I'm not entirely familiar with the Lore, but is there some other, cheaper vehicle that could deliver the ore and metal bars to factories? The builder walker things are a bit expensive to make and replace and they aren't the fastest.

I think the Flatbed truck currently in the mod is the best fit, and most common in the lore (basically every faction uses them). With that said, I will do some research into this, there should be some smaller, faster vehicles that carry fewer tons of cargo. Technically the Anhur transport could transport cargo, I can give it cargo hauling functionality when I do the rework.

Well I redact that last bit about the Anhur, I was misremembering and thought it had a full cargo bay, but actually it's just got an infantry bay. However the Landing Craft could technically be used to transport cargo (it can carry 66 tons worth, or 31tons worth? Finding conflicting info on that, I guess I need to buy the actual source book), but I will need to think of a decent way to handle that. It's too big for any potential landing pads on buildings.

Also, I found that there's a very widespread vehicle called the Engineering Vehicle. It can carry 20 tons of cargo and is much faster than a Carbine. Since some Clans don't even use the Carbine at this point in the timeline, I'm considering using it as a starting worker in place of the Carbine, where it makes sense.
From what I can gather, the Clans only start using the Carbine at the beginning of the Republic era (right after Jihad era), so it's still within the timeframe that I'm trying to cover in this mod. Of the Clans, only the Inner Sphere Clans (Jade Falcon, Nova Cat, Snow Raven in the mod) use it.

Some further thoughts:
-With the eventual addition of better resource transports like the Engineering Vehicle (is fast and carries 20 tons) and the Buster industrial mech (slower but carries 60 tons), I need to find ways to keep the economy pacing from getting too fast. I do still want to make sure it can accelerate quite a bit in the end-game vs early-game.

-In light of the above, I am considering making the Adv Materials Facility similar to the Refinery in that it takes in one resource (metals, maybe others), and converts them into "Mech Components" or maybe "Advanced Components". This would let me increase the amount of metals needed to make mechs and ASF without changing the required amount of resource displayed (a Blood Asp will still need 90 tons of Advanced Components, to keep things intuitive).

-The idea is that quantities of needed metals to make Adv Components would be high enough that higher-tier workers feel necessary and a satisfying upgrade from Flatbed trucks.

-I also am considering incorporating the lore a bit more in that some resources must be produced in space. To accomplish this, I am considering adding a large landing pad on the Adv Mats Facility that you must assign a Landing Craft to. I read up on the lore of the Landing Craft, and it is VTOL capable and can also travel up to orbit, so it is the perfect fit for this. Basically the landing craft would fly up and vanish for a bit (go to orbit) and come back with a full load of advanced raw materials like Endo-Steel that the Adv Mats Facility then combines with Metals to make Adv Components needed for mechs and ASF.

Let me know if that all sounds too complicated. I think in practice it wouldn't be that bad, just really a longer supply chain for end-game units, but I'd like to hear your guys' thoughts.

Anyways progress on the rework is good, but I still have a lot to do. That is all for now

I'm glad you are giving this some thought, sending goods into orbit would definitely make things more interesting.

Hey all, for those who still read this, thank you for sticking around, and sorry for the long development hiatus! I am back working on this mod, at least for now.

I want to release some updates soonish, mostly with balance, QoL, and general polish changes

Originally I wanted to revamp the resource transportation code, but the more I got into it, the more it felt like a waste of effort. The new approach I was going for did have some merit, but it had some bad drawbacks as well. In my opinion the current system has more upsides than downsides when compared to the new system I was working on. So instead of a full revamp, I want to work on making the system more clear to the user, and if possible more robust under the hood.

With that said, I still want to add some of the features mentioned above (sending a ship to orbit, more resource transport options, ect), but they will be implemented with the current system instead of the previous new one.