LOGistICAL - Sublime Logistical Strategy Puzzling

No, you can't, and so you should have some situational awareness once you've, say, knocked out most of the obvious 1 item drops. You can use the dash pull-out panel (on the right side) to dump (cancel) the load, usually for $1000 a ton. But often, you can find a place that needs 500 of the item, drop it there and dump it.

So after I've done the easy stuff, I often turn the auto-empty button back on, since I know I won't be wasting much and it'll save dumping costs.

But in the beginning, you'll find a lot of places that want 2.5 units of something, so you can hit 4 of them, then refill, finish the last one and go looking for more.

Sweet.

Thanks again!

So, always when you get into new areas, check the Fix and Discover contract lists. That's how you find out how to expand to other countries, but also, very importantly, the Fix contracts can give you new vehicles for free, or even (in at least one case), change the requirements for many road fix jobs to stuff you actually have in the area. You can easily be stumped if you don't notice when that type of contract comes up...

Veloxi, how you doing with this one?

Slow. I like doing a little bit at a time between other games.

I've gotten to the South Island, and Australia. I'm running around fixing roads like crazy in Oz, it's huge.

I finally got a train. There's a train depot that does not appear on the North Island until you do one of two things:

Spoiler:

either run a ship into the port, or finish Edgecumbe (part of Wellington)(as far as I can tell, that is what triggered its appearance, although... It could also have been getting the train mission from Australia, I suppose... They all happened about the same time.)

Once you get the train, you can quickly run it up to the various station cities (you of course have to actually *build* the stations to use them). The train has some huge capacity, so you can use Single Storage boxes to collect stuff from nearby, then ship it to the city where it's needed, drop it in an SS box and then use trucks to send it out. Should help with the big sites that take forever with smaller trucks.

Next up in transport is opening a second port and getting a ship! I'm a million or so monies short of that, so it'll be a bit. Working to get the South Island up and running now.

This is the most balanced and has the best UI of all the iterations. Great fun to play.

I feel like I'm missing something, but where do I buy new trucks in New Zealand?

The way I find it is by zooming out and finding the pinned flag. But I'm in demo mode.

All sales sites are called "depots" and are marked with a green triangular flag. The one on the North Island, where you start, is in Auckland. You start with the ability to have two trucks, I think, and you get an additional truck for every 10 cities you complete, and sometimes from other missions. For example, the usual way to start a new country is to finish a mission that gives you a truck there, bootstrapping you in, but that may not hold true beyond the starting countries, I don't know.

Any other questions, just post here.

Oh, and don't bother buying trains and ships until you need them, either due to a need to move volumes of stuff around, circumvent quarantines, or fulfill sites that only they can reach. They are much too expensive to be just curiousities, at least at the start.

24.6 hours in and I just opened Germany! Really loving this, mostly because it lets me focus on stuff that is not the world falling apart around me.

If you're playing, let us know how you are doing.

Still in the demo, but seriously considering a purchase. Had it in the background and it was a wonderful distraction. Booted up the first one for a little and the modular nature made the beginning really confusing. Wasn't exactly sure what I owned or had played before.

Double post

Robear wrote:

Oh, and don't bother buying trains and ships until you need them, either due to a need to move volumes of stuff around, circumvent quarantines, or fulfill sites that only they can reach. They are much too expensive to be just curiousities, at least at the start.

Running into questions:

Are railroads how you complete the sites that need thousands of a particular quantity?
And where are the storage sites from Logistical 1?
What are the single storage containers?

Those questions are kind of all related. First, the storage sites were out of the game in L2. But, you can build a single storage container in a business slot if you need it. For example, if you end up building, say, a steel mill, and it needs steel to advance a level, but there's not another one in the region, you can build storage area in another town for steel, drop the steel there, and ship it back.

But the primary use for single storage containers is as storage for ports. When you open a port, you can put things in a storage unit there, and then drag them to another storage unit in another port (as I understand it). You need a ship to do that and are subject to the capacity of the ship.

You can similarly put them in rail stations. In that use, you would use the storage bins as collectors or distributors, and the train as a way to move lots of goods at once from one area to another. I think trains bypass quarantine.

Finally, and importantly, you'll be able to fulfill most of the larger contracts with 20t or larger, or even 8t trucks; you just need to do a lot of runs and ensure that the supplying industry is kept supplied. Don't be afraid of running a job for 20 or 30 minutes. Just, if it's to a populated town, and a long run, make sure it's not drained out faster than you put it in. So if you've got a level 3 egg source, and plenty of feed for it, don't be afraid to drop, say, 2157 eggs into a town to complete it.

And remember to check your contracts for the ones that have special outcomes, like changing requirements to open roads, or new trucks, or new trucks in foreign countries.

Yesterday, I was able to use a train for the first time, and I also opened up South Korea. I'm going to have to get on top of shipping, too, as it's obvious that some areas will need goods initially produced elsewhere. Still having a nice relaxing time with this.

How is everyone doing?

Still exploring NZ here and there, my favorite part of the game really is the exploration.

Out of curiosity, is there a screen/report that shows what towns/businesses haven't been completed in a region without having to visually scan the colors of the circles?

UMOarsman wrote:

Out of curiosity, is there a screen/report that shows what towns/businesses haven't been completed in a region without having to visually scan the colors of the circles?

Possible translation: I want to play a spreadsheet!

...

co-sign.
And/or Google Earth style VR mode.

Rezzy wrote:
UMOarsman wrote:

Out of curiosity, is there a screen/report that shows what towns/businesses haven't been completed in a region without having to visually scan the colors of the circles?

Possible translation: I want to play a spreadsheet!

...

co-sign.
And/or Google Earth style VR mode.

Completionitis

Nah, the cluster displays are intended to help with that. But you can see completed ones, as they will be green (businesses) or yellow (towns).

Another way is to find a business and grab and output and move it like you're going to assign a route. That will show you all the places that need it.

Oh, and the Discord group is quite chill.

Aaron D. wrote:

or L3, I'm in AU and need the following goods to fix roads.

Bricks, Aluminum, Concrete*, Lighting, Dynamite, Boats, Asphalt, Planks...I think that's it.

The reason for my question about soft-lock is that I discovered Concrete and there were a few units in the output section, but I used them to complete a town before realizing that one of the ingredient inputs to make them are locked so I have to finish Wollongong town, but one of the completion requirements is still a "?".

Yep. As a general rule, you might want to work out from your starting point. When you hit a wall in a town on the "edge", just go back to your main area and work it. For example, with the "Road Fix" tasks, filling the town will actually change many roadblock requirements to easier ones. While you should always explore roads (using the smallest vehicles to keep costs down), work your contracts when you get stuck. If not earlier.

I've got 2 Works contracts to Transport Routes (South Australia Road Fix and Victoria Australia Road Fix), but the first town requires 4 items in quantities of 2K-3K...this is my second question...and the other requires 4 items, two of which are still undiscovered "?".

I'd import the goods in from NZ via ship but I can't unlock the Port in Sydney (Botany Bay) as it's locked behind the Work Contract (Mine Your Opals) which requires access to South Australia (see above). Same goes for Port of Melbourne as it's got like 4 undiscovered "?" goods to complete the port.

I've scoured the map with a fine-tooth comb looking for roads terminating with a red circle, but the only ones I see are past Roadblocks I don't have the materials to fix or Works contracts I can't complete.

I feel so stuck!

Yep. There's a hint in the text for the Opals mission. Did you use the train to explore all the railroad segments? As indicated, one of the rail towns has the stuff you need. Then, you need to buy a Single Store at a train station so that you can switch them from rail to road. You will start out with one good, then you'll find Opals if you look around with the train. The key, though, is remembering that you usually have to drop from the train into a store on a road, then pick up with trucks.

Okay, so anyway...On to question #2.

How exactly do you deal with deliveries that have over 1K unit requirements to complete a town? I could try to work on Works contract S. AU Road Fix, but as I said above it requires 4 unit types at 3K-3K amounts (and the town is only accessible by rail. I look at the requirements and then I look at my measly 100T 5-wagon diesel, 2X 40T B-double & 1 8T dump truck and I just laugh at the concept of trying to keep up with town consumption while trying to complete the delivery.

How exactly do you process high-quantity deliveries of this size? It doesn't even make sense to me.

I've just been stuck for so long in AU trying to find some kind of breakthrough.

First, remember, you can open up 3 or 4 countries just with doing stuff in NZ. Don't neglect that. You're not stuck, you just have work to do.

As for large consumption, well... First, the more citizens, the faster they burn down the stock you deliver. When the stock hits yellow, that internal consumption drops to make your job easier. So start fulfilling museums for easy cash, then small towns in the areas you need. Oh, and decide whether to sell your 8 ton and buy another B-Double. Although the 8 is good for the tiny requirements, and cheap for road exploration, at some point you won't be doing that stuff as much.

So now you have to deliver 3200 units of something to a town. First, make sure your production site is up to the task. Bring in raw materials and upgrade as able. Next, grab two or three of you largest and/or fastest trucks. Finishing other towns and museums and stuff will give them upgrades and they should be fairly capable, zipping around the map, unless you just bought a new one. Just focus them on deliveries once the producer is running hot and heavy. And do other stuff while you wait. For example, if you have to do 3200 with 2 40t trucks delivering, that's like 40 trips. Maybe 42 if the town is eating a lot. That's just a wait-it-out situation. Wait until you start juggling stuff to get the Port of Botany Bay set up.... painstaking but well worth it. (And do better than me; I neglected a road path and so it took me forever to move goods from the port by rail, when I could have opened it up and saved myself the trouble lol.)

I've seen screenshots of countries with huge populations needing 10 each of over a million goods to finish... And people have done them. So chin up.

Needed a chill out game while watching some random YouTube videos, so I've burned through some more Demo content.

I'm not sure if I'm missing something or if the demo is restricting me already.

It's actually quite likely that I wasn't paying attention and missed some key info about truck size restrictions, because there are a few resources and industries that I'm missing and I can see ghostly city names in places my trucks can't seem to go.

Well, it is a puzzle game.

Are you reading the contracts and doing the ones that open areas up for you?

Are you mapping out the road network? That is... Take your smallest empty truck (cheaper to run empty), and hold the cursor over it on the map until it pops up slightly. Click on it, and if you have sections of road that you have not visited, they will show as red circles while you hold the mouse down. Drag it to one of those circles, and it will go there, and bring up all the businesses and towns it passes. Once you have done this all over the accessible parts of the map, *then* you're good to start opening up businesses and towns.

Some resources you probably won't find in the first hundred hours or so, and that's fine. Others will be on other continents, or across quarantines, or only accessible via railroad. Part of the game is learning how to deal with all those challenges.

Pretty much the only way to jam yourself up in this game is to just spend wildly on stuff you don't need. It's otherwise pretty forgiving, actually.

Robear wrote:

Yep. As a general rule, you might want to work out from your starting point.

Robear wrote:

Yep. There's a hint in the text for the Opals mission.

Robear wrote:

First, remember, you can open up 3 or 4 countries just with doing stuff in NZ.

Thanks for the tips!

I've somehow managed to drop 60+hrs. into the game in a little over a week.

Man this thing is straight-up crack.

Ooh! I just found the question mark in the lower right corner.

Good info there!
Edit: Thanks To eat(apparently that's what autocorrect thinks Robear should be), I ran out of red circles a while ago. I am thinking I should probably have bought a smaller truck instead of a 20T. I only have three slots at the moment.

I'm having a really hard time justifying the $40 purchase when I've got the Humble Covid, Racial Justice, and Itch.io bundles sitting here mostly untouched. Edit: at least until the demo content runs out. Pretty sure it will be an easy jump to buy then.

I'm only at 43, Aaron! Your eyes must be bleeding lol. Glad you like it.

Didn't you start with an 8 ton, Rezzy? In any case, 20t trucks should be fine in New Zealand. Are you repairing roads? That can open up new areas.

Finally pushed past 100 towns, and got another 5 in the next half hour or so before stopping. I’ve got a lot more ready to go. Now that I understand the systems a bit better, it’s easier to focus and do towns with the materials you can bring to bear through ports and such. And the towns pay a lot of money.

I’ve got South Korea opened up to the border with NK, and northern Germany and Denmark are well on the way. (If you get stuck in Germany, there’s a, not really a *trick*, but something you might not think is necessary but is, so do that.) But right now, I’m using New Zealand to pump specific cargoes into Australia. And there are a *ton* of towns around Sydney and Melbourne and Canberra.

Very engaging and a good game to completely distract you from the Hellscape we occupy in the US today.

I'm up to about 150 towns completed and tearing through road repairs in Japan. Opened up North Korea, Japan and Russia, and a bit of Nederlands. Also did a lot of catching up in New Zealand, but I'm getting to the point where I'm going to need to tackle some larger cities.

How is everyone doing?