POs - how are you doing it?

[smitty]

Hey all POs- i'm putting this topic out there to see if people would like to share their methods for making big bucks! since i'm starting the thread- i'll go first:

numazu (pacifica system) is churning out a respectable 10 meg per week while i do very little or no work.

i have 14 factories that directly fill deficits (arts, unis, electros, kats, clays, sims, hypnos, and nanfab)

if i am feeling like it, i haul in 20ish bays of my slower deficits once or twice a week.

i have the production disabled on all my producers that aren't sold to factories as inputs (you can do that by setting the stock min to 126 and the max to 200). and i produce a max of 1 bay for producers that are sold as factory inputs (min 125, max 200)

I'm considering upping the stock level for my biggest producers to say 1176 max, 126 min- so that i can haul out 14 bays at a time (size of my ship) - but i've been having bad luck (losing money) hauling out.

i have all my spreads set to 40%.

that's it! so, let me know what you're making and how your doing it- maybe we can all learn some new tricks!

feel free to PM me/etc! i love discussing planetary issues

[nolepaul]

Im still trying to figure out how to make money..has anyone seen Karston's planet? He is kicking some serious tail!

[brookerf]

Alright, I'm going to take the Smitty challenge. My problem is that my main deficits need too many inputs to make factories. Or they are biological commods that I cannot produce...

[smitty]

well, i love the idea of the "smitty challenge"

i do have this to say about deficits though: they don't have to be huge defs to have a factory supporting them- sure, i have Arts (-16) as a deficit - so filling that with a factory (or two) is great, but i also have NanoFabrics (-5) filled by a single factory! so they don't have to be huge negative numbers to get good results from factories- basically, any deficit that will eat more than a single factory will produce for in a day will make you money!

i'd say, anything with a -5 can support 1 factory, -10 to -12 can support 2, and anything over -16 can support 3. your results will vary slightly depending on how much you are logged in during the day.

what i did was make a chart of all my defs, then calculate how many 75 ton containers were needed per day for each. if it's over 12- you can plop down a factory, over 24, plop down two! then i just built to get my population used to the max, and i ended up with 14 factories!

seems to be working for me let me know if you'd like to know more

[brookerf]

I love these ideas, Smitty. Since I have two planets, it makes it easier to try new things on one of them.

I do have a couple of questions:

*Most of the factories that I have for deficits need commods that my planet does not produce. Currently, I haul in those deficits and store them in the warehouse for the factories. Is this a waste of time? I'm sorry to say that my planet does not need commods that result in high profits when produced!

*Do you set your deficits at any particular min/max?

I have been messing with the exchange so much, I haven't had a chance to see any increase yet, although I did get to do a build when I sold off all my excess commods last night.

[smitty]

well, in response to your questions brookerf-

i only have factories that use commods i produce as inputs. so i make money when the factories buy commods as inputs (and when they sell the goods back to the exchange!) you won't in the first place, but i don't think that's a problem, because you want those defs to be filled wether you make the inputs or not.

also, not all of my commods make a lot of money for the factories, but they're all profitable (some much more than others)

i just have my deficits set at the default min/max. i suppose you could push the min/max up to a really high number, and you'd make more money off them (but i haven't tried, so i could be wrong) i'd also worry about people dumping on my exchange when they saw i buy goods for such high prices.

[zr]

I don't have concrete proof yet, but by hauling out (at least, varies on my mood) 4 bays of defs starting from a 700t stockpile (min 100, max 800 will get you there) on commods with a NET PRODUCTION of about 40, and hauling in 2 groups of 4 bays starting around a 700t stockpile (2 groups means 2 diff planets, unless you want to wait on 1 planet to get back up that high)---from logging out then logging in the next night I'm making about 8M / day.

It does take some work, but I've memorized almost all the things I haul and where to get them (hopefully when promotions go in things'll balance out so Sol isn't the source of 80% of the commods), and I guess it would depend on how fast you can type---but I get it all done, if I don't multi-task, in less than an hour, prob less than 1/2 hr, never timed it.

~ ZR /// Lorzec /// Alan

[brookerf]

Hi ZR...
Wanted to also suggest that if you are going to be hauling quite a bit, you can group your commods by which planet they sell to and then put commands on your F-keys.

For instance, I sell Hides, Xmetals, and Textiles to The Lattice and my F11 buys from my exchange:
buy hides
buy hides
buy hides
buy xmetals
buy xmetals
buy xmetals
buy textiles
buy textiles
buy textiles

and then my F12 key sells all of them when I get to the Lattice exchange.

You guys all have much more advanced tech skills than I do, but thought I'd throw that out there in case anyone is in the computer delayed group with me.

[zr]

thanks---I only have cereals (my one serious agri def, I buy it in bulk from Meta and Pantheon) and I also have Scalpels---I tend to typo that one too much and it got aggravating---though I may swap it out with Sensamps since I keep swapping the 2nd s for another a

I type the rest out, typoes I just hit enter and let it fly---the game yells that I messed up, but I don't care.

[brookerf]

Update on Smitty Challenge:

I revamped my exchange four or five days ago. I can't say which day for sure because the resets and crashes messed up some of what I had changed in the exchange.

By tweaking my exchange Smitty-style in addition to hauling low-priced commods from New Gough (selling them to player planets and Sol planets for a profit), I was able to make enough money in four days to do a build. That is a first for me. I had been trying to increase my lasers production, but I went ahead and did a canal build so I can eventually build up certain stockpiles to start hauling again.

I have found it frustrating that I could not make any planetary money by hauling, as all the commods are set to such low stockpiles, so I am slowly increasing two of my fastest producing commods to haul out. If that doesn't have any ill effects, I'll probably add a few more.

I have been hauling in my highest deficit commodities, filling them to zero.

So far, this has been a great experiment for me to try!

[smitty]

hey congrats! the whole reason i started the thread was to try and help pos out, and i'm glad to see someone has!

as for your strategy, it's close to mine, but i would make one small tweak that will save you time, and possibly make you a little more cash-
you might want to try hauling only 2 or 3 bays of your defs, instead of filling them to zero- you'll get better value, and it takes fewer trips to haul everything.

as for hauling out- i've generally been against it, simply because i can't seem to make any money off it! but over the weekend i built up my stockpiles for about 7 commods that are +40 or higher in production. so- i'll be hauling them out and we'll see what happens.

i'll be using lorzec's method listed above of hauling out 4 or so bays from a stockpile of 650 - i picked this number for a reason, but i'll let everyone know what that reason is if i actually *make* money

[Dunavant]

Hiya Smitty,

When hauling out, bring your commods to New Gough (if I'm buying of course).

I've still got all my spreads set at 6%, so you should find some good deals for both filling defs and hauling out surpluses.

So far, I seem to be doing quite well with spreads set low. I'm actually making a nice profit from the increased trading on my planet...go figure! ;D

Dun

[zr]

hauling out is harder to see the money b/c you then have to pay for the 'replenishing.'

I think, theoretically, you make a net profit gain by hauling out despite having to "repay" or whatever you want to call it, to have the commods stock back to that level.

I don't have the sheet with me right now, will do a post later with a theoretical example, but basically b/c you'll have the spread on it, by selling it, you should make money no matter what (6% is the min spread, afterall)


this week have 'extra' time to be online, but I seem to be making less money somehow than when I'm offline (doing almost the same things I did before), so there seems to be some other factor I'm missing. I still made money, but was rather little---unless it's just the time variance? Usually it's many hrs later and this wk has been hr or so at a time...that might be it.

[zr]

also---I should add, you want to check your events each day and even throughout the day. there are some absolute "gold mine" events that might occur, I'm still working some of them out---String had a more complete list but don't think he came back

"explosion," "new process," and "new fad" so far are ones I look into right away---fad usually doesn't help much, it's been hitting something I made anyhow so the new (consumption) didn't matter too much (you sit back and let it go automatically); process can be beneficial since it can either A) let you haul out something you don't normally haul out or B) give you "free" money---I've had 2 such events this past week alone hit Leisure--the 2nd one, for games, hit with enough force that I was able to stock games and haul them out; explosion is interesting since it knocks out production (many of you are aware of that already, I'm sure) ---however, if production is ZERO it hits consumption, adding to it. I normally make a few firewalls, but I had an events last night---


di events shattered
Events so far for Shattered:
Shattered: Reports are coming in of an explosion in a firewalls factory.
Shattered: New taxes on radioactives are expected to depress demand.
> di production leisure
Shattered exchange - leisure production and consumption:
Artifacts: production 0, consumption 31 (-31), efficiency 100%
Firewalls: production 0, consumption 64 (-64), efficiency 100%
Games: production 0, consumption 5 (-5), efficiency 100%
Holos: production 2, consumption 31 (-29), efficiency 100%
Hypnotapes: production 1, consumption 19 (-18), efficiency 100%
Katydidics: production 2, consumption 8 (-6), efficiency 100%
Libraries: production 1, consumption 31 (-30), efficiency 100%
Musiks: production 1, consumption 32 (-31), efficiency 100%
Sensamps: production 4, consumption 28 (-24), efficiency 100%
Simulations: production 4, consumption 24 (-20), efficiency 100%
Studios: production 2, consumption 25 (-23), efficiency 100%
Univators: production 3, consumption 19 (-16), efficiency 100%


Firewalls are usually a def of 30ish. I hauled in extra firewalls but it's hard to keep up with a def that high, not sure how well it worked, but it's certainly something to look into.

[Dunavant]

zr said:

---String had a more complete list but don't think he came back

I miss Stringbois...