Raw materials costs are getting uncontrollable.

Haha, I remember the very long country name glitch and its abuse.

Some complete tripe can be bandied around these forums, huh?

Minimal characters for country names causes material costs to seem incorrect?

Adding a notification of a name change causes the same?

Maybe we should all check all names to be sure they dont mean some number in hex-decimal that triggers a divide by zero error.

LMAO

I'm basically 90% sure it has to do with lowest ID number, but this only has to do with what enterprises on a world are affected. Not sure what determines who has a glitch.

I would like to point out that state corporations can be glitched too.

Corporation: "LU State HHP Materials Test 1"
Owner: "L7 Hyperborean Wildlands"
Status: State Corporation
Utilization: 118.9%

Cost is determined by Monthly_Use*Last_Price_Paid*Utilization
Expected cost is the sum of costs from each supply product.
Actual cost is Quoted from "Profit & Loss - Current Month"

Data Collected: Feb 10, 2957

Product	Monthly Use	Avg. Quality	Last Price Paid	Market Price	Cost
Chemicals	20000	158	3262	2292	77570360
Electric Components	140000	158	1782	1148	296631720
Electric Power	750	151	163998	121845	146245216.5
Electronic Components	140000	153	1689	1150	281150940
Glass	150000	152	2426	1536	432677100
High Tech Services	90000	153	1464	998	156662640
Plastics	150000	160	2165	1386	386127750
Services	75000	158	1501	1022	133851675
				expected:	1910.9174015	M $SC
				actual:	2593.52	M $SC
				difference:	682.6026	M $SC

Conclusion: glitched.

Assuming, of course, that this is actually a glitch and not an undisclosed "feature."
The way that it appears selectively, affecting certain players is strange.

No. These formulas are not correct:

First, when a corporation has "last price paid", that can still average with other supplies already in stock. As an estimate, it may actually be Ok, because usually auto-orders do occur when supplies are low or very low. Still, there is margin for errors there.

Next, the corporation at greater than 100% utilization, uses (based on observation and rough calculations) to also use more supplies. This further can be confirmed by the cotracting (auto-contracts) which will show "100%" contracted for supplies, but then still come up short of what is needed. Finally, if you check the supply levels, month-over-month, they do not all drop by exactly one-world-month amounts...it's usually something like 1.1 for enterprise corporations, fully upgraded, using roughly 300 salaries and located in "free countries" aka 'Simcountry' owner.

Finally, it is useful to see actual data and references from some posting, whereas these other side-shows, who have neither clue nor concept of what's happening, best to step aside and mind yourself in some other topicus maximus.

I think I compensated for utilization by multiplying each product by utilization.

For example with "Chemicals" I multiplied:
20,000 * 3262 * 1.189 to get the cost of 77570360.

I assumed that a corporation with 118.9% utilization would use 118.9% of the quoted supplies. In the case of Chemicals (20,000) the real usage would be 23780. Is this wrong?

The averaging of new supply prices with existing ones does present a slight problem.

Well, most likely it's wrong for every product, but, yes, that would help improve the estimate. It may actually do the converse, and error on the other side...so, actualy raw material amount usage increases may be say +8.5%, but, that formula would cause it to be +18.9%.

For example, one of the largest costs is "maintenance", and that is not even included in that table. It is a supply like others, but just happens to be itemized differently. For that case, it has been observed almost always to not increase its usage with higher productivity %. Other supplies seem to vary, but only have in-direct evidence of that based on tracking common market contract %s. Maybe someone else has more details.

In addition, the amount of supplies needed, and likely used (as a corollary), have been almost ceaselessly changing for a very long time. Even "Andy" admitted, to a degree, that this is still occurring. If you ask those who are very careful contractors, you'll soon find that the changes are even much more than advertised.

Bottom line: it would be better to take one specific world month, with actual supplies in stock, before and after, then use that to estimate the total amount expected to pay. You would still have the price issue, but as was said, that likely is a small factor.

[This is the "complexity" that those who don't understand, claim to enjoy--a lack of transparency of prices paid/received--and is probably why they end up stuck going in circles, which for a child's mind is joy enough.]

When I observed the information last game month, I pasted the entire "Available Materials" box into a spreadsheet... I just didn't include everything in the table here to save space. So here is a comparison of product stocks.

New information from: March 11 2957
This month utilization is reported as 119.1%

Product	Stock (Feb)	Stock (Mar)	Used	Quoted	% of quoted	Last Price Paid	Cost
Chemicals	154498	130687	23811	20000	119.0550%	3262	77671482
Electric Components	1285791	1119110	166681	140000	119.0579%	1782	297025542
Electric Power	14513	13620	893	750	119.0667%	163998	146450214
Electronic Components	1085021	918340	166681	140000	119.0579%	1689	281524209
Glass	915127	736541	178586	150000	119.0573%	2426	433249636
High Tech Services	2420587	2313435	107152	90000	119.0578%	1464	156870528
Plastics	1801832	1623246	178586	150000	119.0573%	2165	386638690
Services	1644369	1555076	89293	75000	119.0573%	1501	134028793
						expected	1913.459094	M $SC
						actual	2568.16	M $SC
						difference	654.700906	M $SC

The actual amount of raw material used seems very close to Utilization * Monthly Use

As far as I know FMU use is reported on the line "Maintenance Products Used" and is not included in "Raw Material Costs" so I didn't include that in the table. Maintenance Products Used costs seem pretty consistent across all of my corporations, "glitched" and otherwise.

So the biggest problem with this table is the price averaging of older supplies with newer ones, but that is probably not enough to explain away such a large difference...

Very nice...incisive. Did that happen with each corporation that you were referencing/watching (for this topic)?

fyi: just checked some Oil corporations at different hiring/utilization levels (production level: 82.5/99.7/108.5), with same upgrades, similar countries, etc. and maintenance used appears equal. Materials costs also rose with increased utilization in all 3 as well (materials (Ms): 1429/1725/1886).

Scarlet checked those Oils (in his countries) and actually they have not stabilized costs yet, due to being former State corporations...so, maybe can monitor them and report again later.

finance indexs appear too be dropping again wtf

Update:
(Disclaimer: Obvious speculation is obvious.)

Okay, we figured out that 'local trading' from enterprise to corporations (Space Inc) and 'direct trading' from corporations to corporations (tested corp in Overrike Manufacturing to corp in Space Inc) are bought at the correct price (as measured by change in cash levels).

Whether this causes a reduction in the discrepancy of Raw Materials Cost between expected/actual numbers is unknown, but what is known is that these methods of selling to corps are working fine. If filling a corporation through these methods does not cause a reduction in the discrepancy, I believe that the Raw Materials Cost glitch is an error in the P&L value and not an error that manifests in the corporate cash flow. However, given observations of affected corporations, the latter is most likely the case.

Regardless, most corporations do not buy their raw materials in this manner.

What remains to be seen is:
1) Whether contracted materials buy for the correct price.
2) Whether world market buy for the correct price.

It is difficult to measure these. Attention should be directed to the corporation cash flow line item "Raw Materials Bought" unless the previously mentioned methods (local trade, direct trade) of selling products to corporations can be discovered to decrease the difference between expected/actual amounts... if this is demonstrated, then it's a simple matter of seeing if the discrepancy is reduced (will need to also see if corporations are affected by an absolute difference in raw materials cost or a percentage difference) by contracting products to a corporation.

Otherwise, process of elimination, find a corp that received a set amount of some product through contract. Find it where the cashflow sheet only show a purchase of that contract and compare "amount contracted" * "quality of contract" * "market price". The difference between expected/actual is significant enough where it should be obvious even considering monthly differences in market price.

If both can be eliminated as possible manifestations of the glitch, then this would indicate the glitch is a reporting error and not a cash flow error. Which in turn would mean the net effect of the glitch is tax reductions.

However, reported overpayment of raw materials on the P&L sheet does appear to correlate to lost cash flow in affected corporations.

So... my current belief is that the "curse" manifests itself in overpayments on raw materials from the world market. I'm unsure of whether it manifests itself in overpayment on raw materials from contracts as well.

In absence of GM action, understanding this glitch may provide a defense.

Of course, the obviousness of the glitch should warrant GM action unless it can be determined that some enigmatic and obscure factor is causing it.

Careful readers will note certain tests possible that could lead to a tax-loophole exploit if certain results are observed. I would put more effort into this, but I have no opportunities to test as I'm not affected by this glitch.

If there was a glitch as you call it I feel sure it would have been addressed by now.

So we are back to the 'complexity' of the game that the children enjoy, supposedly. In other words many of us dont understand it, but instead of saying so, point the finger of accusation at the the very thing they dont understand. Child like indeed.

This has to be one of the most in depth threads and analysis of some game mechanics that I have seen, (with a surprisingly astute and coherent contribution from CP) and I wish you good luck in getting to the bottom of it.

I did not go into this because I saw some things like:
"maybe it is the name change". come on.

I can never claim for 100% that there is no error that depends on something "arbitrary" but we never had such an error before.

My take on it is that there are indeed many parameters that make it very hard to predict and even more complex because all these parameters and processes have a built in delay and also depend on the existing data which is different from country to country and make the process proceed differently in each case.

Keep looking. This is always interesting.
I can add that when we make a complex change, like recently, we can in most cases predict the end result but we cannot always predict the path, the ups and downs on the way and the time it will take to get there.

Crafty, it isn't "real" complexity if it's just bad information. Take corporations selling their production to the world market. They NEVER sell for the "advertised" price. The difference is obvious enough that it can neither be accounted for by trade strategies or by changes in market price. Take a corporation that's been selling all its production to the world market, then contract its production to one of your countries and watch the graph.

Timestamp: Aug 3178

Here are two corporations (same trade strategies [-1/-5], quality difference of 1.6, market price fluctuating in a range of 2%, both having sold all production in the last two months):

Corporation:
https://sim01.simcountry.com/cgi-bin/cgi2nova?SN_ADDRESS=wwwCountry&SN_METHOD=ccorp&miCorpNumber=1113515
Selling to world market (turnover graph)
https://sim01.simcountry.com/cgi-bin/cgi2nova?SN_ADDRESS=wwwCountry&SN_METHOD=w3graph&miTable=corphist&miKey=1113515&miColumn=vCorpLastMonthTurnover

Corporation:
https://sim01.simcountry.com/cgi-bin/cgi2nova?SN_ADDRESS=wwwCountry&SN_METHOD=ccorp&miCorpNumber=2717325
Recently switched to contract sale of all production (turnover graph)
https://sim01.simcountry.com/cgi-bin/cgi2nova?SN_ADDRESS=wwwCountry&SN_METHOD=w3graph&miTable=corphist&miKey=2717325&miColumn=vCorpLastMonthTurnover

You see that spike in the second graph? That's because it's actually earning "amount produced" * "market price" * "quality" by selling through contract. It's an almost 10% increase in revenue.

Trade strategies are meaningless because they don't work as advertised. If it says it'll sell for -1% quality (or 329% market price) the first month and sells everything, I would expect it to guess what... sell for 329% market price. This is not what happens. It sells for closer to 290% market price.

Observation reveals the same thing for corporations at other qualities:
https://sim01.simcountry.com/cgi-bin/cgi2nova?SN_ADDRESS=wwwCountry&SN_METHOD=ccorp&miCorpNumber=404394
Same trade strategy: -1/-5
Quality: 262.4
Market Price: 1152
Production Level Last Month: 1,523,509 (stable)
All production sold in one month.
So given this information, we'd expect to have a turnover of: (1,523,509 * 2.624 * 1152) * 2.614/2.624 = 4,587,785,309.952
So I should be getting 4,587.79M SC$

Can you guess what the actual turnover was?
4,280.77M SC$

This is 6.69% lower than it should be. My 262 Q goods are being sold for the price of 245 Q goods. The difference gets worse at higher qualities. This is not an isolated instance, and it has been this way for a LONG time.

But wait, maybe you're think fluctuations in market price... but the market price was 1165 last month, meaning any past price sold for would have been higher than the current price.

Don't look at the game too closely. It's not complexity, it's convoluted fluff. Most players don't look closely at the cash changes and just assume things because they're are distracted by interface fluff. There are multiple different things that you look at closely and they fall apart and don't behave as they are described and your actions don't do what you think they do.

I mean w/e, game's still fun if you don't look at things closely and assume you're making less than interface says you should.

tl;dr
The interface is a dirty liar.

Scarlet, sorry bud, but the market is not that cut and dried. This is one of the complexities that I talk of. By no means do I pretend to understand it but one of the main reasons for my continuing here is my enjoyment of trying to gain my best understanding of these fluffy complexities.

One of the others is getting to talk to such wonder people as yourself

I've never seen a corporation sell to the world market even close to market price, much less above. Even in markets whose market price is rising:
https://sim05.simcountry.com/cgi-bin/cgi2nova?SN_ADDRESS=wwwCountry&SN_METHOD=ccorp&miCorpNumber=2924557
Should be at least NEAR 6,102.97M accounting for production, trade strategy, and the current (i.e. higher) market price.

Actual Value: 5,489.60M
This is 10.05% lower than expected in a rising market.

If the question is, what is market price? It is an inflated value used to determine the price of contracts and direct sales. It does not appear to have much to do with prices on the market. Find me a single corporation that sold its products at or above market price or even within 2% below market price and we can talk. Trade strategies are NOT tied to market price as advertised.

This is not complexity because this essentially mean I have no idea what trade strategies actually do. Corporations offer for whatever the game decides they offer them for, not for what I tell them to offer them for. This simplifies the game to checking the "None" "Some Left" and "Too High" numbers and assuming the price is being reduced at each level. Whatever the trade strategies does doesn't matter, whether there is stock unsold does. So...

This is how I played in the first month when I had no real clue what was going on. I have no reason to play it otherwise after how ever many years it has been. If it actually introduced complexity, I can guarantee you that I would be trying to decide more sophisticated trade strategies because it would behave in an expected manner with an interface that accurately described my actions and not do whatever the heck it wanted to.

the main issue is that trade strategies aren't even CLOSE to describing what actually happens.

Ok, now I have to believe Andy. Look at this for improved profit I hope this continues every month, what do you reckon the chances are?

WOW

Unlikely, that appears to be a temporary spike in Profit Transfer brought on by a "double month" of production sales in state corporations. It looks like your corps were selling on a one month delay, and are now selling on a zero month delay.

Wow......I wish they would jump up like that.......and STAY.

Scarlet is right however on this point.

Anyway, I purchased another "infected" enterprise with my "clean" account.

https://sim02.simcountry.com/cgi-bin/cgi2nova?SN_ADDRESS=wwwCountry&SN_METHOD=w3graph&miTable=enthist&miKey=16339&miColumn=vEnterpriseMonthMaterials

Yet another sharp drop in raw materials cost.

Dunno scarlet, this is still unexplained.

But going back to my graph...(yes I did realise that, thanks for the comments) that does show what a change in trade strategies can do in terms of selling promptly. I will be monitoring further months of income and see if an increase in profit is permanent.

CC, didn't mean to be patronizing with my comment.....I see how that looks now.

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