Anymore Tips

[nolepaul]

Any more tips?

[smitty]

what kind of tips are you looking for? i'm happy to discuss anything, but give me a little direction

[nolepaul]

Tips on making money..Im getting frustrated..

[zr]

It's not always easy---but then again, what's the rush?

You KNOW it's just another roll of the ex and more of the same junk. (Oh, yeah, you get another 20 or something locs, but big whoop)

[cragon]

I have a tip I would like to entitle "The Importance of Spreads".

For a PO it is important to have the correct spread set in order to generate a positive balance in the planet's treasury. Normally a high spread of 40% will generate groats and a low spread will have the opposite effect in the same way high maximum stock piles will have.

If you want to set a low spread to help a fac owner that is one thing but in general I would advise that on most commods your spread be no lower than 15% unless you like to see your treasury in a minus situation.

Cragon ;D

[smitty]

generally, i'd agree with cragon on the spread issue. i haven't had any luck setting my exchange spreads for any commod, or any combination of commods, lower than 30%

if i set everything to 20ish or below- i lose money

however, i have heard from at least one PO that he is making money with a spread of 6 on most commods... he reported that since his prices were so good, he was making quite a bit off the increased trading happening on his planet.

i still haven't figured out how to make good money off hauling OUT, so i suppose that's my next order of business.

[nolepaul]

Gwaptiva gave me this bit of advise..buy high and sell low. When I haul out, I have the spread set at 40..but then when the stocks are refilling, I set those spreads to 20...produce cheap and sell higher. THats working somewhat..plus, I also have been filling my biggest defs up the zero and have the max limit on those set to 20000, so the planet absorbs them at an inflated rate. Ive been doing that the last few days and so far so good.

For hauling, I haul only my fastest producers and only haul out four bays of each.

[smitty]

cool, thanks for the info nole-

I've not tried changing the spreads for hauling vs producing/consuming, but i'll try that tonight and see what kind of difference it makes for me.

i also haven't tried raising the max levels for my defs. i suppose that's worth a try right away.

as for hauling out- i've been hauling out 4 bays each of my top producers (over 40 production) and i'm making TINY profits. so small it doesn't even seem worth hauling out.

i'll let you all know more after today's experiments

[Dupree]

hmm I had set the max on my defs at 200 to keep some merchant from overfilling them.....maybe I should re-think that.....


Well I went in and made note of the "Values" of my goods first (with defs at min/max 100/200) then I upped the max for these Defs to 20000..........at first the "Value" (from which the exchange price is calculated) of these goods increased marginally (ex. Woods went from 892 to 901) but shortly thereafter the "Value" went back down to below the "Baseline" value (ex. Woods went from 901 down to 875).

(during this time there was no activity in my ex around the observed commods)

Maybe my experiment is flawed?

[cragon]

More about Spreads.

About a week ago I lowered spreads on most of the commods on Cube and the planet has been losing groats ever since at a steady rate. Treasury is now in the red at -4 Migs. I am now back up to 30% on most and will watch to see what happens to the Treasury. The only thing I have been doing differently since lowering my spreads is that I have been hauling out only and filling no defs at all. Now I know that filling defs makes the planet groats but I wanted to see the effect of lowering the spreads would have and now I have. When the planet will start going forward again is anyone's guess. If raising the spreads to max (40%) doesn't do it then hauling out is the only answer. I'll report back later on this small experiment.

[smitty]

hey guys, i wanted to reply specifically to dupree and cragon's last 2 posts.

i tried the same experiment as dupree - hiking up the max doesn't do enough for me to reccomend it. i had the same results as dupree.

as for cragon's report. i have found that if i don't fill defs, i WILL lose money. it's that simple. doesn't matter what my spreads are set at. i have 15 factories on numazu, and they all fill my smaller defs. with those facs filling, and buying their inputs - i eek out a measly meg or so per day. however, every time i fill 3 bays of my top 8 producers, i make 500,000-750000 ig in the following hour (that's how long it takes for them all to get back to -525)

[cragon]

My small experiment is over and I must agree completely with Smitty. I have 4 facs on Cube (2 Arts and 2 Unis) so not a lot of my defs are filled this way.

In order for my planet to make a profit I must fill my deficits and Smitty's methods work effectively. Keep filling defs every time you are in Fed and your planet will make a profit...it is a simple as that.

Cragon ;D

[brookerf]

What I don't understand is how a PO can make a profit with huge stockpiles and low spreads. Don't get me wrong...I absolutely love those planets and I have two or three that I use to fill up my deficits several times a day and still make enough of a personal profit to transfer to the treasury. I hope they never stop! But just an event that raises my stockpiles devastates my exchange and much of it is set to 40%. The other day, I started producing labs due to an event and lost 3 megs before I changed the max and hauled off the excess.

[cragon]

To Brookerf:

I Don't think a PO is making a profit if his stockpiles are huge. If he/she says they are...well...I just don't believe it. Tried that...been there and done that and experience tells me otherwise. Best way to have your planet make a good profit is to fill your defs...nothing more complicated than that. After trying just about everything there was to try it still came down to filling defs...Using Smitty's model...I fill my top 9 biggest defs with 4 bays each trip...eg; On Phobos I buy 4 bays of Microscalpels and go to Mars where I buy 4 bays of Sensamps and 4 bays of Musiks and back to Cube where I sell them to my exchange. Two more similar trips with different commods and I'm done for awhile. The next time I come into Fed I check my Treasury balance and see a profit before going and doing the same thing again and again.

Cragon

[smitty]

brooke- basically, you will make a profit, because the exchange is still making at LEAST 6% on anything you sell- cause that's the lowest you can set your spread at.

as for why you lose money at all? well, if you don't fill any defs (and they're all at -525), and you set all your commods you produce at min 126, max 200- you'll see that your planet doesn't make or lose money at all! cause you don't produce or consume anything!

basically, your treasury will go down if you're producing (it costs money to make stuff). but that stuff is then worth more than you paid to create it. so if you sell it, you'll end up with more than you had before you produced anything. so you never actually LOST money, it just looked that way because your exchange was going down (but it should stay above the amount it had before you started producing).

the trouble is, now that cycle repeats and it appears you are "losing" money while producing again (but you'll make it back again when you sell the goods).

if you build up a big stock of a commod, sell it all, then set it to not produce (126/200) you'll see that you make money from the sales, and your ex won't go back down.

that's why i don't like hauling out you make a boatload of cash, then spend *most* of it re-filling the commod!

i rather like paying for the commods (defs) up front, and then watching my ex go UP! the thing is: it's just the same idea flipped around. pay now or pay later, but you will always pay less than you get in return (because you can't set your spread negative )

hopefully this didn't just confuse everyone more!