Last round I sold dolls at ql 59, but this round I bought a bunch of dolls so the ql of my dolls in the product warehouse is only 2. In my shop is show 645 dolls at ql 2. In the product page is shows ql 2 in the warehouse, but it still shows ql 59 in the shop portion of the product overview page.
-Dave
One-Stroke
Now that I'm doing well in IT people ask me, "how do you make money in IT?" Or they ask "how do I get started?" So, I'll answer both of those questions briefly with this quick start guide.
The surest way to turn a profit is to build a shop and a production line to support it.
There are lots of shops to chose from and they all have their strong points, even if it takes a while to find it in some of them 
I'll give the cafe example, because I like cafe. Build 1 cafe, 3 food industries, and 3 cattle ranches. Set your production for cacao, and ice cream. Check the production log to make sure you set it all right. Raise the prices in your shop to 1.5 * normal price, a little lower for ice cream because it's over-sold.
That example uses the better part of 2.5M and it makes a good amount of money for an initial set up.
After that, build more and sell more. Fill all 100 squares. If those 7 squares make 120K/ wu, then 100 squares of cafe should make about 1.6M/wu. Not bad, but not great.
Upgrade your buildings, try other products, go up the RL tree, and get some quality levels. All of these things will increase your income. (well, trying other products may or may not increase you income :P)
Good luck.
-Dave
One-Stroke (slow)
No-Knots (speed)
Sometimes I'll sell the oil and take a loss on it. I do this instead of shutting down production because I want the manufacturing points. You get points that are proportional to the normal price of the product you produce.
You might ask why I don't tear down the oil derricks and build something profitable. Well, in speed I'm selling oil for 600, and over producing it. I'm going to produce electronics and I will need lots of oil. So, it would be foolish for me to tear down my expensive oil rigs now.
-Dave
One-Stroke (slow)
No-Knots (speed)
IT does many things well. The game dynamics are obtuse enough to make it difficult to do well. There are markets that model supply and demand well. And there are several long term goals players can work for. I think these are all strengths for IT.
One thing IT doesn't do so well is applying an overall balance to the market. Some products are continuously overproduced (Icebox, tools, fridge, cars) while many other products are seldom produced (handbags, fruit tart, baby nappies). There have been some changes to try to rectify this (lower sales rates in car shop, higher fruit tart prices) but I think these methods are not quite enough.
I propose at each reset that IT determine which product was most oversold last round, and which one sold the poorest. Then increase the normal price of the loser product by 10% and decrease the normal price of the winner product by 10%.
This is a slow enough rate of change that it will not greatly change the dynamics of the game, but it will apply some supply and demand forces to the game. It will also lead to a greater diversity of production and a more dynamic game.
-Dave
One-Stroke (slow)
No-Knots (speed)
PS. I'd measure the minimum sale rate by first finding the max % achieved for each product on the Sude chart. Then I'd increase the prices of all products that registered 0%, or pick the one product with the lowest percent.
Nice job, as always dok.
I really like the links how they're set up in the production log page. If you click on the boxes you go to the market and if you click on the name you go to the product overview page. I think the same setup would work better in the store pages.
-Dave
One-Stroke (slow)
No-Knots (speed)
update to previous post:
I can now buy ql 57 cocoa beans.
-Dave
One-Stroke
I just noticed the prices at the harbor are much higher this round. Is that a bug, or is that how it's supposed to be?
I've never seen those prices change, so I built all my cafe buildings before I went to the harbor. Now, I'm wondering if I made a mistake. 
-Dave
One-Stroke
I'm going for high score again this next round and it would be quite handy for me to buy some finished goods early in the round. I'm looking for marbles, wooden locomotives, coffee, white coffee, tea, wool, winter clothes, and fabrics. In a pinch I'll also buy wooden furniture and picture frames.
So, if you have a few extra finished goods just put them on the market or send me a pm and arrange for me to buy them. That way you'll get the extra cash quickly even if you don't have enough cash to build that next store just at that time. Oh, I'll buy them for the max price that you would be able to sell them for in your own store.
-Dave
One-Stroke
So you want to make nice cacao or chocolate cake, but don't like the long research times. I offer you a short cut!
I can buy ql 36 beans from the market and sell them to you. Normally if you research chocolate cake up to 12, you can only make ql 3 cake. If you buy my beans you can start selling ql 12 cake right away without having to research milk, wheat, or cocoa beans. Just think of it, where you would normally have to research 48 quality levels to achieve that level of cake you can now achieve with only 12! This is a super fast way to boost your profits.
Logistically this is how it works. You post classified ads showing how much and what ql you would like. Then send me a PM so I know to look for them. I'll fill them right up for you - right up to ql 36, or any lower ql you specify. Just cut me a profit of about 100/ bean.
Here's the math:
Cake normal price - 6000
Max sale price in shop for ql 0 = 9000
Max sale price in shop for ql 3 = 9180
max sale price in shop for ql 12 = 9720
ql 0 bean price = 245
ql 36 bean price = 333.2
Your ad price 433 for ql 36
Cost of ad = 32 per bean - so your total bean cost is 465
So, it cost you an extra 220 per bean (465-245)
but you make an extra 540 per cake!
So, you get a net improvement to your bottom line of 320 per cake.
BTW, this bonus is not just available for low ql cake, the 9 ql bonus works anytime you replace ql 0 beans with my ql 36 beans provided your cake ql is higher than the ql of the ingredients. So it you research ql 48 cake and buy my ql 36 beans instead of your own ql 0 beans, you'll still get the 9 ql bonus and the same net bonus of 320 per cake.
-Dave
One-Stroke
I have steel in my raw goods warehouse and my product warehouse.
In the product overview page, it shows that I have room for 8571 steel, even though my warehouse can only hold 2400.
-Dave
One-Stroke
I notice that too, Phantoman. I thought it would be nice to have that feature, but not critical.
BTW, that picture you have of the drumming fingers is driving me mad. I have to hold my hand over it so I can read your posts. 
-Dave
One-Stroke
On the new product overview page, under the "Raw-goods warehouse" heading, the link to create a new classified ad doesn't work.
I see that the link under "Production / Raw goods warehouse" works just fine.
-Dave
One-Stroke
Dok,
Please put the sales history at the bottom of the product detail page. I often have a very long history of trading and it is tedious to scroll down through all of it.
-Dave
One-Stroke
I like the grayed icon and the bright icon. I think the bright icon should be shown whenever there are ads for that product, and the gray one should be shown when there are not. In that way it would act just like the boxes that represent items on the market.
I think the icons should act the same way wherever they appear.
-Dave
dok wrote:
" You must have the products in the warehouse.
Only then the icon are not grayed-out."
Dok, let me get this straight. If I have crocodile handbags in the warehouse, then the icon will tell me if there are any ads on the market for crocodile handbags. If I don't have any in the warehouse, then the icon is gray.
If that's the case, I suggest that it would be much more useful to know whether there are any products on the market regardless of what I have in the warehouse. See, if I don't have any in the warehouse, I'll want to have some ads posted. Of course if I already have some ads posted, then I don't need to post more. The colored icon should tell me if I (or someone else) has an ad posted.
It's far more convenient to have the link to the posted ads. It's only one extra click to post the new ad if I go to the existing ads first. And on the way to posting I'll find out what ads there are currently. This is a very small price to pay for the extra information included on the production log page, and the convenience of seeing the current ads before posting a new one.
I suppose this post would go better under "feature request and new ideas" but I started it in "bugs" so I'll just finish it here.
-Dave
One-Stroke
I concur. It would be better on the top.
Hmm.. that's what my wife says.
-Dave
I've had it happen several times where there are ads posted, but the Production log shows the grayed-out newspaper. It's happening right now for me with crocodile handbags. It happened earlier with car stereo.
I went ahead and cleared my private data, but that didn't solve the problem.
-Dave
One-Stroke
After doing some purchasing from the market this morning, I thought of another line that would be handy in the product page. That's a line that shows how the product is doing in your shops. I think it would be best to combine the information from all the shops on one line. This makes setting prices easier on this page and gives an overview not seen elsewhere. So my two clothing shops have the following attributes.
[Blockierte Grafik: http://en.game.industrie-tycoon.de/gfx/design/kisteAN.gif]Summer clothing 59 2 59 22 0 3 (64,500) 555 14 (lvl 10, sw = 150)
[Blockierte Grafik: http://en.game.industrie-tycoon.de/gfx/design/kisteAN.gif]Summer clothing 46 2 46 17 0 3 (64,500) 555 14 (lvl 5, sw = 150)
You could display them in one line like so:
Shops
[Blockierte Grafik: http://en.game.industrie-tycoon.de/gfx/design/kisteAN.gif] Summer clothing 105 4 105 39 0 (price box) 6 (129,000) 555 14
(set prices for all shops)
You could also add the line from the SuDe:
Summer clothing
Rl 1 | ØSelling price: 21,835 266.01%
Normal price: 14,048 100%
Own QL: 0 | ØQL: 22
[Blockierte Grafik: http://en.game.industrie-tycoo…74.75837196779&share=1.04]
Those additions show all the stuff people normally wish to know about a product. There are some more items that might be handy but I'll put them in a post script because I don't think they're as important.
-Dave
One-Stroke
PS.
The following additions would also be handy.
A link to the buildings page that shows buildings currently producing the product.
A link to the buildings page the shows buildings that could produce this product.
A line that shows whether this product is in news from abroad.
A line that shows whether there is a forward transaction that this player could fill with this product.
These might look like so:
| Factories Producing This Product | Textile Factories |
News from abroad
There is nothing special for this product at this moment.
Current forward transactions
no offers
PPS. This message board is frustrating. I compose a pretty post with pictures and a certain layout, then when I post it It looks completely different. Oh! wysiwyg why have you forsaken me?
