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New HQ Levels

Started by ekhmuel, April 01, 2017, 10:41:02 PM

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ekhmuel

I just had an idea (probably said a million times before, but here goes):

Ages ago there was a lot of discussion about the problem of bank balances getting huge and perhaps more HQ levels could force some expenditure, if only the advantage could be found.

I just thought that a summary value of each line's profitability might be avaiable. I'll explain.

At the moment (Okay, when I last downloaded, which might not be true anymore), the line goes red for loss making and black for profit making. To see long-term trends however each line's graph needs to be inspected (nightmare on big games, especially if you get distracted). Perhaps on the far right hand side (or the left) a circle (or perhaps some letter) could be added. Red if it made less profit last calendar year than the one before and black if more. This is displayed on the lines list, so:


My Northern Bus Route RBR
My Southern Bus Route RRR
My Middle Bus Route RBB


for this, B means black and R means red.

So the Northern Bus route ('RBR') shows that last year it made less profit last year than the year before, more profit the year before than the year before that, and less profit the etc.

Use completed years only as an uncompleted year (the current) by definition has uncompleted data.

I would have cause to look firstly at The Southern one (due to consistent drops) and can do so 'at a glance'.

For each HQ level over 3, a subsequent circle/letter is added to build a better picture. (Up to say 4 symbols).

From a coding point of view, the memory only needs hold that it went down or up, except the most recent value so that it can be compared to the next one. At each calendar year end, the values are 'shunted' along:

Example:

Last Year Value: +25,101
Last Year Symbol: 1 (for black, -1 for red, 0 for N/A)
Year before Last Year Symbol: -1
Year before the Year Before Last Year Symbol: 0

At the end of the calendar year, let us say profit was +22,589Then it would then be:

Last Year Value: 22,589
Last Year Symbol: -1
Year before Last Year Symbol: 1
Year before the Year Before Last Year Symbol: -1

Paul

Last Year Symbol: -1
Year before Last Year Symbol: 1 Year before the Year Before Last Year Symbol: -1Just a thought.Paul

ekhmuel

I don't know why the gaps in paragraphs are huge. Might have something to do with writing it on notepad first and then pasting. (Modified now)

Also, I think this is the right section to post in (formerly experimental arena).

jamespetts

This is an interesting idea - I am not sure how practical that it would actually be (the GUI code is not very easy to work with). The idea of having different levels of headquarters giving players access to different levels of information about their networks is one that I have considered before, and may well be worth implementing one day.

I should note, however, that, without others working on the code, it is likely to be a long time (as in years) before this can be considered due to the number of higher priority tasks and the time that each of them is likely to take.

If you would like to help with the coding, do feel free to start on this straight away.
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