Deteriorating dockside oil refinery yields

[trainrover]

Initially, dockside oil refineries yield favourable output of crates of goods, but over a period of just a few years their output dwindle to the point where (a) only 15% of their yield gets shipped, (b) my vessels gradually end up swarming the dock, (c) my supply chain thereafter falters, and (d) the very-poor station (dock) ratings are maddening. Their supplies of oil are still steadily mighty. What must I be doing wrong, e.g., should I use goods ships with lower capacities? From monitoring the station panel with its dynamic crate counts as tankers discharge their oil the quantities dwindle from between 250 and 400 crates to between 16 and 80 over the course of just a few years.

[Redirect Left]

This page here details station rating stuff, https://wiki.openttd.org/Game_mechanics#Station_rating

The station rating might be low because nearby vehicles crashed, there is too much cargo waiting and a few other resons. Furthermore, rating is affected by age of the vehicle or boat that services it, so an armada of old vehicles might keep the rating lower than anticipated.

To help further, it'd be useful for you to upload your savegame file, often found in folder Documents\OpenTTD\save so we can have a look at exactly what's going on, as the supply chain faltering and yield changing might be unrelated to station rating and something else for people to investigate. You can attach the file directly to these forums by using the upload attachment function in the reply page.

[trainrover]

Thank you, although ships never crash plus it's more a matter as to why the refineries steadily become stingy at production, which seems to bring about the crummy dock rating..do OTTD industries experience strikes? The Blanc Sablon Oil Refinery Dock virtually adjacent to the refinery in my attached saved game is the latest one to experience labour disruptions. The landlocked refinery at Hines Creek, on the other hand, has never been problematic; I suppose there be something about ships that I must be overlooking(?). Two of its NewGRFs, by the way, are sourced only from "ottdc_grfpack_8.0.zip".

The matter's altogether mystifying.

[NekoMaster]

The speed of the vehicles that service/deliver cargo and how frequently they service the station can also effect station rating as well as cargo age (lots of cargo waiting around for a while starts to decrease in value and ratings)

[leifbk]

The speed of the vehicles that service/deliver cargo and how frequently they service the station can also effect station rating as well as cargo age (lots of cargo waiting around for a while starts to decrease in value and ratings)

I've played a lot with slow vehicles, and even sail ships and horse carts running at 20 km/h will never cause the station rating to drop below 67 % if properly serviced. But let a couple of hundred cargo units sit waiting on the station for more than a few weeks, and the rating will drop like a rock.

[trainrover]

Okay, although the mystery is why the refineries progressively claw back yielding their production to my ships. They end up retaining ⅚ their output instead of usual ¼ to ⅓. Again, my ships are idling in the dock waiting for their payloads.

[leifbk]

I've looked a little at your save file, only the area of the Blanc-Sablon oil refinery. I see that the cargo rating is just 16 %, although there are plenty of goods ships to take care of the cargo. The only explanation that I can think of, is that the extremely high production level may cause a kind of overrun in the game internals. I'm used to production of up to a few hundred (or in what I consider extreme cases about 2,000) units per month, while your oil refinery regularly produces more than 20,000 units per month. I don't know if the game really is designed for that kind of production.

[trainrover]

Really? I wonder how ships capable of holding 15,000 crates of goods become useful. The dockside refineries start out well, but then they progressively become retentive. My farms, mines, and forests go berzerk at forever increasing their output, yet I guess my greed at glutting the market with oil's foolish. I'll try funding an adjacent refinery or two to see whether that/those help.

Hmmm

[leifbk]

Really? I wonder how ships capable of holding 15,000 crates of goods become useful.

The default cargo ship in OTTD carries 190 tons. Ships in Andythenorth's excellent set Fish2/Squid carry from 65 tons up to 1,400 tons. For my part, I seldom even utilize the largest ships in that set. I play almost exclusively with FIRS, which industries rarely produce more than a few hundred tons each month.

The dockside refineries start out well, but then they progressively become retentive. My farms, mines, and forests go berzerk at forever increasing their output, yet I guess my greed at glutting the market with oil's foolish. I'll try funding an adjacent refinery or two to see whether that/those help.

How do you get those insanely big oil fields? It might be an idea to settle for more moderate amounts of cargo. For my own part, I tend to put a lot more emphasis on quality than on quantity. But, by all means, to each their own gaming style.

[Kalen]

Does transferring affect station ratings any differently than a normal delivery? I noticed those goods are being transferred to Montreal Rouses Point Quays and there's ~9000 crates from Blanc-Sablon sitting there; which station gets the penalty for waiting cargo in this situation?

Ship 53 had gotten old, but replacing it had no effect on the ratings. However, when I sent it to the depot, I received a pop-up cost value of ~159 million. Not entirely sure what that was about. The ship had no transfer credits, either. I did the same to ship 35, another ship in the route, but it didn't happen with it.

In addition, I purchased an advertising campaign which did increase the ratings, but then they just started to decline again. Not entirely sure what's going on in here, if it's all WAI and I'm just missing something, or if it's bugged in some way.

[trainrover]

^^^ Well, thank you for looking..I suppose there be comfort in knowing my not being the only gamer mystified. As for the ship costs, 159M$ seems about right to me..I wonder why the latter ship didn't cost any thing when being auto-replaced. And thank you for telling me about the abundance of goods at Rouses Point..I've been overly distracted at appeasing authorities' and station ratings.

How do you get those insanely big oil fields? It might be an idea to settle for more moderate amounts of cargo. For my own part, I tend to put a lot more emphasis on quality than on quantity. But, by all means, to each their own gaming style.

Silly-looking, aren't they? This output threshold seems to have been going on much of the existence of the game. I mistook the refineries for being insufficiently supplied with oil, so I expanded the pair of oilfields and added another pair's worth by customised-funding new industries..the fact of their being in a remote corner of the map was also inspiring me. Fostering the growth of my chief city has no longer been possible, such that the excess of poor/very-poor station ratings causes its inhabitants to take flight: this is how and why I've arrived at becoming mystified. Oh well. Thank you for looking.

However, adding an adjacent refinery didn't work. The addition produced nothing for the few months; its predecessor reigns supreme. Instead, I'll resurrect the dock at the refinery nearby along the North Shore there, split up the supply ships to call at the docks, and have the goods ships switch back and forth between the docks until fully laden before sailing upstream. If this work yet my goods still idle too much, then I'd bring about at least a 3rd facility to deal fully with the rebound..the Eastern Seaboard would be assigned with what appears would be an excess supply of crates.

You see, recently I thought my original refinery became stale or something, so I snuffed its docking facility after creating the fresh installation you've seen. Selling off the excess of goods ships only to arrive at buying their replacements once the supply of crates rebounded is ultimately what's brought about investigating what the problem is.

[NekoMaster]

Does transferring affect station ratings any differently than a normal delivery? I noticed those goods are being transferred to Montreal Rouses Point Quays and there's ~9000 crates from Blanc-Sablon sitting there; which station gets the penalty for waiting cargo in this situation?

Ship 53 had gotten old, but replacing it had no effect on the ratings. However, when I sent it to the depot, I received a pop-up cost value of ~159 million. Not entirely sure what that was about. The ship had no transfer credits, either. I did the same to ship 35, another ship in the route, but it didn't happen with it.

In addition, I purchased an advertising campaign which did increase the ratings, but then they just started to decline again. Not entirely sure what's going on in here, if it's all WAI and I'm just missing something, or if it's bugged in some way.

Yes I do believe that transfered goods also put a penalty on the station its waiting at as I've done this sometimes to deliver goods and food into towns. I'll have a train full of goods go from a factory and transfer the goods at a train station in a town and then have cargo trucks deliver it through out the area and neighboring towns/districts if they're close enough. If theres a lot of cargo waiting for a long time, you'll get a bad rep for letting your goods or food sit and rot for months.

[trainrover]

^^^ No worry, as the rating of that transfer station is excellent. However, there was a time when my old refinery must've been folded and its eventual replacement brought about by the game itself, because some years ago I noticed the catchment area of my dock had become out of range (I silence the game sounds and thus miss out on errrr key messages). With no crate available for pick-up and my goods ships crowding the dock, the station rating was excellent. But with the refineries settling down to witholding ⅚ their output, the corresponding station ratings plummet.

I prefer not being mystified, please!

[Kalen]

As for the ship costs, 159M$ seems about right to me..I wonder why the latter ship didn't cost any thing when being auto-replaced.

Ohhh, right, that was autorenew, of course. How did I miss that completely lol. Never mind that. The other one didn't cost anything because it wasn't auto-renewed, as it wasn't at old age. I tested sending it to the depot to see if the cost pop-up would show up again, but it didn't, for now evident reasons.

Yes I do believe that transfered goods also put a penalty on the station its waiting at

That makes sense to me; I was only wondering if transferred cargo might also put a penalty on the station it originated from, as well as the one it's currently waiting at, but I guess that wouldn't make much sense since that doesn't happen elsewhere for cargo that's in transit during standard deliveries.

[trainrover]

^^^ Oh, right: autorenew is what I'd meant to write.

So, the following screenshot reveals my original refinery ressurected and its 1st month's report subsequent to manufacturing at full throttle, plus its corresponding dock station rating to which its own quantity of supply champions its replacement..but - guaranteed - its dock ratings will duly fall:



And here's how its replacement's poorly faring:

[trainrover]

I've improved matters but have not sufficiently resolved them. I created a stand-alone dock nearby along the shore for the rivers-plying goods ships to pick up their cargo, and had fleets of transfer ships take the output from the pair of refineries and deposit them there. The rating of the sore dock/refinery immediately increased to poor at 29% from very poor at 16%; for a few months, it excelled to mediocre at 42%! The resurrected dock itself did eventually settle down to poor at 29%. The goods ships idle no more, plus establishing one additional dock at each refinery - and additional fleets of transfer ships too - didn't help matters either. Having now swapped the transfer ships for transfer trains instead, the corresponding station ratings have both fallen to 26%.

The only pattern concerning the mysterious ratings was that the dock ratings would fall when the refineries got to depositing their output at the docks, and the ratings would climb during lulls in oil ships offloading their cargo for refinement.

I'd appreciate knowing what must be happening or whether this experience be an outcome of inadequate game-coding; thank you in advance.

[trainrover]

I wonder if sources of refineries have something to do with their fussiness. In adding extra stations at refineries trying to overcome the crummy ratings, I caused one of my docks to fall out of the catchment area of its corresponding refinery. The transfer trains idled, but what was interesting is that my (zillions of) oil wells quashed their robust output for the oil ships to pick up. The millions of litres of accumulated oil at the then-remote refinery dock had to be transported before it withered to nought; gradually, the wells eventually took to happily(?!?) pumping away again. The wells were being cleared of their output quite timely but they 'knew' that one of its destinations was no longer processing its output, so they clawed back their production which even effected the non-compromised refinery to falter at producing crates. The wells knew the product from their output was destined places.

I send ouput from a batch of farms to a food processing plant that I haven't yet tapped into. I'm merely targeting the plant for all the excess output, but I wonder if the farms would cool their output like the wells did were I to jeopardise their (onward) food plant as I did with that refinery.

Maybe properly comprehending the principles of manufacturing in OTTD is tricky? Although I'm inclined to suspect there be inadequate coding, because the crummy station ratings and output transport reports don't make sense! All the industries are regular, none of them's a newGRF.