Payout algorithm explained

[Tramp Stamp]

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]

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]

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]

All upgrade times pulled from the game data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...XF6d0hINnR4Q1E

[Tramp Stamp]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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/...3M1hVR2c#gid=0

[Lars]

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/...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]

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/...hl=en_US#gid=0

[Tramp Stamp]

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]

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]

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.