Payout algorithm explained [Archive]

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 02:08 PM

Crime City utilizes a simple algorithm to generate all payouts. It multiplies the base (level 1) payout against an indexed value of one of two lookup tables, which I have termed Growth Type A and Growth Type B.

Growth Type A uses a modified triangular sequence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_number):

1 -> 1
2 -> 3
3 -> 6
4 -> 10
5 -> 15
6 -> 22
7 -> 31
8 -> 42
9 -> 55
10 -> 75

Growth Type B uses a modified Fibonacci sequence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number):

1 -> 1
2 -> 2
3 -> 3.5
4 -> 5.5
5 -> 8
6 -> 11
7 -> 14.5
8 -> 18.5
9 -> 23
10 -> 30

Buildings available under level 8, including Mafia unlocks, are Type A. All others are Type B. Complete lists follow.

Type A cash buildings, with bases:

Barbershop, $140
Deli, $60
Diner, $100
Gas Station, $55
Gun Shop, $300
House, $360
Italian Restaurant, $140
Laundromat, $5
Loft, $11000
Movie Theater, $3100
Nightclub, $175000
Pawn Shop, $125
Pizza Parlor, $30
Souvenir Store, $60
Tattoo Parlor, $105

Type B cash buildings, with bases:

Arcade, $50
Bagel Shop, $580
Brownstone, $12000
Casino, $900000
Chinese Restaurant, $225
Clothing Store, $300
Collection Agency, $325
Condo, $79200
Credit Agency, $75000
Crematorium, $30000
Electronics Store, $260
Fancy Restaurant, $1100
Fish Store, $840
Flower Shop, $4600
French Restaurant, $24000
History Museum, $3600
Hotel, $285000
Internet Company, $16000
Meat Factory, $1400
Modern Loft, $2500
Russian Restaurant, $10,500
Seafood Restaurant, $1000
Shoe Store, $1400
Sports Bar, $140
Underboss' House, $4400
Warehouse, $1100

Type A gold buildings, with bases:

Basketball Court, $150
Empire Theater, $450
Ice Cream Shop, $95
Mansion, $850
Techno Club, $1000

Type B gold buildings, with bases:

Adult Movie Theater, $3500
Anchor Imports, $48000
Blues Club, $3500
Carousel, $110
Chicken & Waffles, $1400
Church, $48000
Cowboy Casino, $825
Credit Agency, $75000
Gaming Parlor, $280
Gentlemen's Club, $360000
Jazz Club, $250
Modern Art Museum, $3000
Palm Hotel, $725000
Pirate Tavern, $100000
Rock Cafe, $110000
Smoke Shop, $2200
Sushi Bar, $250
Wedding Chapel, $8800
Zeus Theater, $8400

As an example, we will derive the payout of a level 7 Laundromat. From the lists above we see it is a Type A building, so we will multiply the base, $5, against the index of level 7, 31:

$5 * 31 = $155

So now with the algorithm known it becomes possible to fill (almost) the entire spreadsheet with mathematically accurate values, which is a good thing considering the volume of errors within. Particularly, a number of base values are actually Tycoon derivations, leading to a 10% base inflation and 21% Tycoon inflation. Others are clearly data entry errors, like the Fish Store. Through my derivations I determined the base value to be $840 but the spreadsheet shows it as $480. Deriving values in the spreadsheet can be as simple as a nested IF statement that reads another field for "A" or "B". All one needs to get correct is the base value.

Notice that Type A yields substantially better growth and that most of the Type A cash buildings lie in the default set, with the rest being Mafia-unlocked. This is a large part of why their ROI is so strong. Later buildings need to make up for slower growth with stronger base payouts.

Also, the Tycoon bonus isn't exactly 10%. It probably is at some point in the calculation but by the time it is displayed to the end user it's actually slightly higher. This can be seen by comparing spreadsheet values to those in-game and noticing the off-by-one errors.

Thanks to contributors in this thread for corrections, algorithms, and data.

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 02:16 PM

Those of you looking into buying gold and parlaying that into optimum-paying buildings, here is a metric for you. First I derived level 10 payouts of gold buildings with available data. Then I divided the payouts by collection times to get $/hr. Then I divided that figure by gold paid to get a kind of "return on investment" figure, represented as $/hr per gold spent. Sorting the list, we get:

Pirate Tavern, $3409.09
Gentlemen's Club, $3000.00
Palm Hotel, $1937.50
Rock Cafe, $1571.43
Wedding Chapel, $1173.33
Adult Movie Theater, $807.69
Smoke Shop, $550.00
Church, $300.00
Ice Cream Shop, $296.88
Zeus Theater, $250.00
Chicken & Waffles, $194.44
Basketball Court, $187.50
Gaming Parlor, $186.67
Anchor Imports, $133.33
Carousel, $132.00
Sushi Bar, $83.33
Blues Club, $70.00
Empire Theater, $45.00
Moden Art Museum, $28.13
Jazz Club, $12.50
Mansion, $10.63
Cowboy Casino, $10.31
Techno Club, $7.81

IMO everything below Anchor Imports is a swindle and even Anchor is questionable. Personally I wouldn't go beyond the first four. EDIT: exception being possibly buying two Basketball Courts with the initial 10 gold. EDIT2: this list was updated. "First four" previously referred to Adult Movie Theater, Smoke Shop, Church, and Ice Cream Shop.

Level 10 payouts were used to compare faster growth Type A buildings with slower growth Type B buildings. List positions won't change based on level if restricting to one type class.

corpsegrinder

11-26-2011, 02:28 PM

One of the most informative and well put together posts I've seen on here. Great job

Mb Tnk

11-26-2011, 02:31 PM

Thank you Tramp Stamp, excellent data!!! :)

Euchred

11-26-2011, 02:48 PM

Cool post I'm guessing the later gold building are all type B. It'd be cool it'd someone could confirm the type of the nightclub imagine if it was type A.

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 02:57 PM

Given that the two other Mafia buildings are Type A I'm thinking the Nightclub is as well. If so that means its level 10 payout is $13,125,000 or roughly $14,437,500 with the Tycoon boost. That would be an incredible $2,187,500/$2,406,250 per hour. It'd be easy to verify with a few pieces of data, if anyone has them:

1. Confirm base payout to be $175,000.
2. Provide payout for any other level.
3. Confirm 6 hour collection.

I'm also thinking the unlisted gold buildings are Type B, which is disappointing as it means they offer little value over cash buildings. Adult Movie Theater is insane, though, if you check in all day.

Popeye The Sailor Man

11-26-2011, 03:24 PM

Wow I'm amazed deffinatly needs to be a sticky -.-
How did you even work this out.

badd

11-26-2011, 03:24 PM

thanks TS very informative :) kudos to you sir

duder

11-26-2011, 03:56 PM

I can confirm that when unlocked the nightclub is listed at 6 hours collection frequency and 175,000 payout per collection. I haven't built one yet (it'll be a couple months before I can confirm the other bits).

whocareswhatmynameis

11-26-2011, 04:20 PM

GREAT POST!

your thread came just in time as i contemplate gold buildings i would be buying during the thanksgiving sale...

was initially thinking of going for chicken+waffle, smoke shop and sushi bar.

BUT after reading your message, i'm inclined towards church and smoke shop (already have ice cream shop).

thanks for the enlightening thread.

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 04:45 PM

In terms of figuring this out, I started with TLoord's $/hr figures on my own spreadsheet then expressed the difference between levels as a percentage. I didn't really need to do $/hr as collection timing is immaterial to the calculation. As I had hoped, the values followed a predictable pattern (well, two predictable patterns). Figuring out that every number was a multiple of the base was obvious once I started looking at the non-Tycoon payouts, which I hadn't really been doing. In terms of identifying which specific sequences were used, triangular and Fibbonacci are extremely common. Even with the modifications they still stood out.

I'll try build times and upgrade costs next; they appear to use the same style of calculation. With those covered the ROI process can become automated.

unggubrian

11-26-2011, 04:52 PM

This is one of the best put together threads ever and it's so neat since you actually use correct grammar!

Max Power

11-26-2011, 05:24 PM

Great post. I built my own spreadsheet from it. Couple of things....

The Internet company's initial payout is missing a zero, should be 16,000. The Jazz Club is missing altogether. Looking at the first upgrade, it appears to be type B, as does the Zeus Theater. They are $250 and $8400, respectively.

Kirbnite

11-26-2011, 05:36 PM

Upgrade costs are super easy. They increase 67% each level. Just need to get initial upgrade cost. Build times would complete the picture.

Duke.0

11-26-2011, 05:47 PM

So...what can one conclude from this?

Which type of building pays out the best A or B?

Kirkjmurray

11-26-2011, 06:00 PM

Nightclub level 2 payout is $577,500 as a Tycoon.

whocareswhatmynameis

11-26-2011, 06:04 PM

So...what can one conclude from this?

Which type of building pays out the best A or B?

A (ten character limit)

edit:

but, when it comes to gold purchase, the metric used is highest income possible (lvl 10) divided by gold spent. so, while generally it is best to invest on buildings that have a higher rate of increment on leveling up, for gold buildings, initial investment is also vital.

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 06:23 PM

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 06:25 PM

So...what can one conclude from this?

Which type of building pays out the best A or B?

Type A has best growth while Type B tends to have higher initial payouts. The real conclusion is that this is an intermediate step in providing insightful data to the end user. It's meant to eliminate the gaps and data entry errors in the currently best available data.

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 06:30 PM

Nightclub level 2 payout is $577,500 as a Tycoon.

Then it's confirmed: Nightclub is a Type A. The previously calculated level 10 payouts stand.

Kirkjmurray

11-26-2011, 06:33 PM

Then it's confirmed: Nightclub is a Type A. The previously calculated level 10 payouts stand.

It's going to be a long road to get a Nightclub to Level 10. Upgrade cost to Level 2 is 66 mil. haha

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 06:55 PM

Upgrade costs are super easy. They increase 67% each level. Just need to get initial upgrade cost. Build times would complete the picture.

Appears to be the case, though there are rounding errors. It could be due to using a figure that looks like 67% but isn't quite or insufficient precision with floating point operations. I am not interested in finding the source.

Duke.0

11-26-2011, 07:03 PM

Very good thread ! :)
Nice work

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 10:24 PM

when it comes to gold purchase, the metric used is highest income possible (lvl 10) divided by gold spent. so, while generally it is best to invest on buildings that have a higher rate of increment on leveling up, for gold buildings, initial investment is also vital.

Regarding gold purchases, even if one takes the stance of wanting relative rewards right away, the four choices I recommended provide a decent spread. Adult Movie Theater is somewhat pricey at 130 gold, isn't available until level 98, but offers the highest awards. Smoke shop is affordable at 15 gold, available sooner at level 38, and still offers high rewards. Church is expensive at 200 gold, available later at level 64, but offers massive payouts. Finally, there are the Ice Cream Shop and Basketball Court, which are "free", available right away, yet still rank rank near the top in value.

Another note is I only used level 10 payouts to compare Type A to Type B. If you eliminate Basketball Court, Ice Cream Shop, and Techno Club, the remaining list will basically scale regardless of level.

Finally, I updated the list to include Jazz Club and Zeus Theater. Jazz Club is an abysmal value, but Zeus Theater is strong enough for a moderate recommendation.

Tramp Stamp

11-26-2011, 11:00 PM

Updated first two posts with data from Wikia site.

Euchred

11-27-2011, 04:35 AM

I picked up a couple churches and zeus thetres. Now I'm just waiting for level 102 for the rock cafe and level 125 for the (Gentlemans club?). I might pick up some basketball courts as soon as space permits. This knowledge puts a premium on getting movie theatre and lofts upgraded i'll be putting my lofts to level 3 asap.

Kinda makes me wish they had an inbetween algarithim for high level gold building to make the more worth it. With an end payout of 50x would be nice.

Joeycool

11-27-2011, 06:44 AM

Outstanding work Tramp Stamp!

Anubis

11-27-2011, 08:46 AM

Very nice to see that.

I think its worth mentioning however that gold buildings are relitively effortless to get (just a choice of shall I spend the r/m or not). Having smoke shops (ice cream shops and BB courts) might be good value for money, but having them isn't going to open up other possibilities ingame (except during the lower levels).

Having 2x Churchs, Anchor imports and wedding chappels it means you have the $$$ to upgrade the lower range buildings high up (Agency's spring to mind - I've managed to easily take them up to 8 now with the new income). If I wanted too (which I don't because it would take me months to see a positive return) I have the free cash to get a loft or crematorium and/or equip my mafia with mid level $$$ equipment. With R/M buildings I don't look at the gold cost so much, I just consider what impact having 'x' income will have on my hood.

I aggree the Mansion isn't worth it, but it does add a certain aesthetically pleasing building to your hood.

Anubis

11-27-2011, 08:50 AM

I can confirm that Mansion is Type A
Payout at level 3 is $5610 with Tycoon
Still a worthless purchase

allhaildiscordia

11-27-2011, 10:32 AM

Type A includes buildings that require less than building 10, and all building that require N mafia to build. So:
Gun Shop
Italian Restaurant
Movie Theater
Loft
Nightclub

The 67% formula works as long if you apply it as a exponent and round only the final result

1.67^(Level-1)*base

The gold buildings have a cash equivalent price that is used for determining the upgrade costs and presumably sell back price
1 Basketball Court $300
1 Techno Club $800
1 Ice Cream Shop $500
2 Mansion $30,000) 0:05:00 18 days, 0:00:00 18 days, 0:00:00
6 Empire Theater $40,000
12 Jazz Club $15,000
14 Carousel $20,000
16 Cowboy Casino $25,000
19 Sushi Bar $24,000
23 Modern Art Museum $100,000
26 Chicken and Waffles $80,000
28 Blues Club $150,000
38 Smoke Shop $100,000
43 Anchor Imports $600,000
48 Gaming Parlor $150,000
55 Zeus Theater $500,000
64 Church $1,500,000
87 Wedding Chapel $1,800,000
93 Adult Movie Theater $3,400,000
102 Rock Cafe $9,000,000
113 Pirate Tavern $14,000,000
125 Gentleman's Club $19,000,000
165 Palm Hotel $44,000,000

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 10:45 AM

I updated the list with Mansion info. Upgrading it to Type A did little to increase its net worth.

Now with the gold building list more or less complete, a trend becomes apparent, with my opinions in parenthesis:

1. The "free" buildings, Basketball Court and Ice Cream Shop, offer above average value overall (perhaps to act as a teaser to buy more gold).

1. The "free" buildings offer radically above average value over their low-level contemporaries Techno Club, Mansion, and Empire Theater. In general there is a stiff penalty for buying gold buildings early (perhaps to avoid a situation where a value seeking player could rapidly stockpile cash early on or to encourage even further investment in gold).

2. There is a discount in buying later gold buildings (probably to appeal to higher level players who need greater incremental value to make a purchase).

To revise my recommendations based on level:

36 and under
Smoke Shop (one of the best values for the level in the game)
Ice Cream Shop
Chicken & Waffles
Basketball Court if space is not a concern

48 and under
Gaming Parlor
Anchor Imports (marginal)

55 and up
Everything new is worth the cost

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 11:14 AM

Type A includes buildings that require less than building 10

Looks like you're right and that I misclassified Empire Theater as Type B.

The 67% formula works as long if you apply it as a exponent and round only the final result

1.67^(Level-1)*base

Nice catch. I wonder if something similar happens with the Tycoon bonus to explain its slightly greater than 10% payout.

AppleMacGuy

11-27-2011, 11:55 AM

Tramp Stamp - Superb work! I spent some considerable time mentally analysing the gold buildings to determine what I considered to be the 'best' ones and concur with you pretty much. I've never been convinced that Anchor Imports was worth purchasing, but a lot of players have been 'duped' due to it's early availability at lowish levels. Better to play a waiting a game and work harder to progress further in my opinion (currently level 130). I've never purchased the Church or Zeus Theater for similar reasons. The Ice Cream Shop and Smoke Shop are, IMO, great purchases for 2 reasons - frequent payout (3 hourly) and their small footprint (another negative for Anchor Imports). It is easy to underestimate the rapid increase in the cost of land to build upon - my next expansion is going to set me back $7 million :-P and although my economy is a decent $120K an hour it will still 'hurt'!

Another thing - TLoord's Google spreadsheet has now been locked down due to persistent abuse by morons. All data in future will only be updated by authorised moderators and once I get in touch with TLoord I should be one of them. We should look at getting your data into the Google sheet (if it's not already been done?) and if, of course, you consent to your work being included with proper attribution?

I'm also going to propose to TLoord that we start another thread on the forum where players can post info/data that is worthy of inclusion. Thanks again for your effort.

Regards,

AppleMacGuy.
103 869 901

allhaildiscordia

11-27-2011, 12:19 PM

All upgrade times pulled from the game data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ai8Zt3JFNCsmdERYMEtmWWc4OFFBMXF6d0hINnR4Q 1E

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 12:29 PM

AppleMacGuy, this work was borne out of frustration regarding the incompleteness of the spreadsheet, so, sure, include it by all means. I want updated ROI figures, which become weak after the first few building levels.

However, allhaildiscordia's sheet looks to be quite rigorous. I propose obsoleting the current sheet using his as a base and adding missing data rather than the other way around.

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 12:44 PM

So, 7 days, 7 hours and $6 billion for a Level 10 upgrade to the Casino that pays out $1,125,000/hr. That'd take about 8 months to pay off.

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 01:03 PM

Minor correction: Type A buildings go up to experience level 7, Barbershop. Level 9, Electronics Store, is Type B. I'm guessing if there were a level 8 building it'd be a Type A.

AppleMacGuy

11-27-2011, 01:50 PM

Tramp Stamp - noted...we'll have to see what TLoord says but I'd have to agree with you.

Regards,

AppleMacGuy.
103 869 901

Duke.0

11-27-2011, 01:57 PM

There is so much to look at in this thread its hurting my eyes :P

Currently many of us on forums are going with a 12/24/48 hour payout buildings because of the duration of time between pickups prevents robbing and also its easy to collect with consistent times. Where as 1 hour buildings are difficult to gather the optimum income from them since its hard to play every hour of every day.

If you were going to build the best hood possible, what non gold buildings would you include?

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 03:32 PM

I made a quick 'n dirty attempt at completing the spreadsheet with ROI figures. My process was as follows:

1. Import allhaildiscordia's GDocs spreadsheet into Excel.

2. Add "Mafia" column so that "Unlock level" doesn't take up so much room and so the list is easier to sort.

3. Add "Gold cost" column and put cash equivalent price into "Upgrade / build cost" column.

4. Reformat the time columns to make them available for computation.

5. Recompute all derived columns. I wanted to keep as much precision as possible.

6. Calculate ROI. I did this a bit differently than the present sheet:

ROI cost: (previous_hourly_output * upgrade_time_hours + upgrade_or_build_cost)

ROI gain: (new_hourly_output - previous_hourly_output)

The second ROI column, with 50% income pickup loss, assumes players on average upgrade when the structure is at the 50% payout mark. Doing this destroys the entire payout, even if there is only one second remaining. I am well aware that there are philosophical problems with my ROI method(s) and don't claim to be an authority on the matter.

7. I pasted computations as values and deleted intermediate fields so that the import from Excel to GDocs would go smoothly (and to hide the computational ugliness).

I had to set the document as editable by everyone to enable sorting (what an asinine design limitation), so sorry if it gets destroyed. It doesn't affect me because the original is in Excel. I didn't feel like adding building footprints.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgEHrvnoijXudHFVU2RxYUQzYXYtOURRd0d3M1hVR 2c#gid=0

Lars

11-27-2011, 05:10 PM

Wow, I am impressed by your work, Tramp Stamp!

Another thing - TLoord's Google spreadsheet has now been locked down due to persistent abuse by morons. All data in future will only be updated by authorised moderators and once I get in touch with TLoord I should be one of them. We should look at getting your data into the Google sheet (if it's not already been done?) and if, of course, you consent to your work being included with proper attribution?

There is still a public editable copy at
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkPDmk8Lr8yadE9NdlkxV24xcjhIajRFMFhEWWVZZ EE&authkey=CNfOuMUH#gid=0

I will try to help to get he data into the master document once I find the time for that (I am authorized but a bit too busy at the beginning of the week).

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 07:26 PM

Reorganized and updated spreadsheet. Precise calculated fields are now included and survive the import from Excel and subsequent sorting. Doing so required introducing intermediate fields for calculation, which I have hidden. The spreadsheet now appears like I felt the original should had all the data had been included.

P.S. my back-of-the-napkin 8 month ROI calculation for Level 10 Casino was incorrect. It's actually 2.5 Tycoon years! Total ROI to bring a Casino to level 10 is 9.87 years for Tycoon and 10.82 years for non-tycoon. If you built two of them you'd be sending your kids to college before you saw a return, even if you don't currently have kids.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgEHrvnoijXudHFVU2RxYUQzYXYtOURRd0d3M1hVR 2c&hl=en_US#gid=0

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 08:50 PM

Food for thought:

While players seem to rush to level 7 Warehouse to complete the goal, by (Tycoon) ROI, it's 288 out of 650 upgrades/constructions. Given how building is faster than upgrading, it's probably closer to 300. So a player should be through nearly 50% of all possible upgrades before completing the goal if he is maximizing return. Meanwhile, The last of the default cash buildings, Pawn Shop, finishes at 172. No surprise that Laundromat is the first building to reach level 10 at 108, but Pizza Parlor is close at 124. The last of the easy-to-obtain Mafia buildings, Italian Restaurant, finishes at 250. Gun Shop's done at 225. As expected, Movie Theater and Loft finish pretty late, 458 and 519, respectively, though they're already in the mix by the time Warehouse reaches level 7. Loft is built and possibly up to level 4 while Movie Theater is at 5-6. Ice Cream Shop and Basketball court are virtually tied at 143 vs 145, but how does 2x Basketball courts play out vs. Ice Cream Shop's tiny footprint? The first available Class B building, Electronics Store, isn't finished until 372. As brutal as level 10 Nightclub is, there are 77 upgrades even harder to take, including 27 upgrades below level 9.

allhaildiscordia

11-27-2011, 09:29 PM

If you built two of them you'd be sending your kids to college before you saw a return, even if you don't currently have kids.

ROI only takes into account the income from building itself, so building multiples of that building, the ROI is realized concurrently rather than consecutively.

The output from your other buildings is subsidizing those upgrades so I don't think it's a bad as it seems. The ROI numbers are useful as a relative ranking of buildings and upgrades to each other.

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 09:51 PM

ROI only takes into account the income from building itself, so building multiples of that building, the ROI is realized concurrently rather than consecutively.

Ah, yes, I was too eager to make a bombastic claim to take that into consideration.

The output from your other buildings is subsidizing those upgrades so I don't think it's a bad as it seems. The ROI numbers are useful as a relative ranking of buildings and upgrades to each other.

This is an important point that needs to be emphasized. Some seem to find that upgrading the early, low-paying buildings silly when massive payout buildings are available, but if one tracks ROI, even roughly, he'll find his wealth accelerating even when tackling long-view investments, the reason being that once the dinky ROIs are paid off, everything henceforth compounds. When there's nothing else to do, when 649 of 650 upgrades have been taken, then going after 2x level 10 Casinos is not only the correct choice, it should actually be affordable or at least within reach. Still, the "profits" are coming from the low ROI buildings, and it will still take ages to realize the return on the final investments, though those decisions will indeed be buried beneath a landfill of previous optimized investments.

Tramp Stamp

11-27-2011, 10:29 PM

More food for thought:

At the endgame, assuming all cash buildings are built and no gold ones, 45% income will be derived by a single building, the Nightclub. 68% will be generated by the top two buildings, Nightclub and Casino. 89% will be generated by the top five: Nightclub, Casino, Office Building, Hotel, and Condos. This means that you could basically raze your landscape except for these five buildings and the net effect would be that you're banking the money.

Assuming you could fit 2x of every building, including the gold ones, your hourly payout would be $16,537,846.88

Anubis

11-28-2011, 01:06 AM

This is an important point that needs to be emphasized. Some seem to find that upgrading the early, low-paying buildings silly when massive payout buildings are available, but if one tracks ROI, even roughly, he'll find his wealth accelerating even when tackling long-view investments, the reason being that once the dinky ROIs are paid off, everything henceforth compounds. When there's nothing else to do, when 649 of 650 upgrades have been taken, then going after 2x level 10 Casinos is not only the correct choice, it should actually be affordable or at least within reach. Still, the "profits" are coming from the low ROI buildings, and it will still take ages to realize the return on the final investments, though those decisions will indeed be buried beneath a landfill of previous optimized investments.

^^ This statement has help make things look a lot clearer. I see hoods that I used to think look mor like shanty towns with all the low level buildings piled together, but this one guy had a higher hourly income than me with no gold except BBcourt, his lowbie buildings were at a decent level.

I've been focusing solidly on defence building upgrades for the last 20 levels only to find at 91 any HL person can attack me. Had robs from up to lvl145 right now so defence seems pointless. With the ROI chart (ignoring buildings that I know won't work for me like LM's and hourly buildings) I can go back to the beginning and build up my income properly. I just hate the look of them @@, part of the game i enjoy most is making things look pwetty.

EDIT: Would you advise sorting the list into build/upgrade cost A-Z and start with the lowest. I presume that would lay the foundations to build your economy from? Potentially then you can also just build building that suit your pick up times too, so for me its all buildings 3hours+. The downside is the massive times involved with upgrading, I wish you could spend some gold to be able to have 2 upgrades on the go at once.

Lars

11-28-2011, 01:33 AM

I had a quick check on the Defense Buildings. Guess it is the same scheme for their defense values. Type A fits the known values Abandoned Building, Bodyguard Agency and Guard Tower, Type B Safehouse and MG Turret, see
http://crimecityios.wikia.com/wiki/Defense_Buildings

wupuck

11-28-2011, 03:00 AM

Tramp Stamp, this is an AWESOME thread. Thank you!

Tramp Stamp

11-28-2011, 08:48 AM

^^ This statement has help make things look a lot clearer. I see hoods that I used to think look mor like shanty towns with all the low level buildings piled together, but this one guy had a higher hourly income than me with no gold except BBcourt, his lowbie buildings were at a decent level.

To drive the ROI point home, I've been playing this game for about 10 days and "seriously" for about 6 of those, yet in a few hours I'll be building a Movie Theater. However its level 1 Tycoon ROI is 20.5 days! How can I even afford it? Through the post-ROI compounding of scrubby Laundromats, Pizza Parlors, and Ice Cream Shops. My main problem isn't money but expanding my hood fast enough to actually fit all the buildings I need to build.

Would you advise sorting the list into build/upgrade cost A-Z and start with the lowest.

I've been thinking about adding recommended usage to the spreadsheet. In a nutshell, you should save your own version, as a GDoc or Excel document. From there make heavy use of filtering. First eliminate the buildings you don't need. With 10 levels each of 65 buildings, it gets rather noisy over 650 entries. If you're not interested in, say, buildings that payout in less than 8 hour increments, you can uncheck 0.083333, 1, 3, and 6 from the "Output Time (hrs)" column. Also, assuming you've already built everything and aren't interested in level 1 ROI, uncheck 1 from the "Level" column to eliminate non-upgrades. Finally, you can go down the "Name" column and individually uncheck remaining buildings that don't interest you. Once you've filtered everything, then go in order.

The downside is the massive times involved with upgrading, I wish you could spend some gold to be able to have 2 upgrades on the go at once.

Upgrading puny buildings for what seems a pittance is tough to take psychologically, but long upgrade times are precisely why this process works. When you're upgrading your bigger payoff buildings, not only do the upgrades take longer but you lose the associated revenue. You need to make up that revenue, and the best way to do that is via low ROI buildings.

Note that the process changes when you run out of room. At that point you need to look at raw $/hr and forget about ROI; Pawn Shop, Gun Shop, Deli, Electronics Store, Tattoo Parlor, and Gas Station go onto the chopping block. Powerful as Type A buildings are in the early going, they just can't hang in the endgame.

I feel the skew between building times and upgrading times is a flaw in game mechanics that could readily be rectified by parallel building. The time to build all money buildings and upgrades appears to be over 8 years. We're back to sending our kids to college before finishing Casino construction.

skunk

11-28-2011, 09:06 AM

TS

Great post and I like it alot.
Are you up for another challenge?
If the payouts follow a mathematical formula, do the upgrade costs?

Sorry if You've already answered this but I diodn't ready through the 5 pages of people singing your well deserved praises.

Kudos again ;)

Tramp Stamp

11-28-2011, 09:13 AM

If the payouts follow a mathematical formula, do the upgrade costs?

Money building data is complete. allhaildiscordia provided a spreadsheet with correct values then I added ROI to it. The results can be seen here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgEHrvnoijXudHFVU2RxYUQzYXYtOURRd0d3M1hVR 2c&hl=en_US#gid=0

Lars

11-28-2011, 02:46 PM

If the payouts follow a mathematical formula, do the upgrade costs?

Sorry if You've already answered this but I diodn't ready through the 5 pages of people singing your well deserved praises.

Yes, it does: Kirbnite pointed out (2nd page), that each level upgrade costs increase by 67%. This seems also be true for the updrade costs of defence buildings and Tramp Stamp's scheme works for their defence values. So all we need is a formula for the upgrade times ...

allhaildiscordia

11-28-2011, 03:18 PM

So all we need is a formula for the upgrade times ...

There is no formula for upgrade times. It's specific for each level and building.

Lars

11-28-2011, 04:00 PM

There is no formula for upgrade times. It's specific for each level and building.

Well, we used to think the same about the income levels. :-)

Tramp Stamp

11-28-2011, 07:37 PM

I concur with allhaildiscordia. While there are obvious trends and recycled times, in general build times seem to have been applied haphazardly. I think they probably started with a general algorithm then tweaked the times in testing, especially at the early levels. It's probably the same thing that happened to the not-quite-there triangular and Fibbonacci sequences used in the payout calculations. Were times more consistent ROI calculations would be far more straightforward (and less interesting).

AppleMacGuy

11-29-2011, 03:54 AM

Lars

11-29-2011, 06:07 AM

I concur with allhaildiscordia. [...]
OK, I trust in your greater authority here. I had just a quick look at the time development of one building, and I agree it does not look like a nice function (too irregular curvature). On the other hand, it would surprise me if the Funzio developers had really tabled out all the time data while they preferred to use functions for the costs, incomes and defense values.

Tramp Stamp

11-29-2011, 08:09 AM

Hi, Tramp Stamp - do you have any thoughts as to how the Hood expansion cost/time are calculated as there does appear to be a pattern? My math isn't so bad and I could probably figure it out, but you seem much more expert at this stuff ;) Thanks.

Hood expansion looks custom, which isn't all that surprising considering it's "one thing" compared to 65 money buildings and 17 or so defense buildings.

Anubis

11-29-2011, 09:00 AM

I feel the skew between building times and upgrading times is a flaw in game mechanics that could readily be rectified by parallel building. The time to build all money buildings and upgrades appears to be over 8 years. We're back to sending our kids to college before finishing Casino construction.

I was enjoying reading the response you left, I already have it in excel ready to filter, but this statement made me think the economy needs maybe a more indepth look from people who understand econimics. I'll be suprised if anyone plays the game longer than 6months let alone 8 years.... I played FFXI for 5years until it burned me out and that was a proper MMO. That game cost me an aprox of around £600 from monthly fees over 5 years, I spent around £200 on this game and only played it 2months. I won't spend any more on this however because its blandness does become quite obvious after a while.

Tramp Stamp

11-29-2011, 09:46 AM

the economy needs maybe a more indepth look from people who understand econimics. I'll be suprised if anyone plays the game longer than 6months let alone 8 years....

The haphazard algorithms, where they even exist, indicate a general lack of vision on the part of the game creators. The only reason ROI charting is worth creating or even needed is due to game imbalances. Otherwise build order concerns would be minute. If Funzio wants to join the MMO crowd in terms of yearly revenue, they're going to need to rework the building mechanics and add onto game facets. In effect, the longer you play, the more you're punished, in terms of huge building times and/or being abused by high level gamers. Having the huge times is fine, but finishing existing game content should be doable within a year. I hope the idea wasn't to make the game take 8 years, call it a day, and assume people would stick around for all of it.

Still, build time ramps massively toward the end. To merely construct 2 of every money building is "only" 110 days, with 96% of that being attributed to less than a third of the buildings. Constructing 2x of the lowest time buildings takes a mere 96.5 hours. It's much worse in the upgrades, though, with 50% of the total time in the upper 21%, meaning the other half is in the bottom 79%.

Assuming perfect construction and ROI upgrades along with necessary resources to immediately start the projects when applicable and no time spent on defense buildings etc, at the six month mark (4380 hours), a player will have constructed all buildings and reached 162 of 585 upgrades, so a little more than a quarter. Realistically he'll fall far short of that. Warehouse is at level 4. Take gold buildings out and we'll be at 183 of 369, or a hair under 50%. Warehouse is still at level 4.

Cooz

11-29-2011, 11:16 AM

I hope the idea wasn't to make the game take 8 years, call it a day, and assume people would stick around for all of it.

Who says they're even assuming people would stick around? It's clearly not the long-term players they want, it's the early levels getting hooked right away, playing to perhaps the end of the mid-levels and buying some gold along the way.

To me, the vision is set for the short-term, but the fact the game is essentially pointless over the long term only suggests they've already got what they want out of players at 100+ levels, anything else from them is gravy. They want the lower levels to play, because that's where the game is the most interesting.

Your numbers are proof of that philosophy.

I'm below what would probably be called the "higher levels" in this game, but I'm strong for my level and have a pretty good income. I'm done with all the fight streaks, and based on your info, I'm aiming to upgrade all my type A buildings. It's hitting me now, though...what's the point? I'll be out of room soon, and there really isn't anything else in the game for me. If I was to spend money on the game, it would have been at the early levels, not the late ones, so I'm essentially done, unless I want to enjoy the horrendously tedious task of respect farming for the next few weeks just to upgrade my mob a few hundred attack points.

Tramp Stamp

11-29-2011, 11:30 AM

That's the downside of doing these kids of analyses: deconstructing games reveals flaws. The good ones have development teams that modify the game in response to the information.

Anubis

11-29-2011, 11:51 AM

. If Funzio wants to join the MMO crowd in terms of yearly revenue, they're going to need to rework the building mechanics and add onto game facets. In effect, the longer you play, the more you're punished, in terms of huge building times and/or being abused by high level gamers.

I always got the impression the devs put this game together rather quickly to make a quick buck, and based on the revenue they got so far i'm pretty sure they far superseded their profit target aims. Heck the lot of them are most likely living it up with fancy cars, hot women, posh houses, extreme holidays, and most likely a lot of drink and drugs. While we're here discussing the finer points of a rather adictive but lets face it - plain game.

Max Power

11-29-2011, 02:14 PM

I always got the impression the devs put this game together rather quickly to make a quick buck, and based on the revenue they got so far i'm pretty sure they far superseded their profit target aims. Heck the lot of them are most likely living it up with fancy cars, hot women, posh houses, extreme holidays, and most likely a lot of drink and drugs. While we're here discussing the finer points of a rather adictive but lets face it - plain game.

They are probably driving Subaru's, drinking Bud Light and laughing at ^this^ post.

Anubis

11-30-2011, 01:54 PM

Was it confirmed Adult movie theatre is Type B? Not gonna bother getting them if it is.

Edit, just saw a guy with 100 Turbo vipers - his stats for my level were 19k att/def, those 100 would of cost exactly £280.

Tramp Stamp

11-30-2011, 02:32 PM

Everything unlocked after level 7 is Type B.

Anubis

12-01-2011, 06:19 AM

Well, after seeing the gentlemants club at 125 theres definately no need for a building that would provide less net income than my chappels.

Anubis

12-03-2011, 02:31 AM

Regarding the Loft:

Before this thread I thought I would never build a Loft because the return for the cost just seemed to low. Now im at an inbetween stage after getting churches and chappels, waiting until 125 to getthe gentlemans club.

Being a Tycoon, Spending the 760,000 on the loft means it I need to collect the $12,100 return 62times, basically 1 month w/o robberies. I thought I would upgrade to lvl3 to get a nice additional $72,600 every 12hours.

I make at presant $400,000 a day on average from buildings/robbing, so I set the 4day building of the loft going whilst saving for the first upgrade.

A LVL2 loft's return of $36,300 and total spending of $2,029,200 means it will take 56 collections to make the capital back. Thats 6 times less than lvl1 before I start making pure profit on it.

A LVL3 lofts return of $72,600 and total spending of $4,148,764 would take 57collections to make the capital back.

A LVL4 lofts return of $121,000 and total spending of $7,688,435 would take 63collections to make capial back.

So it seems the sweet spot is building a loft then upgrading to level 2 straight away. It will take 28days, 4weeks of pick ups to make the capital back and start making money. A LVL2 Loft will also rise your hourly income by $3025.

BigCheese

12-03-2011, 10:23 AM

u guys are serious CC player (rocket scientist)

Anubis

12-03-2011, 12:08 PM

Not serious, but forums, and discussing a game, especially online games has always added to the enjoyment of one.

Tramp Stamp

12-06-2011, 10:14 AM

Upgrading one of my two level 7 Laundromats to level 8 yesterday was just enough to slump me over the $10,000/hr mark as of this morning. I started on the ROI path around November 21 with $500-$800 per hour, so roughly 15 days was needed. The last goal to appear before I switched gears was to buy 3x Street Knives for $4,500. At the time it seemed like an outrageous amount of cash. As expected, income accelerated over time due to compounding. While that is to be expected from a progressively increasing $/hr figure, had I targeted higher ROI upgrades I would have found myself with a higher $/hr stat but far less money on hand.

Not only has just about everything been affordable, it's been downright cheap. A "big" upgrade on the list, like to a House or Italian Restaurant, runs about $5,000, which is less than an hour's worth of income. The exceptions are the big ticket mafia items along with the six figure land expansions required to house them. Still, Movie Theater construction was slowed down for less than a day, I think, and I had enough to build the second one by the first time the first was finished. Unaffordable land expansions were a temporary setback as well. I'm within striking distance of building the first Loft, and when it's doable to build one, the second comes faster. After this I think I will optimize my mafia and table the Nightclub for later. It just doesn't seem prudent to camp on $40 mil when I could be making money by gradually leveling up and getting more buildings.

A curiosity is that attacks have stopped completely. I thought for sure that the Movie Theaters would have attracted attention but no one has even made an attempt on them. I have gradually increased defense over time as what's to be defended has increased in value, but at 700 it's meant to be more of a mild deterrent rather than a defensive solution against other level 13 players. I've stopped using the bank and have over $130,000 on hand that no one seems interested in.

Finally, I found the psychological effect of losing a Laundromat for 24 hours interesting. With only one pickup available I was far less interested in periodically checking in, even though the lone Laundromat accounts for 22% of my economy. The long upgrade times on such a fast payout building are annoying, but the upgrade prices are hilarious. $12k for level 10? It pulls almost half that per hour.

With the exception of the Laundromats, every building currently pays out over $900.

Syn

12-06-2011, 10:57 AM

Interesting update! I never really appreciated my laundry mats more than I do at this moment.

Keep us posted!

Piff

12-07-2011, 02:41 AM

bump bump bump

Tramp Stamp

12-07-2011, 09:09 AM

My math was incorrect regarding what percentage a lone Laundromat contributed to my economy. The "Income Per Hour" stat updates more or less immediately upon upgrade, but during the upgrade it still counts the previous income, which it should really drop, in my case precipitously. My "real" $/hr went from $9,388, as reported, to $7,342. Therefore, a single level 7 Laundromat would have contributed 27.87% to my economy.

I was also incorrect about the payouts all exceeding $900. I forgot about the level 1 Electronic Stores (easy to do), which generate a measly $286 every 12 hours.

Wakes

12-07-2011, 10:01 AM

This is good information, I will keep checking this thread because I am going to start focussing more on my Type A buildings since they have a higher payout ratio.

Thanks Tramp! Lol

Tramp Stamp

12-08-2011, 06:04 PM

Tramp Stamp

12-12-2011, 12:01 AM

The first Loft will finish construction in under 15 hours. I won't have quite enough to immediately construct a second Loft, but I should easily have north of $650,000 of the $760,000 required, making the target well within reach in the 24 hour range, especially with the $1,008/hr the first Loft will add.

After the Lofts are built I intend to scale down the mafia, equip what I have left quasi-optimally, then PvP my way up levels so that I can continue constructing new buildings. Next up is the Arcade, which I think is underrated based on what I see on the ROI column.

With upgrades, I've reached the point where most of them take 24+ hours, but the rewards have become increasingly influential, thus revealing the true power of Type A buildings. Currently I'm upgrading the 2nd Ice Cream Shop to level 6, which increases its payout from $1,568 to $2,299, an increase of $243.66/hr. Meanwhile if I chose to upgrade, say, a Warehouse three levels, I'd spend $30,863 for an increase of $113.44/hr. Not too exciting by comparison (but will eventually be profitable).

I continue not to bank. I've had only one attempt of any kind within the past week, which I won. Currently I have $541k on hand.

I know there are quite a few Laundromat non-believers on here, but the things are just absurd. As of this posting I have 33 buildings, one under construction (Loft), yet the two Laundromats comprise nearly 44% of my rated income, which includes the under-construction Loft. I don't collect 24 hours daily, obviously, but Laundromats are so powerful it doesn't really matter how much I'm leaving on the table.

As I go along, goals become more clear. I was on the fence, but I decided not to buy gold. I do have two gold buildings, both Ice Cream Shops, but both were obtained without spending real money. I also intend to continue following build order as reflected on my spreadsheet more or less strictly. I have several gold buyers in my mafia who also have the benefit of significantly longer playing time and want to pit my general strategy against them.

So far I've been playing the game for three weeks. Looking at figures, a reasonable goal seems to be growing $/hr by 33% per week. Gold players do significantly better than this, but for non-gold players this is an aggressive estimate. I'm keeping track of my own stats vs others on my list. Don't know what opinions are on privacy, but I can provide figures of myself vs. others on my list if there's interest. I have most of the Funzio forum regulars on my list and can probably fit a few more on my to-be 25 member list as long as they aggressively upgrade their hoods.

Syn

12-12-2011, 01:08 AM

I'm keeping track of my own stats vs others on my list. Don't know what opinions are on privacy, but I can provide figures of myself vs. others on my list if there's interest. I have most of the Funzio forum regulars on my list and can probably fit a few more on my to-be 25 member list as long as they aggressively upgrade their hoods.

This is fine with me as most, if not all, of my stats are already public. I had a pretty good week, but as upgrades are getting longer and more expensive, and space is becoming limited, I expect to being coming to a near halt in my income increase. My next expansion is 750k, and I know that is very cheap for my level. I'm going to focus on upgrading what I have, and then start saving for expansion. I wish I had concentrated more on my income earlier, but ce la vie!

jlhy

12-12-2011, 01:23 AM

Joeycool

12-12-2011, 05:32 AM

Ahhhhh! Your PM makes more sense to me now Tramp Stamp. The thing that you have to remember with players expanding their hood is that they also put a lot of effort into defence. At least I know I do.

This last week I put all my effort into money buildings hence the 63% increase.

whocareswhatmynameis

12-12-2011, 08:44 AM

I have most of the Funzio forum regulars on my list and can probably fit a few more on my to-be 25 member list as long as they aggressively upgrade their hoods.

I think you are on my friend list. When I had less mafia size, I used to visit friends' hoods including yours. But now, with 364 mafia size, navigating through is extremely difficult. I'm OK if you want to track my progress. Good luck with the project!

Tramp Stamp

12-12-2011, 07:18 PM

I agree that this will probably become unmanageable with time so I'll stop when it gets to be a hassle. As of Sunday night. Time period is approximately one week.

Syntarias: $22,340, +88.60% (+119.24% if his lost Lv 9 Laundromat is included)
Amber: $81,809, +79.27%
joeycool: $51,561, +62.58%
Syn: $7,648, +60.30%
Tramp Stamp: $12,723, +36.12%
qwikster: $47,534, +24.54%
AppleMacGuy: $158,621, +19.90%
Kaen: $16,567, +19.44%
Mickey: $60,044, +19.12%
popeye: $42,854, +16.91%
duder: $41,025, +16.45%
Barbie Girl: $24,307, +13.94%
TLoord: $27,804, +6.06%

Joeycool

12-12-2011, 08:11 PM

AppleMacGuy: $158,621, +19.90%

Wow! Massive hourly income. What level is this guy?

Syn

12-12-2011, 08:12 PM

Syntarias: $22,340, +88.60% (+119.24% if his lost Lv 9 Laundromat is included)
Syn: $7,648, +60.30%

The LM is back, thanks to Funzio Support! :D

Also, I didn't realize my camping account was still in your mafia. :p

Joeycool

12-12-2011, 08:14 PM

The LM is back, thanks to Funzio Support! :D

Also, I didn't realize my camping account was still in your mafia. :p

2 accounts!!! You have too much time on your hands Syn! I have lost my life to just 1!

Tramp Stamp

12-12-2011, 09:00 PM

Wow! Massive hourly income. What level is this guy?

139, and he's the best on my list, Funzio or not. Don't know where I got him from, but BhongNY had $128,945 at level 137 and is still moderately active with 10.82% growth.

Also, I didn't realize my camping account was still in your mafia.

2nd Loft is taking slightly longer than expected, though it should be built tomorrow morning. After that I'm slashing mafia. I'm still keeping Syn, though, because I'm interested in high income players AND high growth players to gauge my strategy against others'.

P.S. nice out of bounds buildings. I only got that to work once then couldn't once I shuffled things.

2 accounts!!! You have too much time on your hands Syn! I have lost my life to just 1!

Modern War is my 2nd account. I find the game less engaging, but that's fine as I don't need something else that sucks as much time as Crime City. To be honest I can't wait until the Laundromats are devalued.

Tramp Stamp

12-12-2011, 10:55 PM

http://i.imgur.com/2RXb5.png

whocareswhatmynameis

12-13-2011, 06:34 AM

^^ the guy is one prolific player ^^

35,000+ fights
33,000+ robberies

... and impressive income

wow!

Tramp Stamp

12-16-2011, 03:04 PM

I find myself constantly reevaluating the utility of ROI, much with the aid of other forum members who are skeptical of the process. Here are my latest thoughts, which are likely to change once again in the future.

Thus far I have been more or less strictly tracking ROI. The main feature of ROI tracking is that it balances growing your economy while keeping the maximum amount of cash on hand. This has worked well for me thus far because of my constant need to purchase the next item. While I have had up to $760k on hand, such was transient, and, for the most part, I have been broke the entire time. Soon after I began construction on the second Loft I changed gears and began buying equipment so that I could compete in PvP for loot and so that I could gain levels to access more money buildings.

However, the situation is different for campers. After a while they run out of buildings to construct and there is no meaningful utility in expansions or equipment. This leads to cash stockpiling, which is inefficient as long term on-hand cash does nothing for the player. Low ROI is meaningful only if there are immediate plans for the cash, and, if there aren't, then high ROIs start coming into play.

To most efficiently leverage available cash, I feel campers should sort the list by $/hr gain (which I have recently added) or ROI and purchase the most expensive upgrade possible within those parameters. $/hr vs ROI is mostly a philosophical debate because "the answer" depends entirely on playing style. A rule of thumb is that the earlier in the camping cycle one is, the more he should look at $/hr as that reflects long term steady-state returns. Closer to the end of the camping cycle is, however, one should target ROI as he has a shorter term need for cash.

Note that there's nothing preventing players from switching gears as it is convenient or necessary. In fact, a player could alternate between different strategies throughout the game.

For players who need help deciding how long to camp, here are some facts. Of 650 available (includes cash-equivalent level 1 gold buildings, new buildings not yet added) new constructions and upgrades:

Mean build time: 54.67 hours
Median build time: 40.50 hours
Build times 0-0.99 days: 239
Build times 1-1.99 days: 106
Build times 2-2.99 days: 82
Build times 3-3.99 days: 67
Build times 4-4.99 days: 64
Build times 5-6.99 days: 45
Build times 6-6.99 days: 36
Build times 7-7.99 days: 11

Mean ROI (non-Tycoon): 873.10 hours
Median ROI (non-Tycoon): 543.17 hours
1st 20% mean ROI: 52.43 hours
2nd 20% mean ROI: 244.46 hours
3rd 20% mean ROI: 561.67 hours
4th 20% mean ROI: 1062.59 hours
5th 20% mean ROI: 2444.37 hours

Spreadsheet location:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgEHrvnoijXudHFVU2RxYUQzYXYtOURRd0d3M1hVR 2c&hl=en_US#gid=2

duder

12-16-2011, 03:21 PM

Ditto ROI on it's own is silly for campers. I disagree with $/hr gain. I think you look at $ / hr gain / upgrade time. If you can increase your $/hr by 1k by doing a 4 hour upgrade, you'll be able to grow faster than increasing your $/hr by 2k on a 10 hour upgrade.

This is basically why upgrading the movie theater and loft boosts folks' economies so effectively - the $ / hr gain / upgrade time going from level 1 to level 2 is an order of magnatude higher than the $/hr gain/upgrade time on, say, leveling a house from 9 to 10. The ROI on the MT and loft upgrades is miserable by comparison, but since if you're camping and doing these upgrades, you can't spend your cash fast enough on ROI upgrades, might as well.

Tramp Stamp

12-16-2011, 03:26 PM

Tramp Stamp

12-17-2011, 09:39 PM

Building width
Building depth
Building area
$ per hour per "square"

Tramp Stamp

12-17-2011, 09:51 PM

Not surprisingly, Warehouse and Basketball Court live at the bottom. At level 10 Tycoon they are, respectively, $11.82 and $10.31 hr/sq. Hard to believe there's a metric where something (a gold building at that) does worse than Warehouse. Hotly debated Souvenir Store (and Arcade) lives at $41.67/hr/sq at level 10. Laundromat, $309.98, surprisingly just south of the Movie Theater at $333.01.

deuces

12-17-2011, 09:55 PM

church is 6x6

Tramp Stamp

12-17-2011, 09:58 PM

Thanks. I'll merge anything reported here or added to the working sheet.

xclusiv

12-18-2011, 04:17 AM

what are the top 10 best buildings to buy gold and cash?

allhaildiscordia

12-18-2011, 10:18 AM

You saw the new building data, right?

http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?14753-New-Buildings!&p=74976&viewfull=1#post74976

Tramp Stamp

12-18-2011, 10:47 AM

No I didn't, thanks. I kept forgetting to check.

Edit: ah, I saw that but didn't realize data for all 10 levels was there.

Duke.0

12-18-2011, 11:08 AM

Can i sort the sheet by $/hr/sq Z to A?

Or will that mess up something for you?

Tramp Stamp

12-18-2011, 11:15 AM

Doesn't affect me, though if someone else is trying to sort at the same time you'll end up conflicting. In that case someone should save a personal version.

Tramp Stamp

12-18-2011, 12:35 PM

Added new buildings to sheet.

Syn

12-18-2011, 12:39 PM

Added new buildings to sheet.

I see that you did, but YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT PRETTY! Hahaha, seriously though thanks Tramp.

Troy125

12-18-2011, 12:39 PM

hey Tramp which sheet are you referring to i cant seem to find it pls link thx

Syn

12-18-2011, 12:39 PM

hey Tramp which sheet are you referring to i cant seem to find it pls link thx

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgEHrvnoijXudHFVU2RxYUQzYXYtOURRd0d3M1hVR 2c&hl=en_US&pli=1#gid=1

Troy125

12-18-2011, 12:41 PM

ty for the instant reply mr. syn xD

Tramp Stamp

12-18-2011, 12:43 PM

I see that you did, but YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT PRETTY!

Always on the back burner, but eventually. Waiting for the thing to stabilize but it hasn't happened yet.

TemplarX

12-19-2011, 12:55 AM

With upgrades, I've reached the point where most of them take 24+ hours, but the rewards have become increasingly influential, thus revealing the true power of Type A buildings. Currently I'm upgrading the 2nd Ice Cream Shop to level 6, which increases its payout from $1,568 to $2,299, an increase of $243.66/hr. Meanwhile if I chose to upgrade, say, a Warehouse three levels, I'd spend $30,863 for an increase of $113.44/hr. Not too exciting by comparison (but will eventually be profitable).

As I go along, goals become more clear. I was on the fence, but I decided not to buy gold. I do have two gold buildings, both Ice Cream Shops, but both were obtained without spending real money. I also intend to continue following build order as reflected on my spreadsheet more or less strictly.

Tramp, how did you get 2 Ice Cream Shops without spending real money? I was only given enough gold bars at the start of the game to build 1...

Lars

12-19-2011, 02:35 AM

Tramp, how did you get 2 Ice Cream Shops without spending real money? I was only given enough gold bars at the start of the game to build 1...

Some of us got 10 gold bars from finishing a survey. The link to the survey is/was mailed when Funzio support fixed an issue and there was also a Forum post on it: http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?12721-Do-Survey-and-Earn-Gold

TemplarX

12-19-2011, 06:05 AM

Some of us got 10 gold bars from finishing a survey. The link to the survey is/was mailed when Funzio support fixed an issue and there was also a Forum post on it: http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthread.php?12721-Do-Survey-and-Earn-Gold

Is it still available? Don't seem to be able to find it ...

TemplarX

12-19-2011, 06:40 AM

I made a pretty egregious error last time I modified the ROI calculation, which was about a week ago. The first calculation I used was similar to TLoord's where it took the upgrade cost then divided that by the net gain per hour then added build time to that figure. I didn't think that fully captured upgrade costs, especially when it came to sacrificing partial payouts (which for some reason doesn't work consistently in Google Docs) so I explicitly moved all costs into the numerator. What I should have done at this point was remove the subtraction operation from the denominator and simply divide by new income. Not doing so inflated the ROI figure, though build order was more or less the same.

Tramp, I still don't understand the logic of using the "new output income" as the denominator. In an upgrade, the decision to go ahead or not depends on how much the incremental expense is relative to the incremental income you can get out of the expense. Hence, an ROI for an upgrade showing [(upgrade cost + partial payouts forfeited)/incremental output] would more accurately help one to decide whether or not to undertake the upgrade.

Lets use a simplified example of an imaginary Cafe that cost $10 to build and produces $1 every 1 hour. Its ROI is 10 hours. An upgrade to Level 2 costs $30, is instantaneous and the Level 2 Cafe produces $3 every hour. The ROI for this upgrade is $30/$2 = 15 hours, which is not as good as the ROI for the initial build. But based on your calculation, it would be $30/3 = 10 hours, which would imply the upgrade has an ROI as attractive as the original (and hence a no-brainer to go ahead). This can't be the case. If someone builds and immediately upgrade the Cafe, his total investment would be $10+$30 = $40 outlay, for a $3/hour income. Total ROI would be $40/$3 = 13.33 hours. This is because the ROI for the upgrade is lower than the ROI for the original build. But your new ROI method of calculation would imply that the upgrade is as attractive as the original build.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks.

Lars

12-19-2011, 07:13 AM

Is it still available?
Looks like it's closed now, sorry.

Euchred

12-19-2011, 08:31 AM

If anyone hasn't downloaded there own copy of the spreadsheet I suggest you do It's great for mapping out upgrades when you specify what building types you want eg 12 hour and the organize by ROI.

Also the rock cafe is 6x7 not 6x6 as the spradsheet spicifies.

Tramp Stamp

12-19-2011, 09:38 AM

Let's use a real world example, upgrading a non-Tycoon level 4 Pizza Parlor to level 5 when its payout is 50% complete.

Basic stats:

Previous output = $300
Previous income rate = $100/hr
New output = $450
New income rate = $150/hr
Construction time = 6.00 hr
Upgrade sticker price = $972

Costs, the numerator, are:

Forfeited income = Previous income rate * Construction time
Destroyed partial payout = Fraction of payout (hr) * Previous output
Upgrade sticker price

Forfeited income = $100/hr * 6 hr = $600
Destroyed partial payout = 1.5 hr / 3.0 hr * $300 = $150
Upgrade sticker price = $972

Total cost = $600 + $150 + $972 = $1722

What we're interested in now is how long it will take to pay back this outlay with the new rate. We're not using the rate difference because we explicitly outlined costs in the numerator. If we didn't then we'd have to use the difference in the denominator as that implicitly includes the costs.

Time to payoff = $1722 / $150/hr = 11.48 hr

But the accumulation doesn't take effect until construction is complete, so we need to add construction time to this result. We are able to do this because both are in units of time. You can verify this by going through the calculations with dimensional analysis.

Total ROI = 11.48 hr + 6.00 hr = 17.48 hr

Here's another way of looking at it: If I have a debt of $1722 to pay off and I have a building that generates $150/hr but won't produce any income for six hours how long will it take? To pay off $1722 at $150/hr is 11.48 hr, but since we're not receiving income for the first 6 hours we need to add 6 to the result: 17.48 hr.

If I had used the rate difference I would have arrived at 40.44 hr, but a level 5 Pizza Parlor would have generated $6066 during that span.

Max Power

12-19-2011, 09:57 AM

Also the rock cafe is 6x7 not 6x6 as the spradsheet spicifies.

Is it really? Damn, I had some 6x6 spots all prepped for those.

Tramp Stamp

12-19-2011, 03:50 PM

Syntarias takes the top spot for the second week in a row in economy growth. Actually, this time he takes both of the top spots. Time period = a little less than 8 days:

Syntarias: $41,861, +61.19%
Syn: $11,847, +54.90%
Dorian: $53,600, +29.10%
Barbie Girl: $30,934, +27.26%
Tramp Stamp: $16,086, +26.43%
Kaen: $20,801, +25.565
qwikster: $55,952, +17.71%
popeye: $49,956, +16.57%
duder: $47,372, +15.47%
Mickey: $68,530, +14.13%
TLoord: $31,708, +14.04%
ShotInTheDark: $61,540, +12.16%
Jiggles: $32,483, +11.81% (about 6.5 days)
Amber: $91,281, +11.58%
joeycool: $57,438, +11.40%
stixx: $82,041, +9.23% (about 4 days)
AppleMacGuy: $165,261, +4.19%

xclusiv

12-19-2011, 05:02 PM

hey can you put me in the economy growth?

Syn

12-19-2011, 05:11 PM

TemplarX

12-19-2011, 07:12 PM

Forfeited income = $100/hr * 6 hr = $600
Destroyed partial payout = 1.5 hr / 3.0 hr * $300 = $150
Upgrade sticker price = $972

Total cost = $600 + $150 + $972 = $1722

What we're interested in now is how long it will take to pay back this outlay with the new rate. We're not using the rate difference because we explicitly outlined costs in the numerator. If we didn't then we'd have to use the difference in the denominator as that implicitly includes the costs.

Time to payoff = $1722 / $150/hr = 11.48 hr

Based on your methodology, if you use the new rate "new income" in the denominator, you have to factor in the "old income" as a cost in the numerator, for perpertuity...or at least for the duration of your breakeven period. During the 40.44 hours to breakeven, the level 5 Pizza Parlor generating $6066 during that span is a 'cost' that should be added into your numerator. Only then would it appropriately reflect how much you actually gain with the new investment for the upgrade.

The Level 5 Pizza is there generating money if you don't do anything. If you decide to invest for an upgrade, the old income is a cost you lose... to be replaced by the 'new income'....but meantime, you lose the 'old income'....so its a cost item.

TemplarX

12-19-2011, 07:18 PM

The "old income" is not just a cost during the period of upgrading (forfeited income)...it is a cost for the duration of the breakeven period (opportunity cost).

Tramp Stamp

12-19-2011, 08:12 PM

Based on your methodology, if you use the new rate "new income" in the denominator, you have to factor in the "old income" as a cost in the numerator, for perpertuity...or at least for the duration of your breakeven period.

The calculation expresses income lost due to the upgrade process, which is why the old income is used. Were the building not upgraded, it would have continued to produce income.

During the 40.44 hours to breakeven, the level 5 Pizza Parlor generating $6066 during that span is a 'cost' that should be added into your numerator.

The $6066 over 40.44 hours is an erroneous result, what would have been there if I didn't adjust the calculation. The "real" ROI in this case is $1722 paid off over 17.48 hrs.

Only then would it appropriately reflect how much you actually gain with the new investment for the upgrade.

"ROI" is a bit of a misnomer because it says nothing about the eventual return, only how long an investment takes to pay itself off. Calculating "gain" is a bit ethereal because of individual priorities. For example, a player seeking low ROI gains cash on hand while a player seeking $/hr gains accelerated future income after a (usually) longer ROI period during which he is comparatively cash starved when compared to the low ROI player.

The Level 5 Pizza is there generating money if you don't do anything. If you decide to invest for an upgrade, the old income is a cost you lose... to be replaced by the 'new income'....but meantime, you lose the 'old income'....so its a cost item.

Exactly. The upgrade process turns the asset into a temporary liability on top of the sticker price.

stixx

12-21-2011, 11:30 AM

stixx: $82,041, +9.23% (about 4 days)

Nice i didnt knew you would track this:)
damn those arcade upgrades, takes too much time, lets see if my 2 new rock cafes boost me on this list tho:)
keep up the good work tramp.

schnuffler

12-21-2011, 08:54 PM

I really like the addition of the building size columns and $ per hour per square. Adds a nice balance to be able to work out the maximum gain per square in my hood.

One thing I've been doing since I started tracking my buildings on a spreadsheet is using a "factor" column, to add a little more realistic value on my buildings. There's no way I'm going to collect 3 and six hour buildings while I sleep, and that sometimes extends to eight hour buildings, since I rarely go to bed exactly 16 hours after I wake up.

So my factor for my laundromats is about 0.1. I figure I make < 30 collections per day on them, and often much less, out of a possible 288 collections a day. That brings my lvl 10 laundromats crashing back down from $4950 / hour to a more realistic $495 / hour collected income which is still pretty good.

3 hour buildings I figure I can collect 6 times out of 8, but usually they've been robbed while I sleep and lose .6 of one collection, which means I end up with 5.4 / 8 collections = 0.675.

For six hour buildings I use 0.6 and 8 hour buildings get 0.5.

12, 24 and 48 hour buildings I use 1.0.

I'm sure these "factors" are going to be different for people in different circumstances, but it's at least worth considering your actual $/hour income collected vs the ticket value on the building.