Timberborn: Goods Distribution in Update 4

Here’s the short version:

• Use the default settings. Don’t change them.
• Connect two districts with a District Crossing.
• Build storage for the items you want in the districts you want those items in.

That’s it. That’s all you really need in 99% of cases.

Goods in Update 4 flow like water.

If you have a district that has many items in storage, and a connected district that has a lot of empty storage of that same item, beavers will attempt to move items from the filled district to the empty district until both districts have the same percentage of storage filled in both districts.

So, for example:

District One might have storage for 200 Gears.
District Two might have storage for 40 Gears.

If District One’s storage is full, so they have 200 Gears, and District Two has no gears, beavers will move Gears around until District One is at around 167 Gears and District Two is around 33 Gears, so that both districts are at around 87% full in their available Gears storage. One district was at 100%, the other was at 0%, now they’re both at (around) 87%.

Note: Only storage buildings count as available storage. For example, trying to build a smelter when you don’t have scrap metal storage in the same district (or don’t have that district set to Import Always on scrap) won’t suddenly pull scrap into the district. A building looking to make planks out of logs isn’t going to create import demand for logs: only a building that stores logs will do that.

Lets say you have three districts: Mine, Middle, and Refine.

District Mine mines Scrap Metal.
District Refine refines Scrap Metal into Metal Blocks.

District Middle connects the two districts. Mine<->Middle<->Refine.

You have storage for scrap at Refine, but no storage in Middle. Mine still isn’t sending goods. Why?

Mine can’t send Scrap directly to Refine. It has to go through Middle. If Middle doesn’t need Scrap, Scrap won’t be sent to Middle, so it can never reach Refine.

How do you fix this?

You have two options: Build storage in Middle so that Mine knows to send Scrap to Middle (so it can get to Refine) or…

… set the Distribution Settings for District Middle to Import Always on Scrap.

Now Scrap will always be sent from Mine to Middle, even if Middle doesn’t have storage available. Then, once the Scrap is in Middle, Refine can receive it (because they have storage available).