trucks don't return unused dirt back to the bucket if it's not needed

It will just sit in the truck and keep it obucketccupied and useless. then when I remove the material (in this case dirt) from the truck - it goes to the earliest bucket I built, instead of the closest and that same truck now goes to pick up that material, which in case is at a very far location from the storage

I expcet two things:

1. that trucks with material that has a storage they can drop into near them, will drop that material into it voluterily after they sit idle for a month or two near it - maybe we can get the option to define a drop-off zone for a specific material (though it's usually dirt - it was picked up when there were designations available and once those were filled, got stuck with it in/on them with nowhere to drop it off - this needs to get resolved)
2. if we hit the remove button, either the removed material goes to the closest storage (bird's eye view, for all I care), the shipyard or a dedicated zone/storage location, if we have the ability to setup one (as mentioned above)

attached is a save for you to check,

Performance tag?

If you have an export route set, they're not allowed to put it back into the earlier storage.
You have to set an export route from the final storage back to the first in the chain. If the storage is in the same direct line it won't cause a loop.

This is how I solve it. Storage III to avoid too many trucks loading up, and two input-limited storages to return any excess.

Captain Matt wrote:

Performance tag?

I couldn't find anything more aprpriate like game 'mechanics' or similar so I thought this would be

thapear [discord] wrote:

If you have an export route set, they're not allowed to put it back into the earlier storage.

first, this is in the latest stable version. I think you are on the experimental, so idk if the behavior is the same, but in the past there was an issue that if you had a line of storages attached there was a bug where trucks would constantly feed the first from the last in that line so we used routing to resolve that - don't you get constant traffic moving material from that last bucker to the second or third to last until they are all filled ?

secondly, I didn't (and still don't) think this is the solution that should be - there is no reason for more then needed trucks to pick up material and then when all the available spots are filled up get stuck with material with nowhere to place it, even though there is free space in the storage line - if there isn't, then I get that it will stay on the trucks, but as long as there is space for it - it should be returned. though this might be because of the code to avoid the loop I mentioned above, so maybe the solution could be a "zone" that material is stored in, like when you create a dirt mountain (or bucket line) to store it until you'll need it...

I will try your solution but I think it's jank (no offence) and should not be like this - what if I have more then one storage line ? - I made four of them because I started shaving this mountain and accumulated a lot of dirt - and that's after I already let some of it be general dumpped befor I decided I need to store it because I'll need a lot to cover the new areas I'm preparing

also - that solution is not going to work well for me - the storage line is at a far edge of the base and will require a lot of energy to collect, move to the prospective location and then back to the original line - a lot of fuel wasted in my view, but at least it automates and releases the trucks, unless it doesn't work for me