Plantations Insight

[Kangaroo]

For the first time in a week I am seeing plantation workers health start move upward away from zero, hopefully this change will see that continue and start to be followed by happiness rises as the facilities start to bite.
I've not changed my fleet count dedicated to immigrants, (approx half) and the replacements have so far outpaced any mortality, though I do have one port with far more workers than I can use,
How far off do you believe it will be before the ports/nations are able create or gain additional acres CJ?

[Captain Jack]

I will post at the other topic regarding future.

Due to the nature of the bug, different plantations will have different results. Some might now need less fleets others might need more. If your health is increasing, perhaps it will be safe enough to start increasing workload (or decreasing fleets)... or adding more acres.

[Bomont]

Since trade fleets seem to be our benchmark for profitability, I got curious and ran a few numbers. For a moderately sized trader (or newish player) adding a trading fleet, it's a very long payback period for your initial investment as well. To add a trade fleet if you are starting at 350 ships/70 fleets, it costs about 14.5 million gc (captains, admiral, merchant). If you assume 60k/day average income that will take about 241 days (8 months) to pay for the initial investment in officers. At 90k/day it would still take about 161 days (over 5 months). Obviously this gets significantly longer as the number of officers rises.

I don't know how profitable plantations will be, nor how long it will take to get there, but it seems early to say that it's not balanced with trade fleets. I think the fact that trade fleets are fairly straight-forward makes that payback period easier to stomach compared to plantations, which are so unknown at this point.

[DezNutz]

Since trade fleets seem to be our benchmark for profitability, I got curious and ran a few numbers. For a moderately sized trader (or newish player) adding a trading fleet, it's a very long payback period for your initial investment as well. To add a trade fleet if you are starting at 350 ships/70 fleets, it costs about 14.5 million gc (captains, admiral, merchant). If you assume 60k/day average income that will take about 241 days (8 months) to pay for the initial investment in officers. At 90k/day it would still take about 161 days (over 5 months). Obviously this gets significantly longer as the number of officers rises.

I don't know how profitable plantations will be, nor how long it will take to get there, but it seems early to say that it's not balanced with trade fleets. I think the fact that trade fleets are fairly straight-forward makes that payback period easier to stomach compared to plantations, which are so unknown at this point.

Your trade numbers assume that the fleet must pay for itself. You are forgetting that your other trade fleets can assist in recouping the expense. I spend 16M to add a new fleet to my existing 70 fleets. Lets assume that only 65 of the original 70 are trade fleets running routes with an average of 50k/day. That's 3.25M per day plus the new fleet with brings it to 3.3M. You'll recoup your expenses in under 5 days.

[Bomont]

No doubt.

I was making this comment in response to a number of comments from people saying their plantations aren't profitable until they repay their initial investment and viewing it only with regard to the income of the plantation, ignoring all other income. Which is what my example did. And several posts have said that it will take forever to recoup their initial investment, which is similar with fleets if you view them without accounting for the big picture.

[sXs]

No doubt.

I was making this comment in response to a number of comments from people saying their plantations aren't profitable until they repay their initial investment and viewing it only with regard to the income of the plantation, ignoring all other income. Which is what my example did. And several posts have said that it will take forever to recoup their initial investment, which is similar with fleets if you view them without accounting for the big picture.

For some of us there is no "other income" 100% of my fleets dedicated to plantations.

[Bomont]

No doubt.

I was making this comment in response to a number of comments from people saying their plantations aren't profitable until they repay their initial investment and viewing it only with regard to the income of the plantation, ignoring all other income. Which is what my example did. And several posts have said that it will take forever to recoup their initial investment, which is similar with fleets if you view them without accounting for the big picture.

For some of us there is no "other income" 100% of my fleets dedicated to plantations.

Agreed. I don't even know what I've spent on plantations. Besides the initial construction and operating expenses, acreage rental there is significant loss of fleet income and gold bars for improvements. If I do another sometime, I might be ambitious and try to track it but it's too late with my current ones.

Regardless, my point was that virtually everything in this game takes a very long time to get your initial investment returned - from fleets to academy research.

[The Accountant]

gI was of the belief that star levels once achieved did not decay. i have achieved 3+ stars on utility buildings in two plantations which has taken 20 days to achieve so started improving housing . within 1 day i dropped 1/2 a star on both utility ratings. if you can lose 1/2 a start in a day and it takes 20 days to build to 3 how will we ever keep up?

[Poppy]

gI was of the belief that star levels once achieved did not decay. i have achieved 3+ stars on utility buildings in two plantations which has taken 20 days to achieve so started improving housing . within 1 day i dropped 1/2 a star on both utility ratings. if you can lose 1/2 a start in a day and it takes 20 days to build to 3 how will we ever keep up?

its the amount you build devided by the number of workers it serves i think

[Bomont]

Yes it's relative to the number of workers it serves. Kind of like getting great service in a little diner or bar when there are only 6 customers, but if 200 come in the service is lousy because of staffing, not enough grill space, etc.