Betterment of the factory info display

[Ranran(retired)]

Hi. Joining the Bridgewater-Brunel server has given me some inspiration. Thank you for running the server.
BTW, delivering delicious meat to the world seems like a very difficult road. They don't know the taste of hamburgers yet. (´・ω・｀)


When I was working on the factory info improvement before, I left it alone after a patch was incorporated. 
That is to display monthly production amount instead of production rate against production.
It is currently only visible in the primary industry. However, I came to the thought that that display is useful outside the primary industry.
I think it is more intuitive and easier for players to understand. It saves the player the trouble of calculating in his head.



Please see the comparison image:

(EDIT: I made a mistake in the color of the hand drawn arrow  )
TBH, it's hard to understand what this percentage is telling me without checking at help.


I think that change has the following advantages:
1) The amount of production and consumption serve as a guide for the amount of transportation that the player should prepare.
It is convenient that the units displayed here are the same as the units used in convoy.

2) This is useful for comparison with charts.

3) Easy to compare with storage capacity.
For example, this factory produces 289 tons of steel per month, but has a storage capacity of only 149 tons.
This means that it will fill up in about half a month, and the player will have to bring it out once every half a month.



First of all, the work up to this point was pushed to my branch. 
https://github.com/Ranran-the-JuicyPork/simutrans-extended/tree/monthly-prod-display



Next, if we make this change, the meaning of Max. XXX uinits per month at the top is almost gone. This value is also recorded in Production on the Production/Boost chart.
The only thing this value tells you is how much the factory is getting the boost bonus. In that case, it is easy to understand that it is a percentage based on 100.
Current production value will continue to exist as an internal value.
If we change this, we may need to rethink the production sort on the factory list. Because it will sort by numbers that are invisible to the player.
However, under the present circumstances, I think that it will function as a numerical value indicating the scale of the factory.


I would be grateful if you could share your thoughts on these.
I hope players will be able to transport meat more easily, thank you. (´・ω・｀)らんらん♪

EDIT:
I made a change to that branch to comment out the unavailable "Built in:" display I reported here.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for your work on this: this is most interesting.

I should be grateful for others' views on the utility of this, especially on the question of the percentages and their utility before testing and moving towards incorporation.

[Mariculous]

That's great!
I got quite used to that percentage over years, that's the only reason why I didn't feel it to be disruptive anymore.

Absolute numbers will ne a huge improvement to this.
As you metioned, the "Max. units per month" is quite useless now. I'd replace it with either the boost percentage unboosted_production, current_production, max_production, although that's 3 values, so it either takes 3 lines with a label for each, or requires the user to read the description again. I am not sure about this...

[Milko]

Hello

I was thinking, Is it useful to leave the indicated percentages anyway? Currently I find it difficult to understand the maximum theoretical productivity of each industry and the factors that increase / decrease it, I would appreciate if it were clearer. What if it were such an indication Production = Maximum theoretical production * staff factor * energy factor? In one line.

Giuseppe

[Vladki]

I like the absolute numbers. Never felt comfortable with % especially in cases when none of inputs or outputs was 100%

[jamespetts]

Giuseppe - I think that your query in the other thread is perhaps a very good reason to prefer absolute numbers and that Ranran's suggestion is a good one.

[freddyhayward]

This would be a very welcome change. Factory info is currently very confusing. It would also be good to explicitly label all displayed values, such as storage, quantity in transit and maximum quantity in transit etc. It is currently only possible to understand the numbers by opening the help pages, and even then it remains confusing.

[Ranran(retired)]

My idea is to replace the existing max.production with Productivity. The word Productivity may not be appropriate.
But my intention is to show how much boost is occurring. Advice on the appropriate words is helpful.
And this involves three types of boosts, indicated by the icon beside it. (You can check each boost rate on the chart.) This is the same display as standard.




For example, you can see that cattle farm doesn't have an email boost.
It doesn't seem to get the passengers bonus.
It seems to have got the electricity bonus, resulting in a productivity of 150%.

I think it will be annoying to display this difference along with each goods.
Because at 200%, all good numbers will only double. The absolute number is displayed as a reflection of this boost rate.
Therefore, I think it is enough to display only the upper part.

I'd replace it with either the boost percentage unboosted_production, current_production, max_production, although that's 3 values,

Production = Maximum theoretical production * staff factor * energy factor? In one line.

Is the notation like Productivity: 100/300% good?

Factory info is currently very confusing. It would also be good to explicitly label all displayed values, such as storage, quantity in transit and maximum quantity in transit etc. It is currently only possible to understand the numbers by opening the help pages, and even then it remains confusing.

I think so too. I'm planning to make a dedicated component to make it more visible, but that can take some time.

[Mariculous]

My idea is to replace the existing max.production with Productivity

Yes, that's what I had in mind.

Is the notation like Productivity: 100/300% good?

Yes, I guess that's fine.
A mouseover tooltip like current/maximum might be good in addition, but I guess it is also okay without.

I think the term "productivity" is fine, I'd also use that word in this context. Luckily we got native speakers that can give a more definite answer on this

[Ranran(retired)]

Thank you for your feedback. I beef up more. (´・ω・｀)
I worked on it.

The display style is as follows.

I did this because the "/" seemed to make it look like a fraction.


Another change:
Production chart has been replaced by Productivity.

It should be noted that you cannot see the change when fields are added or removed.
I don't think those short term changes are important as the chart only has a one year record.

Automatically convert production record to productivity when opening old save(14.9 revision 23 earlier).
So this patch increments revision.


I've pushed the work so far to monthly-prod-display branch.


Additional translation terms：

Code Select Expand

Productivity
(Max. %d%%)

Also editing the help text(industry_info.txt) in English text will help.

Code Select Expand

<em>Productivity</em>: the maximum rate of goods that the industry will supply (if a supplier) or consume (if it is a consumer) in units per month/day (depending on the date settings). Supplying <a href="electricity.txt">electricity</a> to the industry increases the rate both of production and consumption, thereby giving the opportunity to transport more commodities to/from that industry.

[Ranran(retired)]

Farms and the like have very small yields, and sometimes it shows 0, appearing to be on strike. 
But as the charts show, they don't shun their jobs every month, and sometimes they work. 


This indicates that it has a decimal number, so I advised them to report it honestly. 

[jamespetts]

Thank you for your work on this. May I ask whether I should be testing the factory-gui branch or the monthly-prod-display branch to test these features?

[Ranran(retired)]

May I ask whether I should be testing the factory-gui branch or the monthly-prod-display branch to test these features?

That's the one on the monthly-prod-display branch.

[jamespetts]

Splendid, thank you. I have now incorporated this as it does seem to make things clearer. However, I wonder whether it would be better still to show the effects of staff and materials shortages in the "productivity" display?

[Ranran(retired)]

However, I wonder whether it would be better still to show the effects of staff and materials shortages in the "productivity" display?

I added the effects of staffing.
0% is displayed only when the factory is not operating (not connected).


I think the exact utilization rate of the factory is a little complicated,
and further changes may be covered here.
https://forum.simutrans.com/index.php/topic,19910.msg187173.html
More details will be posted on that thread later.

[freddyhayward]

There are two division by zero errors when productivity is calculated, one at simfab.cc:1626 and one at simfab.h:716

[Ranran(retired)]

Thank you for your advice. I'm not sure if there is a case where Productivity = 1 is described in the factory .dat file will be 0...
Anyway, I made a pull request along with a fix for vladki's request (#178).

[jamespetts]

Splendid, thank you: fix now incorporated.

[Milko]

Hello

Are the new texts already present in simutranslator?

Giuseppe

[Ranran(retired)]

Are the new texts already present in simutranslator?

Thanks for letting me know it. Now I have added them to simutranslator.