Accumulated Factory Inputs & Substitution Bug

[jeffryfisher]

All of you know that if you deliver one of two demanded inputs to a factory building, the building will accumulate it hoping for the day when the missing ingredient will appear, enabling the building to produce its output. What I first suspected years ago and have recently confirmed is that if a building's recipes change over the years, then it is possible for an accumulated input to magically change its identity.

I'm not yet quite sure what the "rule" is, but it's something like this: In my modified EXE, I can combine wood and steel in a 19th C weapons plant to make weapons. After a certain date, there's a new recipe using rubber + aluminum (representing plastic + aluminum to make planes). If I pile on unrequited wood during the 19th century, then WWII sees a stockpile of aluminum awaiting rubber deliveries. Somehow the wood delivered over the previous century has been transmuted into aluminum!

Has anyone else witnessed this phenomenon? I'm tempted to analyze the specific rule for how an input to one recipe will turn into the modern input to a new recipe. With foreknowledge, a forward-looking rail baron could cash in (as long as the factory doesn't vanish!)

[immpy]

Wow! I have NOT witnessed anything along these lines during gameplay, but I will keep my eyes open for it in the future. Would this be considered a "bug", or just the game reflecting the changing technologies in a brilliant transformation? Sometimes this game can appear to be very "smart" about things, even us HUMAN players.

Only reason I am stating it in this fashion is because something unusual just happened to me the other day which makes me ask the question; "Does this game know (or remember) human player tendencies?"

I have started a new thread with this as the topic.

Thanks Jeffry, always interesting reading your posts.

Edited January 6, 2017 by immpy

[jeffryfisher]

A nondestructive bug like this is euphemistically called an "undocumented feature".

[jeffryfisher]

I think the cannery might also display this "feature", as its steel input is replaced by aluminum. However, there's a period of overlap. It could be that my mods created the situations where I now see this happening.

What's really fun is when 2 inputs are required for a number of years, so one of them can be stockpiled. Then a tech change creates a conversion for the stockpiled input to work by itself. When the next load of that input hits the building, the entire stockpile converts.

I see this also in my weapons plants that need steel + wood during the 19th C but steel alone by WWII. If steel has been stockpiled (instead of the wood that somehow transmutes into aluminum), then one more steel load can release rush of weapons. Talk about arsenal of democracy!

My next trick will be to release a pile of hazardous waste. It's 1953, and I've been delivering coal to some powerplants for a few years. The coal can't convert into anything yet, so it's just accumulating. In a few more years, my PP's will start returning 1 waste per 3 coal. I'll be watching for that 1st delivery to each plant after the announcement.