There is an established problem when you start to run out of storage space. When the DailyUpdate produces resources, it does them in a specific order. Building Materials, then Organic Materials, then Machine Parts, then Rare Materials. Within each category, it goes in alphabetical order. so Aluminium is produced first. When a resource is produced, the storage cap of the network is checked. Once there is no storage left, nothing else is produced.
The problem is, plots take their maintenance cost from storage, not production. So you can be producing 100 screws, but if you don't have any in storage when the plot checks, the plot will stop operating.
So what happens if you get to your storage cap is all the plot maintenance is taken from your storage, which might include resources from all categories, but when the DailyUpdate runs, it fills that storage space up with Building Materials, as these are produced first. Thus your storage of Organic Materials, Machine Parts and Rare Materials goes down, even though in theory you are produced plenty of them. When you run out, plots stop operating with leads to cascade failures across the settlement network (this will affect players using moderate or complex resource levels).
One solution to this is to forever increase your storage capacity, which costs settlement space and defence if you have that turned on.
I've suggested a few other solutions to this in the past, but I don't think I've suggested the easiest one, which is to allow players to call for a halt on producing certain resources, or categories of resources. Now that I'm more familiar with the code, I know this is very simple to do in the DailyUpdate function. That way, if players have a massive excess of certain resources, they can simply tell their settlers to stop producing those specific resources (or an entire category), so over time those resources go down (with maintenance costs), leaving more space for other resources you don't have as much of.
I believe the option could be put in the MCM (with it's own section) and in the holotape without too much hassle (basically, they would just be setting global variables which are checked in the DialyUpdate function).
The reality is, if you have a long game with Sim Settlements 2 on, you are almost inevitably going to produce more resources than you use (overall), thus run into the storage cap problem eventually if you don't continuously build more storage. So solving the storage cap problem is a necessary feature of the resource system and I think this is a good, easy, immersive way of doing it.
EDIT : I know in theory you could destroy or unassign production plots, but the problem with that is :
1) a lot of them produce more than just one resource, so it's an all or nothing approach
2) in a big settlement network it could be very tedious to find them
3) if you just unassign them, SS2 could automatically reassign them
4) if you destroy them, it can take a long time to build back up when you want that resource back again.
On the other hand, getting word out to your settlers not to gather plastic for the moment can't be that hard!
One extra complication I've just thought of is what to display on HUD and the infobox or asam sensors, but they are also just single functions that could easily check global variables. I'm thinking it might be possible to put a (H) on the HUD to indicate a resource's production is on hold? Ie Wood -200 (H)
The problem is, plots take their maintenance cost from storage, not production. So you can be producing 100 screws, but if you don't have any in storage when the plot checks, the plot will stop operating.
So what happens if you get to your storage cap is all the plot maintenance is taken from your storage, which might include resources from all categories, but when the DailyUpdate runs, it fills that storage space up with Building Materials, as these are produced first. Thus your storage of Organic Materials, Machine Parts and Rare Materials goes down, even though in theory you are produced plenty of them. When you run out, plots stop operating with leads to cascade failures across the settlement network (this will affect players using moderate or complex resource levels).
One solution to this is to forever increase your storage capacity, which costs settlement space and defence if you have that turned on.
I've suggested a few other solutions to this in the past, but I don't think I've suggested the easiest one, which is to allow players to call for a halt on producing certain resources, or categories of resources. Now that I'm more familiar with the code, I know this is very simple to do in the DailyUpdate function. That way, if players have a massive excess of certain resources, they can simply tell their settlers to stop producing those specific resources (or an entire category), so over time those resources go down (with maintenance costs), leaving more space for other resources you don't have as much of.
I believe the option could be put in the MCM (with it's own section) and in the holotape without too much hassle (basically, they would just be setting global variables which are checked in the DialyUpdate function).
The reality is, if you have a long game with Sim Settlements 2 on, you are almost inevitably going to produce more resources than you use (overall), thus run into the storage cap problem eventually if you don't continuously build more storage. So solving the storage cap problem is a necessary feature of the resource system and I think this is a good, easy, immersive way of doing it.
EDIT : I know in theory you could destroy or unassign production plots, but the problem with that is :
1) a lot of them produce more than just one resource, so it's an all or nothing approach
2) in a big settlement network it could be very tedious to find them
3) if you just unassign them, SS2 could automatically reassign them
4) if you destroy them, it can take a long time to build back up when you want that resource back again.
On the other hand, getting word out to your settlers not to gather plastic for the moment can't be that hard!
One extra complication I've just thought of is what to display on HUD and the infobox or asam sensors, but they are also just single functions that could easily check global variables. I'm thinking it might be possible to put a (H) on the HUD to indicate a resource's production is on hold? Ie Wood -200 (H)
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