How provider is selected exactly ?

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Szadol
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How provider is selected exactly ?

Post by Szadol »

I wonder how LTN selects best provider if there are multiple providers of the same item ?

Is there some kind of balancing mechanism ? Or do I have to take care of it myself ?

So far I relied on single provider per item, but I'm expanding and I will need to change that.

mrvn
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Re: How provider is selected exactly ?

Post by mrvn »

For the exact method you have to look at the source. But distance is considered.

That means you need to balance stuff yourself if you want to (if distance isn't decisive enough and the below fails).

But I think you already are without realizing. The most effective balancing that happens I believe is that LTN remembers what trains have been send to each station and corrects their provider amount accordingly. So a station with 4000 iron ore and 2 trains each taking 2000 iron ore will have 0 items left. It simply drops below the provider limit and other stations will be used. But if you had 4000 iron plates and each requester only needs 100 iron plates then you could get 40 trains to that one station.

The other method you can't avoid using without risking a total breakdown of the rail network is the train limit. If the nearest station has a limit of 2 trains then the 3rd will be send to a different station. The number of trains each station can handle automatically balances trains across all stations. So the 40 trains to the same station from above doesn't happen. You get 40 trains going all over the map using different stations.

Szadol
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Re: How provider is selected exactly ?

Post by Szadol »

The most effective balancing that happens I believe is that LTN remembers what trains have been send to each station and corrects their provider amount accordingly
That seems to be enough for me.
I was planning to divide my iron and copper production into blocks each having their own input & output station and just add blocks as needed.
As long as LTN can indeed make sure ore are drawn from all blocks equaly It should be fine.

mrvn
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Re: How provider is selected exactly ?

Post by mrvn »

Szadol wrote:
Mon Feb 03, 2020 1:28 pm
The most effective balancing that happens I believe is that LTN remembers what trains have been send to each station and corrects their provider amount accordingly
That seems to be enough for me.
I was planning to divide my iron and copper production into blocks each having their own input & output station and just add blocks as needed.
As long as LTN can indeed make sure ore are drawn from all blocks equaly It should be fine.
It probably will be equal but I don't think that is coded in but rather an emergend behavior. If you draw items anywhere close to the rate your produce them then stations will constantly fall below the provider limit and other stations will be chosen for the next train. But if you only use up items as fast as one station produces I believe it could (and would) happen that all trains only go to one station because the others are too far away to be the best choice.

But it's really nothing to worry about. LTN won't send a train to a station that can't fill it, That's the important part. So what if, worst case, they all go to one station if that station can supply all the needed iron?

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Re: How provider is selected exactly ?

Post by dockmeister »

Afaik, there is no distance check, when choosing a provider.

A list of provider stations, which can fulfill the request, is sorted this way:
1. Priority
2. Trains already inbound to that provider
3. Number of available items

Szadol
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Re: How provider is selected exactly ?

Post by Szadol »

But it's really nothing to worry about. LTN won't send a train to a station that can't fill it, That's the important part. So what if, worst case, they all go to one station if that station can supply all the needed iron?
That won't be a problem. I'm going forward with my building then.

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