[DoEE] Company Profits - revised

Day 2,701, 22:51 • Published in Australia Canada • by Ilene Dover



In my last article, I presented an analysis of the profits available for various investments down here in eAustralia. I made an error in calculating the upgrade costs of training grounds and factories (forgot to deduct the cost of existing upgrades...). I am very sorry for that, and present the following article as an updated version. As a bonus, you'll see I've published estiamted monthly returns for upgrades bought without a discount and with the occasionally offered 45% discount.



Now, onto a few assumptions and upfront statements:


- I have used the conversion of 1 gold = $200, and vice versa. If you look at the exchange rates, this is patently wrong (1 gold = ~$240 last I checked). Regardless, it is approximate enough to draw broad conclusions.

- Taxes are as they currently stand. A work tax of 2%. VAT of 5% for food, no VAT on raw materials.

- The food production bonus is currently 60%. We have no weapons bonus. So, if you're looking to make money build food companies! If you're a gun runner, do your own maths...

- Housing companies are complicated. We'll look at them in a different article.

- We're only going to look at Q1-Q4 factories. If you've got enough gold to get to Q5 you don't need my help!

- Every source of income costs you 10 energy to get. To make my life easy, I've said that equates to a daily cost of 5xQ1 food, or $0.25. Yes, you can do it cheaper and better other ways. Don't let me stop you - I'm just trying to get an article out. Better yet, share what you know in the comments.


Still interested? Well, read on!

TRAINING GROUNDS


Upgrading the free training ground contributes more strength/day. Each upgrade is worth 5 more strength each day, with a super soldier medal (5 gold) coming for every 250 strength. Each training session can therefore be seen as "earning" a portion of that 5 gold. Upgrades cost progressively more, beginning at 20 gold for Q2 and winding up at 100 gold for Q4 (50 gold for Q3). Running the calcs on a monthly basis, we wind up with:





The monthly returns on the Q2 upgrade is ludicrous. Too good to ignore, in fact.


For curiosity, let's take a look at the second training ground. This one only produces 2.5 strength/level/day. And it costs gold to use too! Upgrades are the same cost as the free training grounds. Clearly inferior to the first training ground. Regardless, running the numbers results in:







Not greatly worthwhile, if you ask me. If you sink 170 gold into it, the extra super soldier medal pays for your training cost. Woo... Still, strength is a valuable thing to have.


As most of you know, there are roughly monthly discounts offered for upgrades to training grounds. These are 45% discounts, and as you can imagine they change the maths substantially!


Free training grounds:



Second training grounds:



The Q3 free training ground offers ludicrous returns too, if you can secure a discount to upgrade it. The second training ground remains, well, meh...

FOOD RAW MATERIALS


To make any money with Food raw materials (FRM you'll see them called from time to time) you'll need to flog them on the open market. They are currently going for $0.02 apiece. And we need to pay work tax. Currently, that works out at $1.02 per company and may continue to increase as our average salary continues to rise.


For comparative purposes, I've translated the build cost (in AUD) for grain/fruit/cattle companies into a gold cost. Straight away you'll notice that these are poor choices - cheaper alternatives produce more. Go figure... For completeness, I've left them in. Adding up our sales and deducting our expenses we're left with:






Fisheries make the best profit for your investment out of the bunch. Though...if and when work tax goes up, deer may overtake fish. Only grain is a poor investment - the others will at least make you some money.

Top tip: If you've still got your three grain companies from starting out, sell them. You'll get $750 for each one, which translates to about 9 gold. With a little of your own money, you can buy a fishery for 10 gold. Not only will you make more FRM with a fishery than three grain farms, you'll pay less tax too.

FOOD FACTORIES


We need to sell our food on the market too in order to make any money. And we need to provide raw materials (at $0.02 each) to make them run.


Upgrading our factories produces a higher quality product that we can sell for more money, not more of the same product. They'll churn through more FRM as well. Upgrades cost 20/50/100 to go Q1 --> Q4, just like the training grounds. You can end up at Q7, eventually, if that's your thing.

Current market prices for food are $0.05/$0.08/$0.14/$0.19 for Q1 to Q4 respectively. From our gross sales we deduct sales tax (net income = revenue/(1 + tax rate). Letting Excel do the work again, we come to:





An interesting observation - Q1 factories are better than Q4 for the cost. In other words: for the 180 gold it costs to get a Q4 food factory, you could build 18 Q1 factories and make more than twice as much money.


And that brings me to my next point. If you manage to secure the 45% discount for upgrades, the equation changes somewhat:





The Q1 factory still offers a 5% return, with our current bonuses and tax settings. But...Q2 and Q3 factories give you slightly more! Q4 still loses to Q1 - better to have 10 Q1 factories (100 gold) than 1 Q4 factory upgraded wholly with discounts (103.5 gold).
CONCLUSIONS


With the aid of Excel, we can see a few things quite clearly.


1. Far and away the best investment is a Q2 training ground. More strength never hurt anyone either, for that matter.

2. Ignore raw materials companies that are bought in AUD.

3. The best returns are on low-er quality factories. While you might make more per company with a Q4 factory, for what it costs you to get that far you'd be better off owning a big bunch of lower quality factories.

4. Get your training grounds to Q3 as soon as you can afford it, though don't upgrade Q2-->Q3 without a discount.

5. If you have a lazy 10 gold, build a Q1 factory. Upgrade it to Q2 (for 11 gold) when the discount offers come along next.