Power plant and Steel in the same city

[snoopy55]

(forum error )

[snoopy55]

OK, my error. Along the correct lines, just a different route.

What it must have been was someone setting up a map with an Industry or Annex that took in one Good and made two different Goods from it. The game does the first one and ignores the second. Someone stated that it would sllloooooowwwwwwwllllllyyyyyyy produce the second, but it took the same amount of time to produce the second load of the second Good as it did to produce the first load of the second Good.(read that a couple of times and it will make sense)

I tested it both ways, first with two Industries using the same Good (Steel Mill and Chemical Plant, which I edited to use Coal) then I removed the Chemical Plant and started the Steel Mill producing Medicine from the Coal, the Medicine production above the Steel. Got all Medicine and no Steel (the employees were making their money selling drugs that were being snuck in under the Coal......... )

So, you can have two Industries using the same Good and get production from both, but you cannot have one Industry using one Good and producing more than one product.

It still may be possible that it depends on the Industries and the Good flowing in. Remember, in Side to Side GLOBAL you could make Steel and send it to make Automobiles and send the Automobiles back to where the Steel was made. But when it was made into a SAM, they would not be accepted where the Steel had been made. There have been other oddities with custom made maps also, standard, GLOBAL and SAM. When they made this game they never expected people like us do do what we have done with it.

[darthdroid]

Interesting, it is indeed a bit of a twitchy game.

Does anyone have any idea why the initial $13k difference would occur (which later decreased down to a difference of $9,000-powerplant was catching up) then at about 35 years suddenly climbed to about a $35,000k difference and growing each year. I had suggested differing depreciation schedules for the plants (I figure if the trains have depreciation, maybe the industries do too???) for the latter change, but the initial change (steel being $13k ahead consistently for about 30+ years) still baffles me. Maybe Red Knight know.

[Jancsika]

.......meanwhile that poor fellow “SierraElite”. would not know what the answer is to his simple question.
And that is no help!!
If we want to discuss technical nuances, let's do it in the technical nuances thread of this forum, and try to help people with real problems with simple clear answers.
Jancsika

[darthdroid]

.......meanwhile that poor fellow “SierraElite”. would not know what the answer is to his simple question.
And that is no help!!
If we want to discuss technical nuances, let's do it in the technical nuances thread of this forum, and try to help people with real problems with simple clear answers.
Jancsika

I think all this feedback addresses the original question-I would also argue that if we solve the mysteries I've presented (depreciation? initial revenue differences?) we may very well solve the riddle that Sierra has presented (note I'm optimistic there is an answer )

The question may be simple, but it appears the answer is not. The think tank going on is a good way to address the issue as nobody has presented a simple answer.

[snoopy55]

SierraElite talks about during one play of a map the two plants were running neck-to-neck. The next time he played it, they weren't. I guess the question to ask would be what else was happening on the rest of the map?

Production of Steel at one factory and power at one plant would most likely keep the stakes even. But if there is another Steel Mill running elsewhere, the price should be different. Am I correct on that? Then comes the question of whether he owned both of them, which also changes things. And finally, was the Steel being shipped out? That can also cause differences.

A final one that I have never looked into would be the need for Steel. Does this effect the price?

His question is a bit short, but it is a challenge to resolve the answer.

Rereading my post, another question comes up. Does the number of Power Plants effect the prices involved with them?

[Jancsika]

This all comes back to planning the gameplay. ( I don't want to use the word strategy, because that involves competition, especially the human kind. )
But let's say that you want to spend $500,000 on some improvement that will make you some income. You can buy one measly factory, or you can upgrade two city depots to terminals and haul Passengers and Mail between them and rake in all the money.
I remember when started playing this game, I did not realized the advantage of it, and always run out of money.
Jancsika

[darthdroid]

This all comes back to planning the gameplay. ( I don't want to use the word strategy, because that involves competition, especially the human kind. )
But let's say that you want to spend $500,000 on some improvement that will make you some income. You can buy one measly factory, or you can upgrade two city depots to terminals and haul Passengers and Mail between them and rake in all the money.
I remember when started playing this game, I did not realized the advantage of it, and always run out of money.
Jancsika

Of course you know I have to jump into this line of thought...

There are other factors you should address. It's not all about the money today as I always say. Money tomorrow is much more important. So other issues matter, like how much coal is near the city we can build our steel plant in? It could easily be enough to outweigh most station upgrades. It depends on the layout of both options. Is the passenger route a "short city"? If so that would likely need to be done first. Is there a threat to the city that would want a steel mill? If it's threatened (another player approaching, and/or other goods nearby and thus possible that they create the wrong industry there, etc.) that should be factored in.

You are correct about the value of station upgrades. On the initial route in most games, the first thing I do is upgrade BOTH depots to terminals - on tycoon, usually you have enough to upgrade the start depot (that part may confuse you) to a station and the destination depot to a terminal (I want to get paid in full-top dollar-for that first shipment). Then that first shipment allows the $ to upgrade the start station to a terminal. I now have my money engine (no pun) to keep moving and building.

But again, the point is, there really isn't a hard and fast rule here. Way too many variables in the game to say "x should be done before y" unless a specific example is given and those variables accounted for.

[darthdroid]

SierraElite talks about during one play of a map the two plants were running neck-to-neck. The next time he played it, they weren't. I guess the question to ask would be what else was happening on the rest of the map?

Production of Steel at one factory and power at one plant would most likely keep the stakes even. But if there is another Steel Mill running elsewhere, the price should be different. Am I correct on that? Then comes the question of whether he owned both of them, which also changes things. And finally, was the Steel being shipped out? That can also cause differences.

A final one that I have never looked into would be the need for Steel. Does this effect the price?

His question is a bit short, but it is a challenge to resolve the answer.

Rereading my post, another question comes up. Does the number of Power Plants effect the prices involved with them?

I have a question. You talk about the steel mill making more money when steel is shipped out. Is that true? I know it affects the base value of that industry but I didn't think it affected the revenue stream itself. I think it is true, but help me out: When the steel lands at the bomb/car factory the steel mill gets the money for that drop off, yes? This would certainly affect the tests I was running and hadn't given it much thought. Perhaps that is our 13k I was asking about. The computer started shipping my steel and I was getting annoyed so I bought and liquidated the computer. That would explain the initial 13k and why it stopped for so long. I don't think I was shipping steel after that. But clearly I need to re-run the test and control the test better. I'll report on it later today. I would also point out that ultimately, what we're talking about here indicates (assuming the same amount of coal goes into both the steel and bomb/car factory) the steel mill will make a lot more than the end factory (cars/bombs). I always suspected and played based on that assumption, but never stopped to ask why that was.

Interesting thread, thanks Sierra

[darthdroid]

SierraElite talks about during one play of a map the two plants were running neck-to-neck. The next time he played it, they weren't. I guess the question to ask would be what else was happening on the rest of the map?

Production of Steel at one factory and power at one plant would most likely keep the stakes even. But if there is another Steel Mill running elsewhere, the price should be different. Am I correct on that? Then comes the question of whether he owned both of them, which also changes things. And finally, was the Steel being shipped out? That can also cause differences.

A final one that I have never looked into would be the need for Steel. Does this effect the price?

His question is a bit short, but it is a challenge to resolve the answer.

Rereading my post, another question comes up. Does the number of Power Plants effect the prices involved with them?

The demand (need) for steel definitely affects its price. I don't know that another steel mill on the map would make a difference-can you expand on that snoopy? I am wondering if Sierra had the same issue I suspect I had: The first time around, he perhaps had nowhere to ship his steel to and it just piled up which kept the industries even. The 2nd time around he got lucky and had a factory to ship the steel to. Maybe he just didn't realize he'd done something different in the 2 examples he gave. I forgot to take note of it, maybe he did as well.

[Jancsika]

Of course you know I have to jump into this line of thought...

I would have been deeply disappointed if you did not..........
Jancsika

[darthdroid]

Okay, I was wrong about what I was saying: You get paid only at drop offs of the demanded good. So the steel mill only gets paid for coal that is given to it. It does not get paid when steel ships out or when steel lands elsewhere. It never gets paid for steel itself as an intermediate good. So my 13k is still unaccounted for....
And the automobile factory only gets paid for steel that is dropped off (again, the demanded good), it doesn't get a dime for cars that are shipped or sold (dropped off).

Sorry for entering in false info before.

[snoopy55]

OK, the question is, does the game behave like the real world?

Example- I create a brand new Good. Everybody wants it and only I produce it. Let's say I get $1000 per unit. Jancsika comes along and starts producing the same Good. Now there is twice as much on the market, so the price will drop due to availability. You come along and start producing the same Good, which brings it to 3 times as much on the market, so the price drops even more due to availability.

This happens in the real world because of multiple reasons, production speed, shipping speed, number of companies and so on.

So, is this part of the game? If I have one Steel Mill, what is the price the Auto Industry pays me for the Steel? If I add 3 more Steel Mills, what is the price I'm paid for that Steel? All that I have noticed is that when 8 cars of a Good unload, the price goes down as the cars unload. How far would it drop if I had 3 trains going in to one city and all three unloading at the same time or one right after the other?

Has anyone looked into this in the last three years?

Did 2K think of it and put it in?

Will I win the lottery tomorrow?

[darthdroid]

I tried putting both in a city and at first it seemed that every load was making the same money between them, but I tried it just now and it doesn't seem to. Has anyone else tried this with any success?

K, I just did several tests and think I can answer all the questions now:

First, in answer to SierraElite: The reason the 2 industries made the same money at one point, and not at another was on the first run when they made the SAME money, the industries were the SAME size (both small probably). On the 2nd run, one of them had grown to medium size (in this case). This caused the difference in the examples we've all given - at least on the games not designed by modders.

So the industry changed sizes, that's all. Before, both steel mill and power plant were both small industries, thus both got 20% of any price of coal delivered to that city. When the steel mill (assumed) grew to medium size, it now received 35% and the powerplant still only got 20%. So I am quite confident that no matter what happens, they still each get 50% of the coal-how much you get paid depends on the size of each industry.

Now to snoopy's question: No, additional steel mills do not seem to affect the price of coal at all, nor do additional powerplants being used on the map, by the same coal mines or by different, previously unused coal mines.

These are the things I noticed about the price fluctuations of a good:

1/ Price only changes if the good is being hauled on the map. In other words, I was only using coal in these tests and found that only its price changed (I assume due to consumption/use). None of the other industries showed price fluctuations, they stayed constant at their starting prices.

2/ Price of a good fluctuates randomly, up and down, apparently for no particular reason; there is no direct cause that I can see of the price changes on these small fluctuations-they went both up and down but overall did tend to decrease (which kind of suggests what snoopy was saying-that demand has decreased due to a supply existing). The price of coal appeared to fluctuate between 19k and 11k and perhaps goes lower, I only ran my tests for about 15-20 years each.

3/ Events can of course change the price of coal both up and down-these events again have no affect on how much coal goes to the steel mill or powerplant.

4/ It does not matter if you build the 2nd industry at the same time or later-except in the regard that the first industry has received more shipments than the later built (2nd) industry and as a result, upgrades in size earlier which then changes the revenues on each as described in first paragraph.

5/ Whether or not you actually SHIP the steel out to a car/bomb factory has NO effect on the revenue of the steel mill. Nor does letting steel pile up at the steel mill (not shipping it, just hoarding it) affect the price of coal.

[darthdroid]

OK, the question is, does the game behave like the real world?

Example- I create a brand new Good. Everybody wants it and only I produce it. Let's say I get $1000 per unit. Jancsika comes along and starts producing the same Good. Now there is twice as much on the market, so the price will drop due to availability. You come along and start producing the same Good, which brings it to 3 times as much on the market, so the price drops even more due to availability.

This happens in the real world because of multiple reasons, production speed, shipping speed, number of companies and so on.

So, is this part of the game? If I have one Steel Mill, what is the price the Auto Industry pays me for the Steel? If I add 3 more Steel Mills, what is the price I'm paid for that Steel? All that I have noticed is that when 8 cars of a Good unload, the price goes down as the cars unload. How far would it drop if I had 3 trains going in to one city and all three unloading at the same time or one right after the other?

Has anyone looked into this in the last three years?

Did 2K think of it and put it in?

Will I win the lottery tomorrow?

Also, again, you get NOTHING for the steel you ship to the auto industry at your steel mill, NOTHING!!!
Only the auto industry gets paid for the steel that comes in-only the good demanded, not the good shipped, pays an industry. So you must own the auto factory to get paid for that steel from an industry.

Now you DO get paid for delivering the steel, but only for the steel itself, you don't get paid at the steel mill.
Whatever the value of the steel is at that time is what you will get paid for each carload of steel-and the train makes you that $, not a factory.

I could run more tests (and likely will) but I bet that steel is just like coal: That is, it fluctuates randomly if steel is being shipped to any degree, anywhere on the map, but increase in steel activity does not change the prices, a random function or algorithm in the game does. And of course random events that pertain to steel would change its price.