Chef Archive
Thread: Drinks: Containers & BE enhancements discussion (LONG)
(first- let me appologize for the length - I wanted to make my math clear to avoid any flames by people who thought I was "out to lunch").
I wanted to take the approach of "what is the benefit to the customer of different glass sizes and BE enhancements to drinks" with the perspective of how these drinks should be priced. I'm just starting the discussion, and my numbers may be bunk, but here goes:
I was thinking about a relationship of glass size : food quantity : BE Additives.
Let me take a very basic example - spiced tea. I'm assuming you "eat" the factory time - Even 2 full days of factory time only costs around 4,000 cr. which should be recoverable easily enough (ie. don't factor factory costs into the equation). Let's use the following numbers & assumptions on the quality of the results:
- Base food has +50 for 35 minutes, quantity 4, filling 10. That's what you can get if you use small glasses, regular research, no BE additives. The cost of the base ingredients should be about 20 credits per unit (3 cpu for water and 2 cpu for the "any organic").
- Small glasses produced in a factory cost about 30 cpu (quality doesn't matter, 10 resources)
- Using Large glasses gives you 1.5 times as much and cost about 300 credits per glass (quality doesn't mater, 100 resources)
- Using Casks gives you 3 times as much and cost about 550 credits (3cpu for the resources, 50 credits per unit of trim... don't know if that's too low...).
- Using a light BE component will give you 50% boost to one stat (duration, bonus, quantity, or filling). Cost of each of these would be about 300 credits being generous... could be as much as 500. The 300 figure is assuming about 5 cpu for the resources.
- Using a medium BE component will give you 100% boost to one stat (duration, bonus, quantity, or filling) Cost would be about 500, maybe as much as 750.
I won't do large components because I think for most people it's impractical to manufacture these.
Breaking it down by cost:
- Spiced tea in small glasses cost 50 cpu
- Spiced tea in large glasses cost 320 cpu
- Spiced tea in a cask costs 570 cpu
- Light BE Spiced tea in small glasses cost 350 cpu
- Light BE Spiced tea in large glasses cost 620 cpu
- Light BE Spiced tea in a cask costs 870 cpu
- Medium BE Spiced tea in small glasses cost 550 cpu
- Medium BE Spiced tea in large glasses cost 820 cpu
- Medium BE Spiced tea in a cask costs 1070 cpu
Now, taking that and multiplying it by 25 for a crate, and adding the total bonus of all the contents of the crate together, and dividing it to get a "cost per bonus" we get:
- Spiced tea in a small glass: +50 bonus X 4 unit stack = +200 per stack X 25 per crate = +5,000 per crate. Cost = 50 cpu X 25 = 1,250 per crate, so cost per bonus = 0.25 credits
- Spiced tea in large glasses: +50 bonus X 6 unit stack = +300 per stack X 25 per crate = +7,500 per crate. Cost = 320 cpu X 25 = 8,000 per crate, so cost per bonus = 1.07 credits.
- Spiced tea in a cask: +50 bonus X 12 unit stack = +600 per stack X 25 per crate = +15,000 per crate. Cost = 570 cpu X 25 = 14,250 per crate, so cost per bonus = 0.95 credits.
- Light BE Spiced tea in small glasses: +75 bonus X 4 unit stack or +50 bonus in a 6 unit stack (doesn't matter) = +300 per stack X 25 per crate = +7,500 per crate. Cost = 350 cpu X 25 = 8,750 per crate, so cost per bonus = 1.17 credits
- Light BE Spiced tea in large glasses: +75 bonus X 6 unit stack = +450 per stack X 25 per crate = +11,250 per crate. Cost = 620 cpu X 25 = 15,500 per crate, so cost per bonus = 1.38 credits
- Light BE Spiced tea in a cask:+75 bonus X 12 unit stack = +900 per stack X 25 per crate = +22,500 per crate. Cost = 870 cpu X 25 = 21,750 per crate, so cost per bonus = 0.97 credits
- Medium BE Spiced tea in small glasses:+100 bonus X 4 unit stack = +400 per stack X 25 per crate = +10,000 per crate. Cost = 550 cpu X 25 = 13,750 per crate, so cost per bonus = 1.38 credits
- Medium BE Spiced tea in large glasses: +100 bonus X 6 unit stack = +600 per stack X 25 per crate = +15,000 per crate. Cost = 820 cpu X 25 = 20,500 per crate, so cost per bonus = 1.37 credits
- Medium BE Spiced tea in a cask: +100 bonus X 12 unit stack = +1,200 per stack X 25 per crate = +30,000 per crate. Cost = 1,070 cpu X 25 = 26,750 per crate, so cost per bonus = 0.89 credits
So you can see the best "cost per bonus" is achieved with the absolute basic un-enhanced foods in a small glass, followed by casks (regardless of BE enhanced or not). Large glasses are the least profitable.
Now assume you're going to price these at a 100% markup on costs. Compare that to the max. buff that someone could get (what the rich fighters are looking for):
- Spiced tea in a small glass sells for 2,500 per crate and can buff up to a maximum of +500 ten times.
- Spiced tea in large glasses would sell for 15,000 and would buff up to +500 15 times
- Spiced tea in a cask would sell for 28,500 and would buff for up to +500 30 times.
- Light BE Spiced tea in small glasses would sell for 17,500 and would buff for up to +750 for 10 times:
- Light BE Spiced tea in large glasses would sell for 31,000 per crate and give a buff up to +750 for 15 times
- Light BE Spiced tea in a cask would sell for 43,500 per crate and give a buff of up to +750 for 30 times
- Medium BE Spiced tea in small glasses would sell for 27,500 and give a buff of +1,000 for 10 times
- Medium BE Spiced tea in large glasses would sell for 30,000 and give a buff of +1,000 bonus for 15 times
- Medium BE Spiced tea in a cask would sell for 53,500 and give a buff of +1,000 30 times
So let's look at the results and form some conclusions (assuming my numbers are even close to accurate).
Conclusion #1: If you're making the "basic" substance, it is not cost effective to use large glasses or casks. It is not reasonable to ask your customers to pay a 600% or 1140% premium to save 1.5 or 2X inventory space.
Conclusion #2: If you are using BE additives, using casks is nearly required. Consumers will get a 300% return when using a cask, and pay less than a 200% premium. Not only do they get more efficient storage, it is relatively cheaper for them to carry. However, creating them with glasses gives a bonus double the normal at a cost of 10X; using large glasses is worse - double the bonus and a 12X cost increase.
Just taking a quick look at how these conclusions apply to something like Vasarian Brandy (which has a bonus of about +150 with 5 uses at a cost of 180), and assuming you pump the BE additive to decrease the filling to 33% for light and 25% for medium...
Large glasses are still the most expensive to produce AND most expensive for the customer to buy. If you're not adding any BE materials, small glasses are the best (conclusion #1 still holds). If a customer was going to buy the Medium Bioengineerd food, they would have to pay about 61,500 (compared to the 10,500 "normal" food) and this would "only" double their maximum bonus - from +300 to +600. While there are a lot of people with a lot of money, I don't know how many would actually pay that premium.
Now, I'm not saying we should charge 10,500 for Brandy. I think a price of non-BE brandy would sell for around 30,000 to 40,000, and Bioengineerd Brandy would sell for about 60,000 to 80,000. But if you're talking about "take home money" per case, you'd take home almost 25,000 from a regular small-glass brandy vs. 30,000 for the BE brandy. Sure you make a bit more, but for the trouble.... I don't know if it's worth it.
I posted this in another thread, but this goes in line with your discussion better. I am using the nutrition tissue and I feel that is the best due to meat costs. The meat costs double and require specific meats with the filling tissue. Also it is a better value for the customer.
This is dealing with Vasarian Brandy
Im finding making casks or even large glasses to be a waste of time and resources. So far, I have experimented on various items with some bio-engineered components, and found the results unsatisfatory to warrant attempting to keep getting them. With the difficulty in my mind STILL on the availability of milk, it isn't worth it.
All i have been making so far, is Varsarian Brandy with NO additives, with stats of +204 to all 3 mind stats, with a duration of 35-40 minutes. Lowering the filling to 49, giving consumers a +408 buff to all 3. Now, taking into consideration the focus and willpower buff, I truly feel the +408 the Varsarian gives FAR outweighs the old +500 MIND ONLY buff that Fishak provided.
So, in reflection, what is a fair price for the above mentioned Brandy? Well, on my server (Chimaera), the old Fishak was selling for between 70-75k, even up to 85 in some cases. Ok, so with the old fishak consumers got 8-10 uses per item, where with the new Brandy they get 3 full doses from an item with 6. I think a fair price for a crate of 25x6 of this item should sell quite easily for 30-35k. That's 75 x a +408 buff to all 3 stats at 40mins a go. To me the price seems extremely cheap for what they're getting, yet i havent managed to sell a single crate yet? Ive even put README's on my vendors, given away free samples, etc etc. People's replies? .... "Ill wait until later this weekend to see if anything better comes along" ????? In my view, being a chef for a while, you get what you pay for. No doubt there may be the odd crate of the new brandy that comes on the market with higher stats, but it will only be with the bio-eng additives, which will incurr a massive increase to the price of the end product.
Once again, the fact that i'm sure over 60% of the players in this game only ever consider the primary HAM stats as being the be all and end all of how powerful they are. I would happily love to see two players of equal stance fight each other, one with the old fishak, and one with the new brandy. I'm pretty sure on paper the brandy user would come out on top.
Personally I am not sure how you are able to aquire all of the resources we require at 2 or 3 cpu. Other than that your theory on cost/benefit is a good one and I agree.
Even with the lots for 2 accounts I am unable to personally harvest all of the resources I need when high quality stuff spawns.
For my server your estimates on BE tissue costs are very low. On average they are being sold here for 1k each for a medium.
Acarragm: 30 Fungi, 2 Alcohol, 1 Container
If you assume 4cpu for reasonable Fungi, 2cpu for grind quality Wheat for the alcohol:
Cost of one bottle is 160 + cost of Container
50 gems at 2cpu for Small Glass, 100 credits
100 gems at 2cpu for Medium Glass, 200 credits
100 x 2 trim (I paid 92k for 1000 trim) + 150 gems at 2cpu for Cask, 500 credits
100 x 2 (Power Cond & Control Unit), 350 non-ferrous at 2cpu for Barrel, 900 credits
Now - Assuming small glass gives 6 or 8 charges (Do both to see how the rounding affects it), we have:
260 credits for 7/8 charges (Cost 43.3/32.5 per charge)
360 credits for 10/12 charges (Cost 36/30 per charge)
660 credits for 21/24 charges (Cost 31/27.5 per charge)
1060 credits for 28/32 charges (Cost 37.9/33.1 per charge)
Now with a medium additive for nutrition, there is an addition cost:
80 good resources, but of unspecificc types so lets say 4cpu for the Organic/flora (55 units), and 5cpu for the creature food (20)
This adds 210 + 100, 310 credits cost.
570 credits for 7/8 charges (Cost 81.4/71.3 per charge)
670 credits for 10/12 charges (Cost 67/55.9 per charge)
970 credits for 21/24 charges (Cost 46.2/40.4 per charge)
1370 credits for 28/32 charges (Cost 48.9/42.8 per charge)
Setting the price based on buff quality*charges, using a cask allows you either to improve your profit margin or offer a more competitive credit per charge price.
The barrels are obviously only going to be useful with Heavy additives, but we already knew this, the choice of small/large glass and cask is going to depend on the cost before container, there's a break point where cost per charge goes up because the cost of the container is to large a proportion of the overall cost.
Morganite wrote:
I made my first run of factory brandy's..
large glasses now mind you and no additives
10 uses
+230 mind/focus/willpower
37 minutes and change..
filling 49. ( i wanted just 50, but , *shrug*.)
I had absolutely no problem selling 6 crates at 90k.
I am currently running the medium and heavy additives. I plan on doubling or possibly tripling the price, depending on how the final stat's look. I will only make barrels for special orders and by the crate, and thenonly with additives. (most bang for your buck, right?) 2 million if they bring me the meat for the additives, 3 million if I have to get it, and I wont do it until i have orders for 5 crate's.
Domestic meat will end up going for 7-10 cpu on my server, wild meat 5-8, regular meat 5-10 (I am planning on just using carnivore for that)
Once you educate people that if they take 2 brandy's, 1 canape, and 2 different stat foods, and you will be almost unkillable. The boost is so high, rifleman can spam specials and keep their mind bar full...
First a couple of notes on the above comments: 1) for IdleThought - small glasses only take 10 gems (not 50) which is why you don't see a huge savings using your numbers. (2) Regarding the BE component pricing - I totally agree that my numbers were too low. Talking to people online last night indicates at least 10 cpu for the meat, and 750-1000 for the BE additive (complete). (3) I believe for any chef, harvesting wheat for food should not be a problem. For myself in particular, when a decent spawn of wheat (or anything for that matter) comes up, I put 4 BER9 medium harvesters on it and collect 40,000 units a day. After 5-7 days when the spawn rotates, I have collected about 250,000 units which should be good for a long time.
Now, using some numbers provided above for the Brandy:
Base in a small glass = +230 bonus, 6 uses, 49% filling and a cost of 180 for the resources
BE in a small glass = +390 bonus, 6 uses, 49% filling and a cost of 880 for the resources (including the additive).
Small glass costs 30
Medium glass costs 300
Cask costs 550
Results:
Small Glass, normal serving - cost per case = 5,250 and a "retail" of 10,500 (note this is low, but we'll use it for sake of arguement). Total bonus per case would be 34,500. Cost per bonus = 0.15 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +460 buff for 140 credits.
Large glass, normal serving - cost per case = 12,000 and a "retail" of 24,000. Total bonus per case would be 51,750. Cost per bonus = 0.23 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +460 buff for 212 credits.
Cask, normal serving - cost per case = 18,250 and a "retail" of 36,500. Total bonus per case would be 103,500. Cost per bonus = 0.18 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +460 buff for 162 credits.
***Again, the small glass is the cheapest to manufacture and the best value-for-money for the customer.***
Looking at the BE variety,
Small Glass, BE serving - cost per case = 22,750 and a "retail" of 45,500. Total bonus per case would be 59,685. Cost per bonus = 0.38 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +796 buff for 607 credits.
Large glass, BE serving - cost per case = 29,500 and a "retail" of 59,000. Total bonus per case would be 89,528. Cost per bonus = 0.33 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +796 buff for 524 credits.
Cask, normal BE - cost per case = 35,750 and a "retail" of 71,500. Total bonus per case would be 179,055. Cost per bonus = 0.20 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +796 buff for 318 credits.
***In contrast with the normal foods, BE foods REALLY benefit from the larger containers.***
Now, just to quickly do the "expected retails", and a cost for the customer:
Small Glass, normal serving - retail of 40,000. Cost per bonus = 0.15 credits, price per max buff for the customer would be a +460 buff for 533 credits. Profit to the chef of 34,750 per case
Large glass, normal serving - retail of 55,000. Cost per bonus = 0.23 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +460 buff for 489 credits. Profit to the chef of 43,000
Cask, normal serving - retail of 80,000. Total bonus per case would be 103,500. Cost per bonus = 0.18 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +460 buff for 356 credits. Profit to the chef of 61,750
***As Rexan mentioned above, people pay exponentially more for better stuff. While I don't think it will be as much as a sliced weapon (which lasts much longer), they will pay more for the "good" stuff. Also, if you don't pass the full incremental cost onto the customer, large glasses and casks can be profitable both for the chef AND for the customer.***
Looking at the BE variety,
Small Glass, BE serving - retail of 90,000. Cost per bonus = 0.38 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +796 buff for 1,200 credits. Profit for the chef is 67,250 per crate.
Large glass, BE serving - Retail of 120,000. Cost per bonus = 0.33 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +796 buff for 1,067 credits. Profit for the chef is 90,500 per crate.
Cask, normal BE - Retail of 160,000. Cost per bonus = 0.20 credits, and the price per max buff for the customer would be a +796 buff for 711 credits. Profit for the chef is 124,250 per crate.
(note - these all compare to a Fishak cost of a +450 for 290 but would have to use it twice as often, so say 580 credits per 30 min buff, but with many more uses per case).
Again, the customer is much better off with a larger container size.
Bottom line - to make larger containers profitable, it is necessary to increase the base price of the item, and when using larger containers, to NOT pass the full cost onto the customer (i.e. if you use a 7X markup rule on component costs, you would only mark up container costs by 3X).
Message Edited by GalinHawk on 02-13-2004 10:01 AM
You are, it seems to me, picking your pricing model then proving that casks and large glasses aren't profitable.
Look at it another way: With a small glass the maximum doses you get per crate of small glass is, say 8*25 or 200. The maximum doses you get per crate of casks is 24*25 or 600. (I'm getting 7/10/21 for small/large/cask, but 8 is easier to do the numbers with)
(I'll pretend the small glasses come free in cornflakes or something for this)
The customer gets 3 times as much, you have paid (whatever the drink is) 500 more (150*2 + 100*2) If the base price per item is greater 500/3 you can charge the same price per dose and still make more money. A 75 credits per dose drink would be 600 per item, if you charge 1800 for it now, the customer is still getting the same thing for the same money (but in less inventory space) and you make an additional 500 credits per item, 12500 per crate profit.
For a 6 charge base that is 450 base, 1350 cask, 33750 crate and 6250 extra profit.
At that point you can decide to pass on whatever proportion of that extra profit to your customer you see fit.
The real difference between your figures and mine is that you are deciding the price based on the cost, then working out the benefit/price- while I'm working out the benefit/cost and then determining the price.
You could argue about which way is fairest, or best business of course.
I made 1 mil cr in less than 24 hours while actually charging less than i used to charge for Fishak.
Ten 525 use crates (21 per stack) of nonbioenhanced Vasarian Brandy in a cask priced at 190 cr per dose (used to charge 300 cr per dose for Fishak). Thats 100k each. These 10 crates lasted about 3 hours on the vendor.
In a glass, I will sell it at 35000 cr for 175 uses. Bioengineered in a cask at 200k.
I may bump my pricing up some depending on how things go, but i think this is pretty fair pricing for my environment and most of my customers seemed to thinks so also. It about blew thier mind seeing the 21 use stacks!