Thoughts so far

[Mongoose]

TL;DR: Making money is easy, but there isn't enough time and scrap so I've only been expanding production and not sales because I already make more than enough money.

I've logged a few in-game days now, even if I'm not very far along in the mission tree.
But a lot of that is because the way I'm playing means time is always the resource I'm short on.
I've really been enjoying the game, but mostly I think that's because I've kept things small so far and have advanced slowly through the missions. I do think getting a tip jar down right away is probably the biggest priority.

Even with a full staff, most of my time is building guns, buying parts or eating.
I regret even building the ammo shelf since it's another thing that eats up my time and scrap and offers me income I no longer need. My current mission is the order shelf, and I might do that one.

I have three gun shelves and not much desire to create more, I can barely keep them filled. Well, I can barely keep the two people actually buy from filled, the other one goes untouched. I really really hate the algorithm for shoppers deciding which shelf to use, especially when then walk right to the one shelf that's sold out then shrug and walk away.
Though if you're observant, you can keep the most expensive guns in the premium slots and just work your way down from Most Visited to Least.

I haven't seen any blueprints around the city. I've bought tons from the night vendor, but barely have a chance to use them (not enough time). It is really handy for making barrel attachment though, which are my bread and butter. I guess if you have like six shelves you're just worried about slapping together basic guns, but I'm all about those customised barrels.
Same with scrapping my unused parts. You get so little for the low rarity ones that it's not even worth it. I've bought most of the upgrades I want, and the cleaner pretty much balances out the ammo shelf's consumption.

I have one stall set up on the shooting range, but haven't bothered activating it yet.

So mostly shelves are weird and time management is hard. It does help that you can stay up until 6:30 and get a full night's rest in 45 minutes.

[Abyssmal131]

try restarting and focusing on orders and the shooting range. Its a lot less stressful and I think its the best way to play, though the orders should give 100 scrap instead of like 25

[Mongoose]

I wouldn't say it's "stressful" now, it's just I don't have much free time. I just don't understand how people could keep like eight racks filled and open the shop every day.

I make plenty of money, and I'm not really interested in the shooting range or doing orders, I just like building fancy guns. My point was just that like.... a lot of the expansion seems pointless. I wish you could delete things you've already built, I'd get rid of the ammo table so fast.

[Abyssmal131]

I don't fill any racks. I didn't build 1 gun that wasn't for an order. I went around the map, picked up the free stuff, used that to buy parts for orders.

I'm telling you, you're missing out on the range. The range's income scales with how fancy the gun is, so it gives you dopamine/brain craick when you see a part in the store that goes on the best possible gun.

I think what we're describing are 2 different playstyles or "builds". The ammo table makes the most money. I really like it and its the thing I lean on the most.

What sort of ammunition do you put on it?

[Mongoose]

So wait, you just skipped right to the order shelf?
I just got the tip jar going, bought cheap parts and sold cheap guns until I could afford better parts, and then things snowballed rapidly. Before I build the ammo shelf, I had like 4k scrap just from clearing out my shop and installing a trash can.
Now I constantly sit at 1200, since my janitor roughly makes up for my ammo consumption.

I try to keep at least two boxes of each type of ammo on there.
I guess I should just make 9mm or whatever is cheapest, but to me that's kinda dumb.
I generally keep three racks full - the one you start with I fully upgrade and then keep pistols/SMGs on there. They're low value, but that's the last shelf anyone will visit anyway, so quite frankly it's rare that anyone buys anything off of it.

I put my two most expensive long rifles available on the one right across from the register, and then I build the rack next to the ammo shelf and keep rifles/ARs there. Before I go to bed at night, I try to have all my shelf slots full and to fill up as many of the magnetic board slots as I can.

My dopamine comes from selling expensive, fully kitted out guns.

My average sale is over $1k. Not sure how much profit that is, but I always buy the most expensive parts I can when they're on sale, and I've got enough money I can buy out both the day and night vendor several times each without making a single sale, so money is already almost meaningless at this point. I have so many common/uncommon parts just sitting in the bottom of my inventory. I'd recycle them for scrap, but there's so many and they give so little it's a complete waste of time.

I'll probably start expanding just to try out the other features and stuff and then just leave the shop closed every third day or so if I have to.

I guess for me I think of my shop as the kind of shop I'd want my Fallout character to shop at

[Abyssmal131]

Yeah, I mean in the first like 10 seconds I build the trash can, ordering table or wtv its called, and maybe the tip jar. The orders fill up fast. I go out and collect all the free scrap and gun parts. I don't eat because its too expensive in the beginning. And I just focus on 1 gun until its build, then the next. Its super slow, but that's how I start. Its fun for me. I do that until I can sell ammo, and then money is basically taken care of.

9mm is the most efficient ammo type for money. You're not taking tips into account. You'll get tipped 20-40 dollars per sale, regardless if its a 1k item or a 10 dollar item, so I would reconsider 9mm.

There is a shelf that's in a weird spot, but its got a 15% markup (is sold for 15% more). Its the best shelf to unlock, but I think it only holds 1 gun. But yeah, I unlocked everything before I used the shelves. Blueprints, the ranges, everything.

Selling guns for a profit, to me, is a waste of time because you could use those parts to fulfill orders which can be used to get scrap and a lesser amount of money. You need a whole lot of scrap to unlock everything.

I see what you're saying. Buying parts and scrapping them could be a way to make scrap. I didn't think about that.

Don't get me wrong, I WANT to fill the shop with guns, but they get purchased so quickly that I can't build them fast enough. It might make more sense to rethink all the prices and lower the frequency of purchases, at least until the shop gets upgraded, because - me personally - I just feel like I'm running around too much currently, which how fast they sell and how often I have to go buy parts.

I don't know, also, what is a 'good price' for parts. Do the customers buy guns at the standard pricer-per-part? So buying cheap parts is a good idea? Idk, I'm not great at math and I'm not gone learn today, hehe.

This does have a fallout vibe. Actually, the pipe weapons work just about the same, and I guess all the fallout 4 weapons, but this game really reminds me of the pipe weapons.
What kind of character do you have? When I play, I just (Fallout 4) I like to play pipe weapons. I think level 1, but I can't remember.

[Mongoose]

Yeah, your experience is completely different than mine, lol.
I didn't really have to worry much about money early. I got my first shelf going, bought parts, built a couple cheap guns, sold them, ate a hot dog, bought more parts, got the tip jar as soon as I could, and it all went from there.

I never had to worry about eating when I got hungry, I always had a few bucks.
And actually because I stay up all night working, I eat hot dogs during the day and raid my own vending machine at night. I didn't even bother wandering around town for the first couple of weeks. I did eventually wander around cleaning up the garbage around town and grabbing the loose parts, but by then it was all drops in the bucket.

All my shelves are fully upgraded, I'm pretty sure at least two of them sell for 15%.
I have all the stuff in the backyard and roof built, except I only have one shooting range stall.
I've got the vending machine and cooler, two toilets, the solar panel and fully upgraded water collector, the recycler and printer.
I was excited for the parts builder, but I found I don't need it. If I can't find what I need at a vendor, I just go home and come right back and try again.

"You're not taking tips into account"
Without tips selling ammo wouldn't be worth it, and I would have restarted my game and never built the ammo table. In fact I may just go through this game and unlock everything, then start over and not bother with ammo at all. I can easily make 15-20k+ in revenue per day just making fancy guns and do that sustainably.

I think the only parts worth disassembling for scrap are the gold barrels without attachments. Common parts give you like 2-3 scrap per part, 100% not worth it.
I personally would rather use an uncommon barrel with two attachments (since even half decent attachments are always worth more than any barrel itself) than a goldie with none.

[Abyssmal131]

I think the parts builder makes sense for people who do orders. If you just can't find that one difficult part to find, but it costs too much scrap, so I never use it either.

Dang, yeah, I don't make that much, end game. I think like 2k on a good day. Welp, I might try just making guns then. Leaning on the ammo table seems like a good way to make money, but you know what. Its the prices that was confusing to me. I think that's why I didn't even try to sell lots of guns because I couldn't tell how efficient it was.

Yeah, I agree - using a lower quality part that can have attachments is the better way to go. Although, it would be nice if you could unlock legendary/yellow parts that can take every attachment. As far as I know, for the barrel, there's the jackhammer, which is fine, but I didn't see a 5 part 'base part'. Could be a good reward for the collectibles -unlocking a legendary 5 slot base part. That would be nice.