Any way to get around the Fusion number limit?

[Outcast]

My latest Steam game Plantera have been doing really well. But one of the main complaints is that the player reaches the limit of the game rather fast. The game is in the "idle" "clicker" genre, a genre that is all about growing exponentially in huge numbers, and the games in this genre, dealing with exponentials often go up in truly ridiculously high numbers. However when I developed the game I very quickly ran into the Fusion number limit (2147483647) and I had to cap my numbers at around 199 Million to not run into bugs. A number that is very very low in this genre, this made my game rather "short" since it does not take to long to reach this roof.

Now is there any way to go around this number limit? I would like to add more updates to the game, but to do that I would need to add new items that would have higher costs etc, and that would require to be able to handle higher numbers. Why is this number limit even in the engine I wonder?

Just to give a pointer on what numbers are frequent in these games, here is the table for probably the most popular idle,clicker game, Clicker Heroes and its number table:

1K = 1,000 = One Thousand
1M = 1,000K = One Million
1B = 1,000M = One Billion
1T = 1,000B = One Trillion
1q = 1,000T = One Quadrillion
1Q = 1,000q = One Quintillion
1s = 1,000Q = One Sextillion
1S = 1,000s = One Septillion
1O = 1,000S = One Octillion
1N = 1,000O = One Nonillion
1d = 1,000N = One Decillion
1U = 1,000d = One Undecillion
1D = 1,000U = One Duodecillion
1! = 1,000D = One Tredecillion
1@ = 1,000! = One Quattuordecillion
1# = 1,000@ = One Quindecillion
1$ = 1,000# = One Sexdecillion
1% = 1,000$ = One Septendecillion
1^ = 1,000% = One Octodecillion
1& = 1,000^ = One Novemdecillion
1* = 1,000& = One Vigintillion
A lot > 1,000* < A lot

[King_Cool]

Well this was educational.

Not even sure how you make Fusion handle a number as 199 Million ( must be possible appparently ).

...
'Double Precicion Calculator' maybe? Probably not relevant

Just to be clear, are you saying Fusions 'Expression Editor' is unable to handle/ display numbers above the 99 Million mark ( aproximatly )?

[Outcast]

There is a cap in the engine where numbers above 2147483647 will bug out as far as I understand it. You can test it by setting a counter to a really high number.

[chrilley]

I remember asking a similar question years ago and Werbad told me;

A 32 bit integer can only be values from -2147483647 to 2147483648 if it goes too far it will wrap around and become negative.

32 bit integers being the standard format Fusion uses for numbers. I was later told I could try using the Int64 extension for higher numbers but I remember having issues with decimals(integers does not do decimals at all, that's what floats are for).

I don't really have a solution, I just wanted to shed further light on the issue. Maybe it helps in some way at least.

[edit: I actually think those other games might be "cheating" by tacking on letters instead of showing the actual numbers. So you're just fooled into thinking there are insanely huge numbers being thrown around while it's really just "tiers" of numbers like K, B, M, etc.
So you don't display 1 000 000 you just write 1M instead. ]

[King_Cool]

Shouldnt it be possible to caluculate usign 'Hex numbers' in Fusion?
Not sure if that will help though.

[schrodinger]

why not concatenating a string of single digits

like, storing single decimals in X cells of an array with Y=30 width
would do for up to 30 digits number

when you add or subtract,
you have to split the value in single digits,
and change relevant cells

if you add +1, add +1 to last array cell,
+15, add +1 to the cell before and +5 to the last cell,
and so on

whenever any cell >9,
sett the cell to *value* -10
and add +1 to its neighbor cell on the left

displaying the number would mean parsing the array and joining its content in a string

doing multiplications and divisions can become a little tricky though...


____ edit:

here's a quick example:

Attachment 19097

this only does for addition,
type any number in the edit box and will be always-added to the string below

you can increase number of digits in the "precision" global value (here is 30)


____ edit2:

just realized the attachment is broken
probably because I originally started typing by replying to this post,
but then decided it was better editing the post and then copy-pasted the attachment string.
Unfortunately I made the example another computer, will repost tomorrow...

[Outcast]

[edit: I actually think those other games might be "cheating" by tacking on letters instead of showing the actual numbers. So you're just fooled into thinking there are insanely huge numbers being thrown around while it's really just "tiers" of numbers like K, B, M, etc.
So you don't display 1 000 000 you just write 1M instead. ]

I don't display 1000000 either. I also convert it and display it as 1M when going that high to be more clear to read for the player. But there must still be "real" numbers beneath that? Or how else to compare if you can afford something, or to calculate all values right when you buy or get money that add or substract much smaller values? If there is a way to "cheat" around this that would be great that can still compare numbers to be able to build events around them that can check if you can afford things and that are precise. No idea how though.. :S
If someone could build an example of substricing and adding any number and having them in these tiers of M,B,T,Q etc that would be amazing. I have no idea how to "cheat" around that and still have "real" numbers beneth that you can track in some way..

[chrilley]

Here's a rather clever solution to "cheat" it; http://community.clickteam.com/threads/89654-How-can-i-deal-with-large-numbers

They figured out they could use global values or arrays to divide the otherwise huge number into hundreds, thousands, millions, etc.(in the same manner you'd divide time by seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc.)

[King_Cool]

Lets race to a solution!

[schrodinger]

Ok, I remade my example because I couldn't wait

adding also subtraction

add_subtract_huge_numbers.mfa

subtraction needs to be fixed though (brokes when <0)

but I have to go now... will be back in a couple hours!