Fine tuning companies (Kebir Blue)

Instead of waiting (for few corps to turn profit) one might consider constantly building up even at the cost of getting loans and paying interest.

Interest on loans is relatively low when compared to profit created by corps.

Bidding on corps as addition to setting up new corps can be quite profitable because:

a) its possible to find corp with lower Market Value than their Cash Available Now, which is self explanatory

b) of 30 Quality and 30 Effectivity upgrades added to a corp upon successful bid, which speeds up upgrading process, thus turning profit by almost 25%

Obviously, more corps CEO has the higher earning potential, the more diverse (thus safer against market fluctuations) portfolio, the more options and power in general.

The most useful booster for serious starting CEO is the one which allows to build 3 corps per game month, allowing for fast expansion.

The reason some CEOs use gold coins to buy game cash is either to loan the cash, which is not all that profitable, or to use the cash to buy (either to supply own corp or play the market in some way) commodities and services, and store (for free) weapons and ammunition. Not sure what the rule is now, but certain level of Net Cash was required for CEO to be allowed to buy stuff from market, hence the need for game cash from gold coins.

Damn. Just wrote essay, then pressed wrong button. Generally,
-how to use boosters for companies
-things I can try to get a corp profitable, hiring and production up and stock management.

Sorry, more detail when I'm not aslepp..

Dex.

Sorry about the gobble-di-gook. I won't post tired again.

I'd like to discuss boosters. They seem to simply speed up the normal upgrade process, but not offer anything beyond aiding impatience. Given that they extend membership, is it more value to buy them than it is to pay the next 30 GC? I have noticed chatter that suggests all new corps should be SuperBoosted straight away.

On corp profitability, where should salaries be set? Is a simple trade off? Reduce salary cost until you don't have enough workers (ie: less than 100%), then raise it a bit. I'll look at the countries' corps and see what everyone else is paying and match it.

Dex.

Hiring?

Worker numbers are dropping but I checked the country the corp is in and unemployment is at 28%. I set hiring to 100 (when do you have it otherwise?) and am raising salaries to 500 (310 and climbing) to try to poach from or at least be level with other corps. Am I missing something?

Dex.

I kept havimg problems with my Corps in they would cut production due to inability to hire staff. When I raised salary level, the corp profitws would decline (or go negative). I happened to find the table at the bottom of the "change professions" screen (in the labor icon). The table show unemployed and employed by profession, as well as nedded staff (by profession) to get to 100% production. I think this is working as my unemploymnet rate has dropped and production percentages are increasing. In my case it appears I'd run short on Mid level workers ( in all my industries). My education and health levels were ok so I moved a bunch of nurses, doctors, teachers, so that the available workers were split into their three catagories in the same proportion as the employed workers.

Thanks DexterK for the idea that "some left" is good. Whenever I saw some left I changed the marketing price down--I'm definitely going to try your plan.

By the way swapping staff between countries might be more preferable than changing professions as it builds up the "migration index", though I have no idea how the migration index helps. If anyone wants to try swapping staff, message me at Mullin.

I ran into a problem again in that unemployment was staying high (in my one slave country) even though I's tried all the fixes discussed above. Fianally I noticed that my salary for government employees was being set auto and was very high, I'm hoping that that setting this down to a level matching corp salaries

Someone suggested government salaries should be left on auto. I have no idea why. My problems were with a company in someone else's country, but it seems to be fixed now. The fact that I don't know why it's better, makes it difficult to know how to fix it in the future. Just wait for problems to fix themselves.

I've been playing since Jan 2009 and through trial & much error I have found:

Best strategy is to set country tax rate to 0%, use GC to build up pop, and invite CEO's to build corps in your 0% tax country. Your country actually make money from CEO corps at 0% tax rate!

If you build state corps, keep profit transfer below 60% until they go public, then bump up to 80%.

Just stick with one country until you need to add countries. Makes it easier to level up and get more GC for free!

I set my govt salaries to 150. Sometimes the gov-sims complain that their salaries are too low - too bad! (Don't you wish the real world would work that way!)

Build schools & transportation infrastructure above 100. It seems to influence the corps production.

Join a CM and offer and accept goods & services. This will increase your business index. Just joining a CM won't do anything. On KB, the Great Justice CM is always looking for new & active players!

I have a destroyer torpedo corp that's lost a consistent .91B for the last four months, supply is greater than demand for the industry, yet when i try to close the corp i get a message that "there's no economic justification for closing.." Is this a "bug? When you close a company How does SimC price the supply inventory, product inventory, other assets.

In one of my countries I have set hiring to %100 but left production on auto (I read it somewhere as a strategy). Only 2 out of about 12 are at or above 100. The rest range between 50 and 80. What drives the production rate? How can I push the number up without forcing it by just setting it.

Dex.

Cooper I would suggest emailing the GM about that message. I have never seen that and have closed many of corps in my days - I had some troubles figuring out which are best at first.

ATG

Hi Dex,


Are you short of workers in that country? That would explain the lack of full production.

I have a country on LU with a private corp that never operates at 100%, regardless of my worker situation. And there were several prior to that, but they have since closed due to debts.

So it may be a bug if you have available workers.

I can only assume that it's employment that drives production, together with government salaries. You want them to be lower than in any state corps you have, but not by much.


Kiteless

Cooper/Alexander,

I have seen that in a country I took from an inactive. It has only come up when there was massive unemployment and debt.

Dexter/kiteless
Set production on manual. I am not aware of any reason to set it less than 100%. Any auto move is automatically a bad one.

To answer the question I would guess the market and product in stock effect the production. adjusting trade strategies might help. But since there is no reason to produce less than 100% I wouldn't bother trying to figure it. Keep in mind that the gamemaster might not notice massive flaws in automatic systems never used by players.

Worker shortage can't explain it because Dexter set hiring to 100%.

Not sure where you saw that as a strategy.

Low supplies and shortages.

I keep getting shortages, particularly in FMUs. As I check the orders with the intent to Replace Order With Immediate Delivery, I have noticed sometimes the order hasn't even been placed. Not always, but sometimes. Could I have changed a setting without noticing? Also, is there a page where I can set when the orders are placed? I know I have asked this already, but I was thinking I could set the auto-order for, say 5 months left, then I know I can set my purchasing strategy at -10% and raise it at 3-4% meaning I get above the 100 mark with 2 months left before I run out and it becomes a problem.

Dex.

I go to 'Trade'- 'Pending Deliveries'- 'Products in Stock: Order Strategies'.

Now is there something on this page that can help with my shortage problem? It appears to only cover country needs, not corporation purchasing strategy.

Dex.

Is the 'decrease price by' amount related to the final price set (quality plus trail quality by X) or the x amount only.
For example: 200 quality, trail by 30%, less 10% per month product is unsold. Does that mean the product is sold for 230% of base price, and every month it's left unsold, the price drops by 10% as in 220%, 210%, 200% etc, or 10% of the total price as in 23% off? 230%, 207%, 184% and so on? This has a huge effect on the bulk settings for companies.

Dex.

HELP!!! Last night nearly all my companies showed 'too high' in the products left line. I changed the bulk setting to follow quality plus 30 and reduce by 10. This morning I have still got all 'too high' and my production and hiring has been set to auto and plummeted. I've set the bulk setting to best now and the purchase to -5 plus 5. Is this all because when you change a setting, it starts again of the product offering cycle? So when I had all this stuff left over and reducing in price, resetting the strategy started to pricing again. ie: back to quality plus 30.

Dex.

Don't set production and hiring to auto, and wait longer than overnight to see if changes have the effect you want.

Dexter, there have been many reports of uncharacteristic trading occuring from all quarters of the sim universe. These things do happen occasionally and have the hallmark of the GM dabling with things without testing or thinking through the consequences. The only solice that can be offered is that in my experience, things will settle down again.

Crafty.

Can you save a corp that has, since it founding, gradually generated a 40B debt? I have a few. There is a Silver, Fish and Home Equipment corp, with a Timber, Rail, Sulfur and Car corp on 30B and heading the same way.

Dex.

My conclusion is that corps such as Silver, Fish, Home Eq can be profitable--especially at level 4 or higher. I learned the hard way when my level slipped down to level 2 and my profits plummeted. It's also my understanding that if you close corps, your country or Enterprise will have it's debt increased by the debt of the corp. Thus, I'd suggest you sell a few GC's pay off the debt, and get the corps profitable. The reason to pay off the debt is that if you have debt over $10B, the GM's will cut the salaries of the corp, you won't be able to keep workers, and you'll find yourself limping along in a perpetually losing situation. I'd like to hear alternate view's--Someone else might have a better method!

I didn't realise your game level effected your performance. How far does this reach and is there some sort of outline? I simply hit level 3, collected my GC, then let it go again. I agree that simply reducing debt is the most obvious place to start. You're going nowhere if you can't get production up. The maths doesn't seem to correlate within the corp. Simply production * sale price - the sum of the various expenses and purchase price of the contributing commodities should leave you your profit, but there is a sense that the game adds a few things in the name of 'game balance'. There is some gaps in the reporting pages. I'd like to know what price I got for products sold, and the price I paid for the products bought, so I could measure the effectiveness of my trade strategies, and more easily see the cost of immediate purchases or sales.

Probably the wrong thread for that rant. Sorry.