Production for profit

[talon]

while most of us may know the x-com tactic of producing lots of lazer weapons for a vast profit= cheat

Is there anything in ufo Ai particually at the start and early stages that actually gives you a decent profit

I'd rather not have my engineers doing nothing, sitting around watching mythbusters

[BTAxis]

No, you can't produce anything and sell it for a profit.

[Edi]

while most of us may know the x-com tactic of producing lots of lazer weapons for a vast profit= cheat

Is there anything in ufo Ai particually at the start and early stages that actually gives you a decent profit

I'd rather not have my engineers doing nothing, sitting around watching mythbusters

What I did first thing was fire all of my workers despite having two workshops. That saves a bundle of money on the first end of month when you don't have to pay their salaries. I only hired workers after I had researched nanocomposite armor, which was two months later (was doing alien armor, then nanocomposites, with a few scientists stuck on continuous wave laser). If you research electromagnetic rifle first, you can set them building those, or if you go laser weapon route, DF cartridges before you have anything more useful to build.

Most reliable source of income is selling ufos to the highest bidder who has the lowest happiness score (since selling ufos increases that). If you play very hard campaign, you will have no shortage of ufos to sell, but you do need to keep an eye on what you spend money on and how much.

[WhiteFang]

And Why is producing for profit cheating? How else are to make money?
Sell off UFO stuff, yes, but why not stuff you make your self.
I think of it like the MIB they held a paten of velcro.
You are a global force that in almost completely independent.
Many armies of the world sell off surplus equipment to the public.
If it is put in that you can't make some kind of profit from selling surplus equipment
then I think there need to be something additional to help make money.
Like bonus money for civilians saved or aliens killed.
You have to keep some money some specially if countries are not happy with you.

[homunculus]

[...]You have to keep some money some specially if countries are not happy with you.

i guess that is why.
perhaps i should go tell my employer that i should be able to make some money on my own so that i would not care if he is happy with me.
lol.

[WhiteFang]

Homunculus good point. The way I was looking at it is that you are not really employed
because they gave you free rein on things. Where and how you build, buying/selling/making equipment, etc.
But if you look at it that you are employed then it would make sense you are restrictive on what you can do.
Then make me think that you can be fired too. So it all depends on how you look at it.

[homunculus]

[...]Then make me think that you can be fired too.[...]

afaik the player can be fired in any ufo games i have played (not sure about xcom:apoc, maybe that would be an exception).

anyway, i guess it should be difficult to compete with ordinary above-ground production plants unless phalanx had some high-tech monopoly.
there would need to be some explicit statement about this kind of monopoly in the story (i do not remember any).

[keybounce]

No, you can't produce anything and sell it for a profit.

Alright, what can you produce and sell for more than the cost of the materials, to cover the most of your fixed expenses?

Are the engineers you need to hire, and the workspaces you use, really so expensive that the items produced are just not wanted at that price by anyone? I mean, it's literally technology that's out of this world. No one on this planet has weapons like yours. Gotta be some would-be dictator elected president that wants it, right?

As the seller, you should be able to say "this is what I'll sell for". Maybe the purchase rate won't be very high at that price. I know the normal view is "An infinite number can be sold at this price", but maybe a more complex model would allow a few per month at a higher rate (kinda like how you can recruit a few soldiers per month, etc.).

[Edi]

The price system seems to be set so that whenever you sell something, you get 90% or 80% of the full cost of the item, but it always requires full cost of the item to make, so there is NOTHING you can produce for profit.

You should however be able to sell alien weapons that you capture on the battlefield and get enough out of those to cover expenses, since you don't expend any money to acquire them (aside from the missiles to bring the UFOs down).

[Brasher]

This is where the economics of the game are lacking in realism.  The market price for any of the items is going to be considerably higher than the cost to produce, so it makes absolutely no sense that you don't make any profit.  Especially with technology that your own R&D creates, you would patent it and set a hefty price for such advanced and in-demand itmes.  As far as "being employed", no, get a clue.  It's a mercenary group called Phalanx, not a fist full of Burger King employees.  Phalanx is funded by ALL world governments, and not very well considering the services they are providing... to the entire human race.  Do research on mercenary groups and private contractors employed by governments.  Hell, even pharmaceutical companies... you think the creators of Viagra who were (funded by god knows who & how many) don't reap the fruits of their labor?  Most everything is funded by some one, some group, some government, or all of the above, but are still able to benefit from what they are funded to do.  Being prior military myself, I have seen the government pay some outrageous prices for items and services that would run you or I a fraction of what they paid for; like a $600 socket set that could have been purchased right off base at Lowes for much less, or $130,000 to have a new sink put in the dorm bathroom by a Redneck and two illegal immigrants.  F-16s and B-2 stealth bombers fetch a hefty price, so does the latest and greatest weapons fresh on the market at preasent date.  Wtf is Phalanx selling this crap at stock prices for?  Is Phalanx offering their services as charity?  Yes, and they even feed the homeless on the weekends LMAO.  At least give us a tax write-off lol.

[Gantoris]

I don't really see PHALANX or XCOM as being mercenaries, there special forces funded by the UN not a group of guns for hire.

I do agree that you should earn a profit on what you produce but on the flip side i dont think its realistic that a government armed force would get its funding by producing and selling weapons so i see why the developers try to make that a non option. I realize armies of the world sell of there surplus equipment sometimes but its is certainly not there primary income. Some system of negotiating deals with governments to supply there armies with certain weapons could be nice but im not sure how it would be implemented.

[Edi]

Phalanx is primarily a combat operation, secondarily research and the manufacturing set is tertiary at best. In a real situation, they would not be running manufacturing operations themselves except in a supervisory role. This would leave any possible profit from sales to the outfit that actually does the manufacturing.

Don't believe me? Go take a look at a factory sometime. Doesn't matter what type it is, computer chips, cars, cable reels, weapons or whatever, retooling a production line is not a trivial undertaking. In order to generate profit, most manufacturing is done in bulk, where the production costs per unit are low.

If you have a highly customizable, easily retooled facility that you can configure to produce whatever, there is a downside: It's absolutely going to only be able to produce small unit volume, which is going to drive the manufacturing cost per unit through the roof, because the facility itself and the workers there represent significant fixed costs.

The Phalanx manufacturing facilities are precisely of this type.

[keybounce]

If you have a highly customizable, easily retooled facility that you can configure to produce whatever, there is a downside: It's absolutely going to only be able to produce small unit volume, which is going to drive the manufacturing cost per unit through the roof, because the facility itself and the workers there represent significant fixed costs.

The Phalanx manufacturing facilities are precisely of this type.

OK, fine. Very high costs.

Still, since we are the only supplier of these things, we can set the price. Might not get a buyer, but there's no reason to set the price low.

===
If we are unable to sell at a higher price, because someone else is making stuff and selling at that price, why can't we buy from them?

If we can't buy at that price, no one else can buy at that price. So, raise the price we sell at.

[H-Hour]

I can't speak for the devs, but I suspect this has to do with game design rather than "realism". They probably don't want it to be a build-the-greatest-manufacturing-base kind of game, as X-Com always ends up being.

This is probably something you could easily create a mod for if you wanted. I don't know how the whole market system works, but it looks like weapons have prices specified in the /ufos/weapons_*.ufo files.

[mattd1812]

Is the cost of producing something different than the cost of buying and the cost of selling something?  I understand that somethings you just can't buy.  But what is the benefit of producing something that you can buy.  I my mind the cost to make something yourself should be lower than just buying it and the price that you sell it at should be at or above the cost that you produce it at.  From a game play perspective I don't see the harm of being able to supplement your income by producing goods, but not to the point where it is your main source of income.  You could use something along the supply and demand idea where the more you sell of something the lower the price goes.