In Cities: Skylines, your industry buildings’ trucks will automatically export any surplus goods and materials when there is no current demand for them locally.
In this article we’ll go into what gets exported, how it’s sent out of your city, and how to stop trucks from exporting things you still need in your city.
What Gets Exported: Understanding the Supply Chain
Depending on the type, your industrial buildings can produce raw resources, processed materials (a.k.a. special goods), generic goods, or luxury goods.
| Product Type | Produced By |
|---|---|
| Raw materials (crops, raw forest products, oil, ore) |
– Zoned specialized industry buildings – Specialized industry extractor buildings (Industries DLC) |
| Special goods/processed materials (animal products, flour, planed timber, paper, petroleum, plastic, metals, glass) |
Specialized industry processor buildings (Industries DLC) |
| Generic goods | – Zoned generic industry buildings – Zoned specialized industry buildings |
| Luxury goods | Factories (Industries DLC) |
Assuming you have the entire supply chain within your city, your raw materials extracted from natural resources will be turned into processed materials. Processed materials will then be made into either generic goods or luxury goods.
Generic goods and luxury goods are sent to your commercial buildings to be sold to consumers.
Any surplus at any point in this supply chain—from raw resources to finished goods—is automatically exported by the trucks of the production buildings, if there is no demand or storage space within the city for it.
The different storage buildings in Industries DLC will also export the products they contain as the storage capacity fills up.
How Products Are Exported
Your city can export its goods and resources by road, train, ship, or air.
To export by road, your industry buildings simply need to have access to the highways leading outside of your city.
Exporting by rail, ship, or air, is possible with the following buildings:
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| Building | Type | Milestone Unlocked | Cost (₡) | DLC Required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cargo Train Terminal | Train | Small City | 60,000 | none |
| Cargo Harbor | Ship | Capital City | 60,000 | none |
| Cargo Hub | Train & ship | Colossal City | 90,000 | After Dark |
| Cargo Airport | Air | Metropolis | 200,000 | Industries |
| Cargo Airport Hub | Air, ship, train | Megalopolis | 250,000 | Industries |
Using Storage Buildings to Slow Down Unwanted Exportation (Industries DLC)
As each extractor or processor building produces raw materials or processed goods, its own fleet of trucks will automatically load them up and transport them to wherever there’s demand.
However, the timing of a truck being loaded with a certain product—and the demand for it within your city—doesn’t always match up.
So sometimes you might run into the problem of your processor buildings or factories showing the “Not enough raw materials” warning, only to see trucks already on their way out of your city to export the raw resources.
The solution for this is to build plenty of storage buildings for that particular raw resource or processed material.
Your extractor and processor buildings will prioritize putting their product there instead of immediately trying to sell it to other cities, allowing you to stockpile on things you need.
Each storage building has its own fleet of trucks that will deliver the product to your processor buildings or factories as needed.
Guide Navigation
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Cities: Skylines
- How To Export in Cities: Skylines
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