Hi
"For example, you can choose 331 routes or 291 and the player will wait for this order."
This would be OK but how do we know when and IF that route will come up for the player? It depends on how they have explored the island and everyone could do that differently depending on the routes that they have available.
XP and level would be fine.
Where I have an issue with TBS is in the accounting which is very weak in my view.
A basic premise of accounting is cash reconciliation where it should be "closing balance = opening balance + income - expenses."
TBS gives income and expenses but if the player opens a container and gets the money this is not shown anywhere.....the bank balance increases but it is not shown in income ANYWHERE.....it should be in "other income".
BUT it is totally unrealistic anyway as I know of nowhere in the real world that I can find a load of money in a container (unfortunately !!!!)
Also, the game can be played in many different ways. For example, I guess most players start with a second hand coach. I never do....I start by buying a brand new Lions coach for 300,000 as it then has no repairs needed and no mileage on it which leads to the engine needing to be replaced.
I would suggest we could use the following to create player scores from the trip reports for routes that the player drives :
Passenger satisfaction from air conditioning service, number of accidents, etc etc.....pretty much anything that is on the route debrief in TBS. We could also use XP and level. Maybe financials but only from the income and expenses at the end of each month whilst ignoring the balance as this gets round the problem of the money from containers.
So, income would come from scheduled services, shuttle services, breakdown service and sightseeing tours. Then it does not matter which routes the player drives...only how well they did it and how much money they made.
BUT my real issue is this....
We would have to ignore money from containers and also routes driven by hired drivers as debriefs are only given for routes driven by the player themselves. The hired driver routes would only be taken into account through the income earned and expenses incurred as this would take into account cost of parts, driver and mechanic wages etc etc. However, if we are ignoring money from containers and passenger satisfaction from hired drivers this ignores some fundamental parts of the game but I do not see an alternative.
We could also use the asset value of the buses that players buy as the costs are part of their expenses so we would need to reflect the benefit they get from the expenditure and this is in the value of the assets that they then hold in terms of vehicles.
This is where buying a brand new bus right at the start can be advantageous but I suspect most players do not do it because they do not know how and think they do not have enough money to buy a new one !!!!
I think it could be done but will take some work. When I get time I will go into TBS and drive a bit and then check the route debriefs and work out what we can use and then come back here with a proposal which we can then discuss once I have built something in Excel to do it. It seems to be that the best way is that the companies created by players are competing with each other rather than the player as such. So the "best" company would be the one that has the best performance in terms of income - expenses, passenger satisfaction from the routes driven by the player, and the value of their assets (vehicles and property that they buy). The better a player and their hired drivers drive, the less costs there would be in terms of repairs so this is a decent measure.
So, I will come back with a proposal when I can and suggest how we do it with some example companies and results. Then when we are happy that it works OK for us, we can test it out with the 3 of us (or more if people want to try it) and ultimately create a web site for it like the Fernbus one.
As always, thoughts welcome.
Nigel
P.S. A further thought. We could use standard accounting ratios such as profit margin which is defined as (income-expenses) divided by income x 100. So if income is 100 and expenses are 75 then it would be ((100-75)/100) x100 = 25%. This could be a sensible way to compare one company to another in financial terms (ignoring the container money) and would include income from all sources (scheduled services, shuttle services, breakdown service and other income) as well as expenses in terms of parts, fuel, wages, insurance, etc.
