Guides / Updated 2026-08-20
Automation and Logistics
Diagnose warehouses, roads and delivery bottlenecks.
Mandate Order automation is logistics: short routes, correctly placed storage, enough carriers and balanced demand. Solve distance and routing before adding more workers.
Route
Do this in order
- 1
Follow one missing item from consumer back to its source.
- 2
Check output storage, road connection and delivery range at every link.
- 3
Move or specialize storage to shorten the busiest route.
- 4
Add transport capacity only after the route itself is sound.
Read the inventory pattern
The location of the stock tells you which handoff failed. Do not add production until you know whether the item is missing at the source, trapped at the producer or waiting beyond delivery range.
- Empty source: repair extraction or the upstream recipe.
- Full producer and empty consumer: repair output space, road, range or hauling.
- Inputs arrive intermittently: reduce route competition or add carrier capacity.
- Everything is supplied but the workshop is idle: confirm workers and the selected recipe.
Storage placement rule
Use storage as a relay between dense producers and consumers, not as a distant destination for every item. The useful warehouse is the one that shortens the busiest repeated trip.
- Keep raw-material storage near processing.
- Keep finished military goods near their consumers or staging area.
- Avoid making food, construction and industry compete on one long route.
- Recheck delivery behavior after every storage move or filter change.
Need a specific route?Select the visible symptom and confirmed checks in the interactive logistics diagnostic.Open logistics diagnostics
If it does not work
A full source beside an empty consumer means the production rate is not the problem. Look for range, filters, road access or carrier overload.
Completion signal
Goods move from source to consumer for several cycles without player intervention.
Next moves