Opinion - what is the best money building to upgrade to level 10?

[Major Elvis Newton]

I'm gonna go with Electric Power plant or Supply Depot because of how fast they generate money. But I can't usually log in every 10 minutes to collect. Any opinions on money buildings that are collectable every few hours?

[Bala82]

I would assume any limited money buildings are best to upgrade to 10

[Agent Orange]

I'm kind of partial to the Munitions Depot, not overly expensive to upgrade and doesn't take that long for the first upgrades. Some of the limiteds are really expensive so that means exposed cash, granted depends I guess on your IPH and vault size.

[S&H Max]

I think the best building in MW... time to upgrade/ upgrade cost/ IPH boost is the oil rig and they are really easy to collect on time!

Still you need to be rich to get them to lvl 10!

[PITA4PRES]

You actually have to consider the number of clicks it takes to make back the money to pay for the upgrades. The cost of the upgrades will vary depending upon what level your cement factory is as well, assuming you have it. I have not yet upgraded my electric power plants due to the cost and return of income. Assuming no discount to upgrade the electric power plant would cost 4 million. If I were to upgrade it, I would have to collect from it about 238 times in order to get my money back. That is approximately 40 days based on how often I collect and with my upgrade discount. That is just going from a level 1 to level 2. In all honesty that would be one of the later upgrades I would make. That's just my opinion.

I don't have any of my buildings to level 10 yet, but so far the oil derricks are one that tend to be quicker about getting your money back based on my experience and according to the base planner I use to determine what to upgrade or purchase next. The next time I upgrade an oil derrick will only take me about 3 clicks to make my money back. From what I've read from other people on the forum, the cement factory is a good one to upgrade to level 10. I know it isn't a money building in that it doesn't pay out on a regular basis, but people say that it is worth every penny to pay to upgrade it because of how much it can save you when you go to purchase the expensive buildings and the LE money buildings are expensive to upgrade, at least for me. The only one I have been able to afford so far is the Jinai facility, and it will cost me over 15 million to upgrade to level 2 and not sure what the payout would be when I do decide to upgrade. You really want a better idea of what to upgrade, I would recommend downloading one of the base planners that people have come up with and play with the numbers yourself if you aren't already using this type of a tool. I have one I use that I put in what money buildings I have (it doesn't include the LE buildings) and the level and build my base and upgrade it based on whatever of the criteria is listed that I choose to use.

[General Soviet]

Any limited building. Of course, for any of them other than the jinai, you better have a lot of spare cash on hand to get there.

[LisaM]

If you are an iOS player there is a free app called the Modern War Toolkit. Once you've put your buildings in and the level they are all at you can see what would be best to upgrade next. I'm level 29 and have all of the cash buildings up to level 28. For maximum gain the toolkit advises me to update (in order)

Oil Refineries to level 2
Ore Mines to level 2
Munitions Stockpiles to level 7
Natural Gas Plants to level 6
etc....

Hope that helps.

[mickymacirl]

all of them

[PITA4PRES]

If you are an iOS player there is a free app called the Modern War Toolkit. Once you've put your buildings in and the level they are all at you can see what would be best to upgrade next. I'm level 29 and have all of the cash buildings up to level 28. For maximum gain the toolkit advises me to update (in order)

Oil Refineries to level 2
Ore Mines to level 2
Munitions Stockpiles to level 7
Natural Gas Plants to level 6
etc....

Hope that helps.

I downloaded a toolkit right from here on the forum in case the person isn't on iOS.

[Arizona]

Depends what "every few hours" means, and what other factors you might want to include, like ROI or time to save etc; but if it's just a simple 3 hour or less collection, then The Nuclear plants return the greatest income per hour at L10. Not what I would choose to be my primary $ maker though.
My choice at L10 would be the Alexandria Villa and a $36,000,000 (unboosted) collection every 12 hours.

[stephen2013]

I think the munitions stockpiles are great. They may take a long time to upgrade to 10 but the cost to do so is so incredibly cheap. Level 10 I think makes 360k fry 24 hrs, and the upgrade costs around 750k.

Military markets and natural gas plants are the same way. NGS to 10 costs like 8 million and the MM maybe 2-3 million (?).

[Philly982]

PITA4PRES, where did you find the tool kit for non-iOS players?

[Ph4ntom Stranger]

PITA4PRES, where did you find the tool kit for non-iOS players?

It's only on iOS. Khimsoo the forum member is the one who made it.

As for the money buildings, I don't go so much with the ROI, I understand its usefulness, but when you upgrade the buildings that will give the best payouts for your desired collecting habits. If you only log on a couple times a day what good would it do to upgrade under 12 hour buildings? You would waste your time because you wouldn't be collecting them. You'd be better served to upgrade the 12, 24, & 48's.

As others have said vault size can play a role. If you have a good iph the new limited buildings are the best.

[Smokey Jalapeños]

Depends what "every few hours" means, and what other factors you might want to include, like ROI or time to save etc; but if it's just a simple 3 hour or less collection, then The Nuclear plants return the greatest income per hour at L10. Not what I would choose to be my primary $ maker though.
My choice at L10 would be the Alexandria Villa and a $36,000,000 (unboosted) collection every 12 hours.
That was the only LE building I didn't buy. I think that was a mistake.

[PITA4PRES]

It's only on iOS. Khimsoo the forum member is the one who made it.

As for the money buildings, I don't go so much with the ROI, I understand its usefulness, but when you upgrade the buildings that will give the best payouts for your desired collecting habits. If you only log on a couple times a day what good would it do to upgrade under 12 hour buildings? You would waste your time because you wouldn't be collecting them. You'd be better served to upgrade the 12, 24, & 48's.

As others have said vault size can play a role. If you have a good iph the new limited buildings are the best.

I found one that someone else did that was an excel spreadsheet. Not knowing what all is on the one on iOS, it may not be as comprehensive as the one I have just has money buildings (none of the limited editions though). I found another one that shows upgrade costs for buildings as well.

[Stacey]

Get the tool kit app. You can determine what building to upgrade next based on time to upgrade, cost to upgrade, max income, or max hourly.

[PITA4PRES]

PITA4PRES, where did you find the tool kit for non-iOS players?

Here is the link for the one I use:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5LA...gxM1d3WUk/edit

Credit goes to itzkakarot for creating the sheet, I just updated it because I don't think it has been in some time, or at least I couldn't find the updated sheet.

(original post here http://www.funzio.com/forum/showthre...lanner-Update&)

I just tried clicking on the link, and it said it didn't exist. You can try it and see if it comes up for you though. If it doesn't work, PM me and I will see if I can e-mail a copy to you.

[Oceanz]

PITA4PRES's post is pretty stupid

Just kidding, he's all over it. Check out the ROI spreadsheets (look in the FAQs thread for the building spreadsheet).

Its all about ROI. Some buildings like the Munitions Stockpile have an ROI of 1 or 2 throughout the upgrades. In other words, the cost of an upgrade to the building can be collected from that building in just 1 or 2 collections. Whereas with some buildings, they might have a ROI of 250 and be buildings you can only collect from every 12 hours. You literally have to collect form a building like that twice a day for over 4 months JUST to pay for the cost of the upgrade.

In general, the low level buildings like Supply Depot, Armory, Storage Silo, Oil Derrick and Munitions stockpile have the best ROI, and are the most efficient buildings to upgrade. But you'll probably also want to upgrade buildings like Natural Gas Plant and Ore Mine, which while being 18 and 48 hour buildings respectively, have very high ROI's compared to some other buildings.

Some building have terrible ROIs. The Electric Power Plant is one example of that. They make 8,000 per hour, but Storage Silos are a lot cheaper to upgrade.

Basically, check the spreadsheet. It also has useful info like how much money you get for 3 successful raids on a money building of a certain level. For example, I think raiding a Level 4 Recycling Plant 3 times gives you about $400 more per raid than a Level 3 Ore Mine. Just handy stats to have when you're playing.

First two links on this page http://tinyurl.com/cbf3c5t

[Major Elvis Newton]

Thanks guys!

[Major Elvis Newton]

Do you have to enter in all your stats by hand on the iOS app?

[Fatherllama]

ROI isn't everything. There's an opportunity cost at play with upgrading money buildings, so while yes, the ROI on a supply depot or armory only takes a few collections, you could have instead been upgrading an oil rig or a nano in that time frame and increasing your buying power significantly. The more time you spend upgrading buildings that have a low ceiling for daily money collected, i.e. anything you can build that starts out with an IPH of less than 8k or so, the slower you're going to be able to increase your IPH.

The way I prefer to determine which building to upgrade is to weigh how much I'll be able to collect from it on a daily basis versus how much it costs. Generally speaking, unless I'm saving for something specific, I'll upgrade whatever gives me the highest daily boost for the cash I have on hand. Recent example: I was somewhat flush a few weeks ago and had the option of upgrading a Nano from 1 to 2 or an oil rig from 4 to 5. I ended up going with the oil rig, because while I'd only gain some 390k daily from the oil rig upgrade as opposed to 440k daily from the nano, upgrading the oil rig would cost about $10 million less, so I'd recover and be able to make another high-dollar upgrade more quickly.

tldr: Try to make the best investment you can at any given time because it will lead to exponentially higher income later on.

[Mr.Grumpy]

Do you have to enter in all your stats by hand on the iOS app?

yes. but it's worth it.

[LisaM]

Do you have to enter in all your stats by hand on the iOS app?
Yes, but I only entered the building info on mine. Didn't take long at all.

[Meta Rage Trollbot]

The general theory is that 24 hour buildings are best as you can collect at almost the same time of day every day, and they upgrade quickly compared to other buildings.

For newer players I would focus on getting munitions stockpiles to 10 before they do any other upgrade. From there I would get the oil rigs as high as possible without taking a beating. For advanced players the Villa is a good choice (not that I will ever get mine to 10).

For gold cash buildings the Diamond Mines and Geos are the best choice due to upgrade times and consistency of collecting, but again they are quite expensive to upgrade.

[Colonel Jessup]

I don't agree with using only the ROI approach. Unless you are spending gold, upgrade time is what you battle against most at the lower levels. For this reason, upgrading any building with a collection time lower than 12 hours is almost pointless in my opinion. I believe the only ones I even built were the electronics, silo, and Derrick. I will tear down the electronics as opposed to expanding when the time comes. The silo and Derrick are small enough they are almost like decorations.

For me the most bang for your buck early comes in getting the oil rig to level 5. The rig has a quick upgrade time, easy collection, and decent ROI to level 5. If you are just starting go with the munitions stockpile until upgrade times are over 60hrs. Ore mines to level 7 and oil refinery to level 5 are also good ROI but not as good with upgrade times.

Again, I believe upgrade time, how often you will be able to collect, cost of the upgrade, and ROI should all be given consideration. A simple ROI approach would have you upgrading depots and other worthless buildings to level ten wasting valuable upgrade time.

[Adm.J]

How often you collect, cost of the upgrade, and ROI all fall under........ROI. However, what one should look at is Actual ROI (A-ROI, what you will be able to collect) instead of Potential ROI (P-ROI, the max that you could possibly collect).

An oil rig will take you 27 days just to make any money from what you spent building it. Level 5? That will be 260 days (and the inability to upgrade any other building mind you) to make a single dollar off of it. Meanwhile a simple armory collected from only 6 times a day will net you over $15,000,000 in the same time period, and you still have 217 days left to upgrade other buildings. A-ROI should be about the only thing one looks at, as the faster you make your money back, the faster you can spend more money. Add a second armory, and you've just netted $27,000,000 and still have 174 days left for upgrading. By the time you get that level 5 rig rolling, you could have bought yourself an LE building and started making some really big bucks.

[Colonel Jessup]

How often you collect, cost of the upgrade, and ROI all fall under........ROI. However, what one should look at is Actual ROI (A-ROI, what you will be able to collect) instead of Potential ROI (P-ROI, the max that you could possibly collect).

An oil rig will take you 27 days just to make any money from what you spent building it. Level 5? That will be 260 days (and the inability to upgrade any other building mind you) to make a single dollar off of it. Meanwhile a simple armory collected from only 6 times a day will net you over $15,000,000 in the same time period, and you still have 217 days left to upgrade other buildings. A-ROI should be about the only thing one looks at, as the faster you make your money back, the faster you can spend more money. Add a second armory, and you've just netted $27,000,000 and still have 174 days left for upgrading. By the time you get that level 5 rig rolling, you could have bought yourself an LE building and started making some really big bucks.

Level 5 oil rig costs 34 million. With faction bonuses I collect about 500k extra per day. That adds up to closer to 70days to break even not 270 as you suggest. If I collected on the armory every time I got on modern war I might be past the break even point after a few weeks. After 140 days with the oil rig I've made an extra 34 million while you've made 2 million if you're lucky with your armory. But suit yourself, if you want to waste your upgrade time and hinder yourself in the long run, keep upgrading those armories.

[Adm.J]

First, no one was mentioning faction bonuses. Second, yeah level 4 to level 5 costs 34 million, but to get to that point is a total of you need to spend a total of 82 million. 260 days is what it will take you break even to build and upgrade to a level 5 rig. Even if you factor in your faction bonus, it's still probably close to 6 months to break even on it. And BTW, just where is that 82 million coming from?

Once you get to a certain point, yes things like armories become unimportant. But you need to make money to spend money, and the faster you get your money back, the faster you can spend it.

[stephen2013]

First, no one was mentioning faction bonuses. Second, yeah level 4 to level 5 costs 34 million, but to get to that point is a total of you need to spend a total of 82 million. 260 days is what it will take you break even to build and upgrade to a level 5 rig. Even if you factor in your faction bonus, it's still probably close to 6 months to break even on it. And BTW, just where is that 82 million coming from?

Once you get to a certain point, yes things like armories become unimportant. But you need to make money to spend money, and the faster you get your money back, the faster you can spend it.

I get what you're saying, about the importance of ROI and investment. Yeah, armories, supply depots, silos, oil Derricks, etc. are great in ROI but just look at how much money they rake in everyday. A level 5 oil rig makes more in one day then those probably can in a week.

The early money buildings have good ROI but low cash output. More advanced buildings have bad ROI but high cash output, which kinda offsets the ROI problem.

[PITA4PRES]

Personally I don't stick with one set thing when it comes to what to upgrade next. Sometimes I base it on time to upgrade, other times how much it increases my IPH and other times ROI. It may depend on what I want to build next as well and vault size may factor into it too. It varies based on what my goal happens to be at that time. Right now I am basing it on upgrade time and some of those happen to be the cheaper ones in terms of upgrade costs that are more affordable. I'm hoping to be able to purchase at least one of the next LE buildings, so I'm trying to increase my IPH as quickly as possible while I increase my vault size so I don't lose money going over vault. I may not necessarily have the cash to upgrade some of the buildings I would prefer to that may boost my income more. It really comes down to personal preference in my opinion.

[Colonel Jessup]

First, no one was mentioning faction bonuses. Second, yeah level 4 to level 5 costs 34 million, but to get to that point is a total of you need to spend a total of 82 million. 260 days is what it will take you break even to build and upgrade to a level 5 rig. Even if you factor in your faction bonus, it's still probably close to 6 months to break even on it. And BTW, just where is that 82 million coming from?

Once you get to a certain point, yes things like armories become unimportant. But you need to make money to spend money, and the faster you get your money back, the faster you can spend it.

I feel the need to be condescending because you arent very good at sixth grade math. It is just under 81 million to get to a level five oil rig if you want to count all five levels as you have already made reference to. You collect 1.4 million per day without faction bonuses. That is less than a 58 day break even point, if you were able to instant upgrade all buildings. 57.844 to be exact. My faction has a 10% bonus. My break even point is 52.86 days not counting my 1% reduction in build cost. Like I said, keep on building your armories, but somewhere around day 60 your decision is officially a poor one. By day 90 you are an idiot. What day are you on now?

Upgrade time should not be wasted on buildings below 12 hour collect time in my opinion.

[Adm.J]

Not, the math is right. But the way you are applying it is not quite what we are talking about here. We are talking about an upgrades ability to strictly pay for itself. That means generating enough cash from each levels increased earnings, not the final amount you are collecting at the end of an upgrade.

Initial Purchase: $4,800,000 - 27 days to pay for itself at $175,000/day. By the way, where did that $4,800,000 come from if you aren't upgrading armories and the like, and how long did it take you to get it?

Level 2 Upgrade: 45 days after paying off your initial construction cost (day 72), you've made enough money to purchase Level 2. Your upgrade time will be 1 day, and you will generate $350,000 when completed.

Level 3 Upgrade: 60 days after upgrading to Level 2 (day 133), you've made enough money to purchase Level 3. Your upgrade time will be 1.5 days and you will generate $612,500 when completed.

Level 4 Upgrade: 57 days after upgrading to Level 3 (day 191.5), you've made enough money to purchase Level 4. Your upgrade time will be 2.5 days, and you will generate, $962,500 when completed.

Level 5 Upgrade: 60 days after upgrading to Level 4 (day 254), you've made enough money to purchase Level 5. Your upgrade time will be 3 days.

Total time: 257 days.

If a new player had $81,000,000 and enough gold to instant complete a Level 5 upgrade just lying around, they wouldn't be bothering with an Oil Rig in the first place.

[Auspex]

Early in the game when I had very little clue how to play I had upgraded my supply depots to 10 each. @ the time 3k seemed like a good income and I could collect every 5 minutes.

I leave my app running maybe 90% of the day and take well over 100 calls a day. I don't count how many collections I make usually but I decided to for a couple days and I did hit 114. I wouldn't suggest many of the less than 12 hour buildings later in game but starting out 300k income from each of these pushed me forward a lot quicker and made those level 5 Oil rigs a reality, I never had to wait for the cash to upgrade once one was finished.

[Punk604]

AC's. You can have just 2 of these buildings at Level 10 on your base and have a higher income than most people in this game. You can collect 150 mil+ everyday. Saves you time collecting every hour...

[Steven536]

Thanks LisaM for the heads up on the toolkit app. I had never heard of that before. I've always maintained a spreadsheet to guide my upgrades. I'm going to give this app a try!

The munitions stockpile was one of the first buildings I took to level 10.

[LisaM]

Thanks LisaM for the heads up on the toolkit app. I had never heard of that before. I've always maintained a spreadsheet to guide my upgrades. I'm going to give this app a try!

The munitions stockpile was one of the first buildings I took to level 10.

You are most welcome :) I find it invaluable to planning money building upgrades.

[Colonel Jessup]

Not, the math is right. But the way you are applying it is not quite what we are talking about here. We are talking about an upgrades ability to strictly pay for itself. That means generating enough cash from each levels increased earnings, not the final amount you are collecting at the end of an upgrade.

Initial Purchase: $4,800,000 - 27 days to pay for itself at $175,000/day. By the way, where did that $4,800,000 come from if you aren't upgrading armories and the like, and how long did it take you to get it?

Level 2 Upgrade: 45 days after paying off your initial construction cost (day 72), you've made enough money to purchase Level 2. Your upgrade time will be 1 day, and you will generate $350,000 when completed.

Level 3 Upgrade: 60 days after upgrading to Level 2 (day 133), you've made enough money to purchase Level 3. Your upgrade time will be 1.5 days and you will generate $612,500 when completed.

Level 4 Upgrade: 57 days after upgrading to Level 3 (day 191.5), you've made enough money to purchase Level 4. Your upgrade time will be 2.5 days, and you will generate, $962,500 when completed.

Level 5 Upgrade: 60 days after upgrading to Level 4 (day 254), you've made enough money to purchase Level 5. Your upgrade time will be 3 days.

Total time: 257 days.

If a new player had $81,000,000 and enough gold to instant complete a Level 5 upgrade just lying around, they wouldn't be bothering with an Oil Rig in the first place.

You don't only use the money made from that building to do your upgrades. You pool all money available to you and upgrade the most expensive 24hr plus building you can afford with the shortest break even point after purchase. You should never worry about the time it takes to make the money for the upgrade unless you are considering a LE building.

[Adm.J]

No one ever said use only the money from that building Sherlock. But that's what ROI is. What part do you still not get that the faster you make back the money you spend, the faster you make more money? If something is not making you money, it's costing you money. I sure hope you don't ever start your own business, you'll be broke quick.
And if I am able to collect many times daily, why on earth would I only get 24 hour+ buildings? You can get a level 10 Storage Silo potentially paying out nearly double an Oil Rig in 10 days for about $625,000, and that can be earned with the cheapest units. Where are you getting $480,000 a day from to earn it that quick? Just because you may not be able to collect often enough for the faster buildings does not mean no one else should use them. To a certain point, they have far more potential than any of the high priced buildings.

[Thenoob]

The best paying building has to be arctic rig or villa. Come on people. And the anniversary is also awesome. Come on guys. Don't let the cost keep you down. I had a level 90 In my faction that bought both ac. When they came out. Grow some balls and save your money don't waste it on small 200, 000$ upgrade. Go big or go home

[Colonel Jessup]

You are an idiot. Return on investment is what it returns AFTER you have it. Based on a percentage of what it actually costed. I'm not sure what you would call your figures where you somehow came up with a 257 day break even point, when its actually 20% of that. You don't have an investment until you've bought the upgrade.

As far as buying storage silos goes, even if you play this game and collect every two hours and have to sleep eight hours a day, you still have wasted upgrade time, one of the most important factors. If you collect more often than that, lol.

I agree with thenoob. If you can get to the arctic rig or villa safely, those were the buildings to get. You could have been upgrading bonus buildings in the meantime.

[RetroEd]

Just download the Toolkit, its does it all logically for you. No theoretical guesswork, just black and white.

Try it out and let us know what you think...

The only drawback i can see with it is that it doesnt have the latest WD event buildings which by their nature are an 'always' buy if you can afford it anyway.

[Sheerbliss]

Yes, thank you LisaM for mentioning the app. This is wonderful. I wish CC had an app too though.

[Paisthecoolest]

The app says level three oil rig for me. I will listen and obey