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Post by RichardWest on Nov 5, 2020 3:30:13 GMT
Folks, TC here is just being humble. He really did us a service in this thread.
EDIT: From The Center. No, this attention was on this thread long before I was even mentioned on it. It was shared in mod chat before Richardwest even commented on it. So... "TC" had nothing to do with this thread as far as attention goes.
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Post by semperfi on Nov 12, 2020 15:03:21 GMT
Just want to say Thanks! to you, TC, and Patrik for listening and taking action. I don't often come here, but saw the announcement, which prompted me to drop in to the forum: www.simcompanies.com/articles/change-logI will go to the links you suggested to review and comment there. My first impression is that I don't know how that will play out (given the reduced profitability for Electronics Retail), but the issue is about relative performance, so I would like to see how it works out. One other thing: I scrapped two Electronics Retail Stores and built two Recreational buildings. They need to be "maintained" with 40 simboosts each (now spending 120 weekly -- net cost of 50 sb per week after earning 70 for login and sales/production). I can sustain that for 28 weeks with 1400 sb in the bank, before having to buy more sb. This wouldn't be achievable for newish players unless they buy simboosts. Net effect is positive (reduction of sales from scrapped stores, but increased profitability on sales, plus improved efficiency/lower cost per unit in production). With that I am now making some SLOW progress towards 300 rank - I have finally broken 400. However, I don't know if it is all from those buildings, as, for several days over the prior two weeks, inputs have been better priced as have some electronics for retail. This week seems to be back up somewhat, though not as bad as even three weeks ago.
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Post by RichardWest on Nov 12, 2020 19:58:40 GMT
If you don't want to do aerospace there's a lot of other options you can do. Did I say anything to that affect? I said if you don't want to do Aerospace; there are other options. Hey TC, it has been nearly three weeks. Have you still not realized you posted as me or something weird like that? The above quoted message is supposedly written by me; however, the "Did I say anything..." and "I said if you don't..." sentences were not written by me. It looks like I'm arguing with myself. Where I'm from, we call that a "hissy fit."
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Post by The Center on Nov 13, 2020 1:21:21 GMT
Did I say anything to that affect? I said if you don't want to do Aerospace; there are other options. Hey TC, it has been nearly three weeks. Have you still not realized you posted as me or something weird like that? The above quoted message is supposedly written by me; however, the "Did I say anything..." and "I said if you don't..." sentences were not written by me. It looks like I'm arguing with myself. Where I'm from, we call that a "hissy fit." I hit "quote" and was quoting you and something weird glitched when I did "create post" everything was messed up and I had no way to fix it. So I just left it. It was a brain cooker.
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Post by vlad on Nov 21, 2020 6:46:32 GMT
I have opinions of both sides of the AS nerf debate.
I played game for 10 months, first in electronics production and retail, then cars prod and retail. In each case I was fully integrated from basic materials mined items purchased. Margins were stricly calculated mit spreadsheets linked with api, I used daily pricing stats to see market relative strength, and was always just in time ahead of "extreme" demand in my stores. But, my best daily margin was 250k. So, in 10 months, after wiping map twice (with some high lvl buildings!), I made some 30m cv.
I saw many companies starting a month and were ahead of me. I spoke to some of these, and I cannot say I was impressed by them. Their maps were all or mostly SO, and I saw them every day begging in chat for 50 of this and 50 of that; I can't imagine their margins were great, but that is extreme volume, 13 buildings even with say 5 lvls each, this is an average of 32 deals a day. Only making 10k average in each deal, this is 320k, better than I did with a mile of spreadsheet and a map of 5m of electronics or auto buildings.
I figured, ok, so SO is the easy way, probably not much fun, but ok. I finally said, ok, I will take easy way. So I again wipe map, scrap several high lvl buildings, build 5 SO and the rest various AS vertical buildings, taking advice from a high rank player, one of each building. Within now 3 weeks, I jump almost 300 ranks, and haven't looked at my spreadsheet in two weeks.
Now, is AS easy? Yes. Super easy. It feels like a clicker game rather than a thinking game, because the margin % are ridiculous. But above this, the TURNS are infinite. Example, I can upgrade my SO as far as I can handle the admin overhead, and then turn the same say 3m in cash over and over to satisfy all my SO orders through the forum or supplier, and go do so ething else. No extra silicon production because it doesn't match my processors production which doesn't match my television production, just ask for sats in chat, click button, dot dot dot, profit!
Now, I'm in AS, I don't want nerf. I scrap millions in buildings to take easy way, and next day, the coming nerf is announced. With nerf, being 100m or 300m ahead of me becones insurmountable.
Anyway, is the SO orders based on anything? For example, in real economics, a field may be linked directly to demand in another, or supply in another, or general employment stats. If, as a maker of metals used in rocket engines and jet engines, I discover that a virus has grounded most air travel, I can know that I could make or buy as much Re and Ta as I like, but no one will buy, because they aren't making jet engines for planes that cannot fly. I have to do something else that the broader economy can sustain. The real "nerf" to AS should have been to directly link it to employment or economic activity in other fields. This could create the possibility that an SO order search comes up with no orders! If example say executives total count in all fields goes down yesterday, demand for LUX should drop. If some labor intensive building becomes less popular, then say overall gdp goes down, making satellites less necessary, as the masses cannot afford super internet sailfoams.
Maybe this is already the case, maybe is too complex to model by current employee, but central planning and putting thumb on economy midstream is not the way. Organic market works when there is interoperation. Example, what does a BFR do? Does it existing and being bought by SO customer DO something in the economy? Should its demand be linked to something of a metric in the economy? Can 80% of the 100 largest companies all making or selling rockets and planes be sustained by an economy? I would venture, without having the data, that 80% of the top 100 represents easily 90% of the total economy, either by production power, employment, cash value, most any metric. No economy in history can be this top heavy and survive.
In substitution to directly linking organic economy, can increase the quantity of inputs. Make the inputs so large that 90% of the economy cannot be supported by the efforts of the other 10%. Some in AS will ask in chat to buy sats, and get none, will ask to buy hgec, thousands, and get none. They will have to choose then, either buildings with small turns because of no supplies, or change field and become supplier to a smaller AS field.
Sorry is so long, if you read you learn something maybe. I have lived through business games that make design errors, let a hierarchy form, then make nerf, and lose players and die out. Those who already made want to keep making, and those who haven't see they can never catch up. Nerf in direct manner such as directly altering numbers, this is disaster I have seen, and as admin of such a game in the past, voted against and lost, as the others cried about the result months later.
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Post by semperfi on Nov 22, 2020 5:46:11 GMT
Anyway, is the SO orders based on anything? For example, in real economics, a field may be linked directly to demand in another, or supply in another, or general employment stats. If, as a maker of metals used in rocket engines and jet engines, I discover that a virus has grounded most air travel, I can know that I could make or buy as much Re and Ta as I like, but no one will buy, because they aren't making jet engines for planes that cannot fly. I have to do something else that the broader economy can sustain. The real "nerf" to AS should have been to directly link it to employment or economic activity in other fields. This could create the possibility that an SO order search comes up with no orders! If example say executives total count in all fields goes down yesterday, demand for LUX should drop. If some labor intensive building becomes less popular, then say overall gdp goes down, making satellites less necessary, as the masses cannot afford super internet sailfoams. Maybe this is already the case, maybe is too complex to model by current employee, but central planning and putting thumb on economy midstream is not the way. Organic market works when there is interoperation. Example, what does a BFR do? Does it existing and being bought by SO customer DO something in the economy? Should its demand be linked to something of a metric in the economy? Can 80% of the 100 largest companies all making or selling rockets and planes be sustained by an economy? I would venture, without having the data, that 80% of the top 100 represents easily 90% of the total economy, either by production power, employment, cash value, most any metric. No economy in history can be this top heavy and survive. In substitution to directly linking organic economy, can increase the quantity of inputs. Make the inputs so large that 90% of the economy cannot be supported by the efforts of the other 10%. Some in AS will ask in chat to buy sats, and get none, will ask to buy hgec, thousands, and get none. They will have to choose then, either buildings with small turns because of no supplies, or change field and become supplier to a smaller AS field. I highlighted some key points... Ideally, this would be preferred. I think it rather too complicated to get out the door for Nov 30, but would be nice to have it in the roadmap.
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Post by semperfi on Nov 22, 2020 6:04:11 GMT
I saw many companies starting a month and were ahead of me. I spoke to some of these, and I cannot say I was impressed by them. Their maps were all or mostly SO, and I saw them every day begging in chat for 50 of this and 50 of that; I can't imagine their margins were great, but that is extreme volume, 13 buildings even with say 5 lvls each, this is an average of 32 deals a day. Only making 10k average in each deal, this is 320k, better than I did with a mile of spreadsheet and a map of 5m of electronics or auto buildings. Now, is AS easy? Yes. Super easy. It feels like a clicker game rather than a thinking game, because the margin % are ridiculous. But above this, the TURNS are infinite. Example, I can upgrade my SO as far as I can handle the admin overhead, and then turn the same say 3m in cash over and over to satisfy all my SO orders through the forum or supplier, and go do so ething else. No extra silicon production because it doesn't match my processors production which doesn't match my television production, just ask for sats in chat, click button, dot dot dot, profit! Infinite TURNS is an astute observation.
Admin OH is what is capping Electronics Retail (especially relative to AS, it seems) - reach steep to break/even diminishing returns rather sooner I can now see. $3M revenue / day is an near impossibility by my calculation, let alone per turn.
My building investment is 50% to 80% of most of the top 50, but my Gross Admin is between 130% to 250% of most of those same players. Last I checked, I was in the top 5 employers.
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Post by vlad on Nov 22, 2020 18:53:31 GMT
Simulation can say, for example:
Each 2 employed person represents 4 total people (2 worker, 1 child, one retiree)
Each 4 people eats one sausage, two apple, one grape per day. Each 3 employed persons requires 2 cars. Each 5 people requires 3 television, 3 sailfoam, 2 tablet Each 1 admin requires 1 laptop Each 1000 televisions sold yesterday requires 1 satellite today. Each 2000 sailfoams sold yesterday requires 1 satellite today. Each 5 satellites requires 1 bfr to launch Each 20 admin requires 1 lux Each 500 employed requires 1 jumbo
And so on, so there is a direct relationship between each retailable item and the number of employed workers, admins, executives, and total persons. Can then relate even retailed items with ancillary items like connecting tv with satellite, satellite with bfr.
Then, as companies grow, economy grows. As "too many" companies enter a temporally high profiting field or product in a field, the s/d curve shifts, punishing oversupply. This can force movement, or force price or supply war between suppliers, between retailers, between suppliers and retailers.
It cannot be allowed that most of the economic activity in the game is in trading AS final products, as no one could write a code to allow this. Can anyone know how many sat, sep, bfr, etc are sold in SO each day compared to total employed persons in the economy? Do these numbers make sense? If an economy of say 50m people is consuming 5000 satellites a day, does this make sense?
If there are 50m people employed, and each day this means 50 sats required, then only 50 SO searches will get sats, and so on, and it's possible salesmen will say sorry boss, market doesn't support us, the 600th company in AS market.
Bottom line is, there is no penalty to a company or to the AS market from a new company entering that field. This is why the nerf was 'needed', because it makes the game economy top heavy slanted toward one single field. Going from 10 companies in a field to 50 companies in a field, given economy properly set up with proper demand relations, should nerf itself. If suddenly every factory in EU started to make or trade multistage rockets, market price would plummet, alumjnum prices would go 500x, and there would be a lot of bankrupt companies, trying to sell 5000 multistage rockets into a market that consumes 20 of these in a year. There's your nerf. A self healing market.
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