Vertical Integration Calculator

[Max]

Hi everyone. After a lot of in-game trial and error, some data mining, and some poking around on old forums, I finally got a tool you can use to help you plan out production!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing


So far, it only does manufactured goods, but those are the tricky parts anyways.
Sometime soon, I hope to use a python program to automate creating balanced supply chains. However, there's a lot of nuts N'bolts when it comes to designing efficient layouts to factories.


HOW TO USE:
Go to the "Production calculation" sheet. The others are just raw game files I use in my calculation.
There are 4 main parts to the calculator:

-The marketshare-to-recommended-quota tool uses the yearly consumption of your selected product to determine about how much yearly production of a product you need to capture a certain % of the retail market. Whether or not you can actually sell everything you produce depends on the marketing, branding, and price. (Only works for products which can be sold in retail)

-The quota tool gives you how many baseline workers you need in a manufacturing slot to produce a certain amount of product. A baseline worker is basically an untrained worker working at 100% in a manufacturing slot. A worker with training would be working at more than the baseline worker, and a worker at less than 100% capacity would be less than a baseline worker.  

-The downstream quota tool breaks down how much of each component input you need to reach your quota. It also gives you the amount of baseline workers necessary to vertically integrate each component (assuming it can also be assembled in a factory.) You can copy-paste each semiproduct and its requirements back into the top to analyze the supply chain of its own production. In this way, you can determine exactly how many baseline workers you need on each step of assembly.


-The factory tool Allows you to calculate how many workers each hold. Small, medium, and large factories each produce more stuff because their manufacturing slots hold more employees. This is so that you can choose the best number of small, medium, and large factories to fit your needs.

EDIT!

-Weight gaining industry index Is it better to build your factories close to your retail stores, or close to your resources? The weight-gaining industry index is here to answer that question. A positive weight-gaining index means it's generally better to manufacture things close-by to where the product is consumed, while a negative index means it's best to build your industry by the resources it uses, scaled by the price of the output. The difference in shipping prices is scaled by. For a sense of scale, Cola has a weight gaining index of 66, and from personal experience, even a short jaunt between cities a few tiles away, the shipping cost outweighs the manufacturing cost tenfold. That's about the theoretical upper limit for what is profitable to ship trans-city, and I was piggybacking off of incredible brand and quality. Even shipping within the same city costs something like 10 cents. An index of~5 (positive or negative) is when it should be a major consideration between manufacturing location. 10 is where you should almost always prioritize shipping concerns.

[David]

Thanks for this Vertical Integration Calculator. I've pinned your post on this forum.

There is a related post about a tool for Modders to Improve Mod Gameplay Balance at https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewt ... =39&t=8260
You may take a look at it.

You mentioned that you intend to create a tool in Python. Would you share some details?

[Max]

Thanks for this Vertical Integration Calculator. I've pinned your post on this forum.

There is a related post about a tool for Modders to Improve Mod Gameplay Balance at https://www.capitalism2.com/forum/viewt ... =39&t=8260
You may take a look at it.

You mentioned that you intend to create a tool in Python. Would you share some details?

Yeah, I'm getting close, but I have exams. Essentially, I've copy-pasted the gamefiles. You tell the program the quota you want to reach and what steps you want to vertically integrate, and it automatically tells you how many small, medium, and large factories you need to meet that quota (using the default layout), as well as which factories should be clumped together due to shipping costs.


It can also give you an efficiency rating. Essentially, what is the average utilization per worker in your supply chain? If you make cars for example, it's probably just best to buy your glass from elsewhere, because even a very large market for cars consumes only like 5% of a small factory. But for every car manufacturing unit, you need 3/4 engine manufacturing units to support it. This means ratios turn out extremely smooth. As a general rule of thumb, as you serve more people, the ratios get much smoother and you get to use larger factories with lower maintenance costs per unit.

[David]

Thanks for the update.

Would it be possible to use your tool to fine-tune the gameplay balance of products in a mod? Some users have mentioned that some products in the Real World are too profitable.

[Max]

I mean, it's moreso to balance production, but I see no reason why people couldn't add their own files. I've ripped the product and manufacturing files straight out of the game, so if you copy paste it in, it should work. I was too lazy to make an actual file-reader, so it simply parses the string after you copy and paste it.

If I have one word of advice, it's to go easy on the production multiplier. Nearly everything in the game scales based on price. the more expensive the product, the slower it's produced. The game does a surprisingly good job balancing it on its own.

The manufacturing speed multiplier should be treated as a general stat for how OP the production is, so the only reason you should mess with the production speed is if there is some difficulty producing the item (Its inputs don't come in convenient ratios, the manufacturing prosses gives extremely thin margins, there is low consumer demand, there is high RnD costs, ect.)

Another word of advice is you might want to adjust the demand for vanilla items significantly. More markets to tap into split into the same number of companies means each company has an easier time holding a monopoly. You should try to keep it so that the amount of money you can suck out of any consumer is around the same.

[maff]

I mean, it's moreso to balance production...

Resurrecting the topic, it's too good to die, has there been an update?