Production Vs Purchasing

[Nevyn]

So there I was all happy having researched my nice new fancy armour...., and I set some production going, alien technology and all....

Then I go to the equipment purchase screen...

And I notice that to buy the armour from someone else costs 1/10th of the cost of producing it....

I mean, I'm the guy that made the research, and someone else is producing it for way way less cost, why do I even have a workshop and pay my technichians.  I want to be able to make money selling working advanced technology!

Which does bring me to a side point, as the game goes on, it's likely the nations will get grumpier a lot of the time and give you less money.... but.... your developing all this cool tech, and the back history does have you working as a tech institute developing weapons for people, so why do you not get any patent rights or anything for these developments, it makes sense that you pass them on since everyone is fighting, but a small margin of cash should probably come back to you from that.  Something to make the months a little less slim when you happen to loose that interceptor or so on.

[Reenen]

I think it makes sense that someone else can develop it cheaper, but they must only be able to make alien tech stuff once you've sold the research to them.

This should be a high income venture. (50x as much as one alien gun/item) Your main reason for "producing" it on your own should be the speed on the initial ones.

Let's say after you've sold the tech, you can only buy it from "other developers" after about 2 months.  Which makes it sensible to produce one or two, but after that buy it elsewhere.

[pete.lindsey@hotmail.com]

I admit, I found the sticker shock a little bit much at first, however I think the open market is where things should be aquired... I hate when I have to produce things just because I couldn't find any to buy.

I see the role of production for more of the "campaign items" of course there aren't any of those yet but... hint hint, might be a good idea

[Irinami]

A delay while national industries and private firms "gear up" to produce the new technology is cool, and the production costs are a simple illustration of economies-of-scale. Your lab can't crank it out the way FN-Herstal can. Just ask the local blacksmith. Oh, wait, most places don't have them, some "Industrial Revolution" thing.

[Kzwix]

I second that delay thing. I guess you should be able to produce and make a profit at first, and lose your "monopoly" over these products in a few month's time (still being able to sell at a decent rate while they just start producing in large serials), and then be totally out when your nice products start being sold by boxes of ten, at half the price of one unit

[papabob]

I don't think it is going to happen without changing the storyline. If you read the reports of already researched technology (like the nanocomposite armor) you'll see that phalanx has the only workshop in the world which can imitate alien's technology, just because is in our labs where it had been developed (and never meant to be mass-produced). We have the best engineer, the state-of-the-art machinery and, more important, tons and tons of military funds to throw away in every research.

I think this issue is simply a bug with the price of developed items. I really liked the old system in xcom when you was short of money and had to decide if you continue to produce your new weapons or switch temporaly to a more profitable items to sell (which, for whatever reason, always was the plasma/laser rifle )

It allows more degrees of freedom to the user, who can decide if he follow the path of "more money, more bases, more soldiers, more, more more" or the oposite of "get everything researched soon and pay the bills later"

[hardyvoje]

I agree that prices should be similar, or, producing prices should be lower, cause in production costs you have a lot of fixed costs and wages, so, developers, please correct it!

ps. this is my first post on this forum and I have to say that GAME IS EXCELLENT - the BEST OS remake ever made on some game. You people made next step that original developers couldn't acomplish. GREAT!

[Czert]

When you build any of  item, they will be ALWAYS cheaper than you buy them.  Why ? Reason is simple - when you producing item you pay only materials cost , reseach and worker payes are payed in another sections.
Simple - if you build anything by yourself, you pay only material and this is all (you are not paying workers pays/expedicion etc.. in buyed parts/items).
e.q if you want to buy a plane - you can buy it ready-to-fly condicion for e.q. 60 000 euros, but if you buy the same plane ready-to-assembly (with assembled certain parts), you pay e.q. only 35 000 euros.  25 000 euros go for pays for assembly technicks/workers (and engine in certain cases).

[hardyvoje]

yes, but in RC6 it is cheaper 10 times to buy item then to produce same.

[Dirk Vormann]

My job is developing complex technical items. Our workshop produces early samples which are fully functional. Items which can be sold for EUR 5 once mass-production-facilities are up and running easily cost EUR 5000 or more if you only build two rather than two million.

Building the tools needed to manufacture items cheaply takes time and is very expensive. After the high investment and some time you can produce at low cost.
Without the tools mentioned above you cannot produce quickly, need qualified workers, and the willingness to spend money.

Assuming mass production is not done in bases the factor 10 between manufacturing and buying needs to be even higher. Some time after items are available on the free market (i.e. mass production by someone else starts) prices ought to drop rapidly.

For a 'realistic' system an item needs three prices:

1) Cost when manufacturing small amounts in base. (very high)
2) Cost when becoming available on the free market, i.e. someone else starts producing with proper facilities but is not yet at full capacity. This may happen about two month after research is complete.
3) Cost with full scale mass production, factories are at full capacity. Perhaps 1/5 of 2).

[Czert]

Dear Dirk, you have right, but only if you build from begining (you developing prototype or something similiar), but if you producing aleady mass produced item, then you can (at certain situation) produce cheper. You can look at today word - licencing of technologies (cars, weapons, planes...etc),you can build/develop  it at any place in the word, but Chinese will be always cheapest.
Simmiliar is to producing of weapons ande others items in ufo, you produce developed items under licence (hmm, mayby it will need add licence buy cost -one time - to game to be able to produce desired item).
Yours 1-3 can be count for "home" based items e.q new types of weapons.
And first masive cost to start up production is in building/buin of workshop. If you have CNC it is only mater of time and paying of few workers (new programs) to shift from one type of item to new item type.

[Monteaup]

Don't like the high production costs as well.  There is no motivation to use the workers.

I have to pay the workers, for the facilities and the running costs plus the price for production (shoude be the resources and nothing more)  which is 10x higher then on the market?!

If you produce 2 items/month and pay for the production 1/10th of the market price.  Even then the price is at all higher then on the market.  And thats ok... The Player has to decide how many workers/facilities he needs.

I hope its a bug not a feature

[Zenerka]

The production cost is a bit lowered in 2.1, but beware - one gains less credits as well, because newly gathered stuff is not going to be autosell right now, but collected for research purpose. All that will be available in upcoming 2.1 release.

[Baron Crass]

I would imagine they made it cheaper to purchase, rather than produce, to eliminate the ability from Xcom to consistently beef up yout bank account by producing any type of the laser weapons, and selling them for around a 2 to 1 profit margin.

however, things are SO expensive to produce now, I question why I even have Engineers, or Workshops on my bases.

[murx]

Agreed massproduction is cheaper - but then a)not everything is massproduced (esp. high precision and/or quality products are handassembled) and b)mass products often have a lower quality (quality control has its limits).

So to give players incentive, or even the need to produce some equipment items could have both:

A quality value - for instance giving a bonus/malus on malfunction/aiming etc from +10% to -10%
Yes, this should even (or especially?) include ammunition!

A complexity value - from 1 - 20; the less complex an item is the cheaper will massproduction/free market be.
Nations could have 'complexity' too for example a good standing with industrialized nations (high complex value) would allow for cheaper aquiration of complex items.
Also some items could be so complex that only the player can produce them (either by some global maximal comlexity the free market can achieve or for instance, if the 'highest complexity' nation gets subervsed by aliens the free market only will offer products up to the second highest nation.

At last complexity could also be used as part of a function to determine the production time in the players facilities needed and also the amount of those items on the free market.