devtrackers.gg
I have raised this topic to provide videos and more detailed explanations to illustrate an example the issue that I raised regarding the goods distribution problems and orchard item problems that I raised in my Wishlist, https://discussions.ubisoft.com/topic/187047/game-update-17-wishlist?lang=en-US. As it happens, they are both illustrated by reference to Orchards, though there are other buildings that suffer from the production delivery issues.
I started this investigation because I noticed that my Artista residences were not getting enough Mezcal and Jalea. Looking at the Statistics tab, it shows that the theoretical yield is enough, but I am frequently not getting the theoretical maximum. You can briefly see in the first 2 seconds of the video that Mezcal is producing 12 of 18 and Jalea initially produces 1 of 12, then 6 of 12. I then clicked on one of the Mezcal Bars and noted the behaviour of the delivery carts. You can clearly see the delivery of 1 Mezcal at a time to the nearby warehouse. You can also see it picking up goods, but the view is sometimes obscured by another cart. Usually, you can see them correctly pick up 1 each of Citrus, Herbs and Sugar. However, on quite a lot of occasions it only picks up Herbs and Sugar. This is because the Citrus is coming from the Orchards close by. You can see that for the first minute or so, the production rate is hovering around 285-290%, compared to the theoretical rate of 300%. At around 1:10 on the video, you can see the Citrus runs out and production of Mezcal stops. This is because the Citrus that has set out from the Orchards hasn't arrived yet. The problem is that once an Orchard delivery has set out for the Mezcal Bar, the Mezcal bar will not collect Citrus from the Warehouse. You can see as I switch to the Orchards that they are following a fairly long path to the Mezcal Bars. The long path means that the Mezcal Bar misses collecting Citrus for several Mezcal production cycles before it finally arrives from the Orchard. A secondary problem is that they usually only carry 1 ton at a time when delivering to Mezcal Bars, but usually 5 or 6 when delivering to Warehouses. You can also see straightaway that the delivery range of the Orchard is much greater than that of the Mezcal Bar. You can also see near the end that I have plenty of Citrus in the warehouses, so Citrus Production rate isn't the problem (it runs at 22 of 21).
The mechanism is therefore that they can't deliver quickly enough because of the long path, rather than they can't get back in time for the next load as I previously thought. Some of the other posters on the subject have probably said this. I did see one occasion when an Orchard stopped producing because carts didn't get back in time before their internal storage was full, but never captured that on video. It seems that this is actually quite rare. It seems to me that the range of Orchards needs to be significantly shortened, along with several other production buildings that have been mentioned in various topics over the last year or so. Maybe the consuming Production building should be allowed to collect from the warehouse even if there is a delivery coming from the source production building.
I then decided to see what would happen if I forced the Mezcal bars to collect Citrus from the warehouses, as shown in the second video. I paused production of all the Citrus Orchards and waited for all the carts to complete their journeys. As can be seen in the second video, the production rate of the Mezcal Bars was rock solid at the theoretical 300% because they have a ready supply of all three source goods. I also briefly looked at the Jalea production, and they have a similar problem because of slow deliveries from the nearby Calamari farms. There is a second group of calamari further away, so they always deliver to the warehouses.
">
I also looked at Perfume Mixers, which were also not producing properly, but didn't record it. I noticed that they had a similar problem of missing Coconut Oil which was coming directly from those Orchards, which are even further away than the Citrus ones
While I was watching the Mezcal chain before I started the videos, I noticed that the Warehouse capacity for Citrus had been reached. This will always happen at some time, because I am slightly overproducing. Somewhat counter-intuitively, this actually makes things worse. This is because the Orchards cannot deliver to the Warehouses so they always deliver to the Mezcal Bars which therefore run out more often. I actually dumped half the Citrus, and saw a definite improvement as the Orchards sometimes delivered to the Warehouses.
I observed that the range of Orchards is very long. It extends over almost the entire island, which is quite large. This means that it is impossible for me to move the Orchards further away from the finished product production area. To be able to get these production buildings to produce at maximum efficiency, which I need to fill the Artista houses, I will have to move them to a different (fairly large) island. This is just a waste of real estate on two islands to mask the over-long range of Orchards. It's always been there, but hasn't really been so apparent to me before. Alternatively, I can take a hit of about 500 Arista inhabitants by leaving the availability of Mezcal and Jalea at less than 100%. Neither is particularly palatable.
Up till New World Rising, the huge majority (all?) use of Orchard goods was in the Old World & Cape Trelawney so they were almost never on the same island anyway. There was a report last April about Resin Orchards and Lacquer factories (https://discussions.ubisoft.com/topic/146757/orchards-have-very-large-delivery-radius?lang=en-US). That was resolved by moving them to separate islands, but it was easy enough to do and a re-design of what was made on the Lacquer factory island to incorporate many other factories meant there wasn't room for the orchards anyway.
The Calamari issue is much easier to resolve because I am waiting to get a couple of items that means that I will only need the group of fisherman that is further away.
The third video shows what I mean about the Orchard Items not working properly. The block of Orchards you see uses Hand-Pollination Method, Optimized Pruning and Get Rich Quick Volume 1. Together, these give a Forest Density bonus of 60%. The nearby Lumberjacks have Teutonic Technical Secateurs, Druid's Sickle and Industrial Thresher which also give a 60% boost. Given that Orchards and Lumberjacks have the same range and need the same number of available trees, according to the Wiki, these combinations of items should have the same effect. A layout that works for maximum production by Lumberjacks should work for Orchards, but it doesn't. Looking at the video, you can see that there are gaps in the Orchards. You should be able to fill those with other Orchards. As you can see, if I try to put an extra Orchard in the gap, either the new orchard or the existing ones, or both, has projected production of well below 100%. If I try to put it between Orchards of a different type, then they bot drop to near zero. Contrast this with the Lumberjacks. They already have the gaps filled for the four already placed. If I try to add a fifth one, as soon as I move it in range of the Trade Union, the yield is 100%. I can get 18 Lumberjacks in that layout at 100%, but only 12 Orchards. I have other layouts with different designs that I can get 20 Lumberjacks, but only 10 Orchards. This is becoming a real problem as various DLCs add more and more need for Orchards.
">
I have raised a ticket with the save file (Orchard Problems) from just before the video.
