Introducing Production Chains

We are excited to announce the release of Production Chains! This is where things all start to come together. A production chain is where we recursively chain together all productions that are required to make any given resource. As of version 1.1.0.0, you can now find a tree visualization for every resource displayed on the resource information page.

Not only does this provide you with an appreciation for the complexities of the local economy, but it also helps to expose which resources we are dependent on without being able to produce them locally.

For example, gasoline is very important to many industries, but it is not something that the average town is actively producing on any meaningful scale.

The production chain also helps us understand the inherent nature of certain resources. Take hay for example. Hay is an absolutely critical part of many supply chains. Yet, with some production styles, it requires absolutely no inputs. That means that hay is actually one of the few truly “raw” resources.

 

Another possibility is that the production chain is cyclical. That means that one production interacts with the production chain multiple times, creating a loop. This means that the production chain is self-sustaining.

There are also cases where a resource can be produced by more than one production. In those cases the viewer allows you to choose which production should be displayed.

In this case, straw is a byproduct of several different varieties of grain farming. Changing the production will change the downstream resources and productions accordingly.

Production chains will soon become the bedrock for many new functions like reports and insights. For now, feel free to jump in and explore the resource encyclopedia!