Question about FIRS

[RedEclipse]

Hello community,

I got a question about FIRS. I actually never encounter expire of secondary production such as grocers shop, petrol station and etc. Is it going to expire someday? I wanted to build up a railway, but for some reason it appeared just before the rail construction

[Alberth]

The Grf has a number of settings that controls expiration of industries. I think by default they are 'off', but you should check their value in your game to be sure.

[andythenorth]

FIRS has some town industries (grocers shop, petrol station, builders yard, maybe a few more) that _should_ never expire.

Other secondary industries will expire if closure is enabled in the grf parameters.

I've never actually tested the town industries expiry, and nobody has reported a bug with it, so eh

[RedEclipse]

Oh, I see. Nonetheless I could argue on that - such industries should to expire, if nothing is being shipped for a while. Is there any chance to have such setting in the future, aka let player to decide?

[kamnet]

Oh, I see. Nonetheless I could argue on that - such industries should to expire, if nothing is being shipped for a while. Is there any chance to have such setting in the future, aka let player to decide?

I would have a problem with this. If the industry inside a town expires, then it will be deleted and another building will be placed. This will push the building of town industries further out of the city, and might possibly never be built if the city doesn't expand, and needs an in-town industry in order to expand.

[PikkaBird]

This will push the building of town industries further out of the city, and might possibly never be built if the city doesn't expand, and needs an in-town industry in order to expand.

Why? Industries built within towns can be explicitly coded to replace town buildings (as the default bank is) rather than requiring empty space, and industry spawning is not linked to town expansion.

[kamnet]

This will push the building of town industries further out of the city, and might possibly never be built if the city doesn't expand, and needs an in-town industry in order to expand.

Why? Industries built within towns can be explicitly coded to replace town buildings (as the default bank is) rather than requiring empty space, and industry spawning is not linked to town expansion.

I do not believe that FIRS town industries are currently coded this way. Or, at least, in my many years of gameplay I have never seen a FIRS town industry spawn inside a town zone outside of initial game creation. And in many cases with FIRS industries it can be extremely difficult to place a town industry because it requires certain zone IDs that don't exist in an area where you would like to manually place one. Andy is free to correct me.

[RedEclipse]

This will push the building of town industries further out of the city, and might possibly never be built if the city doesn't expand, and needs an in-town industry in order to expand.

Why? Industries built within towns can be explicitly coded to replace town buildings (as the default bank is) rather than requiring empty space, and industry spawning is not linked to town expansion.

I do not believe that FIRS town industries are currently coded this way. Or, at least, in my many years of gameplay I have never seen a FIRS town industry spawn inside a town zone outside of initial game creation. And in many cases with FIRS industries it can be extremely difficult to place a town industry because it requires certain zone IDs that don't exist in an area where you would like to manually place one. Andy is free to correct me.

I can't be sure absolutely, but I think I saw few hardware stores/grocers shops spawned close to skyscapers, although I don't know is area was occupied by city building or not.

And bit of off topic - what optimal setting for goods distribution? I currently got asymmetric mode for industrial commodities and faced a problem with it, it seems some trains wait forever to get loaded with engineering/farm supplies. Manual mode for industry commodities will make more sense, I guess?

[andythenorth]

And bit of off topic - what optimal setting for goods distribution? I currently got asymmetric mode for industrial commodities and faced a problem with it, it seems some trains wait forever to get loaded with engineering/farm supplies

There isn't one.

On 'manual' you will lose the main benefit of cdist, which is automated transfers on feeder routes. If you don't need feeders, use manual distribution.

I have seen the problem you describe many times: cdist can't reliably assign freight cargo when you add a new route to a station that already has a route established. Eventually it will assign cargo to the new route, usually after about 3 months, but it can take up to about 15 months in the worst cases iirc. The 'solution' to that is to use separate pickup station for every destination you need to serve.

I run FIRS with asymmetric for freight cargos, and 'effect of distance on demand' set to 0%. It's not ideal, but I understand how to make it work in gameplay.

Fonso did spend some time trying to improve how cdist handles this, but it's not really solvable within current cdist afaik.

[kamnet]

CargoDist can keep you on your toes. In one of my longest running games (nearly 9 years in real life gameplay now!) I have to keep an eye out on my distribution centers that I built to manage cargo. Sometimes I'll add a new route from a DC to a town, and without any warning, some time later, CargoDist has decided to shift a bunch of traffic to it, leaving me with a fleet of vehicles queued up waiting for cargo for the older stations that aren't getting as much as they used to, leading to huge snarl-ups at my DC. I've got a backload of cargo that's expiring, my station ratings have tanked, my vehicle reliability is shot, everything has turned into an unprofitable mess.

[RedEclipse]

There isn't one.

On 'manual' you will lose the main benefit of cdist, which is automated transfers on feeder routes. If you don't need feeders, use manual distribution.

I have seen the problem you describe many times: cdist can't reliably assign freight cargo when you add a new route to a station that already has a route established. Eventually it will assign cargo to the new route, usually after about 3 months, but it can take up to about 15 months in the worst cases iirc. The 'solution' to that is to use separate pickup station for every destination you need to serve.

I run FIRS with asymmetric for freight cargos, and 'effect of distance on demand' set to 0%. It's not ideal, but I understand how to make it work in gameplay.

Fonso did spend some time trying to improve how cdist handles this, but it's not really solvable within current cdist afaik.

The thing is, I left my game for a coupe of hours (like 10+ years in game) but trains were still empty. I think I'll go with manual setting for goods. Though as you point I got multiple feeder stations, but it works wonderful with manual mode. Did I missed something?

CargoDist can keep you on your toes. In one of my longest running games (nearly 9 years in real life gameplay now!) I have to keep an eye out on my distribution centers that I built to manage cargo. Sometimes I'll add a new route from a DC to a town, and without any warning, some time later, CargoDist has decided to shift a bunch of traffic to it, leaving me with a fleet of vehicles queued up waiting for cargo for the older stations that aren't getting as much as they used to, leading to huge snarl-ups at my DC. I've got a backload of cargo that's expiring, my station ratings have tanked, my vehicle reliability is shot, everything has turned into an unprofitable mess.

Indeed, I think it behaves a bit buggy for my taste when it comes to goods. For eyecandy purposes multiple stations for delivering supplies is no way for me



BTW guys, can you tell me is there any GRF for default trains for FIRS set? I saw one, but it comes with built-in colors for some train wagons, which cannot be changed. I remember there was GRF which adopt default vans for FIRS, but uses old wagons.

[kamnet]

BTW guys, can you tell me is there any GRF for default trains for FIRS set? I saw one, but it comes with built-in colors for some train wagons, which cannot be changed. I remember there was GRF which adopt default vans for FIRS, but uses old wagons.

If you like the original trains but only desire FIRS compatibility, download OpenGFX+ Trains. Andythenorth also produces the fine Iron Horse set, which is slightly inspired by real British and American trains. And nearly all NewGRF train sets released in the last decade will have support for FIRS.

[eekee]

Hello community,

I got a question about FIRS. I actually never encounter expire of secondary production such as grocers shop, petrol station and etc. Is it going to expire someday? I wanted to build up a railway, but for some reason it appeared just before the rail construction

Hello! You could cheat: press ctrl-alt-C, enable magic bulldozer. Then you can demolish it. The game will remember the fact that you used magic bulldozer, but there's no other penalty.

I used it to get rid of the rubber plantation at the far right of this screenshot, which was 'never' going to expire because of the huge production it had reached. That made a lot more room for the junction. Similar with a bank belonging to Bradnor just off the left side of the screenshot, although that side wasn't so cramped. I ended up using it quite a lot in that game.

[RedEclipse]

BTW guys, can you tell me is there any GRF for default trains for FIRS set? I saw one, but it comes with built-in colors for some train wagons, which cannot be changed. I remember there was GRF which adopt default vans for FIRS, but uses old wagons.

If you like the original trains but only desire FIRS compatibility, download OpenGFX+ Trains. Andythenorth also produces the fine Iron Horse set, which is slightly inspired by real British and American trains. And nearly all NewGRF train sets released in the last decade will have support for FIRS.

I might was wrong when said about default trains(because for me default ones is vanilla). Meant trains with TT graphics. I remember that I wasn't able to use them together. Or I'm wrong?

Hello community,

I got a question about FIRS. I actually never encounter expire of secondary production such as grocers shop, petrol station and etc. Is it going to expire someday? I wanted to build up a railway, but for some reason it appeared just before the rail construction

Hello! You could cheat: press ctrl-alt-C, enable magic bulldozer. Then you can demolish it. The game will remember the fact that you used magic bulldozer, but there's no other penalty.

I used it to get rid of the rubber plantation at the far right of this screenshot, which was 'never' going to expire because of the huge production it had reached. That made a lot more room for the junction. Similar with a bank belonging to Bradnor just off the left side of the screenshot, although that side wasn't so cramped. I ended up using it quite a lot in that game.

Thanks for your input, but if I would go for it(though I never participated it in live scenario), I would go just for scenario editor. Destroying everything without being flagged as cheater

[eekee]

Thanks for your input, but if I would go for it(though I never participated it in live scenario), I would go just for scenario editor. Destroying everything without being flagged as cheater

Hahaha!