Nick: LOL ... I don't see that in him. Guilty minds, perhaps? *wink*

Eko: Not me. I'm still on contract #4. I'm just updating the page based on the comments that people leave. Some people just insist on being the first to complete a contractor. ;-)

Nick, look at from Charlie #9. What do we want to do in cases like this?

Hmm. Off the top of my head, I have 2 ideas. 1) say "Cost varies" (minus the :). 2) Nothing at all, since "cost varies" doesn't really provide any information. I don't have a strong preference one way or the other though.

TheRealPella wrote:
Nick, look at from Charlie #9. What do we want to do in cases like this?

I'll be at #9 in like 30 minutes, I'll look into it

The question, I think, was how do we express the information--the fact that the cost varies based on which items you choose.

I realize that it adds no real information. I stuck it in there for consistency (and used the : for the same reason), and because some yokel is sure to ask how much it costs to build 17 decorations.

Another idea would be to provide a footnote with minimum and maximum costs, based on the lowest and highest costs of the decorations in the contractor's shop. That's not a super easy solution, necessarily, though, because different decorations use different materials to build. There are ways around that, though. Just an idea.

Edited to add: More to the point, though, really, is whether we want to make another modification to {{cost}} to do this automatically for us. Something like varies=y or whatever. Or another tiny template entirely. Or just hard code it, like I did in this case. Whatever works.

Template:Cost now has another new parameter, qty. When a contract objective requests the player to build 2+ of something, simply enter the cost values for one of the item, then add |qty=## to the template call, where ##= the quantity required to be built. {{cost}} will do the multiplication and display the total. This helps reduce errors in maths and data entry.

I have applied the new parameter to the appropriate contract objectives for Charlie and Mrs. Wilma.

I added images of reward buildings and decorations to the contract lists for Mrs. Wilma and Johann. Take a look. Discuss.

Another thought. As part of this project, we should look at the page for every loco and wagon that is part of a contract objective and update those pages, where necessary. I've already done this for Charlie.

I hope this note reaches everyone who needs to get it.

I'll be traveling out of town on business this week. I'll be completely unavailable Monday and Saturday, because I'll be driving all day. I'll check in Tuesday through Friday, and I'll be able to help with some things, but my contributions will have none of their usual frequency or regularity until Sunday, 12 Apr 2015.

You have been warned. ;-)