ECONOMICS CLASS

May 25, 2008 - Instructor: Oddball

Catspaws says, "I think the holiday has reduced our class."

Oddball says, "well theres that...and most of what can be said has been said"

Catspaws says, "Thank you all for coming.  Let's all give a hand to this week's instructor, Oddball."

Oddball laughs

Angelfowl laughs

Catspaws says, "I can think of lots that hasn't been said."

Oddball says, "ok...so went thru the notes from smitty's class"

Oddball says, "his approach and mine are very similiar to a point"

Oddball says, "as was pointed out.  I will start much like he did however."

Oddball says, "it is my belief that there are only 3 absolutes in Fed II"

Oddball says, "1) you cannot lose groats unless you are intent on doing so."

Oddball says, "smitty went into great detail on this so i wont belabor it"

Oddball says, "2) there is NO absolute right way to do this game.  Anyone who says differently is probably trying to convince themselves"

Oddball grins

Catspaws snickers behind her paw

Your comm unit relays a message from Pine, "understatement there"

Oddball says, "that said, there ARE wrong ways that can make progress slower"

Catspaws is an expert on all the wrong ways

Oddball says, "wrong isnt the correct word...there are simply ways that can make progress slower"

Your comm unit relays a message from Pine, "wrong works"

Oddball says, "and 3) this is a game of player interdependence...i will go into that is a second"

Oddball says, "most players know of the stockpile "feature"...build your stockpiles..reset the max to something lower than the current stockpile and the exchange sells it off at the current value"

Angelfowl is on forever building HER stockpiles

Oddball says, "now....all the planet owners could simply close their links and their planets will continue to progress"

Oddball says, "leaving FOs in the lurch...isnt quite what the game designers intended"

Munabilo smiles, "i'm glad you're addressing this, just wanna say :)"

Catspaws says, "Would really mess up diss, tho, unless you did the right builds."

Oddball says, "my point is...the game is fun and works because it encourages everytone to interact via trade"

Munabilo sees very few PO's traversing the spaceways

Oddball says, "otherise we would all be ummm...playing with ourselves....lol"

Oddball says, "now smitty and i do the same things in terms of walking our exchanges up to max profit"

Oddball says, "the difference is he does it daily, i do it once"

Oddball says, "once when the planet promotes"

Catspaws perks up

Oddball says, "the reason is, it is my contention that you can make tons more via producers than defs"

Oddball says, "simply logic presents it as fact...my stockpiles can build for 24 hrs, but i can only fill defs x times per day"

Oddball says, "x being however many times i am willing to log on and fill them"

Oddball says, "if i wished to run unattended macros, i could fill defs 24/7 but i wont play that way"

Oddball smiles, "so the alternative to sell off my stockpiles (which in a 3 planet system is rather hard to do)...:)"

Oddball says, "on walking up stockpiles...i just double the current pile"

Oddball says, "when you promtoe, it is set to 800"

Oddball says, "when the pile gets to 800, i doublt to 1600, 3200, 6400, 10000, 14000, 18000, 20000"

Angelfowl blinks

Munabilo asks, "so when hauling out, you just take em down to like 10 or 8k and leave the max at 20?"

Oddball says, "it actually takes a couple days to build up...and i only build to what it will make in 24 hrs"

Oddball says, "the reason is, i only haul out 60% of the pile"

Oddball says, "so if its 20,000 tons, i haul out 12000"

Oddball says, "i build at low spread 6% and haul out at 40%"

Oddball says, "all your doing there is dodging the taxman"

Oddball says, "and smitty addressed hauling defs in, you reverse the margins"

Oddball says, "if i haul out new chicago that way, i will make about 40meg in trading profit and 40 meg in planet profit"

Oddball says, "more often however, there are 4-6 merchants working the system so i dont usually make that much"

Oddball says, "only other thing i can comment on is builds"

Oddball says, "because i opt for hauling surplus' out, i concentrate on builds that max efficiency first"

Oddball says, "because i can insure employment on my own if i need to, i build population next (as it increase demand on defs)"

Oddball says, "which makes it good for other merchants/POs who are hauling out their surplus'"

Oddball says, "and finally i do builds that reduce dis"

Oddball says, "there is one area i didnt see mentioned in smitty or dj's talks"

Oddball says, "that is when you have net 0 commodity..i.e. it neither makes nor demands"

Oddball says, "thus it has no profit potential"

Oddball says, "remember that it must be a net surplus or net deficit commodity to have any utility"

Oddball says, "if you can, use a build to increase/decrease the production on that commodity to make it a money maker"

Oddball says, "thats about all i have...went quicker than i thought...happy to answer any questions"

Angelfowl smiles

Catspaws pulls out a  long list of pre-prepared questions and checks off several of them

Oddball drawls, "i will say that when i build efficiency, i have to recheck how much the planet will make in a day..."

Angelfowl laughs at Cats sitting back

Oddball says, "ask away cats"

Catspaws says, "I'm of the "Set Em and Forget Em" school."

Catspaws asks, "FOr those like us, what would you recommend as spreads?"

Oddball smiles, "yeah smitty had that pegged...:)"

Catspaws is a lazy kitty

Munabilo says, "what i've kinda been doing is hauling out down to the minimum... what ends up happening is that i gain personal for about the first half and lose personal for about the second half, as the exchange price rises"

Oddball says, "ah...i forgot to address that"

Munabilo asks, "which is good, because i'm pumping that money into the planet tax free.  what are your thoughts on doing this?"

Oddball drawls, "i build initially at 6%, haul out at 40% and any other time you will find it at 20%..."

Oddball says, "my thinking is, its a fair margin esp for the factory owners, and it gives the traders out there an even chance at getting futures corrct"

Catspaws asks, "You don't use the production-consumption ratio to adjust each commod individually?"

Oddball says, "muna...your system will work...your also producing high-cost at the start tho...thats why i only haul out 60%"

Angelfowl drawls, "I second Muna's question, mostly cause when I haul out I lose a lot of Personal cash... and I

don't have that much to begin with..."

Munabilo says, "yeah, i've yet to do the analysis to see what i'm actually profiting"

Oddball says, "well in a roundabout way i am cats...what it makes in 24 hrs is the key for me"

Oddball says, "angel...your probably ahve your stockpiles set lower...as a result, your prices go up quicker and in the end you end up putting more in your treasury than you made trading"

Angelfowl nods

Angelfowl says, "My stockpiles were 1600 for awhile until I promoted this time I'm building them higher"

Oddball says, "you can either raise your piles a bit to avoid that or haul out less"

Oddball says, "my advice on building piles is...dont build them higher than you are willing to haul"

Angelfowl nods

Catspaws drawls, "I have a chart I received from Kingman when I got Catseye's agri.  I'll have to show it to you sometime, but I'm guessing it's why I don't make a lot of profit..."

Oddball says, "because i dont use the feature i discussed earlier (i consider it a bug) i only build what i am willing to sell"

Oddball says, "happy to look at it...but i tend to chuckle when i hear about bad rolls and good rolls"

Oddball says, "there are good rolls and better rolls but no bad ones"

Occy has just arrived.

Angelfowl says, "Mine was pretty bad"

Oddball says, "that i have seen at least"

Oddball says, "bad would be something like +1 on most surplus' and -1 on most defs...would be hard to make a profit that way"

Munabilo says, "do you find that some low value commods aren't worth dealing in?  i.e. down in the 100-200 level (ig/ton)"

Angelfowl says, "None of the factories I could offer were that good, that were no-haul"

Occy says, "greetings al"

Angelfowl says, "Hey Occy"

Oddball says, "factories are a different deal...i think their profit contributes only marginally"

Oddball says, "muna..i haul all commods"

Oddball says, "its boring to watch the profit creep slowly hauling poly, but because few folks haul it, i can find willing markets most places"

Occy nods to odd

Oddball says, "i actually work the market alphabetically a-x"

Munabilo asks, "how much, percentage wise, do you end up doing intra system?"

Oddball says, "not very creative...lol"

Occy says, "that i know a to z acme is on top"

Oddball says, "alpha system too...acme gets alloys.....lol"

Oddball says, "very little muna"

Oddball says, "20,000 ton stockpile will yield about 6 bays 26 times"

Catspaws exclaims, "That would bore me silly!"

Oddball says, "more than that and you start stocking up the prices"

Munabilo smiles, "well, if it weren't for the stockpile... ahem, feature.  don't think any of us would have to worry about filling defs :)"

Angelfowl says, "I've only used that "feature" twice"

Oddball smiles, "it gets that way cats...:)"

Occy says, "I should get back to hauling once again but i had to much personal for a while so i crashed disked and never haul again"

Oddball smiles, "its  a great feature for when you promote....in case you mistime emptying the exchange...:)"

Angelfowl laughs

Catspaws says, "Fixing that "feature"  would probably entail completely reworking the exchanges, and that's not going to happen."

Angelfowl says, "That's what I used it for, I needed to clean out, and I had almost no personal cash"

Catspaws says, "At the very least, they'd be so unstable we wouldn't know what to expect."

Munabilo shrugs, "just don't allow setting the max to lower than the current, seems pretty simple, but i'm not Fed's programmer"

Oddball says, "well...i would challenge that as i think there are some "easy" fixes...but since none of us know the actual coding no way of knowing"

Oddball says, "but as we have seen, no matter what holes get plugged...folx will think up new ways to exploit"

Catspaws smiles, "None of us know the actual coding, so it's easy to criticize.  Let's leave it that we're better with what we have. :)"

Occy says, "so trueodd what we tink is easy might be a total overhaul"

Munabilo says, "it's a big enough bug that imo, should be getting attention.  this would be a different game without it"

Oddball says, "my facorite is the fin d-d feature"

Occy says, "that too is nice odd when i was a finny"

Oddball says, "make those shares disappear...lol....when i last spoke with bella, it was on his list to fix"

Munabilo asks, "so Bella has a day job right?  doesn't do Fed full time?"

Oddball says, "but that was some time ago"

Occy says, "it hurts nobody and helps so few not high"

Catspaws says, "Right, Munabilo.  Fed doesn't make enough money for Bella to work on it full time."

Oddball says, "never used it and wont...seems like an abuse of a known bug"

Occy says, "and now being married it sure doesn't"

Oddball says, "well thats all i got folx...know it wasnt exciting, but smitty was pretty thourough"

Catspaws says, "We all have our projects that we think should be fixed.  I think it should be so alts can't build

facs on your planets, since they defeat one of the goals of having FOs in the first place, but that's me."

Angelfowl nods

Munabilo says, "well, imo the stockpile bug is huge and really goes against what this "online" game should be"

Munabilo says, "but... /shrug"

Oddball says, "then folx will simply connect thru proxy servers (which they should anyway...imo)"

Catspaws says, "And THAT would be impossible to code."

Catspaws drawls, "I also think felines should be the superior race...."

Catspaws licks her paw smugly

Oddball says, "well i think you may not even need an alt at this point...you can simply skip engineer and mogul"

Occy says, "I agree with odd since staff can see what server your on"

Munabilo asks, "they are, you get fed and housed and get to poop in the house, what's better?"

Catspaws snickers at Munabilo

Catspaws says, "We've strayed a bit off topic, I think."

Angelfowl says, "I think so too :P"

Oddball smiles, "if i have it right, you can go from Founder to Technocrat and have plenty left for all the anti-

dis builds with cash in treasury...:)"

Munabilo smiles, "good discussion though :)"

Catspaws asks, "Are there any further questions on planetary economics?"

Angelfowl shakes her head

Catspaws exclaims, "I am just trying to make enough Megs a day to keep up with new bio builds.  Sheesh!"

Oddball chuckle

Angelfowl says, "I'm trying to climb OUT of the hole"

Oddball says, "well thanks for coming by everyone...time for me to get shuteye."

Catspaws says, "Thank you for an excellent class, Oddball."

Munabilo says, "thanks oddball"

Angelfowl nods

Munabilo claps

Angelfowl smiles, "Thanks Oddball :)"

Catspaws says, "Everyone give Oddball a hand."

Angelfowl claps too

Oddball says, "yvw...anyime you have questions feel free to ask"

Catspaws looks under her seat and pulls out a hand which she gives to Oddball.

Occy claps]

Oddball says, "may not have an answer but i will try anyway....lol"

Oddball has left.

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