Real Problems. We need real solutions. (Little Upsilon)

I posted the problem about my Govt salaries being jacked up to 881 in a single game month, up from 351.

My government costs are an unheard of +300 billion per month. No response from the gms. I also have them going down, but they are barely moving. My costs aren't going down much despite the -%5 every game month.


In my CEO I looked at a few corps that are all the way RED. The profit and loss statements don't make sense unless I am missing something.

The LU weapons market depressed for a very long time following the introduction of war levels. Despite past direct market intervention from the gms in the past, this was allowed to continue, and this resulted in the largest price swings in weapons possibly in the entire history of the LU world. The swing was also very rapid weapons were now devalued at an alarming rate.

So much so that the base price of weapons on LU may be so low that these corps are highly debt prone. Especially in ceos.

I have one corp. Los Gatos interceptors in my CEO

Despite sales, and low cost supplies, and full upgrades, this corp is suffering uncontrollably. Even in months that the corp is moving product the corp doesn't even break even.


Los Gatos interceptors
Profit Last Year -20,139.20M SC$


Grant Missile Interceptors
Profit Last Year -14,476.13M SC$

Gladbeck Defensive Missiles
Profit Last Year -8,890.84M SC$


Something I have noticed over the last maybe two or more weeks while ordering supplies manually for my corps is that FMU reacts exactly the opposite of the way it should to market forces. Tell me if I am wrong here but I have not seen the price of FMU move very much at all. It has been a very, very, long time since I saw a consistent shortage of more than 3 million FMU units. It has consistently been over 4 and even 5 million in shortage. Yet the price goes DOWN for higher shortage numbers, and rises when demand falls. If that isn't strange I don't know what is. More significantly, the base price doesn't move much at all. Somewhere between 3.40M - to 3.55M and rarely above that range. FMU was more expensive when the shortage was barely sustainable over 1 million FMU a few real life months ago. Maybe I am missing something.

The gold coin exchange is too strict. In order to exchange the cash I have into coins, I need to pay off loans. I have done this before and still unable to get the system to recognize the loans paid. By the time it did, some random corp takes a 10 billion loan even when unnecessary, and I have to pay it, and wait 6 - 8 more hours, then hope the game didn't have an unnecessary loan on order. The whole thing pissed me off for 2 days until I eventually stopped trying to keep up.

I had suggested a measure for the game, which already recognizes the loans in order to prevent the exchange, to offer to deduct the total loans it already recognizes from your direct account and settle the debt from the same screen for whatever corps or countries owe loans in order to make this task less painful. This only makes sense. The game does so many random things at times I don't see why this has been ignored.

I also don't see why the problems section is ignored for the most part. I placed a few reports there that were ignored as others have been ignored too. For the most part the problems are ignored until answered by players, which leads to half answers or guesses. That seems weird. I would think that some of the more serious unexpected events would at least be viewed on the forum by a gm. But it appears no one is looking at all.

Half of those are the result of your own myopia.

1. Base price is fine for all corporations mentioned when compared to other corporations.
2. Low market price (=/= Base price) is killing you. It's not the game's fault you have unprofitable corporation types.
3. Weapons market isn't staying in the red for any length of time. No wars => low, erratic demand => Low market price. Simple as that.
4. Three-month cycle of a product that has reached the top market price is normal. Look at the graph. It's non-random variation. It happens with every product that reaches the top (and I assume bottom).
5. If you keep spare cash in your countries and corporations, they won't go into debt all the time.
6. As far as government salaries, that might actually be a problem . . . or they may have changed the hard minimum government salary from 25% to 50% of the average of all corporations in the country.

also, if you have more than ten countries in one world your govt expenses will be quite high.

The market will decide. If war corps are unprofitable, don't rely upon them for funds. Keep them full of cash and use them for your nation's goals. If you are looking to make a profit, follow the market trends. On White Giant, I have a very profitable FMU and the price doesn't very much.

Parsifal thanks. But the 2 issues are not related. Govt Salaries are not related to empire size, though costs are.

At the time of my salary spike I actually had 8 countries. The increase in costs came in one month.

Because they were topping 350 for some reason despite me having them targeting 100, due to a setting changing on its own more than once(documented). This was creeping my costs above 200 billion per month. I made a report and shortly thereafter I rechecked to make sure they were indeed dropping, but they had increased by a disgusting 500+ points to 881. Ughhh The result the next month was more than a 100Billion dollar increase topping my monthly costs over 300 Billion. Ughhh.

Scarlet, I know you like hearing yourself talk, but I don't understand Charlie Brown speak.

Navamin, after 3 years of playing this game, the basics don't evade me. The issue in question is a ceo corp, not a country. I appreciate the well intended advice but I'm not a newbie, I most likely have a deeper understanding of the game than you. I have more trillions than your heart could desire. In fact I had at one point just a few months ago more than 1300 trillions in my direct account and have wasted more than 500 trillions in the last few months paying off debt due to random settings being changed that resulted in money being sucked from several countries and my ceos at once.

Gives new meaning to the phrase "I want my muuney" huh?

The important points are being missed by the well intended and the nuisance at best.

First off and most importantly, these and other problems are being addressed by players, and not any GM. The answers are often undereducated guesses. You cannot find in the game docs the calculations to figure how certain costs are calculated. If they were included, I would be able to check these figures and quickly determine if something is wrong.

Second, is that instances of settings changing randomly has been documented several times over the past few months by more than just myself.

Going a little further, WD a few months ago discovered that in fact some cash was being sucked away from some corps without cause. This may or may not be the case with those corps in question.

Third, Scarlet says, Wonk, wonk, wonk, but skips the part where weapons corps were of the most profitable corps on LU for a very long time and remained so until the war level introduction tanked the LU weapons and ammo market. He also doesn't mention that the demand for the product of the corps in question have been in red for the last real life week actually, so a recent game year (two real life days LU time) is a good standard to measure against the demand and profitability of those corps. Also it makes no sense for for a fully upgraded corp without excessive salaries/supply costs/or tax rate(%30) and deep as it can be in red to be making a -20billion profit in the last game year. That is basic Simcountry. If your corps are losing money, it is usually caused by excessive salaries, or excessive supply costs, extreme tax rate(which %30 is NOT btw), or no upgrades. None of these issues, are an issue in the examples I mentioned.

I do have high corps salaries in certain corps, but I am not complaining about the things I can explain to myself, because I deliberately set them up with high salaries.

@Navamin, I almost spit my coffee when I read this, "If war corps are unprofitable, don't rely upon them for funds. Keep them full of cash and use them for your nation's goals." Thx for the Lol. Lulz are good.