Missing Button

[wasgehtdichdasan]

According to the documentation there is in Map->Select Region a Button „fabric“ where you can steer all your fabrics of the reagion like the branches. On Mac there is only a black background and the button is missing… Ideas what’s the Problem?

[Eric.B]

I'll need a screenshot of what you're looking at.

I assume you're not playing in English? As I don't recall the word "Fabric" being in the game.

[wasgehtdichdasan]

No - irs German and I have to translate. I try to make a screenshot the next days.

[Eric.B]

No need to translate. If you post a screenshot, I should be able to figure out what is going on.

[Elouda]

Fabrik is German for Factory, so I read this as there should supposedly be a button to control/manage all factories in a region according to the documentation, but it's not there.

[Eric.B]

Fabrik is German for Factory, so I read this as there should supposedly be a button to control/manage all factories in a region according to the documentation, but it's not there.

Ah thanks.

According to the documentation there is in Map->Select Region a Button „fabric“ where you can steer all your fabrics of the reagion like the branches. On Mac there is only a black background and the button is missing… Ideas what’s the Problem?

In the Mk2 Production System, the Districting system does not work like it used to. I don't have the game in front of me at the minute, but I am pretty sure you can not manage factories from the districting system if you are using the new production system.

Don't read the documentation or do the tutorials, that is for regular GearCity. New players to the game should not be playing 2nd Gear.

Documentation will be updated for GearCity: 2nd Gear when it is complete. It is not complete yet. Too much is changing with every milestone.

[wasgehtdichdasan]

Fabrik is German for Factory, so I read this as there should supposedly be a button to control/manage all factories in a region according to the documentation, but it's not there.

Ah thanks.

According to the documentation there is in Map->Select Region a Button „fabric“ where you can steer all your fabrics of the reagion like the branches. On Mac there is only a black background and the button is missing… Ideas what’s the Problem?

In the Mk2 Production System, the Districting system does not work like it used to. I don't have the game in front of me at the minute, but I am pretty sure you can not manage factories from the districting system if you are using the new production system.

Don't read the documentation or do the tutorials, that is for regular GearCity. New players to the game should not be playing 2nd Gear.

Documentation will be updated for GearCity: 2nd Gear when it is complete. It is not complete yet.  Too much is changing with every milestone.

• I'm not new - but didn't play a long time ago. Attached the screen with the missing button. 
  
• I have around 12 Fabrics - I can't manage them all one by one and for example set the max production for around 20 Models every time... What should I do?
  
• Somewhere - maybe on reddit - somebody discussed that there is a lack of documentation. I think it would be better if the function would work..
  

Thank you for your reply and have a nice evening

[wasgehtdichdasan]

Fabrik is German for Factory, so I read this as there should supposedly be a button to control/manage all factories in a region according to the documentation, but it's not there.

yes - perfect!
thank you!

[Eric.B]

Thanks for the picture. As mentioned earlier, there is no factory districting system for the new production system. There is a bounty for it here: https://www.ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4618

I have around 12 Fabrics - I can't manage them all one by one and for example set the max production for around 20 Models every time... What should I do?

If you're only looking at bulk management of existing factories, I believe some of that functionality still exists in the mega menu. That being said, the system is not designed to be played with many helpers or frequent changes to the production system. If more bounties fleshing out production and inventory get funded, you'll need to be typing in much more production numbers and you won't be changing them all that frequently. So, longer term, I would suggest rethinking how you manage your company.

The alternative is to switch to the old production system when you start a new game. It is still fully functional with improvements over what is found in regular GearCity.

Somewhere - maybe on reddit - somebody discussed that there is a lack of documentation. I think it would be better if the function would work..

Lack of documentation in 2nd Gear or regular GearCity? I have made it known frequently that there is no point in writing documentation for 2nd Gear at this time. As for GearCity, lack of documentation has always been a sticking point with many people, even though there is 200 pages of manual, 50 pages of in game text, several interactive in game tutorials, and hours in game audio and video tutorials. It's a complex game for many people to grasp, that means there is never enough documentation to teach it.

Back to 2nd Gear, GearCity: 2nd Gear is not even alpha software status yet. It make no sense to write technical documentation for a product that is not feature complete let alone not even have it's features selected yet. At current pace it takes me about 3 months to finish a milestone. It would make no sense to add an additional month each milestone writing and rewriting documentation only for me to rewrite it again when the next milestone breaks or changes the previous milestone's work. Case in point, I have made several changes to past work in this milestone alone. When 2nd Gear is feature complete and in Beta, that is when I write documentation, as not much is expected to change. The DLC is released when the documentation is finished. Remember, this is not a released product, you're paying for access to developer prototypes and to select what gets added.

The same held true with GearCity. I did not make the tutorial videos or the user manual until the game was complete. It added an additional year to development.

So no, there is no documentation for 2nd Gear beyond what is in the release notes. You find those in News, which you should be subscribed to and read when I post there every few months. The notes for the release with the new production system literally answers what you ask in this post: https://ventdev.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=4585

There is also no mod or mod tool support. Once again, redundant work that will change and have to be redone with nearly every milestone.


In short, I will update the in game help buttons, the manual, the interactive tutorials, and the mod tools when GearCity: 2nd Gear is finished. It makes no sense to do it now. Let's say I remove all references to Factory Districting now, this has to be done in code, text, and reaudio tutorials. It takes me 2-3 days. The next milestone, you all fund the bounty to add those features. Now I have to do another 2-3 days to re-add those references back. Great, I just lost 4-6 days. I didn't get paid any extra for that labor. Only ~100 people ever played those prototypes builds, and of those only 1 or 2 might have actually used those buttons.

Currently, I am only getting paid about $800/month to work on GearCity: 2nd Gear. (2-3 months per Milestone, 1-2 months for patches.) Market labor rate is closer to $5,000-$10,000/month. It's not worth it to me to create redundent work.

[wasgehtdichdasan]

Please tell me - where can I apply for $10.000/month... Having business education and a European bachelors degree in computing science and 15 years work experience.

It's nearly impossible to set the maximum production for this amount of factories and cars. 1000€ is a lot of money.... Of course you should not work for free. How much copies are you selling every month. I believe its not so much?

[Eric.B]

Please tell me - where can I apply for $10.000/month... Having business education and a European bachelors degree in computing science and 15 years work experience.

Hiring is pretty tough in video games industry right now, but senior level programmers make about $100,000 to $200,000 per year across the entire programming industry. Here is CD PROJEKT RED hiring for $168,200 - $257,000 a year in Boston: https://www.indeed.com/q-Video-Game-Prog...aaa2d59e98 $80k-150k is about average for a person with my experience, expertise, and location.

It's nearly impossible to set the maximum production for this amount of factories and cars.

Did you try the districting system in the Mega Menu?

1000€ is a lot of money....

It's really not. $1000 is less than half a month of rent. I spent 60 hours doing a $300 bounty for you guys (OpenGL3). I spent like 30 hours so far doing "Too Many Rich People" which is another $300 bounty. So all told, about roughly 100 hours, 2.5 weeks of work to cover about a week worth of rent. I worked in retail before I started GearCity, 15 years ago, for $10.25/hr. All I had to do was stock shelves and count change. Let's assume this bounty takes 40 hours to do. Surely knowing the ends and outs of a 300,000 line, cross platform, C++ program which uses a GUI library and engine which I am the only one in the world that uses is worth $25/hour in 2025? It would take 6 months of pay for anyone to get up to speed in this stuff before they could even attempt to come up with a solution for the amount of technical debt in the code.

Of course you should not work for free. How much copies are you selling every month. I believe its not so much?

GearCity makes around $1000 to $2500 per month these days depending on the month and discounts.

GearCity: 2nd Gear is a different product. I show the amount I make from it each month. Normally it's between $600-$700 a month when I have fund raising on. Ideally though, most of that money would go to the artist since I discounted most of the programming work so we could have 1 or 2 bounties per milestone in addition to the artwork. But since I had to cover the art budget with programming bounties, I'm doing 8-16 per milestone. Which is why if the artwork doesn't come through, I'll either be canceling the FBS after GearCity: 2nd Gear is released OR prices will go up 100-400% for 3rd Gear.

When GearCity: 2nd Gear is released, I won't make any money from it. It's a free update to GearCity.

Anyway, the issue isn't money. It's time. I do not have the time to do redundant work. So, I don't. GearCity: 2nd Gear isn't a finished product, it's not even in beta or alpha. (Beta in software is feature complete but buggy. Alpha is feature planned but not fully implemented.) Everything in the FBS is pre-alpha development builds. Unless you have a team whose job is to do documentation (including tutorials), you typically don't do it until your software hits late Alpha or Beta phase. Sadly, it's just me, and I only have so many hours in the day.