Production information on multi-worker buildings is incorrect

Forum for all bug reports relating to the 2018 Early Access phase of A tractor
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VDZ
Posts:63
Joined:Sat Aug 18, 2018 9:21 pm
Production information on multi-worker buildings is incorrect

Post by VDZ » Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:34 pm

Take, for example, the Steel Refinery's production text:

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Or the Forge's price-setting explanation text:

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The former implies that with 2 employees, it makes 1 Steel from 5 Metal Ore per 10 minutes. At a Metal Ore price of 6d, that would imply a cost of (5 * 6 + 2 * 22) = 74 denari per Steel.

The latter implies that it produces (without specifying number of employees, so let's say 1 employee to be optimistic) 1 Girder from 0.20 Steel and 0.20 Rivets (somehow) every 10 minutes, and explicitly reminds you that it will cost 22d in wages. At 43d Steel and 20d Rivets, that would make the price per Girder (0.2 * 43 + 0.2 * 20 + 22) = 34.6 denari per girder.

Neither are correct. Though Steel is really painful to produce at 1 worker (to the point where I'd prefer to stop production at that point), at 2 workers it creates 3 Steel from 10 Metal Ore per 10 minutes, leading to a production cost of ((10 * 6 + 2 * 22) / 3) = 34d per Steel, less than half of what the text implies. (Yes, that would be nice profit if the economy wasn't so dead. FYI, production cost at 1 worker is 52d per Steel, so invest at your own risk.) Girders likewise work differently than the text states and actually produce 5 Girders for 1 Steel and 1 Rivet per 10 minutes with one worker, leading to a cost of ((43 + 20 + 22) / 5) = 17d per Girder. (I wish there were actually any workers still coming into the world, though.)

I've bitched about TeaBoy stopping the Steel production cycle by raising Girder prices to bullshit levels before, after I explained to him what the costs involved were (and he originally had them set up correctly), but the 'multiple workers' +1 rule is already hard enough to understand for people, and with the game itself feeding people misinformation like this it's hard to blame people for being unable to calculate production costs properly.

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