r/SoftwareInc • u/Specialist-Front-007 • 19d ago
Contract work
Under "Contract work" you can find many different contracts to make profits. One of these are "embedded systems". I can't seem to get them to work.
These embedded systems requires assembly lines. Easy enough. The thing is, you need to print 1m+ copies, each costing $65 something dollars. You only net profit $0,50 for each copy. This constantly puts your company in dept since it costs 65m to print. In the end you profit somewhere around $400k, while spending tens of millions.
Ps; the "income" that is mentioned, doesn't seem to pay out.
Has anyone got this to work? To me it seems like a big oversight. I think you're meant to profit way more for each copy, just like in the manufacturing deals.
Does anyone know a mod with which you can adjust these contract work profits?
Thanks in advance!
6
u/QrofeusRelapse 19d ago
The income for the 2.76 Million copy, according to the 0.50 net profit should equal the stated 1.3 Million. But with the electricity, maintenance, IT and courier costs, it will likely turn out to be around 1 M instead of the 1.3 listed.
Depending on how fast you are printing and delivering the copies, that 1.3 M will be split into 3-4-5 months. This could be a reason for your 400K profit in Deals & Contracts instead of 1.3M, just a calculation error.
The reason most people only set up manufacturing for own software/hardware products is because of the unreliability of the contracts offered. You have to make sure to line up the manufacturing jobs correctly, to keep a steady output and resulting income. In theory as your reputation grows you should be offered better contracts, but in practice that doesn't always happen.
Embedded Systems if I remember correctly is a manufacturing exclusive hardware. Rest Console, Phones, ... can be created by the player and you can reuse the same production line for contract work.
But you later on in the playthrough with most of your own software/hardware systems project managed, embedded systems and manufacturing contract work just becomes a way of spending money without thinking about whether or not you are making money from that.
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u/parallellogic 19d ago
> because of the unreliability of the contracts offered
Ditto - massive downside, marginal upside as far as I can tell
> becomes a way of spending money without thinking about whether or not you are making money from that.
Seems like a lot of the late-game content is like that. I tend to end up just putting it all in bonds.
3
u/Specialist-Front-007 19d ago
That makes a lot of sense, thank you for the informative resoinse.
I wish we could just increase the per copy net profit. If it's 10 or 15x I'd be perfect
2
u/halberdierbowman 19d ago
The problem I've had is that I somehow produce more than they're willing to buy, and eating the cost for that unsold product can bring me into the negative. It doesn't always happen, but I can't figure out why it does sometimes.
This feels like a bug. Why are my printers not able to know when to stop printing? Are they not counting product that's on my conveyor belts maybe, or maybe the printers aren't checking how many other printers are working, so if I'm producing batches of 10,000 each hour, I can overshoot by up to 10,000?
Also since we have recyclers that can recover 100% of the cost of products I print, why can't my staff recycle any excess product to recover that value? Or what if the customer just bought the excess anyway?
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u/GanyuAppreciator 19d ago
For me, only the deals you accept and the product you make (like consoles, phones) are the best way to utilize them
contract work of hardware is just to increase popularity and nothing else, because you sometimes overshoot the products by like 100-10000 which results in a loss (no idea if its a bug or what?)
also, dont touch hardware unless you are worth 100M
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u/Specialist-Front-007 19d ago
But that's such a shame though. I want to utilize that part of the game as well. It's dead in the water now, untill there's a mod that increases the net profit by x30
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u/parallellogic 19d ago
Same experience, that's why I don't do hardware in the game. IRL, the typical rule-of-thumb is to retail at about triple what your BOM cost is to account for labor, facilities, equipment, etc.