W3C - material cost in Enterprises

We were alerted by a player to an error in material costs in case there are two enterprises in a single world. The case was clearly described and there was no doubt at all.
Very hard to find the details, but it seems that In a small number of cases (less than 15), there is a mix up of material costs between corporations of the two enterprises resulting in some kind of averaging in case both enterprises have a large number of corporations and in a much reduced cost if one of the enterprises is very small.

In general, material cost was assigned and paid for. In some exceptional cases, it was not paid for or was much reduced.

The error is being repaired and will probably cause some jumps in the level of material costs, both up and down, but only in case there are two enterprises in a single world.

The correction will take some time to materialize.
In cases where one of the enterprises was very small, and cost was far too low, there will be a correction.
Some enterprises may see huge profits in the coming days or up to 2 weeks.

We are sorry for this error that was introduced several months ago.
When the dust settles, there will be a shift of cost from one enterprise to the other.
This error explains why, in some cases, one large enterprise was extremely profitable while the other was not.

Good catch and thanks for the fix and update.

Id also like to point something out as mentioned in another thread.

I for example bought 60M units of 350Q power when the price was very low(base price) and sold it when it was at its max. It all sold but the issue is the amount i got back, you see i paid around 10T but when i later sold it i only got 6T if you check my FB empire, and my country Metalison on LU you can see the discrepency i understand its harder to sell high Q products but i should never buy and base then sell it over base anc still lose money even after all products where sold

This is strange as there is no one producing any product at Q350.
I would not purchase anything (except for weapons and ammo) above Q260 because it is questionable if you would ever be able to sell it at that price and using it only makes sense, we think, in the countries.

weapons should be bought at a max quality because upgrading them with weapon and ammunition quality upgrades is more expensive and in war, quality makes a big difference.

Well, many of my companies produce at Q345 or higher, of I understood the data on the company pages. It that possible and ok?

I checked and indeed, this is about the top quality possible and only in public corporations and it will probably decline some in time.
However, you never sell at this price.
I also saw that you have raw materials at a very high quality level in these corporations.

You can reduce the raw materials quality to average 150 which will reduce the output quality but will probably reduce the cost of materials even more.

Ok thanks

One question with regard to the high quality supplies: the high quality materials were supplied by my own companies. If having a high quality does not influence the price, how does a lower quality supply lead to a lower price?

Andy, In regards to your original post:

I have two CEOs on GR, Red Ink w/386 Corps and Frog LTD w/931 Corps.

About 10 days ago I noticed a drop in profits.
Red Ink Dropped about 150 to 200% and Frog LTD about 70%.

Looking closer at individual corps I see that in many cases supplies are being delivered at over 200 Q and up to 285Q, maybe higher.
This is sometimes occurring with 3,4,or 5 different product orders in a single corp.

Supply in RI is now 165, down from 168.
Supply in Frog is now 165, down from 170.
In both cases they had been steady at 168 and 170 for some game years.

Could you please have a look? I've never noticed these extremes before and it doesn't appear to be happening in other CEOs.

Thanks, Rick

I have seen similar. I have found some AF corporations have bought 100 months worth of HHP at Q285. I guess its not really a problem because everything else should be ordered to create the weighted Q170 I ask for.

But over the board, I see the final Q output falling when I have been raising supply Q to compensate for eliminating profit mark up. I figured its just taking time to work through the old supplies and buying a higher Q product when the old runs out. It should even out.

Strange, buying of 100 months worth though, dont you think? And the output Q shouldnt really fall at all, just gradually increase to the new Q set.

Andy, is the effectiveness of quality upgrades being reduced? What else would cause this?

Hoover hoover hoover they hoovering up our profits

Well, I lowered the supply qualities of my companies from 300 to about 150. But the profits of the companies did not increase. How does this come?

Furthermore, if producing a high quality does not influence the price of your products, how does a lower quality supply lead to a lower price? I mean, if increasing the quality does not lead to a higher sales price, then how does a lower quality lead to lower prices? If I cannot sell a high quality product for a higher price, then how can I buy a low quality product for a lower price?

Producing high quality does increase revenue but to a limit.
Producing at Q340 does not help.

Purchasing at Q150 reduced the cost of raw materials but first, you have to finish using the materials that were purchased at Q300.

all this was discussed here before.

The profits still did not increase. In fact, profits were highest when the quality of supply was over 250. When will the profits finally increase after having reduced the quality of supplies?

You never mention a specific name of a corporation.
I checked one country.
You reduced taxes too low and the income for the country is down.
All the corporations are profitable with many at 1B+ profit per game month which is exceptional.

Not so bad, money in the bank and earning more.

If you think you can make more with higher quality, then try.

Yes, reduced the taxes to 10% in order to reduce the P/E ratio of the companies (this was the only way I could find via Google to reduce the P/E ratio on SC). But I will set them to 15% again then, and hopefully, income will increase again (indeed, after having reduced taxes, income fell as an asteroide from the sky).

I never mention a company specifically, because it counts for nearly all companies. Before I chancelled all contracts with common market companies, profits of almost all companies were over 1B, with many almost 2B profits per game month. That is why I wondered why there is no effect. But maybe I just had luck then, and it was all exceptional.

Hi Andy, not sure if this is related... I have two enterprises on White Giant (Prosperia Hathaway & Prosperia Goldman).

In May 2962 the cost jumped by between $15-25bn. Before this time the cost was pretty steady, after this time it is also steady but has remained higher. I cant think of anything specific that changed at this time nor have I played with any settings and this has occured in both of my Enterprises.

Has anyone else noticed this in their CEO accounts? Is this possibly a bug or some sort of correction?

You have to narrow down what costs went up. CRU, supplies, tax, salaries?

It could be a country or two you have corps in has suddenly raised its tax level. Welfares may have gone up so your using more supplies, might just be market prices of things. Hiring levels increased? are corps still upgrading? Lots of things.