Any player utilities?

I am not too sure about what type of "utilities" you mean. If you mean some sort of scripts (which is consistent with calculating supply...), then...

According to en.industrie-tycoon.de/rules.html

§7 All interactions within the game have to be done by the player as human. External tools or scripts acting in the game are forbidden. Concerned accounts will be deleted

If you mean spreadsheet, databases... those kind of supplements which don't interact with the game, I am sure quite a number of players have them (including me). I am not going to share mine because not even I can use them efficiently (ie. I set up useless spreadsheets ).

As for german thread, the only one I could think of is about joining our chat channel while you have certain anti-virus. If you have problem with that, let us know and someone would find you the link. As for other things... if they don't show up in the manual or the faq, they aren't important . If you have read Q19 of the faq and a recent post under the "researching ql" thread here, you know as much about the pricing policy as you would. Regarding the "irregularities", again I am not sure what you mean .

John, I am so glad to see someone other than myself asking questions here - sometimes I wonder if I'm the only English-speaking newbie on the game. lol

I think John is probably talking about the sort that gleans and records information from the game (which I believe would be legal), rather than something that would perform actions on the game (such as automatic purchasing which is obviously illegal). If my spreadsheet program had that capability, you can bet I'd want to write some - assuming I'm right and that sort of thing IS considered legal.

It would be very useful for things such as recognizing patterns in price changes in the market. For instance, not all seasonal products are as obvious as summer and winter clothing to those who've never ventured into those lines. Being able to recognize those would help to determine the best time to sell materials required for them. If I know that milk sells better in the summer and meat sells better in the winter, then I might decide to switch what my cattle farms are producing accordingly, in order to profit best from selling the various materials on the market. (I have no idea whether those are actually seasonal or not - just pulling a couple out of the air for purposes of example.) I'm sure there are other ways (and better ones, I'm sure) in which such a program would be useful, but I haven't syphoned quite enough coffee into myself yet this morning to come up with any.

John, as dktc said, the info in the Researching QL thread might be helpful - some pricing irregularity is discussed there. I encourage you to ask here on the forum if it still leaves you wondering about some things. I'm learning a great deal that way myself. =)

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Originally posted by Kahla
John, I am so glad to see someone other than myself asking questions here - sometimes I wonder if I'm the only English-speaking newbie on the game. lol

Some ask in chat in-game.

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Originally posted by Kahla
For instance, not all seasonal products are as obvious as summer and winter clothing to those who've never ventured into those lines. Being able to recognize those would help to determine the best time to sell materials required for them. If I know that milk sells better in the summer and meat sells better in the winter...

The data for seasonal goods is listed in their shops. The "SSAW" indicate how many units would be sold in each season.

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Originally posted by Kahla
I encourage you to ask here on the forum if it still leaves you wondering about some things.

What she said.

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Originally posted by John Smythe

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. You don't need active scripting Many programs can read browser pages or - less elegantly - read them when saved. But even a basic calculator would be nice.

As I have said, quite a number of players have those, but not many are willing to share. It is also nearly impossible to predict the "ideal" selling price because demand use number of active player and the supply in sude is inventory rather than the actual quantity available for sell.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
Mostly it's rather too low and sometimes simply strange. This is altogether odd since one might expect it to remain too high as supply continues to rise throughout the round (caused by people "falling asleep" with old settings still in place).

Don't really understand your logic there. Why would people fall asleep with their old setting, especially when we have a building limit of 100 each? We have to move on unless you just want to sit tight with your money.

If, as you said, people have their old setting in place, then why would the supply drop?? More people would be making them, increasing the quantity available.
If supply rise, then why would the average selling price be high? The price should decrease with increased supply.

An explanation is that people do move on but while they produce high RL products, they could still sell low RL products in their shop. Players would buy from market/other players those low RL products to keep their shop worth up. Buying from market/others do not guarantee steady supply, so they would keep more inventory. Inventory increase => supply data increase. However, the price remains unchanged because the actual selling price do not depend on the sude data. The price drop is probably caused by new players joining the industry and selling the same goods.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
Ideal would be the sweet spot where you sell all the eggs you feasibly can at the best possible price, yes?

No. The ideal would be the sweet spot where you make the most money out of your eggs (which does not limit to only selling in shop). You may find not selling all in shop and sell some in market could result in a better profit in some cases.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
Two questions then

1) Is it generally agreed that "average selling price" is too low in the "newbie zone" of level 1-4 products?

2) Why are market prices almost universally so high? There seems hardly any concept of wholesaling at all. Is there much scope for buying products from the market for resale with a margin for yourself? In other words, retailing what you had bought wholesale. And if not, what's the purpose of the market?

1) The average selling price is not the max price you can sell for in most cases. The problem with what you call "newbie zone" is that a lot of newbies don't know the pricing formula. The average selling price would be 500 if everyone sell at it while they might have been able to sell at a higher price.

Supply >>> demand is a problem but as long as you are making money, then the price isn't "too" low. Decreaseing of prices also occur in high RL.

2) Good question. With you going over so much economics in the past few posts, I would just give you one concept: "Demad-pull inflation". I am not going into it because I am lazy . I would just add that one of the consequences in IT is "Cost-push inflation". In other words, the starting prices were a lot lower and you could make a nice margin. (don't ask me about inflation control... plz... I had my final exam on econ already... don't torture me )

On the other hand, I am not sure about the "wholesale" concept because when you compare the quantity people sell on market to the quantity you need / sell in shop, they are not that big of a difference (except those players who sell in thousands... that is just laziness).

Sorry for the long post

I've never taken an economics class, so some of what's been said went straight over my head. Demand-pull inflation and cost-push inflation? Whosy-whatsis? Don't worry, I won't ask for an explanation, dktc - save yourself the headache! My point is that what I'm about to post may be repeating some of it in different words, for all I know. Like you, John, this is my first round and I started it late. So I'm learning the ropes as well. I have no doubt things will look quite a bit different at the beginning of the next one.

Regarding the norm selling price, I don't think there is anything that I sell anywhere near that low, either in shop or market. That surprised me as well. The only exception is milk, which I don't normally sell at all; when I do have to get rid of some, I generally have to price at norm or below in order to move it on the market. As dktc pointed out, the SuDe can be misleading in regard to determining the best shop price - some of those items are also used in the production of other things, which skews the supply side. I read somewhere that the norm price is static - only the high and low prices change, which explains why sometimes the low price is higher than the listed norm.

I've seen posts saying that buying from the market is an important part of the game. But for any product or material that I could use, the prices have been far too high to make it worthwhile. I have to assume, as you do, that it's partly because we came in late. I also suspect that there are more reasonably priced items moving through the market too quickly for you and I to see them. My own batches often sell within minutes of landing on the market. I had three of them sell out yesterday in the time it took me to refresh a page. I kid you not.

Some people, of course, buy with the intention of reselling. Others have dumped buildings producing lower-level things in favor of high-profit items, and buy to to pad their shops in order to keep that shopping value high (dktc also pointed that one out the other day). I've also read that sometimes players use the market as temporary storage of a product, and they'll price it sky-high in order to keep it from selling, which explains a bit of the market oddity we sometimes see.

On a different note, take a look at cotton. The SuDe shows that supply = demand. From that, I would expect to get a decent price for it. But the price I get when I do manage to have extra is astoundingly high, considering how little it costs to produce. But products made from it sell for quite a lot. Couple that with the fact that farms don't produce a great deal of it even at top upgrade level, and I imagine that's why people are willing to pay that much more for it.

I think the 100 building limit, coupled with upgrade limits, gives the game an interesting dynamic. Personally, I didn't expect to reach that ceiling anywhere near as quickly as I did. Once we reach a certain stage, it becomes a real challenge to keep increasing our profits.

How others play the game affects our own game very strongly. I think that learning what to expect at various stages in the round will be an important key. It has to be somewhat predictable; people develop methods that work best for them and tend to stick to those until they discover a way to improve upon them.

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Originally posted by Kahla
I've never taken an economics class, so some of what's been said went straight over my head. Demand-pull inflation and cost-push inflation? Whosy-whatsis? Don't worry, I won't ask for an explanation, dktc - save yourself the headache!

No worries. I just don't want to be framed as "thinking someone know nothing" (see another thread somewhere in this forum ).

Inflation is the general rise in price. There are two types; Demand-pull and cost-push.

Demad-pull is cause by consumers wanting more than we can produce. In the case of IT, it is buyers in the market want more than that is available. They are willing to pay high prices for the stuff they want. Some of them are filthy rich as well. As we all know, we tend to price our goods higher than norm when selling to market. Thus, under the flexible priceing system, the min and max price would rise. The price has been bidded up.

Cost-push is that producers transfer higher costs to consumers (or just to get a higher profit). In the case of IT, because the price are bidded up (including raw goods), the cost of buying raw goods are also up. A good illustration would be cans. When the steel price is up, the cans price is likely to go up as well. (Granted, the cans price doesn't go up as much, but the quantity available decreased. A new cycle of demand-pull occur.)

In econ, inflation looks at GDP, which does not account for raw goods. So strictly speaking, what I said is not correct. However, the same concepts apply.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
One quick question. It seems that shop value must be based on the spread of products you can sell at your quality level, and not on the overall spread of what might be sold at all quality levels. I mention this because I have not been playing seriously yet....mainly just putting up plants to examine profitability and the like....and yet my shopping value in the grocery store reached 140 without my trying all that hard. I thought I read the maximum is 150...?

See the manual for this... but the % of goods sold is based on the max number of goods you could sell at that wu. So, yes, the RL you have at that time. Also note that research level and quality level are two seperate and completely different concepts.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
Any tendency for top players to form "quality cooperatives" for the purpose of spreading research on inputs? Or do they operate solo and rely on the market?

Difference players have different strategies. There are cooperatives of some sort, in the sense that only limited players have high ql (say 100) for some raw materials. Some players do self-supply (operate solo) while others use whatever raw goods they could get their hands on (be it ql 0) form the market.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
But one more quick question. I regenned my map until I had 40 resources and a fairly even mix between them. Looking at the issues of specialization, should I go more for one type, eg wood, or stick with flexibility? In other words, any hints from what you and the other experienced players do?

You would need to generate a new map next round. Experienced players often go for more of the (1, 2, or 3) types of raw materials they plan on using in the game. Some players even focus only on the raw goods they use at the beginning because they plan on buying from market later on. That being said, the market condition (or the predicted one) is also an important consideration for experienced players. Then, there is also ql to look at (which usually coincede with what they start with). It is quite a complex process if you have to analyse your map. Some of us just click and accept one that looks good . We do recommend new players to have a variety though, so they can change their mind about what they make.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
As I understand it, in a new round you keep your map and your patents only, that's it? (It says you keep quality so that must imply research levels also?)

It says in the manual you get to keep your map, but that has changed. You will need to regenerate your map after round reset.

As I have said, QL and RL are two seperate and completely different concepts. So, NO, you keep your QL and only QL. You don't get to keep your whole "patent". You start with 2,500,000 , RL 0, all QL researched (if any), default warehouses with nothing in them, a yet to be generated map, your company logo (if you have one), blank profile, and no building.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
Hmm. So if you have researched some levels of quality for product X which can only be manufactured at RL n (n>0), then that quality as such is kept for you, but you must in effect wait to "rediscover" it when your product research again reaches RL n?

Yes.

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Originally posted by John Smythe
If the above is the case, it might explain why there are almost no high quality items further on. They would be reached too late in the round for the quality to matter, yes?

That is one of the reasons. The main reason is that it is a lot more expensive to reseach ql for higher rl products (see manual for details). The building limit also plays a role because those players don't have the space to produce excess for you to see (ie. there are high quality items further, but you just don't know about because they aren't sold on market much).

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Originally posted by John Smythe
It means that when we all restart, even the current top players will be grubbing around at RL 0 until they get their act together.

They won't be there long. They have an unfair (or fair... depending on your own seniority ) advantage on ql. And frankly, most experienced player already have their plans drafted out for the next round, so the relatively new players are the ones that struggle to get their acts together .

dktc - thanks for explaining those terms. I thought they'd be way over my head anyway, but they weren't. lol

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We do recommend new players to have a variety though, so they can change their mind about what they make.

I'll second that. The shop I started out with seemed like a good idea at the time, but I soon realized that I could do better by ditching it and doing something else. I didn't know that until I'd experimented with some other products. Since we haven't played long enough to try many product lines, there's a lot of gaps in our knowledge. And that means there's a certain amount of guesswork when choosing what to make. Take the production limits, for instance. There's no way to see how many units of X a building will produce until we build one (unless we ask someone, of course). That's only one thing that could cause us to change our plans in midstream. So until we know more, I think it's better to keep our options open.

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If the above is the case, it might explain why there are almost no high quality items further on. They would be reached too late in the round for the quality to matter, yes?

Another thing is that the really REALLY high QL products limit you as far as buying and selling on the market. If I've researched milk all the way to QL 100 but very few others can use it to manufacture their goods, then I can use it in my own production lines, but I'll find it difficult to sell it to other players. And if I want to buy a material to manufacture my uber-high QL product, that could be anywhere from difficult to impossible.

The QL of a product is the average of the QLs of the materials used to make it. So if I research chocolate cake to QL 100, then I also need to research cocoa beans, milk, and wheat to QL 100. Or I'll have to buy those from someone else. Resarching QL is quite an investment of both time and cash, which is one reason why players would need to be selective in choosing which ones to raise.

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They won't be there long. They have an unfair (or fair... depending on your own seniority ) advantage on ql. And frankly, most experienced player already have their plans drafted out for the next round, so the relatively new players are the ones that struggle to get their acts together .

I don't consider it unfair, really. On the contrary, it means -I- get to keep some of the progress I've made each round, rather than losing it all every reset, and that's a very good thing! But then, I seem have toddled off into the ether when they were handing out the competitive gene. I couldn't care less how my score looks compared to others - my goal is to keep doing better than before. I'm much more into learning all the ins and outs of a game so I -can- do well, than in actually "winning" it.

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Originally posted by Kahla
I couldn't care less how my score looks compared to others - my goal is to keep doing better than before. I'm much more into learning all the ins and outs of a game so I -can- do well, than in actually "winning" it.

Let's just say I have acknowledged that I can't "win" in IT long ago. I personally don't like the stress associated with the competitive edge either. So, what you said .

For the prices, I guess you will see at the start of the next round. The norm for products sellable in shop would stay the same, with min and max in market = norm*(1 - or + .25) respectively. For the raw goods... I can't remember all of them. However, steel, copper wire, rubber... etc. would cost a lot less (and i do mean a lot). Production costs and other costs related to the buildings (salaries, maintenece) won't change.

You know, John, I think you could be right. I've only raised steel to QL 6 so far, but I just had a look on the portal, and there are quite a few products made from it. Well, there's still time before this round ends... lol

Regarding the prices, I read somewhere that harbor goods cost more at the beginning as well. It didn't say how much higher, but I got the impression that we can probably see a substantial increase there.

All 3 kinds of harbor goods are meant to cost 250 each at ql 0. I was told that by Maikel. However, the thing is after a round reset, the prices of all 3 would triple and have to be set back down manually. Often time, that is neglected. By the time someone (usually me) saw it and scream into the chat, our admins would be sleeping soundly (zZz) in bed (<--- not a good thing ). The place where you've read it is probably a thread in bugs.