Depots vs Stations; Help please

[Sundog]

OK,
My understanding of Depots vs Stations is that Depots are capturable and stations are not. Are there any differences beyond that? Based on the help file, I get the feeling there are more differences, but I'm not sure I am reading it correctly. Is a station to be used such that, say that I have two airfields south of a depot, I can place a station within one mile of the airfields town, and if the station is re-supplied the town is re-supllied. However, after that resupply, the station would then 'launch' a train to continue on towards the second 'further south' airfield? Just trying to get a feel for the differences between the two. Thanks,

[pokie]

Hello Sundog
Here's my understanding.  I'm not saying this is all correct!

Here I go!

Depots are placed as Field owned, and you are right, the Depots are capturable.
You are also right Stations are placed as Country owned and are not capturable.

Depots can resupply Field Objects or Country Objects.
Stations can resupply Field Objects or Country Objects
It's all in the Road starting point, it's ending point and its properties.  It gets its supplies when it starts ( starting point ) but doesn't give them out until it reaches the end of the road ( ending point )
It then will respawn again at the beginning of the road ( I think in 10 minutes ) and do it all again.  
It travels whether there is damage or not.

In the PROPERTIES for your Road you have:

1) SOURCE:  ( Selection here doesn't affect whether you are suppling Field or Country Objects)

1A) DEPOT     Field #     It's the number of the depot that gives supplies to your Covoy, Barge or Train.  Your road starting point doesn't have to be close to it.

1B) STATION     Radius xxx Miles    It's how far the station is away from the starting point of your road (River, Road or Track), your road starting point should be within that distance.

//////////////////////////////////////////////////

2) DESTINATION: ( This is where the Road get its information about suppling Fields or Country Objects )

2A) FIELD     ( It supplies Field Objects )    Field #    Its the number of the Field that the Barge, Convoy or Train gives its supplies to when it reaches the Road ending point.  Your Road ending point doesn't have to be close to it.

2B) RADIUS     ( It supplies Country Objects )    xxx Miles     Its how far the supplies from the Barge, Convoy or Train will reach out to, when it reaches the Road ending point.  Country objects should be within this radius.

Hope this helps.
Hope I'm correct in my statement.
I'm sure HiTech will correct the mistakes here.
 
Pokie

[ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: pokie ]

[hitech]

The only thing I have to add is on station sources.

There can be mutiple station objects for a road/track/river.

The radius selects which station objects control the source.

If 75% of station objects in the radius are destroyed the convoy/train/bardge will not spawn.

[pokie]

Thanks HiTech  

Pokie

[Sky Viper]

And if you put a maproom w/table on the Stataion and marked it as field owned, it would (in theory) be capturable.

Is this correct HT?

Viper

[Sundog]

So, just to be clear, I could have a depot/or station at point A. This will be the 'resupply source'. At point B, 100 miles away I have the final destination of the 'resupply line'. Point B resupplies an airfield.

Now, every 20 miles between, I have a station which resupplies a corresponding VH. Everytime the train passes through these stations, the VH will be resupplied? Of course, they will have to have their source radius set to, say 90 miles (Since the furthest station from the source is 80 miles). Then if 3 of those 4 stations in between are destroyed, it will prevent the train from spawning. Is that correct? If not, what am I missing.

[pokie]

 

Here an example.
Red Circles represent Country owned objects
Green Circles are Field owned objects
The Black arrows represent the Road or Track and the direction that the Trains or Truck Convoy will travel.
Purple sections of the Arrows are the starting points of the Road or Track and thats where the Trains and Convoys spawn.
Yellow sections of the Arrows are the ending points of the Trains and Convoys, once the Convoy or train reaches that point they disappear.
The Yellow circle represents the radius of the supplies from the Trains which is set here for 2 miles.  The Trunk Conoy is set from A3 airfield.

Truck convoy leaves D1 depot and heads towards A3 airfield which is its Destination.  If airfield A2 & A3 are damaged from an attack only the A3 airfield will be repaired once the Convoy reaches the ending point ( yellow head of arrow )

Trains 1, 2 and 3 all leave their Station at the same time.  Once they reach the end of the track ( yellow head of arrow ) they will give out supplies within their radius.  
AA Factory, Radar Factory Fuel Factory and HeadQuarters will get repaired.
Note! If Ammo Factory to the far left is damaged it will not be repaired by Train1.  It is out of Train1's repair radius.

Convoys,  Barges and Trains don't pass by Stations or Depots to get resupplied inorder to pass them on to Fields or Country Objects.  They must leave from their respective Station or Depots to repair there destination sites.

Pokie

By the way, the Station and Depot D4 have nothing to do with each other.  They are their own seperate entites.  They are just close together here so I could use 1 picture.

[ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: pokie ]

[Sky Viper]

Originally posted by Sundog:
So, just to be clear, I could have a depot/or station at point A. This will be the 'resupply source'. At point B, 100 miles away I have the final destination of the 'resupply line'. Point B resupplies an airfield.

Now, every 20 miles between, I have a station which resupplies a corresponding VH. Everytime the train passes through these stations, the VH will be resupplied? Of course, they will have to have their source radius set to, say 90 miles (Since the furthest station from the source is 80 miles). Then if 3 of those 4 stations in between are destroyed, it will prevent the train from spawning. Is that correct? If not, what am I missing.

HMM...
I think what you are missing, and pokie sort of hit on, is that the Convoy or Train must end at the point you wish to have resupplied.
This is the destination, and you would set the radius or field accordingly.

Passing by would not do the trick. They have to stop.  

I haven't tested it yet, but I think each station/depot can only have 4 departing lines. (roads/tracks)
If this is true, then each station/depot can only supply 4 bases/factories.

Viper

[Sundog]

Hey guys,
part of this confusion started becasue I thought there was a place on the Mindanao map where a train left the depot, went through a station and onward to another point. I went and overflew the region and realized I was mistaken. Everything matches what you guys are saying (Which I already understood, but thought there was more I was missing   -) Of course, it Pokie made a really great graphic to explian it well  

Also, for the record, which I know you guys know, but someone else might not, for the train which heads north, instead of choosing radius, you could select for it to reply A2, in which case, when it reaches the end of its travel it resupplies A2 instead of A3.  

Thanks for the help guys. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing out on any cool new features  

[pokie]

Originally posted by Sundog:
[QB]
Also, for the record, which I know you guys know, but someone else might not, for the train which heads north, instead of choosing radius, you could select for it to reply A2, in which case, when it reaches the end of its travel it resupplies A2 instead of A3. QB]

 

The Trunk Conoy is set from A3 airfield.

Typo error should have read "The Trunk Conoy is set FOR A3 airfield."

The Covoy leaving the Depot1 is set for A3 in this example.

You can not Radius supplies to repair Airfields, ownly Country objects.

Pokie

[pokie]

Originally posted by Sky Viper:

I haven't tested it yet, but I think each station/depot can only have 4 departing lines. (roads/tracks)
If this is true, then each station/depot can only supply 4 bases/factories.
Viper

 

1A) DEPOT Field # It's the number of the depot that gives supplies to your Covoy, Barge or Train.

Your road starting point doesn't have to be close to it.


 

1B) STATION Radius xxx Miles It's how far the station is away from the starting point of your road (River, Road or Track), your road starting point should be within that distance.

You could set the Radius to 20 miles and have several Road Starting Points in that Radius.  

Pokie

[ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: pokie ]

[Sky Viper]

Originally posted by pokie:

You could set the Radius to 20 miles and have several Road Starting Points in that Radius.  

Pokie

[ 12-16-2001: Message edited by: pokie ]

Yes, I did consider the option of starting roads/tracks in adjacent sectors, but I think that would be rather ugly if you don't get far enough away when you start.

Here's a graphic of what I mean.
 

Here you can see that tracks 1-4 have the same origin in grid 10,24/10,24.
I extened the tracks out 2 grids or more, then added track 5 in an adjacent grid, 10,28/10,28.

What happens is that 2 pieces of track (labeled Odd Track) are added which falsely connect it to tracks 2 and 3.
You would have to move out 2 adjacent sectors in order to start another track.
In this case that would put you at 10,32/10,32.
Then you would have a track that starts in the middle of nowhere.  This would look a bit odd as well, but you could put a VOD object under it to dress it up.
This would give you 2 more tracks to go in a NE directions.  I say only 2, because any time you try to cross tracks/roads, they inherit the "Odd Track" joint.
So, you could in essence, cascade the starting points out away from the original center and add 2 tracks for each 2 adjacent grids you jump.
I think that would get ugly real fast.
Better to add more depots/stations.

By the way, this holds true regardless of whether you use stations or depots.

It would be very cool if the Gents at HTC could figure out how to prevent the "Odd Track" from joining 2 parallel tracks. Heck, if we could have 4 origins inside the same sector, and crossing tracks, I could build a rail yard.      
It would also be cool to have a resource type of Supplies.  This would let you take trains from stations to depots.  When the Train arrives at the depot, it would launch the convoy or train that is stationed there. This would provide a cascading supply chain.   (may be to complex for game play though)

I hope all this doesn't confuse things too much.

Viper

[Sundog]

Ahhh Viper! Exactly what I was thinking (About the cascading supply line). I was thinking we could do that, but we can't (Hence all my station confusion   -)

I agree that it would be cool to have train yards, but it would be difficult to making putting the pathways down easily and have all the options. Maybe if they make us a railyard object that could work out.

[pokie]

Good discussion Viper and Sundog      

You both got your creative juices flowing.

   

Great Post Sundog!
This Post has really helped things for everyone, me included.  Plus I'm sure others are taking in this information.
Don't forget to copy and paste this into your notepad everyone  

Just goes to show "there's no such thing as a stupid question"

Pokie
 

[ 12-17-2001: Message edited by: pokie ]

[Sabre]

But, Sundog, you could have a station send a train to resupply/rebuild a depot.  That would add another layer to the logistical onion, wouldn't it?  It wouldn't cause a convoy to spawn from the depot, but it would still simulate the logistical LOCs somewhat.