Manufacturing Profitability
Accounting
Accurately reflecting profitability of manufacturing items requires that the following be accounted for:
- Cost for "parts", the value shown on the manufacturing screen
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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.
Profitability
The figures below show monthly profits, based on a two-workshop operation.
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 -$2.3M.
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. 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.
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. :)
Tables
For a PDF showing profitability based on 1 to 5 workshops, see this.
For the Excel file that the PDF is made from, see 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.
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 (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.
- 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 - 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.
- 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
Item profitability tables
| Item | Engineer Hours | Item cost (thousands) |
Item sell price (thousands) |
Materials cost (thousands) |
Gross monthly profit per Engineer (thousands) |
Net monthly profit per Engineer (thousands) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laser Cannon | 300 | 182 | 211 | 0 | 69.6 | 43.6 |
| Fusion Ball Launcher | 400 | 242 | 281 | 6.5 | 70.2 | 32.5 |
| Tank/Laser Cannon | 1200 | 500 | 594 | 0 | 56.4 | 30.4 |
| Motion Scanner | 220 | 34 | 45.6 | 0 | 37.96 | 11.96 |
| Medi-Kit | 420 | 28 | 46.5 | 0 | 31.71 | 5.71 |
| Laser Rifle | 400 | 20 | 36.9 | 0 | 30.42 | 4.42 |
| Heavy Laser | 700 | 32 | 61 | 0 | 29.83 | 3.83 |
| Laser Pistol | 300 | 8 | 20 | 0 | 28.8 | 2.8 |
| Alien Alloys | 100 | 3 | 6.5 | 0 | 25.2 | -0.8 |
| Personal Armor | 800 | 22 | 54 | 26 | 28.8 | -20.6 |
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.
Here's the list from the OSG (sorted by profit) for you to use as needed:
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.
Item Cost Sell Profit Special Materials Net Profit ---- ---- ---- ------ --(sell price)--- ---------- Hovertank/Launcher $900,000 $1,043,000 $143,000 $177,000 Hovertank/Plasma $850,000 $980,000 $130,000 $182,500 UFO Power Source $130,000 $250,000 $120,000 $132,500 Tank/Laser Cannon $500,000 $594,000 $94,000 $94,000 Flying Suit $58,000 $115,000 $57,000 $132,500 Blaster Launcher $90,000 $144,000 $54,000 $ 6,500 $47,500-1A Heavy Plasma $122,000 $171,600 $49,600 $ 6,500 $43,100-1A Power Suit $42,000 $85,000 $43,000 $ 57,500 Mind Probe $262,000 $304,000 $42,000 $ 5,000 $37,000-1E Small Launcher $78,000 $120,000 $42,000 $ 6,500 $35,500-1A Plasma Beam $226,000 $267,300 $41,300 $ 75,000 Fusion Ball Launcher $242,000 $281,100 $39,000 $39,000 Plasma Rifle $88,000 $126,500 $38,500 $ 6,500 $31,500-1A Psi-Amp $160,000 $194,700 $34,700 $ 5,000 $29,700-1A Personal Armor $22,000 $54,000 $32,000 $ 26,000 $ 6,000-4A Laser Cannon $182,000 $211,000 $29,000 $29,000 Heavy Laser $32,000 $61,000 $29,000 $29,000 Plasma Pistol $56,000 $84,000 $28,000 $ 6,500 $21,500-1A Fusion Ball $28,000 $53,300 $25,300 $ 20,000 $ 5,300-4E Medi-Kit $28,000 $46,500 $18,500 $18,500 Laser Rifle $20,000 $36,900 $16,900 $16,900 HWP Fusion Bomb $15,000 $31,500 $16,500 $ 77,000 Laser Pistol $8,000 $20,000 $12,000 $12,000 Motion Scanner $34,000 $45,600 $11,600 $11,600 Blaster Bomb $8,000 $17,028 $9,028 $ 15,000 Stun Bomb $7,000 $15,200 $8,200 $ 5,000 $ 3,200-1E Alien Grenade $6,700 $14,850 $8,150 $ 10,000 Heavy Plasma Clip $6,000 $9,590 $3,590 $ 5,000 Alien Alloys $3,000 $6,500 $3,500 $ 3,500 Plasma Rifle Clip $3,000 $6,290 $3,290 $ 5,000 Plasma Pistol Clip $2,000 $4,400 $2,400 $ 5,000 UFO Navigation $150,000 $80,000 -$70,000 $ 19,500