Difference between revisions of "Manufacturing Profitability"
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+ | There are 35 items in X-COM that can be manufactured, but if all costs are taken into account, only 14 of them can be manufactured for a profit. |
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− | == Accounting == |
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+ | You cannot manufacture an item until you have researched it, so you begin the game unable to manufacture any items at all. Depending on your research priorities, there are several early items that can be made for a profit: Motion Scanners, Medi-Kits, Laser Pistols and Laser Rifles. |
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− | Accurately reflecting profitability of manufacturing items requires that the following be accounted for: |
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− | *Cost for "parts", the value shown on the manufacturing screen |
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− | *Cost of [[Elerium-115]] ($5k each) and [[Alien Alloys]] ($6.5k each), if any. Also, cost of [[UFO Power Source]](s) ($500k each) and [[UFO Navigation]] ($80k each) for XCOM craft. |
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− | *Cost of Engineers, at $25k per month. When manufacturing for profit, the number of engineers is usually based on how many Workshops one has, less Workspace requirements. |
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− | *Cost of [[Workshop]]s ($35k/month) and [[Living Quarters]] ($10k/month) sufficient for the number of engineers employed. |
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+ | Fusion Ball Launchers and Laser Cannons can be researched in the early-mid game, and are the two most profitable items that can be produced in all of X-COM. Refer to the [[#Profit tables|profit tables]] for a detailed breakdown. |
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− | These costs are then compared against the Sell price, to determine profitability. |
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+ | == Calculating profitability == |
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− | One could approach the overall profitability several ways. Arguably the simplest is based on monthly production by a fixed number of workshops filled with engineers (minus workspace requirements). This approach has been used here. |
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+ | To calculate true (net) manufacturing profit, the following must be accounted for: |
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+ | *Manufacturing cost -- the value shown on the manufacturing screen. |
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− | == Profitability == |
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+ | *Cost of [[Elerium-115]] ($5k each) and [[Alien Alloys]] ($6.5k each), if required. Also, cost of [[UFO Power Source]](s) ($500k each) and [[UFO Navigation]] ($80k each) for XCOM craft. |
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+ | *Cost of Engineer salaries, at $25k per month per Engineer. |
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+ | *Cost of [[Workshop]]s ($35k/month) and [[Living Quarters]] ($10k/month) sufficient for the number of engineers employed. |
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+ | These costs are then compared against the Sell price, to determine profitability. |
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− | ''The figures below show monthly profits, based on a two-workshop operation. |
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+ | == Startup costs == |
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− | There are 35 items that can be manufactured, but only 14 of these make a profit. And only five stand out as real winners. Indeed, the average "profit" for all 35 items is '''<font color=red>-$2.3M</font>'''. |
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+ | There is a startup cost associated with manufacturing: 50 Engineers cost $2.5 million to hire and require a Workshop ($800,000 to build) and a Living Quarters ($400,000), for a total of $3.7 million. Workshops also require a lead time of 32 days to build. Since you start the game with one Workshop and 10 Engineers, your first Workshop will only cost $2.4 million to fully ramp up (the cost of 40 Engineers and one Living Quarters). |
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− | The first item you're likely to find profitable is the [[Medi-Kit]] at $605k. This is the sixth-most profitable item, and it doesn't need much [[Research (UFO Defense)|research]]. The [[Motion Scanner]] is the fifth best, is quickly researched, and nets $1.2M. Your exact order of research may vary, but if things are going well, you can probably quickly jump to the most profitable item, the [[Laser Cannon]] at $4.2M. |
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+ | There is also a time and cost factor associated with researching profitable items -- for instance, Heavy Lasers plus Laser Cannons require an average of 880 Scientist days to research (costing about $900,000 in salary). This is in addition to the 450 or so Scientist days required to research Laser Weapons, Laser Pistol, and Laser Rifle. |
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− | There is an oddity in XCOM in that the item that might be considered the most profitable is the [[Fusion Ball Launcher]] (FBL). The oddity is that the first one you produce does not require an Alien Alloy (and thus, no Alien Alloy requirement appears on the manufacturing screen). If in doubt, watch your Alien Alloy stores while manufacturing. Without the alloys, the FBL nets $4.3M, which is 1.8% more profitable than the Laser Cannon. However, when the Alien Alloys are taken into account, it only nets $3.2M - far less than the Laser Cannon. Due to the micromanagement needed to repeatedly restart manufacturing versus the very small gain, few players build one FBL at a time. Thus, many consider the Laser Cannon the most profitable item "in real life", but this oddity with the FBL has caused a fair bit of confusion; some (particularly older docs) say Fusion Ball Launchers are the most profitable. Anyway, now you know... and it's your choice. :) |
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− | == |
+ | == Workshop space overhead == |
+ | Each manufacturing project takes up a fixed amount of workshop space, reducing the number of Engineers you can gainfully employ. With multiple workshops, the impact of this overhead is reduce: two workshops are proportionally 5%-7% more profitable than a single workshop would be (depending on the item being produced), and five workshops are as much as 11% more profitable. |
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− | For a PDF showing profitability based on 1 to 5 workshops, see [[Media:XCOM_Profit_Tables.pdf|this]]. |
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+ | == Profit tables == |
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− | For the Excel file that the PDF is made from, see [[Media:XCOM_Profits.xls|this]]. With the spreadsheet, you can change number of workshops or engineers, choose whether to include associated costs (exotic ingredients, maintenance), sort it, edit it, etc. |
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+ | The following is a list of selected items that are popular with players attempting to manufacture items for profit. Note that not all these items actually turn a profit, once all costs are factored in. |
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− | == Notes, Tips, Tricks, Etc. == |
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− | *The maximum number of engineers you can assign to a project, equals the number of engineer hours it requires. In other words, the game "enforces" that '''you can only build one item per hour, at most'''. Example: You can only assign 60 engineers at most to work on a plasma pistol clip, which requires 60 engineer hours. The tables above don't take this into account, but then, small-fry products are usually not made by a large operation, anyway. |
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− | *You cannot have more than one project of the same type going at the same base. (This otherwise might've been a way "around" the limit of one per hour at most.) However, you can make that thing at some other base. |
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− | *Excess/wasted Workshop and Living Quarters are only a miniscule part of your costs. Example: A large operation (four workshops) might have 184 engineers instead of the optimal 194 for Laser Cannons (because of an occasional need to drop back and making flying suits, craft, etc. - it's a balance of constantly wasted space versus occasionally wasted engineers). The "wasted" 10 WS and LQ spaces only cost $9k/month ($45k*10/50), which is only 0.11% of the $8.3M/month that the 184 engineers make when producing LCs. |
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− | *Likewise, profits generally scale linearly according to number of workshops (2 full workshops make twice as much as 1 full workshop, etc.). Many projects only require a handful of workspace requirements, and are almost totally linear. However, some projects have a large workspace requirement, such as the Laser Tank (25). With only one workshop, the Laser Tank only makes 39% of the profit that Laser Cannons would, whereas they make 64% of Laser Cannons with five workshops. The real reason they do so poorly with one workshop is much less due to the wasted overhead of workshop and living quarters; it is mainly because you can only assign 25 engineers with one workshop, versus 44 for Laser Cannons. |
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− | *Those who know XCOM, know that it suffers from integer truncation in a number of places. This could've hurt profitability badly if it occurred there; for example, if an item needs 100 engineer hours but you only assign 99, it might've taken twice as long, and halved your production and profit potential. Fortunately, this is not the case with manufacturing; it does not truncate production time this way. |
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− | *There is an [[Exploits#Free_Manufacturing|exploit]] that lets the sneaky make items for free - but only one at a time. |
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− | *Another [[Exploits#Free_Wages|exploit]] involves transferring staff at the end of the month to avoid salaries - but engineer wages are only 6% of the cost of making Laser Cannons, and some of these "savings" are lost due to the fact that they can't build while in transit. |
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− | *Factoid 1: The Heavy Plasma Clip is the most unprofitable item to make, due to the facts that it can be quickly made, but requires 3 Elerium. Be careful what you ask for! |
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− | *Factoid 2: Strange as it may seem, XCOM craft are ''not'' the most unprofitable items in the game, even though they are very expensive to make, and you '''can't sell them'''. (High cost, zero sales.) This is because craft take a long time to make, whereas other items can be made quickly, but incorporate expensive components. Their extreme costs override the fact that they can actually be sold. :P |
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− | == Bugs == |
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+ | '''Monthly profits, based on a one-workshop operation. Figures in thousands (000's) where noted.''' |
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− | * In the UFO: Enemy Unkown (and most likely all the other XCOM and TFTD versions) you can overflow the variable that holds the number of engineers. If you go over 255 engineers in a base the number listed in the base will be negative. If you have them all on some projects, you can keep them. However, if the project ends or you try to move them around, you will lose up to 255 engineers and have to hire them again. Keeping them past the end of the month has not been tested yet. Don't go over 254 engineers in a base. This doesn't count transfers until they arrive. |
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− | |||
− | |||
− | == See Also == |
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− | |||
− | *[[Workshop]] |
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− | *[[Hiring/firing]] |
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− | |||
− | == Item profitability tables == |
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{| |
{| |
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|- |
|- |
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!align ="left"|Item |
!align ="left"|Item |
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− | !align ="center"| |
+ | !align ="center"|Hrs. per unit |
− | !align ="center"| |
+ | !align ="center"|Max Engrs. |
− | !align ="center"| |
+ | !align ="center"|Unit sell price<br>(000's) |
− | !align ="center"| |
+ | !align ="center"|Unit cost<br>(000's) |
− | !align ="center"| |
+ | !align ="center"|Spec. costs<br>(000's) |
− | !align ="center"| |
+ | !align ="center"|Gross per unit<br>(000's) |
+ | !align ="center"|Units per month |
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+ | !align ="center"|Labor cost<br>(000's) |
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+ | !align ="center"|Net monthly profit<br>(000's) |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Laser Cannon]] |
|align ="left"|[[Laser Cannon]] |
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|align ="center"|300 |
|align ="center"|300 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|44 |
|align ="center"|211 |
|align ="center"|211 |
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+ | |align ="center"|182 |
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|align ="center"|0 |
|align ="center"|0 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|29 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|107.36 |
+ | |align ="center"|1,145 |
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+ | |align ="center"|1,968.4 |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Fusion Ball Launcher]] |
|align ="left"|[[Fusion Ball Launcher]] |
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|align ="center"|400 |
|align ="center"|400 |
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+ | |align ="center"|44 |
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+ | |align ="center"|281.1 |
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|align ="center"|242 |
|align ="center"|242 |
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− | |align ="center"|281 |
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|align ="center"|6.5 |
|align ="center"|6.5 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|32.6 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|80.52 |
+ | |align ="center"|1,145 |
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+ | |align ="center"|1,480.0 |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Tank/Laser Cannon]] |
|align ="left"|[[Tank/Laser Cannon]] |
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|align ="center"|1200 |
|align ="center"|1200 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|25 |
|align ="center"|594 |
|align ="center"|594 |
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+ | |align ="center"|500 |
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|align ="center"|0 |
|align ="center"|0 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|94 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|15.25 |
+ | |align ="center"|670 |
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+ | |align ="center"|763.5 |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Motion Scanner]] |
|align ="left"|[[Motion Scanner]] |
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|align ="center"|220 |
|align ="center"|220 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|46 |
|align ="center"|45.6 |
|align ="center"|45.6 |
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+ | |align ="center"|34 |
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|align ="center"|0 |
|align ="center"|0 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|11.6 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|153.055 |
+ | |align ="center"|1,195 |
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+ | |align ="center"|580.4 |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Medi-Kit]] |
|align ="left"|[[Medi-Kit]] |
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|align ="center"|420 |
|align ="center"|420 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|46 |
|align ="center"|46.5 |
|align ="center"|46.5 |
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+ | |align ="center"|28 |
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|align ="center"|0 |
|align ="center"|0 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|18.5 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|80.171 |
+ | |align ="center"|1,195 |
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+ | |align ="center"|288.2 |
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+ | |- |
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+ | |align ="left"|[[Heavy Plasma]] |
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+ | |align ="center"|1000 |
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+ | |align ="center"|46 |
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+ | |align ="center"|171.6 |
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+ | |align ="center"|122 |
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+ | |align ="center"|6.5 |
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+ | |align ="center"|43.1 |
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+ | |align ="center"|33.672 |
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+ | |align ="center"|1,195 |
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+ | |align ="center"|256.3 |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Laser Rifle]] |
|align ="left"|[[Laser Rifle]] |
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|align ="center"|400 |
|align ="center"|400 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|47 |
|align ="center"|36.9 |
|align ="center"|36.9 |
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+ | |align ="center"|20 |
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|align ="center"|0 |
|align ="center"|0 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|16.9 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|86.01 |
+ | |align ="center"|1,220 |
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− | |- |
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− | |align =" |
+ | |align ="center"|233.6 |
− | |align ="center"|700 |
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− | |align ="center"|32 |
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− | |align ="center"|61 |
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− | |align ="center"|0 |
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− | |align ="center"|29.83 |
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− | |align ="center"|3.83 |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Laser Pistol]] |
|align ="left"|[[Laser Pistol]] |
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|align ="center"|300 |
|align ="center"|300 |
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+ | |align ="center"|48 |
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+ | |align ="center"|20 |
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|align ="center"|8 |
|align ="center"|8 |
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− | |align ="center"|20 |
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|align ="center"|0 |
|align ="center"|0 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|12 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|117.12 |
+ | |align ="center"|1,245 |
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+ | |align ="center"|160.4 |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Alien Alloys]] |
|align ="left"|[[Alien Alloys]] |
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|align ="center"|100 |
|align ="center"|100 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|40 |
|align ="center"|6.5 |
|align ="center"|6.5 |
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+ | |align ="center"|3 |
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|align ="center"|0 |
|align ="center"|0 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|3.5 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|292.8 |
+ | |align ="center"|1,045 |
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+ | |align ="center"|-20.2 |
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|- |
|- |
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|align ="left"|[[Personal Armor]] |
|align ="left"|[[Personal Armor]] |
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|align ="center"|800 |
|align ="center"|800 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|38 |
|align ="center"|54 |
|align ="center"|54 |
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+ | |align ="center"|22 |
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|align ="center"|26 |
|align ="center"|26 |
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− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|6 |
− | |align ="center"| |
+ | |align ="center"|34.77 |
+ | |align ="center"|995 |
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+ | |align ="center"|-786.4 |
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|} |
|} |
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+ | '''Legend:''' |
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− | Net monthly profit includes cost of materials and Engineers. Materials cost is $6,500 per Alien Alloy consumed. Engineer cost is assumed to be $26,000 per month: $25,000 for salary, plus $35,000 for a Workshop and $10,000 for a Living Quarters servicing approximately 45 Engineers (some workshop space is lost to project overhead) -- about $1,000 each. The monthly profit figures assume a 30 day month. |
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+ | *'''Hrs. per unit''' are the number of hours needed by one engineer to build a single unit |
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− | ---- |
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+ | *'''Max Engrs.''' equals 50 minus the amount of workshop space taken up by the project |
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− | Here's the list from the OSG (sorted by profit) for you to use as needed: |
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+ | *'''Unit sell price''' is what the item will sell for on the Sell/Sack screen |
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+ | *'''Unit cost''' is what each item costs to produce, on the Production screen |
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+ | *'''Spec. costs''' is $6,500 for each Alien Alloy and $5,000 for each Elerium, if any |
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+ | *'''Gross per unit''' is its sell price, minus production and special materials costs |
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+ | *'''Units per month''' is how many units a fully-staffed workshop can turn out: 732 hours (30.5 days) divided by Engineer hours per unit, times Max Engineers employable |
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+ | *'''Labor cost''' is Max Engineers times $25,000 (monthly salary) -- plus $35,000 for Workshop maintenance costs and $10,000 for Living Quarters |
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+ | *'''Net monthly profit''' is Gross profit times Units per month minus Labor cost |
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+ | For a detailed listing of the profitability of all items in X-COM, with figures for 1 to 5 workshops, download [[User:MikeTheRed|MikeTheRed's]] [[Media:XCOM_Profit_Tables.pdf]]. |
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− | [[User:Jasonred|Jasonred]] : Added the sale price of Special Materials used, and Net profit after factoring them in! Left out figures which made a net loss... no further calculations necessary on these. Also, E=Elerium, A= Alien Alloys, -1A means it makes this much profit, but you've used up 1 Alien Alloy. |
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+ | == Laser Cannons vs. Fusion Ball Launchers == |
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− | '''Item Cost Sell Profit Special Materials Net Profit''' |
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+ | |||
− | '''---- ---- ---- ------ --(sell price)--- ----------''' |
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+ | There is an oddity in XCOM in that the item that might be considered the most profitable is the [[Fusion Ball Launcher]] (FBL). The oddity is that the first one you produce does not require an Alien Alloy (and thus, no Alien Alloy requirement appears on the manufacturing screen). If in doubt, watch your Alien Alloy stores while manufacturing. |
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− | |||
+ | |||
− | Hovertank/Launcher $900,000 $1,043,000 $143,000 $177,000 |
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+ | Without the alloys, the FBL would be about 2% more profitable than the Laser Cannon. However, when the Alien Alloys are taken into account, it falls well behind Laser Cannon. Due to the micromanagement needed to repeatedly restart manufacturing versus the very small gain, few players build one FBL at a time. Thus, many consider the Laser Cannon the most profitable item "in real life", but this oddity with the FBL has caused a fair bit of confusion; some (particularly older docs) say Fusion Ball Launchers are the most profitable. Anyway, now you know... and it's your choice. :) |
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− | Hovertank/Plasma $850,000 $980,000 $130,000 $182,500 |
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+ | |||
− | UFO Power Source $130,000 $250,000 $120,000 $132,500 |
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+ | Laser Cannons are also more readily researched than Fusion Ball Launchers. The average research time needed to produce Laser Cannons is 1330 hours (26.6 days for 50 Scientists), whereas Fusion Ball Launchers require 2080 hours (41.6 days). Furthermore, about 1/3 of the time needed for researching Laser Cannons is spent researching Laser Pistols and Rifles, which you are likely to research early on anyway. |
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− | |||
+ | |||
− | Tank/Laser Cannon $500,000 $594,000 $94,000 $94,000 |
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+ | == Notes, Tips, Tricks, Etc. == |
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− | Flying Suit $58,000 $115,000 $57,000 $132,500 |
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+ | *The maximum number of engineers you can assign to a project, equals the number of engineer hours it requires. In other words, the game "enforces" that '''you can only build one item per hour, at most'''. Example: You can only assign 60 engineers at most to work on a plasma pistol clip, which requires 60 engineer hours. The tables above don't take this into account, but then, small-fry products are usually not made by a large operation, anyway. |
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− | Blaster Launcher $90,000 $144,000 $54,000 $ 6,500 $47,500-1A |
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+ | *You cannot have more than one project of the same type going at the same base. (This otherwise might've been a way "around" the limit of one per hour at most.) However, you can make that thing at some other base. |
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− | Heavy Plasma $122,000 $171,600 $49,600 $ 6,500 $43,100-1A |
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+ | *Excess/wasted Workshop and Living Quarters are only a miniscule part of your costs. Example: A large operation (four workshops) might have 184 engineers instead of the optimal 194 for Laser Cannons (because of an occasional need to drop back and making flying suits, craft, etc. - it's a balance of constantly wasted space versus occasionally wasted engineers). The "wasted" 10 WS and LQ spaces only cost $9k/month ($45k*10/50), which is only 0.11% of the $8.3M/month that the 184 engineers make when producing LCs. |
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− | Power Suit $42,000 $85,000 $43,000 $ 57,500 |
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+ | *Likewise, profits generally scale linearly according to number of workshops (two full workshops make only a little bit more than twice the profit of one full workshop, etc.). Many projects only require a handful of workspace requirements, and are almost totally linear. However, some projects have a large workspace requirement, such as the Laser Tank (25). With only one workshop, the Laser Tank only makes 39% of the profit that Laser Cannons would, whereas they make 64% of Laser Cannons with five workshops. The real reason they do so poorly with one workshop is much less due to the wasted overhead of workshop and living quarters; it is mainly because you can only assign 25 engineers with one workshop, versus 44 for Laser Cannons. |
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− | Mind Probe $262,000 $304,000 $42,000 $ 5,000 $37,000-1E |
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+ | *Those who know XCOM, know that it suffers from integer truncation in a number of places. This could've hurt profitability badly if it occurred there; for example, if an item needs 100 engineer hours but you only assign 99, it might've taken twice as long, and halved your production and profit potential. Fortunately, this is not the case with manufacturing; it does not truncate production time this way. |
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− | |||
+ | *There is an [[Exploits#Free_Manufacturing|exploit]] that lets the sneaky make items for free - but only one at a time. |
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− | Small Launcher $78,000 $120,000 $42,000 $ 6,500 $35,500-1A |
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+ | *Another [[Exploits#Free_Wages|exploit]] involves transferring staff at the end of the month to avoid salaries. Eliminating salary costs makes Laser Cannons about 50% more profitable to produce. |
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− | Plasma Beam $226,000 $267,300 $41,300 $ 75,000 |
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+ | *Factoid 1: The Heavy Plasma Clip is the most unprofitable item to make, due to the facts that it can be quickly made, but requires 3 Elerium. Be careful what you ask for! |
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− | Fusion Ball Launcher $242,000 $281,100 $39,000 $39,000 |
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+ | *Factoid 2: Strange as it may seem, XCOM craft are ''not'' the most unprofitable items in the game, even though they are very expensive to make, and you '''can't sell them'''. (High cost, zero sales.) This is because craft take a long time to make, whereas other items can be made quickly, but incorporate expensive components. Their extreme costs override the fact that they can actually be sold. :P |
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− | Plasma Rifle $88,000 $126,500 $38,500 $ 6,500 $31,500-1A |
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+ | |||
− | Psi-Amp $160,000 $194,700 $34,700 $ 5,000 $29,700-1A |
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+ | == Bugs == |
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− | Personal Armor $22,000 $54,000 $32,000 $ 26,000 $ 6,000-4A |
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+ | |||
− | Laser Cannon $182,000 $211,000 $29,000 $29,000 |
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+ | * In the UFO: Enemy Unkown (and most likely all the other XCOM and TFTD versions) you can overflow the variable that holds the number of engineers. If you go over 255 engineers in a base the number listed in the base will be negative. If you have them all on some projects, you can keep them. However, if the project ends or you try to move them around, you will lose up to 255 engineers and have to hire them again. Keeping them past the end of the month has not been tested yet. Don't go over 254 engineers in a base. This doesn't count transfers until they arrive. |
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− | Heavy Laser $32,000 $61,000 $29,000 $29,000 |
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+ | |||
− | Plasma Pistol $56,000 $84,000 $28,000 $ 6,500 $21,500-1A |
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+ | == See Also == |
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− | Fusion Ball $28,000 $53,300 $25,300 $ 20,000 $ 5,300-4E |
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+ | |||
− | Medi-Kit $28,000 $46,500 $18,500 $18,500 |
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+ | *[[Workshop]] |
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− | Laser Rifle $20,000 $36,900 $16,900 $16,900 |
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+ | *[[Hiring/firing]] |
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− | HWP Fusion Bomb $15,000 $31,500 $16,500 $ 77,000 |
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+ | *[[Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable Prices]] for a list of build and sell prices for all manufacturable items (plus special materials requried). |
||
− | Laser Pistol $8,000 $20,000 $12,000 $12,000 |
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− | Motion Scanner $34,000 $45,600 $11,600 $11,600 |
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− | |||
− | Blaster Bomb $8,000 $17,028 $9,028 $ 15,000 |
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− | Stun Bomb $7,000 $15,200 $8,200 $ 5,000 $ 3,200-1E |
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− | Alien Grenade $6,700 $14,850 $8,150 $ 10,000 |
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− | Heavy Plasma Clip $6,000 $9,590 $3,590 $ 5,000 |
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− | Alien Alloys $3,000 $6,500 $3,500 $ 3,500 |
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− | Plasma Rifle Clip $3,000 $6,290 $3,290 $ 5,000 |
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− | Plasma Pistol Clip $2,000 $4,400 $2,400 $ 5,000 |
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− | |||
− | UFO Navigation $150,000 $80,000 -$70,000 $ 19,500 |
||
− | [[Category:data tables]] |
+ | [[Category: data tables]] |
Revision as of 05:26, 18 May 2006
There are 35 items in X-COM that can be manufactured, but if all costs are taken into account, only 14 of them can be manufactured for a profit.
You cannot manufacture an item until you have researched it, so you begin the game unable to manufacture any items at all. Depending on your research priorities, there are several early items that can be made for a profit: Motion Scanners, Medi-Kits, Laser Pistols and Laser Rifles.
Fusion Ball Launchers and Laser Cannons can be researched in the early-mid game, and are the two most profitable items that can be produced in all of X-COM. Refer to the profit tables for a detailed breakdown.
Calculating profitability
To calculate true (net) manufacturing profit, the following must be accounted for:
- Manufacturing cost -- the value shown on the manufacturing screen.
- Cost of Elerium-115 ($5k each) and Alien Alloys ($6.5k each), if required. Also, cost of UFO Power Source(s) ($500k each) and UFO Navigation ($80k each) for XCOM craft.
- Cost of Engineer salaries, at $25k per month per Engineer.
- Cost of Workshops ($35k/month) and Living Quarters ($10k/month) sufficient for the number of engineers employed.
These costs are then compared against the Sell price, to determine profitability.
Startup costs
There is a startup cost associated with manufacturing: 50 Engineers cost $2.5 million to hire and require a Workshop ($800,000 to build) and a Living Quarters ($400,000), for a total of $3.7 million. Workshops also require a lead time of 32 days to build. Since you start the game with one Workshop and 10 Engineers, your first Workshop will only cost $2.4 million to fully ramp up (the cost of 40 Engineers and one Living Quarters).
There is also a time and cost factor associated with researching profitable items -- for instance, Heavy Lasers plus Laser Cannons require an average of 880 Scientist days to research (costing about $900,000 in salary). This is in addition to the 450 or so Scientist days required to research Laser Weapons, Laser Pistol, and Laser Rifle.
Workshop space overhead
Each manufacturing project takes up a fixed amount of workshop space, reducing the number of Engineers you can gainfully employ. With multiple workshops, the impact of this overhead is reduce: two workshops are proportionally 5%-7% more profitable than a single workshop would be (depending on the item being produced), and five workshops are as much as 11% more profitable.
Profit tables
The following is a list of selected items that are popular with players attempting to manufacture items for profit. Note that not all these items actually turn a profit, once all costs are factored in.
Monthly profits, based on a one-workshop operation. Figures in thousands (000's) where noted.
Item | Hrs. per unit | Max Engrs. | Unit sell price (000's) |
Unit cost (000's) |
Spec. costs (000's) |
Gross per unit (000's) |
Units per month | Labor cost (000's) |
Net monthly profit (000's) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Laser Cannon | 300 | 44 | 211 | 182 | 0 | 29 | 107.36 | 1,145 | 1,968.4 |
Fusion Ball Launcher | 400 | 44 | 281.1 | 242 | 6.5 | 32.6 | 80.52 | 1,145 | 1,480.0 |
Tank/Laser Cannon | 1200 | 25 | 594 | 500 | 0 | 94 | 15.25 | 670 | 763.5 |
Motion Scanner | 220 | 46 | 45.6 | 34 | 0 | 11.6 | 153.055 | 1,195 | 580.4 |
Medi-Kit | 420 | 46 | 46.5 | 28 | 0 | 18.5 | 80.171 | 1,195 | 288.2 |
Heavy Plasma | 1000 | 46 | 171.6 | 122 | 6.5 | 43.1 | 33.672 | 1,195 | 256.3 |
Laser Rifle | 400 | 47 | 36.9 | 20 | 0 | 16.9 | 86.01 | 1,220 | 233.6 |
Laser Pistol | 300 | 48 | 20 | 8 | 0 | 12 | 117.12 | 1,245 | 160.4 |
Alien Alloys | 100 | 40 | 6.5 | 3 | 0 | 3.5 | 292.8 | 1,045 | -20.2 |
Personal Armor | 800 | 38 | 54 | 22 | 26 | 6 | 34.77 | 995 | -786.4 |
Legend:
- Hrs. per unit are the number of hours needed by one engineer to build a single unit
- Max Engrs. equals 50 minus the amount of workshop space taken up by the project
- Unit sell price is what the item will sell for on the Sell/Sack screen
- Unit cost is what each item costs to produce, on the Production screen
- Spec. costs is $6,500 for each Alien Alloy and $5,000 for each Elerium, if any
- Gross per unit is its sell price, minus production and special materials costs
- Units per month is how many units a fully-staffed workshop can turn out: 732 hours (30.5 days) divided by Engineer hours per unit, times Max Engineers employable
- Labor cost is Max Engineers times $25,000 (monthly salary) -- plus $35,000 for Workshop maintenance costs and $10,000 for Living Quarters
- Net monthly profit is Gross profit times Units per month minus Labor cost
For a detailed listing of the profitability of all items in X-COM, with figures for 1 to 5 workshops, download MikeTheRed's Media:XCOM_Profit_Tables.pdf.
Laser Cannons vs. Fusion Ball Launchers
There is an oddity in XCOM in that the item that might be considered the most profitable is the Fusion Ball Launcher (FBL). The oddity is that the first one you produce does not require an Alien Alloy (and thus, no Alien Alloy requirement appears on the manufacturing screen). If in doubt, watch your Alien Alloy stores while manufacturing.
Without the alloys, the FBL would be about 2% more profitable than the Laser Cannon. However, when the Alien Alloys are taken into account, it falls well behind Laser Cannon. Due to the micromanagement needed to repeatedly restart manufacturing versus the very small gain, few players build one FBL at a time. Thus, many consider the Laser Cannon the most profitable item "in real life", but this oddity with the FBL has caused a fair bit of confusion; some (particularly older docs) say Fusion Ball Launchers are the most profitable. Anyway, now you know... and it's your choice. :)
Laser Cannons are also more readily researched than Fusion Ball Launchers. The average research time needed to produce Laser Cannons is 1330 hours (26.6 days for 50 Scientists), whereas Fusion Ball Launchers require 2080 hours (41.6 days). Furthermore, about 1/3 of the time needed for researching Laser Cannons is spent researching Laser Pistols and Rifles, which you are likely to research early on anyway.
Notes, Tips, Tricks, Etc.
- The maximum number of engineers you can assign to a project, equals the number of engineer hours it requires. In other words, the game "enforces" that you can only build one item per hour, at most. Example: You can only assign 60 engineers at most to work on a plasma pistol clip, which requires 60 engineer hours. The tables above don't take this into account, but then, small-fry products are usually not made by a large operation, anyway.
- You cannot have more than one project of the same type going at the same base. (This otherwise might've been a way "around" the limit of one per hour at most.) However, you can make that thing at some other base.
- Excess/wasted Workshop and Living Quarters are only a miniscule part of your costs. Example: A large operation (four workshops) might have 184 engineers instead of the optimal 194 for Laser Cannons (because of an occasional need to drop back and making flying suits, craft, etc. - it's a balance of constantly wasted space versus occasionally wasted engineers). The "wasted" 10 WS and LQ spaces only cost $9k/month ($45k*10/50), which is only 0.11% of the $8.3M/month that the 184 engineers make when producing LCs.
- Likewise, profits generally scale linearly according to number of workshops (two full workshops make only a little bit more than twice the profit of one full workshop, etc.). Many projects only require a handful of workspace requirements, and are almost totally linear. However, some projects have a large workspace requirement, such as the Laser Tank (25). With only one workshop, the Laser Tank only makes 39% of the profit that Laser Cannons would, whereas they make 64% of Laser Cannons with five workshops. The real reason they do so poorly with one workshop is much less due to the wasted overhead of workshop and living quarters; it is mainly because you can only assign 25 engineers with one workshop, versus 44 for Laser Cannons.
- Those who know XCOM, know that it suffers from integer truncation in a number of places. This could've hurt profitability badly if it occurred there; for example, if an item needs 100 engineer hours but you only assign 99, it might've taken twice as long, and halved your production and profit potential. Fortunately, this is not the case with manufacturing; it does not truncate production time this way.
- There is an exploit that lets the sneaky make items for free - but only one at a time.
- Another exploit involves transferring staff at the end of the month to avoid salaries. Eliminating salary costs makes Laser Cannons about 50% more profitable to produce.
- Factoid 1: The Heavy Plasma Clip is the most unprofitable item to make, due to the facts that it can be quickly made, but requires 3 Elerium. Be careful what you ask for!
- Factoid 2: Strange as it may seem, XCOM craft are not the most unprofitable items in the game, even though they are very expensive to make, and you can't sell them. (High cost, zero sales.) This is because craft take a long time to make, whereas other items can be made quickly, but incorporate expensive components. Their extreme costs override the fact that they can actually be sold. :P
Bugs
- In the UFO: Enemy Unkown (and most likely all the other XCOM and TFTD versions) you can overflow the variable that holds the number of engineers. If you go over 255 engineers in a base the number listed in the base will be negative. If you have them all on some projects, you can keep them. However, if the project ends or you try to move them around, you will lose up to 255 engineers and have to hire them again. Keeping them past the end of the month has not been tested yet. Don't go over 254 engineers in a base. This doesn't count transfers until they arrive.
See Also
- Workshop
- Hiring/firing
- Buying/Selling/Transferring#Manufacturable Prices for a list of build and sell prices for all manufacturable items (plus special materials requried).