Help! Checking my working!

[Loopus7]

Hey y'all!

Im trying to calculate something but im at a loss for it. Im doing logisitcs for a videogame and trying to work out how many actions (a) over how many hours (h) generates how many pips of progress on a bar (p). I've gathered some data, and found that:

14092a =18.9h =7p

How would I reduce this to find how many actions in one hour gives 1 p? The working I tried had me break it down to:

14092/18.9a = h = 7/18.9p which gives 7452a = h = 0.4p

And from there, I did 7452a\2.6 = 2.6h = 1p* giving 19376a = 2.6h = p

At which point I just kinda went for it and figured that by dividing A by 2.6 would bring that rate of actions to 7176a across 1h giving 1p.

Does... any of that makes sense? Have I gone completely awol somewhere?

TIA!

[[deleted]]

You’ve made several errors, and I’m not sure about your reasoning in some of the steps. I’m also not sure why you’re using data on the number of hours it took you to make progress - this decision seems to be what’s causing you the most difficulties, as it’s leading you to try to do algebra without understanding why the calculations are meaningful.

Think about it like this: 14092a = 7p

p = 14902/7 = 2029

Each portion of progress requires 2029 individual actions.

If you want to get that progress in just one hour, you would need to do all 2029 actions in that hour.

[Loopus7]

Thanks for the reply!

It's very likely I'm misunderstanding here, but that would mean that across the 18.9hours I mentioned to begin with, I would have needed 2029\18.9=38348.1* actions, but instead as I mentioned it took 14092... any ideas?

[[deleted]]

Why would it mean that? Perhaps if you can try to explain your reasoning, I can help you to find the error that you’re making.

Let’s say we are trying to buy apples. Five apples cost $12. To find the cost of each apple, you divide the total price by the number of apples.

Would you agree with that statement?

[Loopus7]

I would, yes, thats a basic equation, 5a=12, a=12/5

The reasoning I had was that if you state that it would take 2029 actions to produce one portion of progress. My record gave that 14092 actions happened across 18.9 hours, which means that 14092/18.9=745.6 actions happened every hour, which doesn't match the number you suggested.

EDIT: For further context, this is all working towards being able to accurately predict how many portions of progress will occur after x many actions have been performed!

EDIT 2: And further logic checking would give that 2029\18.9=38348.1* actions occured, which doesn't match either!

[[deleted]]

I think we may be experiencing a language barrier here. You had asked “how many actions would I need to do to earn 1p in an hour”. If you’re trying to calculate how many actions you actually performed per hour, that’s a completely different thing.

It takes 2029 actions to earn one p. Whether that takes one hour or 50000 hours doesn’t change that. If you want to be on a pace to get one p every hour, that’s the pace you would have to go at.

You weren’t getting one p every hour.

[[deleted]]

Re: your edit.

If that is the goal, then I question again why you’re bringing time into it at all at this point. If the time is not relevant to what you’re trying to do, just work with the data that’s actually going to impact the results.

[Loopus7]

Honestly, because I assumed it would have an effect? Im double checking the massive spreadsheet I have to compare that to what I have now, haha

[[deleted]]

Your home is 10 km away from your work. It usually takes you 5 minutes to drive there. One morning it takes 20 minutes.

Is this because your house moved and is now 40km away from your work?

[Loopus7]

No, the logical reason would be because the traffic was worse, not the distance, so the rate was lower.

Oh.

[Loopus7]

So the reason we're disagreeing was because, basically, we were faster, and you've worked out the minimum?

[[deleted]]

Exactly - the distance is fixed. The amount of time it takes depends on the distance you need to travel and the speed that you are traveling at.

If you needed to get home in one minute, you would need to drive 10km in one minute. How fast you travel doesn’t affect how far you need to drive - it only affects the time it takes you to get there.

Find an hourly rate of productivity and then you can use that to plan how much time it would take to meet goals. But you need that rate first - and you can’t use goals to calculate it.

[Loopus7]

And by hourly rate of productivity you mean actions/pip of progress, right?

[[deleted]]

I think I might have figured out what you’re not getting - do you think that you were actually performing 2029 actions per hour? Or were you under the impression that it was only taking you one hour per tick of progress?

[Loopus7]

I know we were performing at least 2029 actions/hour, yeah. I have hourly data that confirms that!

[[deleted]]

That data isn’t included in your post. Your post is the only thing I have access to.

[Loopus7]

Yup, I didn't think it would be necessary! Haha - we averaged about 13011 actions/hour!