Sudden Negative Profit

[Barney]

I was wondering if anyone has had a problem with profit numbers going reverse negative. So far this has only happened on Utopian 2, but I have played few maps other then the originals. What is happening, is in the period of one year, Industry profit goes from $2,083K to -$2,083K. The income statement in the ledger shows the correct amount, the VC in the back, shows negative. It always occurs when I own 100% of the stock, but it sometimes occurs when I do not. Any Ideas, since I doubt that it was intended.

This topic may be out of place, so feel free to move it where appropriate, thanks.

[Grandma Ruth]

Never happened to me, but I'm sure someone will be able to help!

[AZ Rail Rat]

What were the industries? If all you had was hotels, restaurants and taverns, they go back an forth all the time based on passenger traffic. Same with other heavy industries if they are not being supplied with what they need to make new products.

[nedfumpkin]

Industries can be profitable, or lose money depending on whether they get supplied or not.

More information is needed to know what response to give, like posted above...which industries.

[Barney]

While the map that I am talking about is quite big, We are talking going from 2 Billion to -2 billion in less the 12 months. Hotels only draw 13 to 20 Thousand per year. But to answer the question, I owned about 98% of the industries on the map. Grain Farms, Corn Farms, Fruit Orchards, Coal Mines, Iron Mines, Steel Mills, Auto Plants, Breweries, Distilleries, Ore Mines, Quarries, Concrete Plants, Dairies, Cattle Ranches, Processors, Packing Houses, Oil Refineries, Hotels, Taverns, Restaurants. Everything profitable. The ledger may explain it better.

[Barney]

I think we have an answer? This is from wolverine @ MSU on the Auerlia Thread.

I think this issue was noted before. It may be that the game engine can't handle any number over 2 billion (or so). It may have to do with the way computers work with numbers (binary conversion) and game developers may not have left enough binary digits to handle numbers this big. They probably never imagined that values would ever get this large.

Does this ring any bells, or just mine?

[Gwizz]

In modern times Trillion is becoming a small often used number.

If I remember correctly the game engine was able to handle billions.
I wonder if that ability was lost or removed in a patch?
Early versions did have a problem with crashes on older computers.
I've only played into the billions a couple of times on early versions of the game.

[Barney]

Trillions are only small numbers when you are spending money other then your own. With that said, we can return to the topic.

While I believe that I have had this occur on the stock maps also, I paid it no mind since it did not effect the VCs. One of the things about RRT3 is the ability to milk a map. Getting ports, Farms and the like are easy so long as you provide the need. While the resource may not appear where it does the most good or is easy to reach, it will show up. In playing this map, at this point in time, I just about have at least one industry in each of the 159 cities on the map, plus I created about 6 industry junctions with at least 3 industries each, and some with up to 5. For the most part every town has its own brewery or distillery. While only guessing, I think the air pollution index for the island is 40 proof on any given day.

Currently, I am debating the concept of seeing how fast I can milk that map. Is it possible to break the LIP and then rebuild it back above the $900M mark prior to 1950. That would require over $6.9 Billion in less then 80 game years. To say the least, that is a lot of milk.

EDIT: Blond moment here. The required total would be $4.9 Billion not $6.9 Billion. ^.9 billion would leave you back in negative again.

[Wolverine@MSU]

I think we have an answer? This is from wolverine @ MSU on the Auerlia Thread.

I think this issue was noted before. It may be that the game engine can't handle any number over 2 billion (or so). It may have to do with the way computers work with numbers (binary conversion) and game developers may not have left enough binary digits to handle numbers this big. They probably never imagined that values would ever get this large.

Does this ring any bells, or just mine?

This is true, but $2,083K is only $2,083,000 ($2.083 MILLION), which is well within the game's ability to handle. Something else must be going on here.

[Barney]

What am I missing here? The ledger total is $2,164,151K. Is that not $2,164,151,000.00? Over 2.1 Billion? Sorry, math gets harder when counting above 21. lol

[JayGould]

The LTD Industry Profit variable in RT3 is a 4 byte(32 bit) integer number. The highest bit is a sign bit where 0 equals plus and 1 equals minus. So the largest positive number is 2 to the 31st power or about 2.1 billion. Then the number rolls over to the maximum negative number. The negative LTD Industry Profit then increases to 0 and becomes positive again. This is normal behavior for this type of variable.

[JayGould]

The values in the financial reports are money amounts which are a different type of number. The financial reports handle the larger numbers correctly.

[Wolverine@MSU]

What am I missing here? The ledger total is $2,164,151K. Is that not $2,164,151,000.00? Over 2.1 Billion? Sorry, math gets harder when counting above 21. lol

I was basing my answer from the value given in the original post:

$2,083K to -$2,083K

I didn't look at the actual Ledger. JayGould's answer gives the reason for this peculiar behavior.

math gets harder when counting above 21

Why? Is that when you run out of fingers and toes?

[Barney]

Dyslexia strikes again . Sorry about that. Politics happens, just try not to step in it. What can I say. On the other part, fingers and toes and , Yes .

As for Jay's comment, I had to read it 3 times before the headache subsided just to make sure the info was what I thought it was, a game bug. The question is, can it be fixed? While my thoughts lead me to using the variable from the income statement and truncating it, or something. I am sure Ned could shed some light on this problem, I do not believe it is of a high priority. When or if he has a chance to check it out, it would be nice to know if it is fixable. As maps get bigger, it could be a real problem.