Re: Some issues with materials side report

[Eric McDonald <mcdonald at phy dot cmich dot edu>]

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003, Hans Ronne wrote:

> >I think the main issue was the rejection retroactively of the use of
> >9999 as an infinite capacity.
> >At the time I suppose I could have challenged this, though I didnt,
> >so I am raising this issue again. What exactly is the problem here?
> 
> This is a misunderstanding, perhaps because the docs are not crystal clear
> on this point.

Suggested alternate wording is welcome. Perhaps my exposition is 
too wordy or meandering. I personally have no trouble 
understanding the point from the documentation, but I might be 
somewhat biased in that regard. :-)  Perhaps, we should put the 
point in a separate paragraph, and say more in support of it. 

> 9999 was never ever used to denote "infinite" capacity
> (which does not exist). It was just a convention used by Stan in some game
> modules:"I know the capacity is always limited and never infinite. But
> let's pick a large enough number, say 9999, so that it is unlikely that the
> unit will ever run out of space". That's all 9999 ever meant.

Indeed. And if you look in the Bellum Aeternum modules, you will 
notice that certain powers of 10 are used to denote effective 
"infinities" rather than 9[9+]. So this is entirely a matter of 
convention (i.e., it is arbitrarily chosen by the game developer). 
I think it would be wrong for the kernel to make any assumptions 
about what are really "non-special" numbers.

Btw Peter, I do find your materials patch useful in a way that 
perhaps you didn't intend. It is a useful tool for tuning 
materials production/consumption in games under development. It 
also says something about the (in)effectiveness of the supply 
system.

  Regards,
    Eric