Product Change suggestions

[Stylesjl]

I have been thinking about the new products introduced when service firms are enabled:

Olives
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Coffee Beans
Burger Buns
Burger Patties
Parma Ham
Canned Olives

And I have a few thoughts about changing some of the existing products and introducing a few new ones. I will explain some of my ideas and why:

Existing Products

Canned Olive

Requires: Olives

Should require both Olives and Aluminium to make it consistent with the other canned products (Canned Soup, Canned Corn). Also, I think Aluminium is a somewhat underutilised resource.

New Products
1) Canned Tomatoes

Requires: Tomatoes, Aluminium

(Alternatively: Ketchup. Requires Tomatoes, Sugar)

This product would help to provide a Supermarket outlet for Tomatoes so that it isn't just Service firms which can use this resource.

2) Instant Coffee

Requires: Coffee Beans, Glass (or maybe Plastic)

This product would help to provide a Supermarket/Convenience Store outlet for Coffee Beans so that it isn't just Service firms which can use this resource.

3) Frozen French Fries (or Frozen Chips, Frozen Hash Browns? Lots of uses for Potatoes)

Requires: Potatoes, Plastic (or maybe just Potatoes)

This product would help to provide a Supermarket outlet for Potatoes. Note that French Fries is right now the only use for Potatoes.

4) Coconut Cake

Requires: Coconut, Eggs, Flour

Currently Coconuts are not used for any actual food/snack items. I think adding a Coconut Cake would help make growing Coconuts useful if you are not making Cosmetics/Body Care Products.

5) Lamb Sausages (or maybe another name)

Requires: Frozen Lamb

Currently all of the Livestock Products have alternative uses aside from being directly sold in Supermarkets.

For example you can do the following with these products:

Eggs: All Cake types
Frozen Chicken: Canned Soup, Fried Chicken, Chicken Pizza
Frozen Beef: Beef Pizza, Burger Patty (can also make Hamburgers as well).
Frozen Pork: Parma Ham (can also make Parma Pizza as well).

But Frozen Lamb is the odd one out. It is useless for anything else. Perhaps adding an additional product that uses it as an input would make this more worthwhile to produce on farms.

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Anyway those are some of my ideas. Not sure how exactly they will affect gaming balance if implemented but the general idea is to try and give what I think are underused resources some additional uses.

[David]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I asked the dev team and they responded that they would prefer 4-5 product types per product class for gameplay balance. Or increasing the variety of products across the board for all the product classes.

They have also been thinking about creating a new product set for CapLab as part of the long term plan. This will include expanding the number of product classes. It will be a moderate increase in product varieties over the standard product list but will be nowhere near as expansive as RealWorld MOD.

If CapLab vanilla content set is 1.0 and RealWorld Mod is 2.0 in terms of product varieties. This set would probably fall in the range between 1.2 to 1.4.

The aim is to provide players with something in the middle to play with, in terms of the product range.

What's your opinion about the number of product classes and product types for such a new product content set?

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Additionally, they have considered add VR Headsets to the game replacing HUD glasses but had some reservations because the VR headset is not researchable until 2010. Do you think this is an issue?

Also, which product class do you think VR headset should belong to? Communication Devices or Computer? If Computer is the category, will Communication Devices' profitability decrease to the extend that it will affect gameplay balance when HUD glasses are removed?

[cantdownloadit]

wonder if there would be a way to have more items in each product class but only have the game pick so many of them each game so each game is somewhat random.

regarding an expanded product line up, no issue with that.

you would even add mini "DLC" versions - a food only product listing, a tech only version essentially same as mods.

[Stylesjl]

What's your opinion about the number of product classes and product types for such a new product content set?
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Additionally, they have considered add VR Headsets to the game replacing HUD glasses but had some reservations because the VR headset is not researchable until 2010. Do you think this is an issue?

Also, which product class do you think VR headset should belong to? Communication Devices or Computer? If Computer is the category, will Communication Devices' profitability decrease to the extend that it will affect gameplay balance when HUD glasses are removed?

I think that having 4-5 products classes in each category is a good idea. I have noticed that for some product categories there are not enough products to fill up the first floor of the store dedicated to that product class.

For instance there are two Tobacco Products, but this is not a problem as you can sell them in Convenience Stores alongside Snacks, Beverages, etc. Same with Drugs (because you can add Body Care products to the drug store). But for these categories that is not the case:

Automobile - only a car and motorcycle which means all four spaces would usually get a 2 car, 2 motorcycle arrangement. You cannot sell any non-automobiles.
Furniture - only 3 furniture products. You can't sell any non-furniture.
Sports Equipment - only 3 sports products. You can't sell any non-sports products.

Having four of each in these categories or allowing something in another category to be sold in those stores would I think make these stores a bit more useful.

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I think VR headsets is a better product than HUD Glasses in terms of naming. Although VR Headsets do predate 2010 so it might make less sense to have them only researchable in 2010.

VR Headsets I think would be better as Computers, VRs are very closely related to them and aren't really used as Communication Devices at least not in the same way as say, Smart Phones.

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Some suggestions for an extra products in Automobiles, Furniture and Sports Equipment.

1) Electric Motor (Semi-Product)

Requires: Electronic Components, Steel

Can only be invented after 2015.

2) Electric Car (Automobile)

Requires: Wheel and Tire, Electric Motor, Car Body.

Can only be invented after 2015.

3) SUV Body (Semi-Product)

Requires: Glass, Plastic, Steel

4) SUV (Automobile)

Requires: Wheel and Tire, Engine, SUV Body.

5) Table (Furniture)

Requires: Steel (or maybe Timber)

6) Baseball Bat (Sports Equipment)

Requires: Plastic (or maybe Timber)

[cantdownloadit]

1st electric car was invented before 1900

4-6 would be fine I don't think any class should have more than 9 items so each specialist store can sell all of its products in one store.

Auto can also include vehicles like vans.

[Stylesjl]

1st electric car was invented before 1900

I know, I was thinking of the modern mass market electric cars, which only became viable around the 2010's.