Colony Intelligence

Colony Statistics Panel

Click the Colony Statistics icon in the Colony Information Menu or click on the Colony Productivity circle-icon in the Colony Overview Panel. See Game User Interface page for help.

Colony Productivity

File:ColonyProductivityPanel.png

Colony Productivity gives you a percentage of buildings that are able to and activity producing (not sleeping). Sleeping buildings have a "Zzz" indicator. Lower productivity is a good indicator that there are too many buildings that are sleeping for whatever reason. Those buildings could be waiting for resources or have full outgoing queues. However, if you halt a building's production, it is removed from the formula. Buildings that don't produce are not part of the calculation either (e.g. Storage Yards).

Optimal productivity is when a resource is available for the building to continue production from the building's production queue. Note: there is a small amount of time that the actual production is sleeping while the stackbot loads the resource(s) from the production queue.

For example: if you have a L1 Energy Pod and it is producing Energy that has immediate demand at a storage yard and the production queue is loaded, then you could achieve near 100% Colony Productivity (if that was all that was going on). However, what happens if there is no more Energy demand? Then the residence's outgoing queues will be full and buildings will go to sleep ("Zzz") pushing overall Colony Productivity to 0%.

Understanding each building's needs will help you optimize your Colony's Productivity. Here are some examples:

• Chocolate Factories need milk and cocoa beans. If you build a Cow Farm and produce milk before the Chocolate Factory is demanding it, then your Colony's Productivity will be negatively impacted.
• Sawmills need logs. As soon as the Sawmill has a demand it will look for next available log to place in its outgoing queues from the nearest routable Lumberjack or Storage Yard. This is set. If the travel distance (time) of a logs to the Sawmill takes longer than when Sawmill is ready for that resource, then the Colony's Productivity will be negatively impacted.

Resource Delivery

To improve overall Colony Productivity, it is good to manage on-time delivery of needed resources.

Opening the Colony Statistics panel will give you the opportunity to look at “Recent Late Resources” activity. You can toggle to include “On Time”, “Warnings” and “Alerts” in the panel. Clicking on the listed resource in the panel will show you the path that the resource took.

• "On time" < 75%
• "Warning" > 75% <= 100%
• "Alert" > 100%

The percentage represents the amount of routing time over the building's production time. For example if a Residence takes 1.0 day to produce Energy and the resource shows 12%, then it took 0.12 days to arrive. To have just-in-time delivery (100%) then all the building production resources would be delivered and stored in the building's production queue exactly when the building completed production. That would be a challenge!

This panel will help you analyze your overall resource routing activity then you can utilize all the tools you have to make improvements:

• * Storing Resources
• * Resource Routing
• * Local Storage Buffers
• * Transport Rules
• * Building Rules
• * Prioritising Buildings
• * Prioritising Panels

Example: Georginna’s Sawmill received a late resource. This means the building went to sleep ("Zzz") while that resource was being routed. This happened 3 days ago in game time. Even though the Sawmill sourced the logs from the storage yard, the path the log had to take was from Darron’s Lumberjack then travel by boat, then be stored and then go to Georginna’s Sawmill.

Colony Income Rate

Opening the Colony Statistics panel will allow you to look at the “Colony Income” graph.

You can toggle between "Last Month" and "Last Year" to review your performance.

Note: This is only available for games that have Market enabled.

Tech Research Stats

Opening the Colony Statistics panel will allow you to look at the “Tech Research Stats” table.

This table is useful when you are trying to improve your game score. Here you have a quick way to look at a game and determine the number of days each research level took so that you can work to make improvements in the research time.

In addition, when you hover your mouse over the green check mark, you will see the game ticks indicating when the research was completed. Note: Game Ticks can be turned on under Options / Game Options. 1800 ticks equals 1 day.

Resource Storage and Potential Surplus Menu

Resource Storage Menu

The Resource Storage Menu (box icon) contains a lot of information to alert you to Colony's resource needs.

Quickly view the amount of resources in storage as well as the number of resources being demanded that are not being fulfilled. Storage includes resources that are in Storage Yards and the outgoing queues of the buildings that produced them. It does not include resources that are in route.

Clicking on any resource (or resource category) to open the Resource Overview Panel.

Potential Surplus Menu

The Potential Surplus Menu (gear icon) is another way to look at resource needs for your Colony.

Quickly view the amount Surplus (or if negative the deficit). And just like Resource Storage Mneu, it shows the number of resources being demanded that are not being fulfilled.

Clicking on any resource (or resource category) to open the Resource Overview Panel.

Resource Overview Panel

While viewing either the Resource Storage Menu or the Potential Surplus Menu you can click on any resource (or resource category) to open the Resource Overview Panel.

There are multiple tabs to view:

• Production & Demand – graphical information to help you plan.
• Production – Buildings that are producing, sleeping (Zzz), or halted.
• Demand – Buildings that are demanding resources, which are prioritized, and which are not being met.
• In Storage – Where are all of the resources?
• Transport Rules – Any of the rules that are affecting that particular resource.
• Info (i) - Helpful information on that resource.

Under each tab, you are able to click on individual buildings to jump to that location on the map.

For example in this image the logs icon shows 180 in storage but a demand for 1 log is not being met. By clicking on the logs icon it will open the panel for Logs. Then going to Demand and scrolling down, you would find a Charcoal Burner that is not getting logs provided. The reason is that this particular Charcoal Burner has a rule to only source logs from two particular Lumberjacks and neither of them have any Energy.

Blocked Roads

The Blocked Road indicator displays the number of roads that are blocked because the Road Post is full (has 4 resources).

You can click on the Blocked Road icon and it will cycle you to each of the instances (often they stack up in the same area). Over time, unless there are Rules that have locked resources into certain zones, Blocked Roads should clear up.

At the very basic level, Blocked Roads occur when:

• Too many resources are being put on the same path with no alternative routes.
• Too many building requests from multiple sources.
• Building has a long path to the nearest Road Post.
• Storage Yard trying to fill maximum amounts.
• Harbours and Train Stations that are getting queued for the next shipment.
• Harbours and Train Stations that are trying to unload while getting queued for the next shipment.

Clicking on a resource will show you the route it is taking. You can delete resources to free up Blocked Roads as well.

You can utilize all the tools you have to make improvements:

• Storing Resources
• Resource Routing
• Local Storage Buffers
• Transport Rules
• Building Rules
• Prioritising Buildings
• Prioritising Panels