| Enac | Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - 07:54 am 
Hi
some automated system puts my supplies quality to 150 even i set it to 120 and most of the auto stuff is disabled and settings for new corps are set at 120 quality.
what changes supplies quality (and education indexes) , even the automatic settings are off?
country is new (3 days), is there some sort of overriding settings for new players? |
| Crafty | Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - 12:39 pm
Yes, there is.
There is a two week period from starting in which the automatic system will control some parameters. Including supply quality and trade strategies. Turning them off makes no difference in these two weeks. Education health and transport are not affected, building more of the appropriate things raises those indexes.
Before you cuss it, it honestly will mostly help you as you get to understand the settings a bit. I know a lot find it frustrating, but roll with it, it's only 2 weeks, then you can screw up your country as much as you want, lol. Just kidding.
Good luck. |
| sbroccoli | Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - 04:00 pm
I still think, nevertheless, that there should be an option to turn all the nannying off! |
| sbroccoli | Saturday, September 29, 2012 - 12:07 am
Now that I'm over the two weeks and can actually set my tradestrategies (and keep them), I can tell that it makes a big difference.
Being allowed now to set the strategy as I wanted from the beginning suddenly turned things around.
Before, most corporations provided a deficit. Now every corporation but 4 (out of 27) provide a profit.
I really think the locked tradestrategy for new players is unfavourable. It should at least be unlockable. |
| Teddy Bear | Saturday, September 29, 2012 - 10:36 am
I am encountering this problem too, It keeps changing my supply and trade strategies back to default.
If it is only 2 weeks this happens for, well I started on the 13th Sept, and it's still changing them  |
| Joe Lynch | Monday, October 1, 2012 - 04:19 am
I joined Sept 14 and it still changes them back. |
| Alexandru | Monday, October 1, 2012 - 01:35 pm
I believe that is very annoying the thing that you can not change the price (strategy) of the stock supplies or what you buy.
If the market is dynamic I should be corrected by it. I play for several days, 35 companies and I still loose money because I buy more expensive that I sell, the system is good if you login today and return after several days.
I might keep all the products on stock and sell them in november. |
| sbroccoli | Monday, October 1, 2012 - 07:47 pm
Have you guys checked ALL the settings under automation? (i.e. including the individual ones for corporations)
I joined sep 12th and am free of this junk. |
| Alexandru | Monday, October 1, 2012 - 11:40 pm
I have only one week since I have registered so I can not say if the automation is still there. But i am eager to get rid of it. |
| Andy | Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - 07:42 am
This parameter is fixed for two weeks to make it more probably you remain profitable.
after two weeks you can change it, but then, swinging into losses will become more probable.
make sure you know a lot before changing everything.
sbroccoli
from your advise you would think that changing it would be good.
you could change it but you didn't.
good for you. Your corporations seem to be profitable. |
| sbroccoli | Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - 02:37 pm
Not sure we understand each other Andy.
I did indeed change all the trade strategies at day 15. And it works much better now.
Basically the problem is, that the automatic trade strategy for beginners sets selling price far too low and purchasing far too high.
I can't really see how this is supposed to help anyone. |
| Crafty | Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - 09:04 pm
That's what I originally thought sbroccoli but I must tell you the nearer I set my strats to the default for beginners the better my corps did. It did take a while. And I dont use exactly what the default is but I dont reckon its that far off.
If you try to sell stuff much above market it wont sell for several months. You might think you are selling every month but do the math and see what % of the market price you are really getting. As for buying, it's good to produce high quality, so you need to buy high Q supplies, and upgrade. |
| Andy | Tuesday, October 2, 2012 - 09:21 pm
Nobody will ever buy above quality.
the products remain unsold or sell for less.
Settings above quality are bad for your corporations.
What I saw is that you kept quality at 150.
These days 170 is OK too. we may change the beginners settings to 170. |
| Tarmore | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 04:19 am
Why not have one of those idiot messages pop-up saying it is strongly suggested you not change your rates untill you have more experience.
Some of us are old players come back to the game and would really like to take control ASAP |
| Keto | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 07:17 am
Andy, does it not make sense for a corporation selling at Q200+, to sell all of its products when that product is in the red?
Red means there is not enough on the market to supply all corps/countries with that product. Because of that, our corps should still sell our higher Q product to help make up for the shortage.
Why should that corp be penalized because this game set certain standards for all corps to follow?
Also, why even have quality of a product when everyone is only buying a certain quality product? Make it standard that all corps produce at Q150.
This game is being run as a dictatorship, meaning we have to have our settings the way the game wants them, so the game continues as it is, to make us players spend more real $ on purchasing GCs. |
| sbroccoli | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 11:41 am
Oh, so you were referring to quality then?
That's right, I didn't touch it.
But I have certainly jacked up my initial pricing.
Unless I'm very mistaken on something, it's easy to tell if your pricing is too high or too low: as long as there are no products left, your pricing isn't too high. |
| Crafty | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 02:43 pm
Lol, maybe, but you arent getting the high price you asked for. Do the math. Product sold/(price per unit x production number) will give you a rough idea of the mark up you are getting, compare this to the mark up you asked for. |
| sbroccoli | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 04:25 pm
I don't? Why is that? |
| Crafty | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 06:16 pm
Nothing sells for over the market price for that quality. Most seem to sell for 10 - 20 below what you make. I have seen FMU sell for 50+ below the quality produced.
Now, I haven't thoroughly checked out contracts, but it seems to me that by contracting you get the full market price increased by quality, so an advantage over the world market, but then, you have to find someone willing to buy on contract. Contracting to yourself would seem to be just moving the extra revenue from one entity to another.
I wish I could concentrate on checking these things out properly, but for now they are mainly suspicions I have, un-proven by math. |
| sbroccoli | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 06:31 pm
Then I honestly don't understand what the 'trail quality by...' option is for. |
| Crafty | Wednesday, October 3, 2012 - 06:38 pm
There's nowt stopping you asking for more, but you wont get it. |
| sbroccoli | Thursday, October 4, 2012 - 10:23 am
This is very strange. If you're right, it essentially means that the corporations can control their own offering prices. At all?
Does not even setting a fixed price (very bulky) work?? |
| sbroccoli | Thursday, October 4, 2012 - 02:50 pm
The above should say 'can't control'. |
| Tarmore | Thursday, October 4, 2012 - 05:31 pm
sbroccoli
'trial' quality (use to anyway) mean if you were trying to sell your goods at 10 points over their quality. If the quality of your goods went up to say from 120 to 125 then your selling price would climb the same number of points from 130 to 135. Thus keeping the same 10 point spread in my example. |
| Tarmore | Thursday, October 4, 2012 - 05:34 pm
This can't control your prices in the first two weeks just means the new players are pretty much religated to loosing money in our corperations.
We have to sell our goods at 10 points below the average going rate. I checked most of my companies and none of them can make money monthly doing that.
I guess it's just bend over and take it for two weeks until I can make any money until then. |
| Crafty | Thursday, October 4, 2012 - 06:47 pm
Look guys, pick a corp, any corp, dont show me...
Look at the months turn over, products sold. So thats the money the corp received for its goods that month right.
Now multiply the number of goods that your corp made that month by the going rate for that product. That will give you the price of standard market 100Q prducts you sold.
Divide the first figure by the second figure and you will get the mark up you received, the base price times whatever Q increase you actually got.
Results: You will see that you received a lower Q mark up than you actually produced. So selling at 10 below or market price makes perfect sense. That strategy will almost always ensure your products are sold every month. If you ask 100 over then they may not sell that month or for several months and your corp will lose billions each month it doesnt sell (compared to the maybe 500M it makes if it does sell). Even if you ask for 100 over and it all sells that month you will still see you only got paid less than your Q produced.
Word of caution, this method will only work for the financial pages of corps that are selling all product every month as left over product will mess the math up. Same for no contracts. And it may not be 100% accurate due to the figures being from one month and the prices being last months, but it will be within a couple of percent.
Try it and see. I hope I'm wrong but I've done it on a load of corps. |
| sbroccoli | Thursday, October 4, 2012 - 09:19 pm
Forgive me, but I still don't understand.
I have set every corp to bid 200 over and every product is sold. All the time.
So if it's true that it's sold at 10 below quality anyway, then the pricesetting you can do is without meaning.
Now, does price strategy for purchasing also not do anything? |
| Crafty | Friday, October 5, 2012 - 12:31 am
Asking for too high a price can result in stuff not being sold. If all yours sells at 200 over then you are very lucky and must have corps that make product that is always in high demand. But it doesn't change the fact you wont get paid 200 over. Basically, yes, the selling strat is about obselete.
Buying strategy does still function. |
| Tarmore | Friday, October 5, 2012 - 08:27 pm
Well that's the rub, isn't it? You have to find the right spot where you are selling your products for max profit but you are still selling it.
All I want is a chance to play and find that spot.
I'm betting that 'spot' is well above the -10% of market price the computer is forcing me to give my goods away at currently. |
| sbroccoli | Friday, October 5, 2012 - 10:29 pm
Almost everything I produce is in short supply.
Of course, I'd say- It's not hard to locate the industries that have a high demand. Why build industries that are in the green? |
| Tarmore | Saturday, October 6, 2012 - 07:40 pm
Most don't stay in the green all the time, just like very few should stay in red all the time. |
| Crafty | Saturday, October 6, 2012 - 08:42 pm
Tarmore...read and try my post above.
If it's been years for you, then I can assure you it's changed.
I aint going to repeat myself again, so if you aren't willing to see for yourself then f**k you, you post what the best strategy is and prove me wrong. |
| Tarmore | Sunday, October 7, 2012 - 03:19 pm
I don't get the attitude?
I said nothing about 200 how about you red my posts...
Seriously I will find a strat that works for me the same as you did, all I want it to be able to begin to feel it out, but can't because I am hand cuffed by this stupid set-up where I am selling my goods 10 points too low.
Is that where you sell yours? |
| Crafty | Monday, October 8, 2012 - 03:00 pm
Sorry Tarmore, nothing personal, just sometimes I get fed up answering questions for new people only to have it totally ignored or argued with.
This is part of why I have called for many other experienced players to contribute in helping newer/returning players. |
| Tarmore | Monday, October 8, 2012 - 03:46 pm
It's ok.
Mt fustration is not with you or your answers, it's with the system.
Another week and I'm out of this this price hell!
Hopefully then I can start making some good money 
As for experienced players helping others, it's more of a culture thing in most games, the more people do it the more others get involved (typically but not always: has been my experience anyway) About the only thing you can do is what you are doing, and when this crop of newbies get more experience at least they can follow your example. |
