Scaling: Timber

[WilliamMGary]

I'm having an issue where I can't get enough timber (v2.2.02 Post-Release Beta).

Current Setup
==========
2 timber mills w/ training
1 Warehouse w/ training - Two inputs from both timber mills / 2 sales units in the middle edge and the rest storage units
1 Wholesale Warehouse - Two inputs one from the storage (^) warehouse and the other input from one of the timber mills

My end products that use timber buys from the wholesale warehouse. I have two MFG hubs and a severe shortage of the end products.

I've been brain storming and the only solution I can come up with is to operate 4 timber mills (hopefully without training) and setting up 1 Storage Warehouse & 1 Wholesale Warehouse for each hub which may result in a slight over supply besides being capital intensive.

Have any of you had issues with getting enough timber?

[counting]

What kind of products are you manufacturing? And what's your timber yard setup?

[WilliamMGary]

What kind of products are you manufacturing? And what's your timber yard setup?

I think almost all timber end products chairs, sofa etc. The Timber yard is two logging units and the rest are sales.

[WilliamMGary]

What kind of products are you manufacturing? And what's your timber yard setup?

Thank you! I changed my mill layout to 6 logging and three sell units and my storage warehouse is filling up and I've been able to resell my excess supply.

[counting]

Looks like you solved your own problem ^_^.

I find it almost always to be true for low-training level facilities to have as few output units as possible in order to get max efficiency. The output unit seems to level up pretty quickly even with minimum training, and be able to handle huge flows. An 8-unit production 1-unit output layout is surprisingly OK, if you wish to gain max output from the start. The only problem is the wages, since production units hire far more workers than output units.

This is even true for factories. I will use 2-input 6-production 1-output layout for single source material product, instead of the predefined 2-input 5-production 2-output. And 2-2-input 4-production 1-output for two source material factories.

Single source wild-card example
[P][M][P]
[P][O][P]
[P][M][P]
[M]=material input, [P]=production, [O]=output

Two sources wild-card example
[M][P][N]
[P][O][P]
[N][P][M]
[M]=material 1 input, [N]=material 2 input, [P]=production, [O]=output

[williet4038]

I now use 4 processing units connected to 2 sales units for all the natural resources because I was having a supply problem also. I use 2 timber mills if my company manufactures all 3 furniture items or the 3 furniture products and some dyestuff. I use a single warehouse with 2 input units, 2 output units and the rest storage. If I am only manufacturing a couple furniture products or just some dyestuff, I can often get by with 1 timber mill with the same 4 - 2 logging to sales configuration. In that situation, I use 6 warehouse units, 1 input, 1 or 2 output units and 3 or 4 storage units depending on the number of timber users.

[greewoch]

since producing a simple unit of bed requires 120 ibs of timber, its not a surprise ^^ 1x logging camp cant even supply 1x 3+mil pop city if you produce all stuff that needs timber. (even without paper & tissues, it's still a problem)

[WilliamMGary]

So far it been okay, I have excess supply and reselling to the AI with two timber mills and using the warehouses, but it does seem to take a number of timer bills to handle large orders.

[azxcvbnm321]

Timber and chemical materials can become strained in later development. Fortunately there always seems to be an untapped timber somewhere available, the game makes sure of that.

What I've been experimenting with only recently is to have a warehouse that only buys from my competitors in order to more effectively insure supply because demand is often high. I run into problems when I mix timber from different competitors. My output unit will assign a competitor to the mixed output (mixed by placing in inventory) and alternates between them. For example if I am buying from competitors X and Z and it's going into a single inventory, the output unit will first indicate that the output from the inventory is X, when it redraws inventory now the output is marked as coming from Z. Why does this matter? Because the game marks the change from X to Z as a supply disruption and auto-relinks all the factory purchase units. But the auto-link doesn't always re-link to my warehouse! So I have to manually re-link.

I'm thinking that I will have to make sure to consolidate supplies to inventory from only one supplier company instead of mixing and matching.

I'm doing this because natural resource firms are usually money losers. Only a few types, like gold and silver and chemical materials sometimes, can make money. Timber is one of them, but it's often cheaper to buy from competitors than set up your own. Besides that, I will have to pay a huge premium to open a new timber firm if there are existing timber firms in that city. I have 4 timber firms spread across the world and I still can't get enough timber so I have to try and buy what I can from elsewhere. Just experimenting on how to manage those purchases and distribute effectively.

[counting]

With mixed raw material sources, a simple solution is to link multiple output units according to how many input sources. Usually they can sort themselves out and create multiple output brand of the same material.

As of which type of mining make the most, gold is actually not that profitable if you consider the setup cost. Usually without inflation, it's total running cost in life is around 45m to 50m, and around the same amount revenue. That means if you have 50m from the start, even with enough demand, when it runs out and you sold the land, you will still end up with 50m. Not a good business I would say. (It's revenue is high due to high price, but its setup and running cost are also high, hence not much of a real profit)

The best raw materials according to my own account is first chemicals with around 200% (COGS 150m and gain total 300m in its life time), oil about 160%, silica and silver about 130% ~ 150% (their demand is quite small and not stable), timber about 120%~140% with competition (usually with AI competing from the start, but if you have monopoly in the end, it can be much higher). Aluminum is tricky because its demand often required you to setup warehouses close to purchasers, if account the freight cost, it's usually running at a lost (less than 100%). Gold is about the same running even or a lost. And the worst are coal and iron, since their over-all market size is very small, it's very difficult to break even. (The setting I am running with max AIs and max cities, and with monopoly to sell materials below 30 rating to gain max profit)