Several bug reports (conveyer belt mishaps, metrics display)

Big Pharma Pharma Support
1
  1. Belt woes

Conveyer belts stop working properly if you mistakenly have a branch in them that doesn’t go anywhere.

E.g., you have

A---+--->B
    |-->C

(That is a 3-way branch in the middle)

if you accidentally add a branch to it to make it a 4-way branch, stuff starts messing up (the belt won’t move on some ticks).

    | (goes nowhere, just the 4-way branchy thing)
A---+--->B
    |-->C

I think this also happens with a 2-way that you accidentally make into a 3-way

A-------->B

Works fine, but:

A----+--->B
     |

(The + being a 3-way branch, NOT a 4-way) does not work ok; it doesn’t move on some ticks.

  1. Displayed metrics in ingredients & cures screen are not always correct

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/421438861649462041/E5B8ED3C651EA97E39BCB63A509753B9C1D0D40F/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|2048:1280&composite-to=,|2048:1280&background-color=black

Note the price is $41. This is correct (at least, that is what the game is charging me as far as I can determine).
(I’d embed the image but the whole right side gets cut off.)

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/421438861649461828/AA205E4070A5F023331E76AC3DC79EE381D15A09/?interpolation=lanczos-none&output-format=jpeg&output-quality=95&fit=inside|2048:1280&composite-to=,|2048:1280&background-color=black

Note that the graph shows the price is $41 (correct), but the display shows $35.

This is not a re-painting issue; leaving the screen & coming back to it does not update the price.

If I upgrade the ingredient the price properly updates (to $41 - $4 = $37).

There is a similar issue on the cures screen where the current price & demand shown on the main part (on the left) are not up to date, but the graph and info on the right does appear to be up to date.

2

Regarding the belt issues, this only occurs when the belt network is not deterministic. Basically, there has to be enough ‘hard’ input/outputs (machines) to tell the flexible belts (T-Junctions and Crossroads) what to do. Most of the time the system can deal with a single redundant t-belt connection, e.g.:

A----+--->B |

But only if A and B are both hard inputs/outputs IE there is no question about how the belt should behave. Note that Sockets are not hard outputs, they are only outputs when a machine is pushing something towards them and telling them to be an output.

Regarding the 4-way: as soon as you add that extra junction you are telling the game that you want a crossroad, rather than a splitter. Of course the belts aren’t going to work so well!

The rule of thumb is: try to make it clear to the game what you want it to do and it’ll do it. Including extra junctions where you don’t need them can only make things less likely to be deterministic.

Regarding the second issue, yes I know the problem. The values only update when a day passes while you are on that screen. If you pause the game on another tab and then navigate to it, the values will be out of date. I will force a refresh every time you enter the tab to fix this.

Cheers!

Tim