Reading a SHQ Logistics Details

[zgrssd]

Reading the SHQ Logistics Details is one of the most important steps to debugging what is wrong with the Logistics System. Unfortunately, it is lacking a manual and is running into a lot of special cases. I do not have any example for this, so I have to use someone elses problem case as example:

Free Shipping Included:
A whole bunch of things need a exisiting logistics network connection, but do not actually consume Logistics points while doing so. They travel "for free". This includes but is propably not limited to:
- Water, Fuel, Power. Considering that they are what is needed to even run the Logistics and the Food production, it is better that this does not consume capacity. However, Fuel and Energy can also mater for unit supply. But usually Ammo and Food dwarf it anyway
- Hex Assets. While they need enough Logistics (on roads) passing through their hex, they do not actually consume anything of it. Their consumption and production interacts directly with the Zone Inventory. Only once there, can Logistics Capacity be used up
- IP. As this is a abstract resource, it needs no moving around
- Emergency Food. Note that this is opposite to regular food, wich is a rather big consumer of Logistics
- Storage. The zones do not need most of their Storage Space, most of the time. So it is transfered to the SHQ. However this seems to be so free, it does not even appear in most logistics reports
- Stuff the SHQ is doing with the city it is in.

Note that a poor connetion might still limit how many/turn can be moved. I would need to do tests to be sure.

Logistics Limits:
Image:
I have no precise data, but asuming the normal split I would say 6000 Logistics were availible for the SHQ, using the normal 40/40/30/30 Split.

The SHQ has many jobs, and thus can not risk blowing all it's availible logistics on just one of them.
You can set how much the total Logistics will be reserved to be used primarily for this one part of the SHQ Job. The standart spread is:
SHQ > Zone: 40%
SHQ > Unit: 40%
Zone > SHQ: 30%
Replacement: 30%
I the first pass, the SHQ will not use more logistics then that.

A first pass implies a 2nd pass. However this behavior is not documented, only infered:
If there is still Logistics left after the "Replacement" step, the game will do another pass starting at "SHQ > Zone" - this time ignoring the limits.
If the only reason something could not be moved was said Limit and there are still some left, they are used now.

Any points still left after that, can be used for Raising Formations or Strategic Redeployment.



SHQ > Zone
Image:
3891 of goods requested
3891 of goods delivered
1159 of 2371 supply capacity used
The discrepancy is because of "Free Shipping" rules.

I call these "Zone Deliveries". Zones only start their pre-turn with what they got in storage from last turn. If that is not enough for this turns demand, they request the difference from the SHQ.
Free Shipping is: Water, Fuel, Electricity. As well as IP during construction
Definitely not free shipping is: Food, Metal and Rare Metals during construction

SHQ > Unit
Image:
2719 was requested
2700 could be delivered
2658 of 2371 Logistics used

Time to get some food and ammo to the frontline. This is usually the point where you notice an issue.
The bulk of this is going to be Food, followed by ammo.
You need 1 Food/100 Manpower/1 Subunit. So the Avarage Brigade is already 45 Food.
A bunch of ammo also went out. The consumption here is a lot less predictable, as units only use when fighting. And some units like Artillery can be really hungry for ammo.
About 42 Fuel or Energy were moved to units. However, those traveled for free.

Notice that 19 Units of something could not be delivered. That indicats a bottleneck or two somewhere between the SHQ and the units.

Zone > SHQ:
Image:
25938 was marked "for Pickup by SHQ"
15892 was actually picked up
2111 of 1779 Logistics used

"Zone Retreival", as I like to call it.
Maybe 3/5th made it through. And that is despite it having plenty points for a 2nd pass and a lot of the stuff travelling for free. Chances are, this is not teh first turn this happened, with non-retreived stuff gathering dust in the Zone Storage.
Food and Metal tend to be the big consumers here.
Recruits Settlers however are not to be underestimated - every unit costs 5 Logistics Points.
Ammo is pretty low factor, as aside from the Militia Reimbursement, Ammo is entirely created in the SHQ Workshops.

Replacements
108 Subunits were requested
0 were delivered
0 of 1778 Logistics used

Requested can be a bit confusing, as it includes Replacements your Regular units wanted and the Militia wanted - including those Militia reinforcments for wich there is no replacement Subunit produced yet.
On the first pass, the SHQ had not yet run out of Logistics points. There was still ~10% or 600 points left. But there was a bottleneck leading to the units that actually had Replacements waiting for them. It propably ran into that bottleneck back in the SHQ > Unit step, but now it showed itself in full force.
Reinforcements are expensive for Logistics. 100 Soldiers "only" cost 5. But vehicles start ~20.

2nd Pass:
Image:
There was still ~600 left after Replacements was finished, so the 2nd pass began:
SHQ > Zone had no need for it. It fullfilled it's deliveries with 1/2 of the alloted Supply capacity on the first pass. And since everything requesed was delivered, it had (not yet) run into any bottlenecks. So still ~600 points left
SHQ > Unit could use ~300 of the 600 remaining. Those 19 it never delivered, propably had failed on the 1st pass due to a bottleneck farther down. But there were still units in another direction it could deliver to.
Zone > SHQ used the rest and still was massively short of what it was supposed to move.

Debugging the case:
This was a rare case where it was actually the SHQ part, that was bottlenecked. The Bottleneck overview revealed that the hexes just outside the city where black. The SHQ had actually run out of Supply capacity on the first few Kilometers. The SHQ needs the beefiest Logistics connection that Fuel can buy.
However there were the odd Yellow and Red Spots in teh System. Chance are, those would become the bottlenecks after the SHQ part was fixed.

I estimate that a whole half of the Empire was bottlenecked by the time the 1st pass had hit SHQ > Unit. Propably the half where fighting (losses and ammo use) and expanding was happening. No chance to collect for those zones or send out reinforcements.
The left half could still be somewhat managed. Indeed, the SHQ could still do stuff until it literally ran out of Logistics.

[Kriegsspieler]

This is all potentially quite useful, but where does one find the SHQ's logistics details? I have spent several frustrating minutes searching for this.

It might better help this post serve as a tutorial if you mentioned that somewhere. [;)]

[demiare]

ORIGINAL: Kriegsspieler

This is all potentially quite useful, but where does one find the SHQ's logistics details?

It's obvious from his picture If still not - select SHQ unit and if I'm remembering correctly - pick "logistic" tab

[Kriegsspieler]

If it were obvious, I wouldn't have asked.
Please just tell me where it is. Clicking on the SHQ and then on the logistics tab on the right side does nothing.

[jimwinsor]

ORIGINAL: Kriegsspieler

If it were obvious, I wouldn't have asked.
Please just tell me where it is. Clicking on the SHQ and then on the logistics tab on the right side does nothing.

You need to click on the oil barrel on the left side panel:

[Kriegsspieler]

Yes, thanks. I had just found it.
sigh -- this game's presentation of information is whimsical, to say the least!

[Karesz]

Hello!

First of all, sorry for the necro, but I am excatly in this situation, maybe some of you guys can give some advice.
That is a great summary and really helpful to understand how this works.

I played and captured 50%+ territory due to easy diplomacy and plenty of minors joined also captured 2 majors, however there are still plenty of majors around, and I continue to progress with the game. I am currently in turn ~100, having a large empire, about 25 cities.

The main problem I try to solve is that my main SHQ can never pick up the zone inventory. It is like 180k/350k item delivered, and 45k from my 57k logistical points gone to this... All the 3 main roads near my capitals are black-bottlenecks. I have about 57k total logistic capacity in the capital, and I estimate that I would need about 100k to pick up all the zone inventory. So I upgraded my logistical network... Every town has train station and truck station upgraded to the town level, and also sealed road + rail. Most town has extra train station and truck station 1 hex away from it.
The Capital (lv6city) where the 1st SHQ is, has like 4 extra truck station (lv4), 4 extra train stations (lv3), and 4 extra highway rail stations all max 3 hex away from the capital.
I setup the SHQ logistical caps as 40%-40%-100%-20%, because I would like to reduce the zone inventory backlog, and reinforcements are not really important currently in peacetime.
I try to upgrade them as fast as possible since I have plenty of resources, but damn, zone inventories are so huge, it feels like I never be able to reach the point where I can collect everything, also private sector is booming and they build things like ants.

I tried to setup extra 30k logistical custom pull to the capital, but that didnt helped at all.

Is there something I missing, or the lategame really needs 5tuck station+5railway station/city to get all zone inventory backlog to the SHQ? currently I am not at home so cannot post pictures or links, but as far as I understand the forum would not let me anyway since I am new.


Thanks in advance!

[redrum68]

Can you upload your save game so we can take a look?

Based on your explanation, it appears the SHQ city is the bottleneck itself so you need to continue to generate more logistics points in and around it (build more rail/truck stations). The only other alternative is to build a second SHQ somewhere so that half you cities pull to that instead. You can also try adding custom pull points on the roads/rails hexes right outside the SHQ city so that the network prioritizes pushing more of the logistics points towards it (I don't think a custom pull on the SHQ hex itself works).

The other approach is to deal with the "demand" side and try to reduce how much you need to send back to your SHQ by cutting asset generation percentage for anything that requires logistics points to send back. In particular, food tends to be a major culprit and if you can get most of your cities close to a net 0 (producing just what they consume and no more or less) that tends to help a lot. You could also reduce production of metal and rare metal if you already have a lot especially in cities very far away from your SHQ.

[Karesz]

I uploaded a save to a filebin site, but cannot link it properly due to forum limitations. I try to do it some tricky way.
filebinDOTnetPERxzn6z27hv8lpc3h2

Where DOT is . and PER is /

[redrum68]

Ok, I took a quick look at it. So lots of issues here but I'll highlight the most important ones:
- Avoid building extra train/truck stations on the main road/rail lines themselves as this causes the logistics points to refocus and lose a significant percentage. Instead build them next to the main roads/rails with just a single hex connection to them and use traffic signal to block extra points going to them.
- Use traffic signals to route the logistics points where you want and don't want them. By unchecking the pull point box at the top of the traffic signals screen and using All block in directions you don't need anything more than the bare minimum.
- Minimize unnecessary branches by deleting them or blocking them off.
- Use custom pull points right outside your capital or any area that isn't getting enough priority.

I took a quick pass to at least fix up the area immediately around your capital so more points flow towards it:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VZYreV ... sp=sharing

[Karesz]

Thank you a lot!!!

I checked what you did in detail, and I think I understand most of it, however the "custom pull points" is still a bit unclear for me.
Somewhere I read the pull/push switch patch of the logistic system solved most of the traffic sign requirements, so I didnt used those after the early game at all.


You used 50k custom pull points at the 3 "logistic hex" next to the capital while blocked 80% of the traffic which is going out from these hexes. So 80% of these trucks and trains are directed back to the capital from 1 hex away I assume, but I guess at some point all this traffic actually had to leave the capital area.
These trucks and trains leave anyway at the 80% blocked roads, after they gone through the capital hex? That is how this works?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Karesz

Thank you a lot!!!

I checked what you did in detail, and I think I understand most of it, however the "custom pull points" is still a bit unclear for me.
Somewhere I read the pull/push switch patch of the logistic system solved most of the traffic sign requirements, so I didnt used those after the early game at all.

Prior to the pull point system, Logistics points would split perfectly evenly at every branch. While also reducing the points at every branch after the 1st (wich afaik is still in).
Back in thosse days (last year) we also had no way to demolish road and the AI spammend them for free like crazy.
We ended up having to make a Maze of blocks and micro it all the time.

Pull points really just apply a "pull" on each outgoing side of a branch, to make sure most of the points go towards large consumers (cities, frontlines) rather then a lone oil-derric.
In case a branch has more pull then logistics, the pull points are used for a weighted split.

IIRC, it uses the last turns comsumption as the pull points for cities and frontlines. So there might be some delays.

[redrum68]

@Karesz - Np. The idea for the custom pull points next to your capital is so the network prioritizes sending logistics points towards your capital for all the other truck/rail stations in other cities/areas. Often times I find that capital itself doesn't have enough pull on the network and since your bottleneck was the capital itself that is the easiest way to prioritize pulling more points there. The pull/push system is definitely better than the previous system but still using traffic signals especially for dead end areas or roads that are just unnecessary can make a significant difference. At a high level, you are producing plenty of logistics points just needed to figure out how to direct them where they are really needed.

The idea with the 80% block is to force the truck stations you built next to your capital to push points towards the capital hex itself as otherwise they tend to push most of their points away and then it leaves you with the connections to the capital hex itself as the limiting factor. The points that go to the capital would then get refocused and sent out the other directions which isn't ideal as you lose some of the points for the refocus but worth it to make sure the capital hex itself has enough points. The 80% block will then be ignored once the points refocus out from the capital hex as they have no other direction to divert to once heading down those roads/rails. So the 80% is really just impacting the truck stations in the hexes right outside your capital to make them send most of their points towards the capital hex initially rather than away from it. Just to reiterate a previous point, building truck/rail stations on the main lines leading out from your SHQ is really bad as it makes all points coming and going refocus and lose lots of points.

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
- IP. As this is a abstract resource, it needs no moving around

Strictly speaking, this is not true.

(Furthermore, I would assume that, like with Energy, it's *in theory* possible to lose IP to the lack of zone storage if the zone is consuming more per turn than what can be stored - since what needs to be stored equates 1 turn of consumption.)