[OPEN] Economy overview shows useless production numbers for foresters

Short description:
The production numbers of forresters in the economy overview are in most cases useless. If the ratio forresters and cutters is 3:2 while the distances to deposit and storehouses is roughly the same, it will often show large (1000+) negative numbers.

Screenshot:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/5264/7lbr.png
This is a constructed setup on the test server to show what happens if no deposits need filling.

Possible cause:
The tree deposits are full, so the forresters production show 0 after completing their current cycle.

Prevention:
Try to keep the ratio of cutters and forresters around 2:3 and keep the travel distances roughly the same.

Workaround:
Pause some of your forresters for a while (like an hour or two), so your island get's some (partially) empty deposits. Afterwards you can start

Related:

Original thread(s): 1

Updates
[2013-08-18] Added

hi peeps.

cant understand the trees on my island...forresters plant 21500 but pinewood cutters cut down 27500....which means i should run out of trees..but i don't run out trees and more and more grow....is the economic viewer bugged?
the numbers tell me i need more forester's but the map says i got to many....(economy overview say i got -5k to -6k)
i am very confused :(
i check every hr or so but its always states at least -5k on planting trees....
every couple of days i have to stop all my foresters just to clear all the trees away...:(

It must be a bug because i have the same thing, my Pine chain never balances but i always amass trees and the stock level only ever goes up.

Its not a bug, The foresters timers jumps around, they can be from a + to a - in a matter of minutes, it just depends on where they have to walk to to replant, If you watch them in real time, You will see that they can and do sometimes walk great distances... It would be at that point Aththemanic that you happened to have checked and seen the - numbers, But other occasions they will be replanting right outside their forester huts, That would equal the + number and is why you never run out of trees, the balance of the long/short walks is right.

You can prove what Brayarg explained by creating more cutters. Once you have surpassed what your foresters will replant the trees will indeed disappear.

To keep parts of your island deforested (so that it can be easier to find collectibles) once your trees start disappearing move a cutter away from the area where the foresters live. Eventually you will find that all the trees around that cutter disappear then one or two trees somewhere between that cutter and the forester group will regularly appear then disappear again.

[ Threads merged ]

In the original thread I've tried to figure out what is happening.
For convenience I've quoted the 2 explaining posts beneath.
(unfortunately some of the images have since been deleted from the host where I uploaded it back then)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fexno

Some screenshots/

I start with 1 sleeping cutter and 3 active (and manned) forresters. And all deposits are filled.


The economy view looks like this (notice the 0 at the forresters production)


Now to double check let's put our cutter to work, the economy view immediately changes to:


If we wait till the cutter actually removes a tree from the deposits, the economy view changes to:

When the deposit is refilled it changes to:
The actual amount of forresters you see going to 0 depends on how synchronized their cycles are. If all have the exact same cycle they will be 0 at the exact same time, otherwise you just have to wait till a point in time where the cutter is still removing the tree and all forresters have finished a refill cycle.


The forrester with a production of 0 shows this in its building details:


The 12h calculation is very simple. Just take the current production of each forrester, in the case that all foresters are refilling:
1 refill per 3:31 -> 204 refills per 12 hours
1 refill per 3:31 -> 204 refills per 12 hours
1 refill per 3:15 -> 221 refills per 12 hours
Total refills per 12 hours: 629

The moment one of the forresters doesn't have anything to do the 12h production changes
1 refill per 3:31 -> 204 refills per 12 hours
1 refill per 3:31 -> 204 refills per 12 hours
1 refill per 3:15 -> nothing to do so 0 instead of 221 refills per 12 hours
Total refills per 12 hours: 408

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fexno

The normal balance is about 3 forresters for every 2 cutters, depending on travel times and the amount of forresters can sometimes be tweaked down.

Your current situation
11 lvl 3 cutter is the same as 33 lvl 1 cutters
8 lvl 3 forresters + 6 level 4 forresters is the same as 48 lvl 1 forresters
So you get close enough to the normal balance to have a positive replant, assuming you didn't place your forresters and cutters far apart and your forresters have (on average) a somewhat lower travel time

Hmm... thinking about this
I know there is an issue with forresters that causes the forresters to all go to the same deposit if only 1 deposit can be refilled. That means the travel times of several your forresters becomes very high if you have 2 or more "wood production camps". This means the production of your forresters never show 0 however the production of several forresters is a lot lower then the average 700-ish for a level 3 forrester and 900-ish for a lvl 4 forrester

Simple way to check
Pause all your forresters for one or more hours, allowing to create some empty tree deposits, or at least some that are half full.
Then turn all your forresters on and wait 3 minutes. Now your economy view should show you your actual production for forresters.

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This same scenario applies to silos and fields. Fine with regular silos where just 1 silo :1 farm pretty much covers it, but if you're trying to replace silos with improved silos, things get messier. The maths is more complicated - one imp silo is not equivalent to 3 regular ones - and one would expect the economy overview to help, but it fluctuates too wildly to be of any use. So it's a case of delete two and, after adding a few IS, sleep a few more and check the fields don't deplete. It would be nice if there was a way that was less hit and miss.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim_B

This same scenario applies to silos and fields. Fine with regular silos where just 1 silo :1 farm pretty much covers it, but if you're trying to replace silos with improved silos, things get messier. The maths is more complicated - one imp silo is not equivalent to 3 regular ones - and one would expect the economy overview to help, but it fluctuates too wildly to be of any use. So it's a case of delete two and, after adding a few IS, sleep a few more and check the fields don't deplete. It would be nice if there was a way that was less hit and miss.

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Barring huge walking times messing up the timing, 3 improved silos per 7 farms.

EDIT: ratio assumes level 5 improved silos and level 6 farms

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jim_B

This same scenario applies to silos and fields. Fine with regular silos where just 1 silo :1 farm pretty much covers it, but if you're trying to replace silos with improved silos, things get messier. The maths is more complicated - one imp silo is not equivalent to 3 regular ones - and one would expect the economy overview to help, but it fluctuates too wildly to be of any use. So it's a case of delete two and, after adding a few IS, sleep a few more and check the fields don't deplete. It would be nice if there was a way that was less hit and miss.

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For me, using a "2 fields and imp.silos inbetween"-setup.. 1 imp.silo-level = 2,5 farm-level..

Quote:

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Its not a bug, The foresters timers jumps around, they can be from a + to a - in a matter of minutes, it just depends on where they have to walk to to replant, If you watch them in real time, You will see that they can and do sometimes walk great distances... It would be at that point Aththemanic that you happened to have checked and seen the - numbers, But other occasions they will be replanting right outside their forester huts, That would equal the + number and is why you never run out of trees, the balance of the long/short walks is right.

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Not on my island they don't, all the pine is stripped to the nearest deposit, it has ran as a negative since the start of the year. If i do not run my Yards on coal now and again the closer deposits become full and they go to further away deposits, yet they always read a negative.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BAAAHHHHHJJJAAA

Not on my island they don't, all the pine is stripped to the nearest deposit, it has ran as a negative since the start of the year. If i do not run my Yards on coal now and again the closer deposits become full and they go to further away deposits, yet they always read a negative.

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You mean if you get the storage full of pwl, cutters will stop working and foresters will go to further away deposits?

If so, then it seems like it's not the same mechanism for wheat - my fields kept getting emptied despite having storage full of wheat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SmurfAsH

my fields kept getting emptied despite having storage full of wheat.

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Any chance things (Flour Mills, Stables, Brewers, to a far lesser degree Gold Towers) are still using Wheat?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iolanthe

Any chance things (Flour Mills, Stables, Brewers, to a far lesser degree Gold Towers) are still using Wheat?

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I think I did stop those production aswell (to make sure) - was some time ago.

Edit: Seems to work now.