As soon as pop hit 300-400 animal herding start going strong along with upgraded hunters while meat smoking process stays more or less the same: a single smoker per building will fetch meat from anywhere on the map and then proceeds to smoke it. But this is extremely inefficient compared to other T3/T4 processes and unavoidably leads to lose a lot of fresh meat per year because smokers lose a lot of time going around in a dumb way. I think the whole smoking process could use an improvement, especially on the upgrade side (T2 smoker/butcher).
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Meat smoking should be build nearby cellar which is most closest to meat production buildings. Also make sure to change production settings, I mean not every meat smoking should care about smoking fish
I see around 450-500 production which is great for 1 worker building IMO
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Yup. I run basic Root Cellars (set to hold only raw meat, but my industrial sector also stores berries to prevent workers there from getting scurvy so often) to hold raw meat near where there are a lot of Smokehouses. Basically, a Smoker will go to where there is (at the moment they start the command) the closest raw meat.
Likewise, workers in meat production buildings will, when full, move their raw meat to the closest storage building.
So you can take advantage of both of these facts to align batches of Smokehouses and Root Cellars for meat (and if you do it right, you can double purpose them for, say, honey storage for a nearby Brewery).
But it’s still inefficient this way. I have a 700 pop city with 1 upgraded cow barn, 2 upg goats and 1 horse stable where I slaughter 1 horse/year. Also I have 6 smokers of which only 2/6 are smoking both fish & meat and 4/6 only meat. Most smokers output 600-700 production per year on average and the worse about 400. But still, I am wasting something like 1000 meat per year…Smokers waste a LOT of time going to hunters cabin fetching meat before hunters even have a chance to bring meat to the storage cellar.
If I build more smokers the only effect is to decrease average production per year of all other smokers…
It’s not just a problem of smokers, the main issue is that some production buildings are forcedly stuck at T1 while everything else in the city can be upgraded gaining more workers and more efficiency. The same problem we get for rat catchers (only T1 available and only 1 worker with relatively slow work), basket shops (only T1, 2 workers), cobbler shop (only T1, 2 workers). All these buildings should (must?) be allowed to get a T2 stage, to stay in line with city development. It’s something I’ve asked many times, I hope developers will hear us. Let’s keep asking altogether!
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I know this post is a little old now… but my normal opitimised meat smokers are normally 600-800 which is insanely powerful. Granted I’ve not checked since 0.93. It’s going to be down to positioning, I normally have a root cellar with meat and a stockyard nearby for firewood. Make sure that they’re always stocked via the stock controls.
Smokers seem much more efficient in 0.9.3. I was able to delete half of my smokehouses once the update hit. I placed them right next to the barns. The barns overproduce meat, so I do not have hunters anymore. Also, make sure only one of the smokers is allowed to smoke fish.
Dunno but I keep noticing that even if I micromanage meat production chain, placing smokehouses nearby root cellars/barns and/or set min stocking quota for fresh meat etc my smokers keep crossing the whole map over and over to fetch small quantities of meat from the farthest hunter cabin. When the city grows smokers efficiency collapse. I still think we need a better building to keep smokers effective in the endgame.
Do you need those hunters? I find hunters to be more of a headache. They keep dying to bears and raiders, and cause the issue you just described.
Yeah I need hunters because I like them aestethically and I also like balancing meat production between barns and them. Also, without them I run out of pelts too quickly.
I only hunt deers and wildlife with traps and avoid boars because of their lethality. With 0.9.3 upgraded hunters got boosted and reach even 25 pelts/tallow per year.
In that case, you need to look out for triple or quadruple deer spawns, build your barns around that, and put all the smokers there as well.
Commute makes and breaks this game. The more compact your zone is, the more efficiently the city runs. If the game allowed us to restrict the commute zone of each building, micromanaging these issues would have been a lot easier, but as of now, the developers do not wish to make it so.
Unfortunately, creating a compact city depends on dumb luck, because the maps are random, and we cannot see the mineral, foragebles, and wildlife spawns when we start a new map. I do not wish to spawn on an existing tight grouping of resources, because that would make the game too easy, but there should be one such zone in every map that we can eventually discover and migrate to. I did find one such map in my first playthrough, and I am still playing that map because I do not want to deal with all the commute drama.
To me, smokers are THE KEY MARKER to see if the town works. If they don’t, your town has basic problems, the solutions to smoker issues will help with so many other issues.
If the smokers are not productive and you still loose a lot of raw meat, you have a transport issue.
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cellar AND pile of firewood near by. Per smoker you need at least 200 raw meat / fish in that cellar. Otherwise the smoker will wonder all over the map to find stuff. With cellar nearby i mean right next to the building. Deactivate most other foods in that cellar, don’t let it overflow. There always need to be a pile of 100 firewood there. You need at least 3 fishers per smoker. Deactivate fish in the smoker if you don’t meet the ratio, otherwise the smoker will wonder around again. Deactivate raw meat in markets and all warehouses. A smoker with 1400 meat p.a. Is what I get from that. (700/700 fish/meat)
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if you cannot manage those numbers, find the issue. Not enough people to carry? Not enough waggons? Hunters to far away from wells to and temp housing (they will not transport the meat in time), No stone roads? Not enough firewood? Hunters not upgraded? Hunters need better equipment because these get killed all the time? Watchtower at the boar spawn? …
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horse stables don’t produce meat, barns were OP in earlier versions and now barely produce as much meat as a good hunter. Same for goats and chicken.
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If the hunters are really far away, build a little wall enclosed production exclave with warehouse (only 50metal,3 crossbows, 2 swords to not make it attractive for raiders), 2-3 cellars, raw material warehouse, temp houseing, Waggon, well, smoker maybe shoemaker and the hide thingy. That way you can reduce transport and get all the goods.
Hope that helps