Steel Producers...

[Guest]

OK, quiz: What's the cost of the Lambs if you make the water and corn yourself?
Answer: The same!
(...)
Steel uses Coal, Iron, and Minerals (which get turned into chemicals). Now if you do the math just like we did for Lambs, you'll see those products should never sell for more than about 13.40. Fortunately right now they don't. But about 2-3 weeks ago they did and if you were smart (like me ) you would make coal and sell it, then just buy the steel.

This should help.

[Guest]

That's why I gave you the NPC price for coal. I didn't say - well I produce power for 0.02caps so the price of coal would be this....

No, you said that - well I produce coal and iron for around 3 or 4 caps, so the price of steel would be this...

[Guest]

true true - I did say that.
I agree - no profit in Q0 quality steel!!

Good job I sell my for Q12 for 171caps!

[Guest]

Good we understood each other . And I also think that the money to be made in steel is by investing in its quality.

[Guest]

the steel quality hasnt been appreciated untill recently. 0.5 per q?? very small increase considering some industries can profit up to 3 and more per q of steel. and yes, steel is not as profitable as some products, i myself acknowledge that and offer 140+2.5q for steel of quality 1 or higher (just to assure someone doesnt buy steel from npc and send it to me)

[Guest]

Well, yes... IF you make resources yourself it is cheap... Its good at the beginning of the game when power is at 0.05, coal and iron at 3-5 each... i tried it myself... quite good... but only for 1-3 months until stones prices increase to 20...

[Guest]

Well, you see, Q0 Steel don't make a profit at all. We rather not produce them because they yield so little profits. While Q10+ sells fast.

Ummm, I disagree. I'll make and sell all the quality zero steel everybody wants!!!!!!! Soon, I will be selling everything I make at quality one and beat the NPC player's price.

I have my own supply chain for every raw material and my cost to manufacture is 23.62. I never have to buy anything from anybody. I am my own supplier.

Q0 makes a killer profit and it sells in seconds, not hours. I don't know where you get such an idea.

The only problem with steel is you can outgrow your supply chain capacity too fast. Your steel factory grows and then you need to expand everything else. I tried to cut a deal with another player to make him my redundant supply chain while I grow, but that approaches a partnership where contracts are passed back and forth to eachother under market value. I wanted to pay him in steel, not cash. The admins can call us "Cheaters" and delete our accounts, so it is better to make your supply chain be twice as big as what you can use. You won't run out as you grow.

I wrote a simple spreadsheet to keep me aware of where problems in my supply chain arise whenever I expand. Steel quality zero is the best market out there. The only thing I think could be more challenging is building cars with your own supply chain. Give me 6 months, and I'll let you know

[Guest]

OK, quiz: What's the cost of the Lambs if you make the water and corn yourself?
Answer: The same!
(...)
Steel uses Coal, Iron, and Minerals (which get turned into chemicals). Now if you do the math just like we did for Lambs, you'll see those products should never sell for more than about 13.40. Fortunately right now they don't. But about 2-3 weeks ago they did and if you were smart (like me ) you would make coal and sell it, then just buy the steel.

This should help.

This may help again

[Guest]

Well, you see, Q0 Steel don't make a profit at all. We rather not produce them because they yield so little profits. While Q10+ sells fast.

Ummm, I disagree. I'll make and sell all the quality zero steel everybody wants!!!!!!! Soon, I will be selling everything I make at quality one and beat the NPC player's price.

I have my own supply chain for every raw material and my cost to manufacture is 23.62. I never have to buy anything from anybody. I am my own supplier.

Q0 makes a killer profit and it sells in seconds, not hours. I don't know where you get such an idea.

The only problem with steel is you can outgrow your supply chain capacity too fast. Your steel factory grows and then you need to expand everything else. I tried to cut a deal with another player to make him my redundant supply chain while I grow, but that approaches a partnership where contracts are passed back and forth to eachother under market value. I wanted to pay him in steel, not cash. The admins can call us "Cheaters" and delete our accounts, so it is better to make your supply chain be twice as big as what you can use. You won't run out as you grow.

I wrote a simple spreadsheet to keep me aware of where problems in my supply chain arise whenever I expand. Steel quality zero is the best market out there. The only thing I think could be more challenging is building cars with your own supply chain. Give me 6 months, and I'll let you know

Don't be cheated by the cost in your warehouse, it doesn't mean you earn a lot. Consider if you use all your mine to dig stone and use all your factory to produce gas, how much more you can earn?

I mean no offence but here I will give you a brief outline of Make your own steel in making car.

Even you produce Motorbike (190 steel per pcs), you need 1000m2 mine to sustain 590m2 factory to keep the production speed of 60m2 red car factory.... In terms of earning per piece you may think it earns a lot. But in terms of ROI it sucks. With npc steel it earns you 3 times the ROI than make your own coal & iron ore

[Guest]

Don't be cheated by the cost in your warehouse, it doesn't mean you earn a lot. Consider if you use all your mine to dig stone and use all your factory to produce gas, how much more you can earn?

I mean no offence but here I will give you a brief outline of Make your own steel in making car.

Even you produce Motorbike (190 steel per pcs), you need 1000m2 mine to sustain 590m2 factory to keep the production speed of 60m2 red car factory.... In terms of earning per piece you may think it earns a lot. But in terms of ROI it sucks. With npc steel it earns you 3 times the ROI than make your own coal & iron ore

I agree, there are more profitable things to make than steel, but even so, the suggestion that quality zero steel doesn't sell and doesn't make any profit at all is absurd. You must agree with me that far.

Consider the cost of building with your own steel compared to buying steel for growth. Another advantage of making your own steel, wood and stones is the significant cost reduction to build or expand. It is not only useful for manufacturing. Soon, I will be strong enough to keep my facilities expanding 24 hours a day. I can make steel in one factory and expand the other factory at the same time. 24 hours later, I'll make steel in the bigger factory and expand the smaller factory, etc., back and forth like that.

How many stones do you need to sell to buy the steel to expand your stone mine? That's what I wonder how a cost study would compare the 2 strategies.

Once you supply yourself with enough raw materials for 24 hour/day expansion, you can grow any kind of facilities and attack any market you want. Intuitively, you need to sell 6 stones to buy one steel, or you could just make your own steel for the market price of one stone.

[Guest]

Okay, now I think I'm beginning to get it.

So let me ask you this: What is the target price for stone when it is no longer profitable to sell stones for buying NPC steel? There must be an equillibrium point that will awaken the steel industry.

Maybe I'll start selling as many stones as possible to get that price to drop.

My quick calculations say if you make stones for 1.00 and if you make steel for 23.62, then the price of stones need to drop under 2.01 before you would make steel instead of stones. Does this sound right? If so, I'm going to start dumping stones like crazy!

[Guest]

What he is trying to say is if you bought all the materials yourself then you would make no money meaning that the return on investment is terrible meaning if you spend 400 mio on making a steel production chain then you would take a long while to make it back.

No one was implying that steel q0 doesn't sell, they are implying that it is not a profitable industry. If you put steel on the market for under NPC price it will be bought no problem and you can save around 13 caps by selling via contract.

Basically, if you want to make money, stay away from steel q0

[Guest]

Everyone seems to agree that steel is not profitable if you buy materials from the market.

How about the 'do it all yourself' line of thought?

Warehouse Cost (Not market cost - which is what you should use)
Power=.01 (green power plants)
Water=.021 (.02 production plus 1/10 power)
Coal=.337 (production plus power,water)
Iron Ore=.517 (production plus power,water)
Minerals=.439 (ditto)
Chemicals=.0679 (production plus minerals, power)
Steel=9.5585 = 9.56 (factory in green production plus power,iron ore,coal)

This is the idealized scenario, with costs at absolute minimum. Let's say you sell by contract for NPC price of 135. Profit= 125.44 per steel

Let's compare to stones in do it yourself mode:

Power=.01
Water=.021
Stones=1.871 = 1.87

Let's say you sell stones by contract for 22. Profit= 20.13 per stone

BUT, for same sized buildings, you can make just over 7.4 stones in a mine for each steel in a factory. So you have to multiply the per stone profit by 7.4 to get profit in units of time (which is what we are really interested in - how quickly are we making money). Thus, in the time our factory makes 1 steel, our mine could make 7.4 stones and we find our mine profit in that time to be 20.13*7.4= 148.96.

Thus we find that even in do it yourself mode stones are more profitable, but not by all that much, 125 caps vs. 149 caps (per steel production time).

HOWEVER, I haven't covered the most important part that many people fail to account for and that is building slots!

For making steel and producing all your own materials, assuming same sized buildings and 100 building slots , you need 17 power plants, 3 Wells, 40 Mines, and 5 factories for chemicals. That leaves only 35 slots left for factories to produce steel.

Thus, you multiple your steel profit by 35 to find your actual total company profit per steel produciton time is 125.44*35= 4390.4

For stones, you only need 6 Power plants and 1 Well. This will support stone production in 93 mines of the same size.

So, you multiply your stone profit times 93 to get your total company profit in the same amount of time as the steel production time. Total company profit= 148.96*93 = 13853.28

So, per steel production time, your company will make 4290.4 caps producing steel or 13853.28 caps producing stones.

Thus, I conclude that if you subscribe to the do-it-yourself method, stones are about 3 times more profitable than steel given current market conditions.

The turnover point for stones vs. steel (assuming steel always sells at NPC price) is a stone price of 8 caps or so.

Thus, under nearly all circumstances, stones are a better option than steel.

[Guest]

Beautiful answer, smoldering. I'm going to have to read it 3 or 4 times to make sure I understand it fully, but I love your answer. Thank you.

If stones go under 8, then steel would be more profitable, right? I think that is what you are saying.

If every player reads this thread, everybody could flood the market with stones and this condition could happen.

[Guest]

HOWEVER, I haven't covered the most important part that many people fail to account for and that is building slots!

For making steel and producing all your own materials, assuming same sized buildings and 100 building slots , you need 17 power plants, 3 Wells, 40 Mines, and 5 factories for chemicals. That leaves only 35 slots left for factories to produce steel.

How long does it take to fully expand a factory to the point it will not allow any more square feet? I thought it takes 14 months of 24 hour/day construction to max out a factory's size. What is the advantage of having 17 small power plants v.s. having 2 big power plants that take turns expanding?

I don't pursue same sized buildings. I'd rather expand my building to exactly feed my growing factory. No more, no less.