealistic controls over that supply chain. There's nothing wrong with that; I'm just curious whether other players regard Simutrans this way as well.

-TC

[Ters]

Is there a way to directly control the factory production rate? This strikes me as an important and necessary feature for a "transport simulator".

Within limits, it might be possible with the map editing tools. But that's like controlling the hitpoints or attack strength of enemies in a shooter. It's not like Maersk controls how much Lego is produced (assuming Lego is shipped in containers aboard Maersk ships, which may or may not be so).

I've never understood Simutrans as being about balancing supply chains (as a player), but about transporting goods.