Trade Depots and Vehicles

[willz121 0]

Hi guys,

 

Been reading these forums and playing Sim City 5 since it's release... and for my sins I am still plugging away!! I have a question about the vehicles required when building mines etc and trade depots.

 

What do the vehicles do? For example:

 

Coal Mine has 4 delivery trucks - are these just for delivering coal to a trade depot?

Trade Depot has 4 delivery trucks - are these trucks just for transferring goods within my own city? Or are they also used for importing/exporting?

 

Any help would be greatfully received because I am often hitting the "storage is full" message on my mines, and when I check my depots, they are at full capacity too even with maxed out trucks. Everything is set to export, and they have their own road down to the regional entrance, so there is never any traffic blocking them at all.

 

Thanks!

[CarloTheCurious 3]

Your own trucks are only for transferring goods within your city (although once they leave the garage they can end up anywhere, ime - they're not tied to the building they left from).

 

Export and import is handled exclusively by trucks (or trains or ships) from the region/global market. You can see how many you can get per day by hovering over the 'via' line on the bottom right of the trade tab.

 

(possible exception - great works might use your trucks, but since they're so buggy I haven't built one lately)

[Yaffle 29]

Yep, as Carlo T Curious said.

 

If you plop a garage on a coal mine it will ship coal to any "sink" such as a trade depot/port, power station or smelting factory.

 

Trade depot trucks move items from the trade depot (say the coal above) to another in-city sink, such as a power station or smelting factory. This will happen if you have set the commodity to "use locally" or "import" or even "export" if the local need happens before a regional truck turns up to take the commodity away in return for simoleans. SO, if you are mining a lot of coal you can set the trade depot to export and it can still service a power station or whatever, just selling the excess.

 

"The region" generates trucks to come to the trade depots to collect any items you have set there as "Export" and drop off any items you have set as "Import". These trucks, if all is working, will spawn each time your trade depot fills a pen for a commodity (or has a truckload if smaller). They will head into your city, fill up, give you cash and leave.

 

If you have a trade depot doing nothing but exporting you can delete all the trucks, they are not required. The trucks that give you cash for your commodity are spawned by the region, not your trade depots.

 

If you have several mines the trucks will be quite promiscuous and take coal from any mine. They care not a jot. I am unaware of these trucks being able to change cargo however (but am open to correction), my observations have been that an oil tanker will go to any oil pump, but it won't morph into a fuel tanker to collect fuel to go to the trade depot. Trade depot trucks will automatically become whatever is needed to deliver the required commodity, I guess by switching the load bit behind the cab. So, one truck could take alloy to your processor factory, come back and turn into an oil truck to take oil to your power station.

 

My issue has been that first of all the region trucks dry up, then all of my local trucks leave the city never to return. This causes issues with commodities building up, and me unable to sell anything except by the boat/train. These are usually too infrequent and the city haemorrhages cash leading to unavoidable bankruptcy. The problem is not traffic related. Watching the trade map shows commodities building up, and no little trade decals coming in on Region trucks to collect. I also always place trade depots bang on the Highyway entrance to ensure trucks can get to it easily.

 

Hope all that helps.

 

Y

[willz121 0]

Thanks for the help guys. I put this to the test last night with zero trucks at my Trade Depots, and it's working a treat. I'm bringing in around 500k per month from exporting ore, coal, alloy and processors. City topped 5m Simoleons last night before I went to bed.

 

Really appreciate the quick and indepth answers. Thank you.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

(possible exception - great works might use your trucks, but since they're so buggy I haven't built one lately)

 

I still haven't built one.  I'm really more interested in the RCI end of city building, not so much mining material and processing them.

[duckbow 3]

Great information, Yaffle!  I had no idea the export trucks spawned in the region -- I'll be deleting my truck modules on my export only trade depots.

...If you have several mines the trucks will be quite promiscuous and take coal from any mine. They care not a jot. I am unaware of these trucks being able to change cargo however (but am open to correction), my observations have been that an oil tanker will go to any oil pump, but it won't morph into a fuel tanker to collect fuel to go to the trade depot. 

As for trucks changing their cargo, my experience is that Trade Depot trucks can morph from, say, an ore truck into a coal truck, but I have yet to see a truck from a coal mine change cargo ability.

 

Regarding your issue with disappearing trucks, this has plagued me too. Maxis claims this has been fixed/corrected in the patches, but the problem may still exist if a pre-patch city has an existing trade port and recommends bulldozing and rebuilding. I have tried this, and it seems to work marginally better -- worth a try?

 

Thanks again for the detailed reply.