[x3:ap] why are my factories losing money?

[firestorm79]

I don't get what's going on... but I think some of my factories are losing money, and I can't figure out why...

So I've got the usual wheat farms and bofu and soja husk factories setup in the usual sectors, with a CAG attached to it to supply it with ecells or crystals. Trouble is the money at the factory tends to get depleted rather than go up?!? what's going on? are the profit margins too tight to buy the relevant resource at average price? Or maybe I'm just not being patient enough to wait for the goods to be purchased....

I've also got auto transfer to my account at 1mil...

a bit stumped...

[Timsup2nothin]

I don't get what's going on... but I think some of my factories are losing money, and I can't figure out why...

So I've got the usual wheat farms and bofu and soja husk factories setup in the usual sectors, with a CAG attached to it to supply it with ecells or crystals. Trouble is the money at the factory tends to get depleted rather than go up?!? what's going on? are the profit margins too tight to buy the relevant resource at average price? Or maybe I'm just not being patient enough to wait for the goods to be purchased....

I've also got auto transfer to my account at 1mil...

a bit stumped...

They are probably building up inventory.

Start with an empty L size wheat farm. It can hold 25,000 e-cells. If you are buying at 12 that's 300,000 credits. It converts three cells to two wheat, and if you do the math filling it with wheat costs another 300,000 credits if you are buying at 12. So something up to 600,000 credits is going to get turned into inventory.

A lot of people start by setting that transfer limit (yours at a million). So it's buying e-cells and that pulls down credits. Then it sells off inventory, but some of the credits bleed into your account. Now it has to refill that inventory so credits keep going down. It seems to be operating at a loss because you aren't tracking the transfers to your account.

[Sirrobert]

How much of the final product is pressent?

Did you just start it? If you just hired the CAG, he won't sell products yes. He first needs 2 hours of flight experience before he levels up, and only than can he sell products
Level information here

If your factorys have really big inventorys, and the CAG has the right level, than it's probably that your CAG is trying to fill up the inventory. I had to pump 12mil into my XL SPP before my CAG was happy about the amount of crystals and started really selling the e-cells.
Ofcourse if there is no money available your CAG will be forced to sell (provided he has the right level), and as long as they have somewhere to sell, they make profit

You can check how much profit your CAG made (or loss) by opening the CAG menu, and looking up the stats (where you can see flight time, and select if he has to train and stuf like that. The first option under 'start CAG)


PS To check if you can actually make money on your product (you generally will), open the menu that lets you change buy/sell prices.
Under the product, there is a number ( [xx] ) This number is the minimum you need to sell your product at to break even, and updates if you change your buy price of whatever your factory needs

[ajax34i]

Initially, single factories and complexes will spend money to buy resources from the NPCs.

However, once their resources are full, if you've set the prices right and you're buying low and selling high, single factories should start making profit.

Complexes, on the other hand, have "intermediary" resources, and the NPCs can come in and fill up all your "intermediary" inventory as if it was needed. Or they can buy it out completely, leaving the complex empty. You cannot control this very well, unless you block NPCs from trading with your factories, and rely solely on your Logistics traders to do the supply and demand.

[Virtualaughing]

With every versions of X you can see estimated calculations about your set of prices compare to worth it or not.
When you build any given complex, it is good to SET PRICES FIRST before connecting any new type of factory to a complex. The price of minerals is a good exmple because they are the most likely places to have profit leak. With minimum price of E-cells ore is 72 credit. Every time you add a new type of factory with shared resources or products you can overwrite the previous settings. Every time you add any factory to your 'plex the set of prices will be reseted to the point, BEFORE attached the factories.
This solution is working with all versions of X.

That is adwiseable to create mining complex with only SPP attached. i believe if you set the prices, resources and products, to the minimum ammount, you won't loose money.
edit:
Self sufficent complexes are seems to be good idea first, but after development, you will see they are not sufficent when it comes to train CAG pilots or when you decide, to let NPCs trade with your station or not

ohh my leaks in english... hope you got my drift

[firestorm79]

Thx guys, this all makes a great deal of sense.