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Nice articles 🙂

o7

I suppose I'll repost this in the future with a touch more analysis on food raw material factories.

Personally I recommend completely upgrading the TGs to Q4 and using the 90% Training Contract.
> DO NOT waste gold on anything like EBs or Health Kits, don't buy anything.
> Only upgrade TGs (or companies) during special discounts.
> Put all gold into upgrading free TG first.
> Work and Train everyday using the free TG.
> When free TG is Q4 begin upgrade of 0.19 TG.
> You may use 0.19 TG while you upgrade it, there is still profit + max Strength.
> When 0.19 TG is Q4 begin upgrade of last two TGs.
> DO NOT use the last two TGs until both are Q4 or you loose gold.
> Use the 90% Training Contract for a little extra gold.

Once you have gold income then save for upgrades to Food Factory.
When it is Q2 I recommend buying a Q5 hunting lodge.
This will make you self sufficient through upgrade to Q3 Food.
After you have a steady food supply it's OK to get a Weapons Factory if you like.
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That's my most recent standard reply for anyone that asks what I think. It's been awhile so I might want to refresh, however it should still be good. I don't think things have changed that much. The article you direct people too is very in depth and I only skimmed. Thanks for the mention of me btw. 🙂

The two things I would ad😛

Forget the Rocket Factory. They just don't produce anything useful. It's amazing that admin still has them around. They were introduced to reduce the amount of overproduction in the crowded markets. When people started buying product from the markets to build rockets the prices shot up. Of course then it was ridiculous to pay that much for such little damage. For a short time the black market was trading 'Rocket Packs' but I don't think anyone fools with that anymore. It's my opinion that admins have found a way to use buy bots that are stealthy and we can't take advantage of this new generation bot like we did the original.

The best use of gold at last is to by x2 EBs on special, go blow up crap!

why would you recommend buying a q5 FRM??? Look at the payback time.

Q3 FRM appears to be the best at first glance.

Because I don't care about ROI. If you want a game to figure on returns and making profit find a nice stock market simulator. This games econ is f'ing broke and does not work. I suggest a Q5 FRM because until you get a Q4 Factory you only need ONE RM. It may only be a small savings but 10 Energy might be a big deal if you are D1. YOU ALSO PAY LESS WT! After all, isn't that the bitch of the day?

So we've got all these TGs we've upgraded without spending a dime of real money. They are producing all this free fake gold for the cost of a click and 40 Energy. Now you're worried about a return on investment for something that cost you nothing and will continue to benefit you with lower Energy usage for the rest of the time you play the game. Hmmm...

ALSO, my goal when helping people that joined Pickles was to build not just self sufficient fighters. Four of us became Q7 weapon commune owners. Mine was the only one with complete supply from 88 Q5 WRM but the others were coming along. I also had 2 Q5 Food Factories with 8 Q5 FRM supplying and Q1 - 4 House with a couple of Q5 Granite. You can feel free to total how much my WaM cost as far as Energy. The short version is it usually made the green bar disappear and I usually had some bonus Energy buildings.

If you ever have ambition to run a commune buy only Q5 RM. After you gather 100+ companies you'll be glad you did.

I got lucky when the price of gold fell. At a certain point it almost (?) paid for itself to dissolve Q4s and buy Q5s.

Now it's a bit of a toss up. If you're running a commune for others, I would think it would be wise to go the cheapest route possible in order to be able to get more food and weapons. At current prices that might mean simply buying RM off the market.

That said, I totally understand your point about having many companies. At a certain point, it becomes unmanageable. And then the Work Tax costs must surely add up.

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bloody exploit detected ruined my post lol. Too tired to do anything now.

I try to always right click copy anything I post in eRep. Second chance is great when something happens after writing for 10 minutes. 🙂

Sometimes you can back arrow the browser and your stuff is still there now.

Yeah, I like that about Chrome, just for those times I forget to copy.

"Other uses for gold? Anytime there is an energy center sale, buy them"

Are those centers permanent? O.o

Are you talking about the 50 and 100 energy centers in special buildings? Those are permanent. The ones you get on the weekly bull crap, etc. are not.

Maximum standard Energy is 650 + 650.

It take two FUCKING years to pay A Q3 food factory... OMG... I prefer to get free fighter medal it pay a lot more and no need for investments.

Yeah most of the companies really aren't worth it at all.

A Q3 is one goal. Building your Strength and not leveling up (which increases your division, so when you do fight it is against much stronger opponents) is another goal. If you just want to play the game as admin has planned it then you are completely free to do so. Just keep in mind that admins entire goal is to draw you into the game (not the community or meta aspects). Admin wants you to enjoy fighting, that's why 90% is geared toward that goal. Then when you are hooked you discover that you're not doing as much as you'd like so you consider buying some gold in a stash or pack. BINGO! He's got you hooked and now you are his.

Just be careful however you choose to play.

I would recommend Q2 food companies over Q3 any day.

Math:
2 Q3 food companies produce 2400 energy worth of food a day (2 x 6 energy x 200 food)
3 Q2 food companies produce 2400 energy worth of food a day (3 x 4 energy x 200 food)

3 Q2 food companies cost 21 gold each (when upgraded during a 45% off sale, of course) for just 63 gold total
2 Q3 food companies cost 48.5 gold each for 97 gold total - the upgrade cost from Q2 to Q3 alone is 27.5 gold, more than the cost of an entire Q2 company

So why spend most than a third more gold - 34 gold total - to save on one factory? The only reasons I can think of are: 1) to save energy that could instead be used for fighting; 2) to save storage space; 3) to save on XP; 4) to pay less work tax. It's up to you whether those reasons justify the cost.

I might be able to do more math tomorrow but I've got to hit the hay.

I'm assuming the one factory purely for purposes of 1,200 energy a day for fighting and training.

I only used 2 and 3 companies because they're nice whole numbers that produce an equal amount of energy so it's a direct comparison.

Each individual would need to decide how much energy a day they need.

Maybe one Q2 company is enough. If not, adding a second one still costs less than upgrading an existing Q2 company to Q3 and you would get more food in the process. If you really don't need that extra 400 energy each day then you could simply choose not to work in the second factory every other day.

That'd be the same energy produced for the same input at ~85% of the cost freeing up gold for other, better uses - like the more obvious training grounds upgrades. Or if you worked in both companies every day, you'd actually be making more.

I can't see a strong justification for spending more to get less.

Guess my comment got lost. I said I'll have to consider that next time I write this article. The biggest issue would be storage for newer players.

The purpose is to WaM your own food for free, not to try to profit. If you want to pay extra WT for the rest of the time you play the game be my guest. Also I would point out that this 'gold' that you are so concerned about is given to you for free by the game (assuming you were smart enough to upgrade your TGs and work/train everyday).

I make 5 gold about every third day and another 5 gold every 30 days. According to your figures I would take 1 month to have the expensive Q3s. Personally I would have 1 Q3 and continue to save for a Q4 for my use.

See above - I also was talking about self-sufficiency, not profit. Yes, you'll have to send more of your money to the Treasury every day but you don't seem to hung up about money if you'd prefer to plow more money into an upgrade.

That was the extra math I was too tired to do last night. Using the same scenario about of 2 Q3s versus 3 Q2s you'd currently be spending ~$3.65 more on Work Tax costs with the extra Q2 company. 34 gold at $285 per gold is $9,690. Therefore the upgrade pays for itself through less Work Tax paid in 2,655 days. That's over 7 years from now.

As for your gold, you're talking about Super Soldier medals every three days, right? Don't forget that you're paying for a contract. eh? That Hard Worker medal gold is probably going to cover most of the remaining cost of training. That's a good end goal but Training Grounds stop making money once you go past upgrading the cheapest ones to Q4.

Well then never mind, I'm an idiot and have no idea what I'm talking about.

Don't be so hard on yourself. That's my job.

There's nothing wrong with Q3 food companies in and of themselves other than the cost. Different people have different priorities. For you and me, with fully decked out Training Grounds, a Q3 makes as much sense, if you've got the gold to spare. But for new players, I think it just makes more sense to save the gold and go with Q2s.

And I've got the math to back me up. lol

Second to last math: Return on Investment on the food companies alone

Again, we're using the same numbers of 2 Q3 food companies and 3 Q2s. They cost 97 gold and 63 gold respectively. Gold's been hovering around the $285 per gold mark so that 97 gold is equal to $27,645 and the 63 gold is $17,955.

Let's say you don't own a factory and instead buy 2,400 energy (that what those combination of companies both produce) worth of food a day. Currently food for sale costs about $0.0275 per energy so that 2,400 energy would cost $66 a day.

So in order to save, cumulatively, $66 a day, your Q2 companies would have to be in production for 272 days while the Q3s require 419 days. That's before including the work tax - $7.30 for the Q3 companies and $10.95 for the Q2s. That means you're only saving $58.70 and $55.05 respectively bumping the return on investment up to 326 days for the Q2 set up and 470 for the Q3s.

I think those numbers might have actually come down, which is good to see, but they're still pretty high up there. That's just to point out that while self-sufficiency is a nice goal, it's not exactly lucrative (which I think we all agree on) so it might be wiser to upgrade your training grounds first (at least the cheapest two, anyways) before investing in food companies.

I almost forgot about throwing FRM companies into the mix. Mind if I just copy and paste something I wrote the other day? No, Chochi, that's ok (nobody else is ready at this point, right?).

Here are the costs/profits for WAMing FRM companies when FRM prices are $0.02 (current market price) and, after the slash, at $0.01 (lowest available price) assuming a work tax of $3.65, an average cost of $0.27 for food recovery (I took away the VAT that you wouldn't pay on food you produced yourself and rounded down to the nearest whole cent) and the current 100% bonus we have, instead of simply buying FRM off the market directly.

Q1: -$2.52 / -$3.22
Q2: -$1.12 / -$2.52
Q3: $1.08 / -$1.42
Q4: $3.08 / -$0.42
Q5: $6.08 / $1.08

Obviously there's no money to be made with Q1 and Q2 companies. Here's how long it would take to make the cost of these companies back if you were to have built them today, using the same price assumptions. I've also included the cost of the companies in both gold (at $285 per gold) and cc. Q1, Q2 and Q4 cost cc to purchase while Q3 and Q5 companies cost gold.

Q1 ($1,500; 5.26 gold): N/A / N/A
Q2 ($3,000; 10.53 gold): N/A / N/A
Q3 ($2,850; 10 gold): 2,638 days / N/AN/A
Q4 ($8,500; 29.82 gold): 2,760 days / N/A
Q5 ($9,975; 35 gold): 1,640 days / 9,236 days

So things are pretty bad when it comes to investing in FRM companies to go with your food companies if you don't already have them.

Chochi you basically wrote above and below exactly what I was writing about so thanks for saving me typing it all out all over again., The work tax has effectively killed off the low q frm companies and they are no longer worth investing any cash into. The opportunity cost of the hiugher q FRM companies is too much now. BUT if someone is dedicated to starting a commune, q5 are the way to go once you get your food factories up to snuff. But really, that infrastructure already exists in existing MU's and it saves you a ton of time having to constantly deal with all the risks in the market. Erep itself was always the biggest risk, but from my perspective, not anymore, it is government. Considering they change every month and things will go up and down, and the UP is what concerns me I am noping out lol.

This article and the comments contained in it will disappear off the media listings by tomorrow. New players or just anyone who wants to run a business better would benefit from these details.

Is there a place you could post a link to this article where new players/the uninformed might see it in the days ahead?

I was actually thinking about that. It's probably worth writing some of this down, although I did get a bit pedantic, eh?

I might be able to work up a GDoc that can be updated with current prices.

This would be a good group project, actually. Something productive that we can all work towards.

But we should first check what's out there. There's no point in re-inventing the wheel.

This might make things easier: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/you-need-to-find-an-article-with-the-information-just-click--2539770/1/20

What Chochi said.

If all you are doing in a company is working as manager, maximizing play also should include some thought to the opportunity costs of spending your energy working 3 times in lower Q facilities as opposed to 2 times in a higher Q facility and having the extra energy free for fighting. Different players may value that differently, so I'm not sure if one could strictly quantify that. But it's something to consider. Also, as he mentions, tax, which becomes a larger factor as the rate increases.

I say this as someone who just liquidated 4 lower Q facilities in response to the new tax regime.

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I don't understand why you would liquidate unless they were the lower tier raw material factories.

Some would gasp when you say you dissolved your factories/companies. 50% is not a huge loss if you wait for the 40% discount to use that gold to upgrade one Factory.

Something not mentioned elsewhere:
PAY ATTENTION TO THE PRICE OF Q5 FOOD. There are people like me that pay more for the amount of Energy received when buying Q5 food. The reason is (for me anyhow) is that it comes out even when used with Q7 weaps and on the little green bar. There are people paying a premium for that little trick.

Forget about Q6 & Q7 food factories, they are a waste of resources.

Why would you dissolve them rather than just idle them? Lost hope in anyone in government coming to their sense? lol I have idled all of my frm compnaies and a few others and another friend in the game has done the similar action.

I know another business player in the game here and we compared notes, between the two of us we have idled 60 companies over the last few days.

Well written and good read. I honestly didn't realize that I could make more gold if I get my 2nd training center fully invested. I have been rocking the 1 training ground fully invested and thought I was doing ok with that. Thanks for the info and am also saving gold to upgrade my food company to Q3.
I also find it helpful to have a separate business license because Q3 houses don't always sell in the first day so I sell with my export license. Just something to consider if you want to sell a lot because sometimes from my experience the market is stale and it takes a few days to sell.