| rep (Little Upsilon) | Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - 10:01 pm 
Question.
Were some corps maximum production levels changed recently?
I.E. I have a gold corp, fully upgraded, fully staffed, running at 127% production (has been for years). Country welfare in the 120s. Corp has been producing 124 gold per month. Maximum capacity had been 95.
Came on and had the red triangle flashing. Looked at corp, and now max production is listed at 75 rather than the 95 it was.
Looked through the game news and couldn't find anything about corp adjustments on production. Other types of corps seem to be affected also.
Going to make my profit level go down. 
Anyone know about this? Did I miss an announcement somewhere or is this something that was announced a while back?
Thanks. |
| Matt Patton (Golden Rainbow) | Wednesday, June 15, 2011 - 10:18 pm
I only do military contracts when I can't buy that product just use the set quality function
gold small any way not that big of loss. Golden rainbow is a golden rainbow its like 80% bull
there are even public food corps lol
I like to produce stuff with a multi billion shortage |
| rep (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 12:34 am
Thanks, but you missed the point. I OWN a gold corp, and yes, a 20% cutback in the allowed production IS a big deal, about a B per month at current market. I'd like to hear from some of the vets out there. |
| Huy_DaNang (Fearless Blue) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 01:15 am
you are right, Rep. All corps are reduced production level now. This has been done in order to prevent surplus in the market. This is what I think |
| warfreak (White Giant) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 01:55 am
Surplus in the markets?
Right........... |
| Gothamloki (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 04:36 am
I have a feeling the GMs are phasing-in changes in an attempt to make the markets more dynamic and self-reliant. (i.e., the GMs will be injecting less production from thin air when shortages occur.)
playing devil's advocate: If they also plan on matching market prices to surplus/shortage better, then this would spur building of corps in industries with high shortages. (devil's advocate part): this would require buying population, probably and preferably from the GMs. (bye bye GCs!)
But I'm just thinking aloud. A lot of these changes seem counter-productive without knowing what their ultimate plans are, though. |
| Chorion (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 04:37 am
This happened about a week ago. Most types of corporations took a 10-25% hit to their maximum production capacity. |
| rep (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 05:20 am
Chorion,
Has there been any explanation from the GMs? It must have been a phased in thing, as I do a lot of country selling on world trade, and it just caught up to my gold corp in the last game month or two. Thanks for verifying this from your standpoint.
Gothamloki, true point. Mr. Willard has already begun the lightening of the "supply fairy", which is what got many on LU into an uproar; their corps shut down due to lack of supplies. Personal thoughts on that are that it was a good thing. People started building corps to meet the true demand.
But knocking max capacity by 10, 20 or 25% without saying something doesn't sit well with me.
Unless, and this is a possible scenario, they plan on raising the price baseline on products so that the end result is the same. Less production, higher prices. My gold corp for example: old production was 95, the market has been between 14M-20M (rounded). New production value is 75, but the two months since that happened gold has marketed at 20.5M and over 21M. Can't make any solid predictions since gold is deep red .
Anyway, thanks everyone. |
| Chorion (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 05:57 am
Not that I could find. A lot of corporations are now unprofitable for enterprises to build (using all Q100 numbers, and if I am correct in country resources used being 1/3 of turnover), including... FMU on LU. |
| rep (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 08:15 am
Interesting take on the profitability angle. My understanding was country resources were 40% of turnover.
Either way, if 1/3 is unprofitable, so is 2/5. Can't comment on the Q100 as I only use that in my ammo corps and govt. buildings, so don't have enough data.
Don't tell Accordion This that FMU corps won't be profitable, he's building them by the boatload! :P
This is something I think needs to be looked into. Unfortunately I don't have the ear of the powers that be. One can find ways to adjust, but it's better to be given a heads up instead of getting caught by surprise. |
| warfreak (White Giant) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 08:27 am
Hey, if this removes the magical FMU only enterprise mix, I see no harm. As I have mentioned before, my state corps are rather spread out, so I'm not held hostage to price drops. |
| Accordion_This (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 10:04 am
I saw that, rep. They *should* still be making money...mine are :P |
| Tom Willard (Golden Rainbow) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 10:47 am
Yes, changes take place all the time.
we are continuing to increase the number of workers per corporation and the corporations keep growing in size and production.
we also continue to reduce the need for high level workers. The problem is now less serious than before but we see shortages continue and we keep making small changes.
Some corporations slightly reduced production in numbers but at a higher price. Gold indeed is one, but the corporation turnover is up as the kg price is higher.
This will reduce world wide production but with the higher price, people will buy smaller quantities and the balance remains.
The market balance remains largely unchanged.
All these changes will continue at a slow pace for a long time but we have seen most of it already. |
| Chorion (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 04:08 pm
Haha well by using Q100 number I mean if you are also selling at level 100 prices, which means no marking up. I assume everyone would be smart enough to at least mark up. For FMU, a mark up of 10% would mean profit. |
| rep (Little Upsilon) | Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 05:58 pm
All right, thanks to all who responded.
Accordion, what, your instinct for FMUs even let you sniff out a reference buried in the middle of a thread? 
Tom, thank you. When I saw gold at plus 20M for the 4th consecutive month I was fairly certain the baseline had been adjusted to compensate for the lost production. Thanks for verifying.
Warfreak, I'm with you on the diversification idea. It'd take a near total collapse for my bottom line to suffer. Heck, even my lowly poultry corp is pumping out big (relatively speaking of course) bucks.
As the politicos are fond of saying "a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you have some real money". |
| warfreak (White Giant) | Friday, June 17, 2011 - 01:34 am
I mean, right now, a few of my govt corps and most of my food corps are underperforming due to extended green periods. I compensate by buying up this excess on the world market to resell later.
Corp wise, my large industrial and high tech base will subsidize the losing corps.
In order to tank my economy (which is full state, so it isn't the most profitable), you will need extended green periods on most products, and I know that isn't going to happen... |
| Accordion_This (Little Upsilon) | Friday, June 17, 2011 - 04:32 am
Rep - yes. Just yes.
As for diversification, I used to be really into that, but, well, FMUs. I'm sure I'll start diversifying again once the market stabilises :P |
| rep (Little Upsilon) | Friday, June 17, 2011 - 07:00 am
warfreak,
We think along the same lines economically. Only difference is I'm still developing my main so there's not much cash around to soak up excess products.
Full state may not be the most profitable, but of my 30 corps if I have more than two lose money in the same month it's unusual. Sure, don't make the obscene profits that some FMU specialists (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) pull down, but in 500 game years when an FMU is just another B per month corp I MIGHT take some off his hands! :D
Another benefit to diversification is being able to weather the storms such as we've had recently on LU. The one or two times my supply situation got critical I was able to cover it from strategic supply. Then I have my CEO cover the "country use" only products. So, at least for now, I've been safe. That, and I have my corps order supplies when they drop under 10 months use left rather than wait until there's only 3 or 4 months left.
We'll see if Accordion catches that one! If so, I bow in his general direction! |
| warfreak (White Giant) | Friday, June 17, 2011 - 08:42 am
It's not excess products in that I buy my own products. It's excess at Q100. If there is a major oversupply of say, industrial equipment at low prices, I will buy that up, and it does soak up about half a T.
When it goes back into shortage, sell it off. My favorite success story of this is buying about 1B units of Industrial Equipment at about 180SC, and selling it about 1000SC.
How's that for profit margin? |
| rep (Little Upsilon) | Friday, June 17, 2011 - 08:57 am
Sweet. We definitely see things similarly there. I use my CEO to "play the commodities". Agris are good for quick turnaround/double your money opportunities, but you can also get burned and get stuck for a few years. But the thing is you know that eventually it will turn around. Except cocoa. :P
With the other products, if they're under baseline price and hard green I'll snag what I can get. Don't have any success stories like yours. But I survive, and it's fun sometimes to buy up something that's been hard green for a while just enough to turn it yellow, then watch what people do the next month or two. Of course I use the factory util. chart to make sure production hasn't bottomed out first. |
