negative innovation points?

[whiteraven]

Why do I have -100 points and no monthly income?

I don't know what went wrong, it seems kind of random.

[Thineboot]

Besides the fact, that the best we can do without any info by you is guessing, you've probably hired a Professor to get some money in exchange for innovation points. Since I never use a Professor - selling innovation points for a little bit of cash... - that's the only reason... except for a new bug. Since there was no report since the last release on 7. May it's very unlikely a new bug. You shouldn't be able to sell future innovation points in the first place, no matter whether that's old or new - if my guessing is right without any real info provided by you.

[whiteraven]

So if I have a professor, it costs me points every month? I thought it was just one time payment.

I don't have a professor anyway.

[whiteraven]

I'm just playing a normal free mode game by myself and I have chief engineer, accountant and surveyor, that's all the info I can give.

[Thineboot]

Professor is a Freelancer and doesn't stay in your employment but waits for you to hire him aka exchange innovation points of cash. That is a one time exchange after which he leaves immediately and won't be seen til the next time.

Since you're only partially familiar with that

Originally posted by whiteraven:

[...] I thought it was just one time payment.

I don't have a professor anyway.

you've done this but can't remember.

You have to be able to pay the hiring fee in cash. That's for sure.
Seems like you can go into innovation point debt. Your monthly income should lower the negative amount - have you run the game after noticing the -100 innovation points?

To check what I've said before I even run the game for nearly 9 years (Free mode). After 3 Inventors I finally got a Professor:
https://i.postimg.cc/ydWmYpXY/image-2021-06-06-235028.png
https://i.postimg.cc/GhPyr1wx/image-2021-06-06-235205.png

As I've guessed, you can go into negative innovation points and you just have to wait til they get positive again.

If you have other to report copy the saved game, head over to the Bugreport subforum, report it and wait for a dev to ask you for the save game.

[whiteraven]

I'm sure I have hired an innovator and/or professor but that was quite some time ago.

I have no idea how long I've been going without getting any points since I just now noticed, its been at least 2 years since I last researched anything.

[Thineboot]

Since it's working as expected you have stumbled into a situation where it's not working as intended.
Copy any save games of this run and head over to the Bugreport subforum. There is no magic cure but since you say that you don't get any innovation points for about two years they have to take a look at the save games to be able to figure out what happened. Any fix can only be done when you know what to fix.

[gardlt]

Innovation point allowance only lasts for the stated length of the game. In normal time mode, that's 20 years. After this your allowance will display as 0. From what you said it seems that you see a monthly allowance displayed at 0. How long has your game been going for? This in combination with a Professor or two, as Thineboot suggested, can be a plausible explanation for your described game state.

[Thineboot]

Ah, never played beyond the 20 year mark. It makes sense since the other four eras are greyed (greyed [Br.] vs grayed [Am.] - both are English words, @ Steam) out Thanks for the info, gardlt.

[whiteraven]

yeah its been 21 years. does that mean I cant research everything or I just forgot to spend my points before they disappeared?

[Thineboot]

Whether you can research everything depends on the character, chief engineer, inventors, professors (negative), universities, and tech you choose.

Seems after the end of the chosen era the point go puff. Doesn't sound right to me, you should at least be able to spend the points you've earned. You can head over to the Bugreport subforum. I'm pretty sure they don't know that...

[gardlt]

Previously "earned" Innovation points shouldn't just disappear. In my opinion this behavior, while annoying, is not critical. Before a bug report I recommend to be sure of what is happening. For example, run another game where you spend some effort to watch what is happening at the 20 year mark so you can give better information.

The 20 year limit on point allocation was added about mid-way through the updates. I don't remember ever seeing a patch note/explanation of why this was considered an "improvement." For me, it's a pointless restriction. It has affected one of the "scenarios" I put in the workshop.

[chaney]

I agree a 20 year cutoff is pretty pointless. I advocate reversing that.