Corporation Income Discussion (Golden Rainbow)

I'm putting this here, in the hopes that as a player base, we can figure out what is going on with corporation income and submit it to W3C to fix.

I have spent about 2 hours today so far studying over 50 corps in my own countries, as well as Stardust on GR.

Most corps (including every private I have checked), the numbers just don't add up.

Some state corps the numbers are correct, while others they are not.

What I'm talking about is this:

Total: 4,152.54M SC$

This is the product sold for THIS game month, for a missile interceptor corporation. To arrive at this total, you take the product sold and multiply it by the price its sold at.

Production Last Month 75
Latest Market Price: 18.52M SC$ per missile
Sale Strategy Start at 345% of the market price

Because everything was sold THIS month, the lower by X% every month remains unsold does NOT come in play.

So we take 75 * 18.520000 * 3.45 = 4,792.05M SC$

As you can see, the given figure is WAY off from the correct figure (the one I calculated).

Now for an electric power corporation:

Total: 3,862.38M SC$

Latest Market Price: 84,792 SC$ per million kwh
Production Last Month 21,690
Sale Strategy Start at 210% of the market price

84,792 * 21,690 * 2.10 = 3,862.19M SC$

Its off slightly, probably due to rounding.

All product in these corporations is sold every month, so there is no carryover.

I have not yet figured out why some corporations add up, and others don't.

A more illustrative example, two otherwise identical electric power corps:

Latest Market Price: 84,792 SC$ per million kwh
Production Last Month 22,633
Sale Strategy Start at 296% of the market price

Both have these exact parameters.

Total: 5,566.16M SC$
Total: 5,644.64M SC$

But their totals are different?


THIS IS WHY country income and CEO income is way down. This is why CEO's are not making profits anymore. There is some kind of bug with corporation income. I'm asking for help in determining its cause.

Q

All have the same welfare and exact same production?

THANK YOU. I knew corporation income was declining way faster than corporation costs, but I did not have time to tinker with the math behind it.

This would explain a lot. I can understand base prices declining in tandem with salaries, but these kinds of basic math errors in calculating revenue should be inexcusable.

Q ran these comparisons within the same country. That would control for welfare index. However revenue should be a straight calculation of amount of product sold times price at which it was sold (price derived from market price times trade strategy modifier).

We need those sales logs that were suggested in the suggestions forum...

I have listed the production amount in each example. Welfare influences the production figure, yes, but shouldn't influence the turnover.

You can do the calculations on your own corps if you desire, and you will find that the figure given *usually* is higher than what is actually displayed. The calculated figure is correct, the display is usually not.

I used my own countries and Stardust on Golden Rainbow when doing my figures.

The 2 identical electric power corps and the other electric power corp are all from Stardust. The missile interceptor corp is from Procifica.


I have calculated over 50 corporations, almost all of which have been off, some as much as 33%! I have found a total of 3 corporations which have been correct (to at least 4 significant digits, meaning off by hundreds of thousands at most).

I'm still doing more, checking more countries, still the same results. Nearly all of the time, the listed product turnover is less than what it should be, and its MUCH different for private corps (state corps are not much off, if at all). I have yet to find a private corp actually which has been accurate.

Q

Is the displayed market price the same as what the market price was when your corporation sold the product? Maybe it sells the product at what the previous month's market price was

EDIT: I checked... one corporation using the previous month's price actually fixed itself, but then a second one was off either way... that one actually had the reverse effect, where the 'product sold' was over 4 billion, but when you ran the numbers it came out to about 3.5 billion, and even less than that using the previous month's market price

To be fair, I have found basic math errors of this sort, consistently, for years. Q's analysis is appreciated and accurate, but this is nothing new.

For some real headscratching, total your workers and professionals from your corporations, military, and infrastructure manually. Then compare the results with employment page figures.

the "total profit' on the bottom of the ceo financial page, like farmer bob said, has never been accurate. for one thing, it adds in the total production and profit of public corps, but you don't earn the "full," profit of those corp. additionally, is seems that ceo's with high loans out, are taxed much higher...

but as far as the recent problems... i noticed that for the first 2 days of it, my running cost doubled. once a day, in each of my enterprises, i raise and lower my cash levels to 75b, this gives me the most accurate measurement of "profit," as it give me spendable cash. well when the problem started, the "raise," part was literally double what it usually was, for 2 days. then the "raise," part eventually went back down to what it was, but the "lower" part dropped 25%ish. now the raise part is lowering again, and i'm begining to see my profits improve...

Well there is definitely a difference between Private CEO corps profitability and I'm leaning towards thinking we are not getting our price adjustments for the quality upgrades we have installed on our corps. Just my theory. is it possible we are only getting 100 quality price for our goods even though we are producing at the 333 quality level?

other thoughts, they've started apply ff to corps with high cash levels, or they are forcing us to lower the salary levels, but both of those are just thoughts, and should be investigated before railed against

Q, is there any correlation between the sale strategy and the apparent loss in revenue?
i.e. anything with a sale strategy over 300% gets nobbled and anything under 300% works out as expected?

Orbiter,
Here is a comment from Jozi that just might back up your idea...

[15:58] [Jozi] the problem is very limited. we know how much cash there is and it is not so high.
[15:58] [Jozi] some is hidden in corporations for now but the idea is that it will continue to go down, exchange rates and amounts will have
[15:59] [Jozi] a soft landing and the process will stop.

Also I have been slowly lowering the salary level of my enterprises and getting better results.

Farmerbob, when I first started Simcountry, these numbers worked EVERY time like they should have. Now, they only do randomly, and not at all for private corporations. There DEFINITELY is some kind of bug.

T, its definitely not 100 price quality. One of the first things I could immediately rule out, as the price we're getting is nowhere near that low.

Orbiter, I tested this on state corps, private corps, public corps, it didn't matter. All were incorrect except for 3 state corps.

Danneh, there seems to be more of a difference with higher sales strategies (especially in private corps). I also have noticed a corelation between how much the product price is above/below market price, but not been able to solidly confirm that yet.

Orbiter, doesn't have to do with salary, as I checked all sorts of salary levels as well.

Karff, the fact that some corporations are off up to 33% of the true amount rules out the previous month's market price completely (since it can only be 5% up or down).

My point is, these numbers are SUPPOSED to add up properly, and they used to. They don't now.

Q

sir michael, thats excactly what made me think that, personally i don't care, its one of those, please tell me first, things, but again, its still just a guess

i've lowered cash levels in 2 of my 750+ enterprises, as 75b 6months ago, and now are 2 different things. and i've left the cash levels high my my other 2 750+ enterprises, it seemed to make a difference, as the profits seemed to improve in both the lower ones, but both of the ones i left higher, also improved, although not as much.

the next thing i'm going to try is salaries, i'm lowering the salaries of one of my ceo's, and leaving the rest high, after 2 ticks on LU, it seems to have made a huge impact, but it is just 2 ticks

sorry, my management method is "play by ear,"

[15:58] [Jozi] the problem is very limited. we know how much cash there is and it is not so high.
[15:58] [Jozi] some is hidden in corporations for now but the idea is that it will continue to go down, exchange rates and amounts will have
[15:59] [Jozi] a soft landing and the process will stop


This is meant as corporation cash levels I believe.

Its not FI on corporation cash levels, as I've checked all levels of cash as well. Just tested a corp which was really low, its still lower than it should be.

Q this has been going on for a wee while.

As Farmer Bob says....I highlighted some similar stuff in November and got fed up trying to make decisions based on the info provided, having converted a load of info from the site into spread sheets.

Couldn't be bothered after that

This is the explanation I got from Simcountry, however I did forget to note in my email that I only checked corporations which sell product consistently the same month its offered, to eliminate the market price swing from processing and the monthly % reduction. I have replied to them back in much greater detail though. So here it is:

Hi,

If you are talking about the monthly product sales by corporations you cannot just look at the price they ask for and multiply by the amount of product and market price.

There is no guarantee that anybody wants to purchase these products for the price they are Offered.

This has never been the case but we have witnessed lower requesting price average in the past months.

I think that the effect is across all price levels but of course, mainly on the highest.

We did not look into it specifically but we have seen average profits coming down a bit and this is why we noticed.

It might change even further or start moving back.

It happened many times before.

The gamemaster

Not like this it hasn't

Yeah, that reply doesn't make sense. If people didn't want to buy the items at the price\quality offered, the products wouldn't have been sold that month.

I hope you get a better response to your more specific query.

Very strange indeed, I hate to be cynical but I think the GM don't want people being able play this game for free. Average corporate profits have declined since the game changes yet corporate productivity has increased in the majority of corporations, stayed the same in the rest, and only several have had production decreased.

I have found one of the problems:


Procifica TP Aircraft Fuel II

Latest Market Price: 643 SC$ per ton

Quality of the Product 370.0

Production Last Month 3,506,422

Total: 6,622.25M SC$

Sale Strategy Start at 399% of the market price


Procifica PC AF 20

Latest Market Price: 643 SC$ per ton

Quality of the Product 333.0

Production Last Month 3,530,432

Total: 6,590.82M SC$

Sale Strategy Start at 357% of the market price

First one, selling for $1,888
Second one, selling for $1,867


Procifica PC Gasoline 127

Latest Market Price: 632 SC$ per ton

Quality of the Product 312.4

Production Last Month 2,849,054

Total: 5,351.61M SC$

Sale Strategy Start at 336% of the market price


Procifica PC Gasoline 124

Latest Market Price: 632 SC$ per ton

Quality of the Product 331.0

Production Last Month 2,921,418

Total: 5,488.66M SC$

Sale Strategy Start at 355% of the market price

First one selling at $1878
Second one selling at $1878


Looking at these 4 examples, the trend here (and I can easily post many more), is that income is NOT being adjusted for quality after a certain point (about 300 or so). We see a 370 quality selling for a similar price as a 333! The 312 and the 331 are identical! This should NOT be possible. All of these products are selling in a 290-297% of market price range, regardless of quality.

All products sold fully in the same month as offered. This is why CEO income is down so much. This is why public corporations now are tanking hard. This is the major problem with everyone's finances and income.

This is a major bug. I have been in contact with W3C, and have sent them 2 more emails illustrating the problem.

If more people would like to try to figure out what could be causing this, it would be helpful. If you decide to write to W3C, be polite and specific in your examples. This problem is affecting everyone's profitability.

Q

what, you mean like I said 2 days ago?

Over 300 or so is basically as you said, yes. Its being "nobbled", as you put it.

Under 300 or so I've not found a pattern to yet. Still working on that. So far it seems very random.

Q

it's good that issues like these are being discussed. but i think Angus88 assesment is probably correct. the GM does not want us playing for fee. whether it's changing the rules on cash, the changes in income and expenses of corps and countries, the effect is to make it impossible to continue playing without anteing up gc's or cash. in the past players could harvest c3's or inactives and amass vast amount of swag. now c'3 only generate about 300b in cash and some weapons. and if you're new, those new countries cost you money and will more than likely either go into losses or require that you infuse them with capital. by lowering the amount that you can earn in your countries and ceo's you cannot transfer cash into advantageous amounts of gc's. ultimately, you will have to pay to play, both on your monthly gc contributions but also your real cash outlay to renew your membership. there may be more players out there that will be willing to contribute to the game, but my guess is that we will see more and more short term players and more long term players leaving the game.