Economies of Scale

Vorret

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 26, 2003
Messages
1,100
I've been playing this for a week and it's really addictive.
It's basicly a browser capitalism-like game.

Don't be put off by the main page, it's a deep game with an economy (stock market, build your own store, production, etc)

I invite you all to check it out, this game need more publicity, it's that great.

http://www.ratjoy.com/eos/overview.php
 
Just started, pretty interesting so far. Just finishing the tutorial though so I have long ways to go before I can really assess anything.
 
THe more people that join the better it'll get.
It's very addicting... I'm now up to 75m networth on my company
 
Geez, 75m after what, a couple of weeks? I've been playing for a little over a week and am only at about 7m myself.
 
I've played 2 weeks.
I decided to ditch fruits completly and focus on meat, been doing great with that.
 
Yeah, I've noticed the meat market seems rather lucrative. I need to start getting into that also I think.
 
Arg... why did I read this thread.

Got my store bringing in the $$$ (at the cost of a tonne of micromanagement), while I try and bring my production quality up to par.
 
once you get the pricing worked out in your stores you will have consistent income rather easily.
 
What I don't get is how much stuff there is B2B marketplace that is more expensive than the import options.

Why would anyone pay more for quality 0 stuff on B2B than you'll pay for quality 25 or 35 on an Import? Sure they may get a handful or people who buy without checking, but you'd think they would be better off pricing it reasonably.

Not sure about other stores, but my experience with the grocery and gas stations is that you can do about a 50% markup above the import price. Can't really rely on the listed average selling price (world), quite a few items that the average selling price is below what the market will bear.
 
i've been manufacturing espresso and selling it at my cafe at a 1000% markup. Same thing with salt. I've been most successful trading stocks though, wow.
 
Not sure about other stores, but my experience with the grocery and gas stations is that you can do about a 50% markup above the import price. Can't really rely on the listed average selling price (world), quite a few items that the average selling price is below what the market will bear.

It's a balancing game really. Sure, you can charge more than the average, even for lower than average quality, and still bring in money, and you'll end up with a higher profit margin, but you'll be making less money per tick for each of those higher priced items, which is more important for the most part. Charge too low, and you'll make more money quickly, but your stock will disappear so fast it's hard to keep up with. Only reason to keep prices high on certain stuff is just so you don't deplete your stock so quickly before you can even manufacture more, for instance overnight.
 
It's a balancing game really. Sure, you can charge more than the average, even for lower than average quality, and still bring in money, and you'll end up with a higher profit margin, but you'll be making less money per tick for each of those higher priced items, which is more important for the most part. Charge too low, and you'll make more money quickly, but your stock will disappear so fast it's hard to keep up with. Only reason to keep prices high on certain stuff is just so you don't deplete your stock so quickly before you can even manufacture more, for instance overnight.

just learned this lesson, stores were empty after the weekend.
 
Actually quite liking this although it has future facebook game written all over it!

Don't think it would be fun. It's good now because there are still industries that are underrepresented or not being done at all. I every single product line was already jammed with hundreds or high level players it would be impossible for a new player to get anywhere in manufacturing (they could probably do okay with stores, since a large amount of competition would push B2B prices very low across the board).

I tried a little gaming the system last night, noticed that there was only one B2B entry for gasoline, but at $18 it was at the upper threshold for what I'll pay. However I had enough cash in hand to buy it out. Bought it all, took the 40% or so that I needed to keep my gas station running and turned around and dropped the rest back on the market at $28 (which is way more than anyone should pay, but gas can't be imported).

Sold a good chunk of it at that price, unfortunately when I checked this morning a couple producers have dropped more on the market, however as opposed to the usual $14 to $18 range they've all slid in in the mid $20's. But by the time I need more I'm sure it will have dropped back down again.

Anyone sitting on a large volume of cash could actually do a lot of this. Less effective on one stage goods (things like crops that can be created from just water) since the main producers can easily inject more supply into the market.
 
Don't think it would be fun. It's good now because there are still industries that are underrepresented or not being done at all. I every single product line was already jammed with hundreds or high level players it would be impossible for a new player to get anywhere in manufacturing (they could probably do okay with stores, since a large amount of competition would push B2B prices very low across the board).

I'm fairly certain that with enough players, the developer will have to put in some sort of scaling demand system to adjust the total demand based on the size of the active player base (which may actually already be in, since the supply & demand system was only just recently implemented.) So even with millions of potential players, there would still be enough demand for newbies.
 
I love the wacky stuff that happens in this game, read the news section and you'll see banks getting hacked and everyones loans getting wiped out :)
 
I love the wacky stuff that happens in this game, read the news section and you'll see banks getting hacked and everyones loans getting wiped out :)

Yeah, some of the news stories are just flavor to 'explain' things that happen, but in the context of the game world. The banks getting hacked story was because of issues with the database & scripts, which wiped out some data, IIRC. It's pretty cool.

Due to the increase in food demand, my store sales went from 1.25 mil / day to 6.15 mil / day. Crazyness! Hit the level yesterday where building & expansion are no longer freely government subsidized, now to rush production & expansion I've got to spend influence. Was nice while that lasted.
 
Yeah I'm the same, I jacked my prices and had my 4.7mil starter loan paid off entirely, I think i'm really close to level 5 now and losing my building benefits, I'm going to get all my basic stores in place before I hit 5 so I don't have the build delay.
 
Yeah, over three days my store sales went from 1.5M to 3.6M to 13.8M yesterday.

Should have raised all my prices last night instead of this morning. Sold almost all my stock and import prices are through the roof but the overall world store prices haven't climbed as much as they need to to compensate.
 
You're using Quality 0 water. 25% of your final product quality is determined by water quality.
 
Feeling a little dirty now:

Couple purchases:

Product Quality Quantity Unit Price Total Price
Mango 7 59,021 $3.90 $230,181.90
Mango 6 30,000 $3.60 $108,000.00

5 minutes later, couple sales:

Product Quality Quantity Unit Price Total Price
Mango 7 59,021 $30.00 $1,770,630.00
Mango 6 29,999 $25.00 $749,975.00
Mango 6 1 $25.00 $25.00

Whats strange however is that that 1 individual sale... to a player with an 8 billion dollar corporation. Why is he buying one mango?
 
And a $25 mango at that. You know, an 8 billion dollar fat cat probably thinks it's a good mango just because it's $25. Kinda like the wine industry.
 
And a $25 mango at that. You know, an 8 billion dollar fat cat probably thinks it's a good mango just because it's $25. Kinda like the wine industry.

Hmm... maybe I'll list one for about 25 million and send him a message.
 
I"ve been importing Q15 bacon at $60 a unit and selling it for 90-125 per unit. Made $7 mil today doing that. Just with bacon. Most of the B2B food stuffs are priced higher than the imported version and are lower Q. Just throwing that out there.
 
Import market can be a little hit or miss. I think fruit & veggies are usually more expensive than the average store price ever since the import taxes were increased on them. Other stuff is more lucrative.

That's a lot of money in just 1 day from bacon, at least for someone my size. What size store(s) do you have?
 
Selling stuff seems to be really slow for me I have a fruit market which is expanded to 250m^2 now and I'm still only making a few thousand from every produce I'm selling there, no where near enough to cover the total running costs of my business, maybe I've just priced stuff too high? I'm pricing mine just below the red line of the world graph right now to try and keep that edge, maybe it's quality difference causing slow sales?

Does anyone know what the "cost" metric is listed around the place like in warehouse, in your stores etc, is that the total cost it was to produce that item or something? I don't really know how to judge prices to sell stuff and watching margins is becoming a problem with so many different fruits selling I have to keep checking what it cost to produce each one so I'm not losing money on anything...

Do you guys keep spreadsheets to manage this stuff or am I missing something fundamental here?
 
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The cost metric is based on total manufacturing cost. It only takes into account the raw materials & $$ cost when you do a manufacturing run, it doesn't take into account R&D, factory, or store costs.

I've seen someone mention that a good price point is actually 2-3x your cost, which is a lot lower than the average store price, but your sales per tick will give you a higher income rate. You just need to make sure you can keep in supply because stuff will sell FAST.
 
I'm finding that decreasing my selling price is not increasing sales beyond a certain point. That is, my sales line is flat even when dropping my price. Does this mean I'm limited by my store size?
 
I always thought store size was a flat multiplier for sales, but I really don't know if there's some sort of cap for items that are priced that low. I've never actually priced anything that low to notice that behavior.

I know that demand, your price vs. average price, and your price vs. average quality is also a factor.
 
The cost metric is based on total manufacturing cost. It only takes into account the raw materials & $$ cost when you do a manufacturing run, it doesn't take into account R&D, factory, or store costs.

I've seen someone mention that a good price point is actually 2-3x your cost, which is a lot lower than the average store price, but your sales per tick will give you a higher income rate. You just need to make sure you can keep in supply because stuff will sell FAST.

Riiight so that's actually a really easy way to price up your stuff then, that's handy because working it out from scratch, especially for multi-layered production would be a complete sod.

In which case my prices are probably way too high and need to come down...ack..the store is expanding at the moment anyway so I'll have to wait. Supply wont be an issue I'm burning through crap loads of fruit from my farm which is 400m^2 and producing a crap tonne of raw produce.

*edit*

having said that does it take into account the costs of all the lower tier goods. For example if I have to churn milk into butter then use that in dough and use that in donuts, will donut "cost" include all those tiered steps in the price? I know R&D costs are external and that's fine but obviously you have to cover everything including the cost of water and electricity to generate the raw materials.
 
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