To find a Corsair Cove production bottleneck, start at the missing final good and work backward one building at a time. Do not begin by adding another producer. Most stalls come from one of five visible states: no worker, no continuous connection, empty input storage, full output storage, or a Fetcher route whose source is also stopped.
Identify the exact missing destination
Is the shortage shown at a Galley, Tavern, production building, pier, tower, or construction site? Open that destination and record the good it lacks. A global resource count does not prove that the correct local service can receive it. Crew consume upkeep through the camp assigned to their pier; Hands use the camp assigned to their building.
Pause new construction while diagnosing. Automatic job assignment and fresh material demand can change the evidence faster than you can follow it.
Use a fixed diagnostic order
- Staffing: confirm every required job is filled; buildings do not run partially staffed.
- Connection: trace the structure back to the haven and check that no road, bridge, path, ladder, zipline, or elevator segment is broken.
- Output space: if the producer’s output is full, create or repair the destination route.
- Input storage: if empty, select the input and follow its Fetcher link to the source.
- Source health: inspect whether that upstream source has workers, inputs, output room, and a working connection.
Repeat until you reach a deposit, grower, or other origin. The first failed state in that direction is the fault to repair.
Interpret the route signals
Default green, yellow, and red route lines represent high, medium, and low efficiency. Click the link icon to highlight the selected path when the district has many overlapping routes. A red route is not necessarily disconnected, but its travel time can starve a consumer whose recipe cycles faster than deliveries arrive.
A red hourglass on a Fetcher link indicates that the source is not producing the expected input. Moving the consumer will not help if the source lacks workers or its own ingredients. Read both ends before rebuilding.
Distinguish production from Drain
The center of a building’s wheel shows maximum production, while recent production and Drain reveal what is happening. Drain rises when consumers or Fetchers remove goods. When drain exceeds production for an essential item, add capacity or shorten routes only after confirming the source runs continuously.
Low drain with full output means demand is not collecting the good. High drain with empty output means the source may need a second producer. Intermittent output often points to input delivery. These are different problems even when the global stock graph looks the same.
Find shared-resource competition
One intermediate can feed several chains. Hardwood supports Planks and later uses; Stone can serve construction and other processing; Black Powder competes between events, ships, and island defense. Select the shared producer and count its outgoing routes. A new consumer can be the reason an older chain suddenly stalls.
Prioritize survival and current commitments. Restore basic camp upkeep and defense ammunition before optional stock or sales. Remove or pause the least important drain instead of duplicating every upstream building.
Check the workforce after route changes
Each Fetcher route uses a pirate, and Drifters automatically fill open jobs. A Warehouse network with several inbound and outbound links can consume the worker pool. All Hands on Deck can double Fetcher and Greenhand use, making an apparent resource shortage into a labor shortage.
Pause low-priority jobs and watch whether the critical chain staffs itself. If it does, the fix is workforce allocation or population growth, not a new production ratio. See Jobs and Drifters.
Account for camp and pier assignment
When goods exist but pirates remain unsatisfied, inspect the assigned Pirate Camp. The required community building must be in that camp and connected. Reassigning a building or pier can move demand to a better-supported camp, but it can also overwhelm the destination. Compare housing, services, and net production before switching.
Advanced ship Crew are especially revealing: multiple goods can be required simultaneously through the pier’s camp. One missing service can make a large island stock appear useless.
Apply the smallest recovery
Reconnect one segment, assign one worker, repair one Fetcher route, or clear one output destination. Let the simulation update before changing another part. If throughput remains below drain with every state healthy, then add a producer near the consumer or create a purposeful buffer.
Avoid demolishing a chain during diagnosis. Pausing preserves its links and lets you test worker allocation. Once stable, remove obsolete temporary routes and reopen optional production one group at a time.