Cargo aging and disappearing questions

[ebla71]

Question about the "aging" and subsequent disappering of cargo from stations:

- Is it correct that cargo once produced is not controlled by the industry it generated anymore but by a station that it got allocated to?

- Is it further correct that the rate at which cargo "ages" and then disappears is related to the rating of the station it is waiting at?

- Is there a way to modify that cargo aging - with the aim of certain non-perishable cargos not to "age" at all?

- And if so - can that be done in an industry NewGRF or will it require another add-on?

- Finally, can anybody suggest some good NML programming examples? I've been looking at some sets that I think do what I have in mind but I don't fully understand how it is done.

Background: I play very large maps in which it is difficult to "feed" long industry chains if you want to play with a realistic number of vehicles (e.g. only one or two train on a certain route, leading to long intervals between serving a station).

On the "input side" of an industry, I want cargo to wait until everything necessary to produce has arrived (that I something I understand better with "stockpiling") but on the "output side" I also want to have "non-perishable" cargo like steel or wooden products sit around and wait forever until picked up while for example food might disappear (= get thrown away) if waiting somewhere for too long.

[_dp_]

- Is it correct that cargo once produced is not controlled by the industry it generated anymore but by a station that it got allocated to?

Yes.

- Is it further correct that the rate at which cargo "ages" and then disappears is related to the rating of the station it is waiting at?

Yes, but it's not called cargo aging as that's a different thing (it affects payments). I call it "decay" but it doesn't seem to have any particular name in OpenTTD code.

- Is there a way to modify that cargo aging - with the aim of certain non-perishable cargos not to "age" at all?

Not directly but there are some ways to influence station rating.

- And if so - can that be done in an industry NewGRF or will it require another add-on?

It can be influenced by newgrf that defines cargo with station rating callback (https://newgrf-specs.tt-wiki.net/wiki/C ... _.28145.29).
There is also a sandbox option to fix all station ratings at 100% (cargo will still disappear of there is more than 4k stockpiled).

[ebla71]

There is also a sandbox option to fix all station ratings at 100% (cargo will still disappear of there is more than 4k stockpiled).

Oh - that's very nice, didn't notice that option so far

[GarryG]

cargo aging

I never thought of it that way .. if we failed to collect the cargo within a certain time the company found some one else to deliver it in stead. (As if we have some invisible competition).

[ebla71]

I never thought of it that way .. if we failed to collect the cargo within a certain time the company found some one else to deliver it in stead. (As if we have some invisible competition).

You can think of it this way - but if you enojy to play really large maps (and I'm currently working on a 4096x4096 one) it get's super annoying if cargo disappears too quickly and therefore you cannot "feed" long industry chains. At least if you want a realistic (= very low) number of vehicles on a certain direction and not "saturate" a station with hundreds of trucks or dozens of trains waiting to pick things up.

With food-related cargo, it might make some sense but tons of steel suddenly disappearing into nothingness just because not picked up in time is weird.