Are greenhouses really that good?

[BanDHMO]

So after making some cash from the starting fields and equipment. I did a brief analysis on what venture would make sense to expand into next and greenhouses seem great. They need very little equipment - just a water tank that can be towed by a pickup truck. I could add two water towers at 36K. Figure twelve greenhouses for 300K as a starting operation. All in all, around 350K for the whole setup.

Then I'd just have to drive the pickup to a water tower, stand there, drive it to two greenhouses and wait for the water to transfer, then do it again. If I arrange them in a two-sided line with two water towers at each end, I could just drive around the whole setup, filling up four greenhouses with each circle. Seems pretty easy considering the profit.

The profit would be 90/hour/greenhouse so in total 90x24x12 = 25,920. Equipment cost and building maintenance aside, figure true profit at 25K.

Seems pretty good, considering all you have to do is drive three laps with a bunch of stops.

Am I missing something or is it really an ideal opportunity for initial farm expansion?

[fidelio]

having played the previous versions i never found the placeables to be a good investment UNLESS, you play many many many hours, have a dedicated server which runs and therefor makes money while you're not playing, or you play on a significantly increased timescale.

the reason is while it's true they are a dependable source of income, the cash outlay you spend up front means you need something like a month of in game time to pass before you break even, much less make a profit.

dunno about you but my in game days don't move very quickly, so i never saw a profit.

earning to buy placeables is a goal, in a game with few goals, so you may enjoy the journey of getting there, and of course the numbers could have changed since i tried them before (as i haven't yet in fs17) but i didn't find them to be profitable. fun maybe, profitable, only in certain circumstances, which weren't mine.

someone who puts in more hours, may have a different answer.

[BanDHMO]

That brings up an interesting topic about how different people prefer their days to go in single player games. i.e. how do you guys balance real time vs in game days.

So far I play by working the three starting fields using the combine, tractor and pickup truck/tipper setup. Once the fields are done and the grain is sold, I have nothing to do, so I speed up time until the crops ripen again.

This was one of the things I considered in the expansion plan analysis. I could spend the money to buy another field or several, for example. But that would just make each day take longer and I wouldn't be making any more money for each real-life hour spent playing. I'd save on daily equipment maintenance, but it seems relatively small so far and not worth it.

On the other hand, I could buy more machinery and work the same fields faster, but then at some point I would be running into traffic jams and scheduling different things would become more stressful. And at some point also, I'd be spending more time waiting for crops to ripen than actually working the fields.

Finally, there's one activity that cannot be hired out, it seems, and that's collecting harvested grain and hauling it to sell. So having two combines is all well and good, but if they both need to be emptied at the same time, you are out of luck.

So what's your golden setup for field farming? How many tractors, harvesters, tippers, etc, and how many fields do they work?

[Quagmire]

Green houses also come out on top with daily return on investment.
To compare these figures, it is best to compare against the cost of the largest item.
Based on the cost of 1 wind generator (1.2M)
Daily income from wind generator = $24000
Daily income from solar panel (9.6 panels at 125K = 1.2M) $2160 per day x 9.6 = $20736
-Notes on greenhouses, based on greenhouse only, income is $60 per hour, if you add water, it brings it up to $90 per hour and lastly add manure also to bring this up to $120 per hour.
Daily income from Base Greenhouses (48 houses at 25K = 1.2M) $1440 per day x 48 = $69120
Daily income from Watered Greenhouses (48 houses at 25K = 1.2M) $2160 per day x 48 = $103680
Daily income from Watered and Manured Greenhouses (48 houses at 25K = 1.2M) $2880 per day x 48 = $138240
Daily income from Beehoues (60 houses at 20K = 1.2M) $384 per day x 60 = $23040

Ultimately, we need to look at time to break even.
Solar panels - Days required = 57.87
Beehouses - Days required = 52.08
Wind Generator - Days required = 50
Base Greenhouses - Days required = 17.36
Watered Greenhouses - Days required = 11.57
Watered and Manured Greenhouses - Days required = 8.68

Other costs/considerations not taken into account.
- Space required per building
- Cost of supporting equipment (only applies to Watered/Manured Greenhouses)
- Player time required for upkeep of buildings (only applies to Watered/Manured Greenhouses)
- Optional cost of buying water though this can be free (water refilled from natural water sources)
- Manure from pigs/cows

Ultimately Greenhouses are the way to go for return on investment.

[OUTLAWONETAP]

i broke through recently with my wind generators and i have too much money is ridicolous

[KayDawg13]

one thing; if you place the greenhouses close enough to the river, you can get free water by backing the water trailer into the water.
I had a set up in FS15 with a bunch of greenhouses near my cow pasture so I could easily get water and the manure but I didn't like the work it involved. for the money invested it would be much easier to just get a couple solar panels.
my thoughts on the placeables are that they are only really good to offset some of the daily maintenance costs. you could save up and grab a wind turbine asap and just fast forward to pay it off but it's not much fun.
IMO the money is best spent on better equipment to turn the fields around faster, then more fields and more equipment, maybe a solar panel thrown in here and there to offset daily costs.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by kadawg13:

one thing; if you place the greenhouses close enough to the river, you can get free water by backing the water trailer into the water.
I had a set up in FS15 with a bunch of greenhouses near my cow pasture so I could easily get water and the manure but I didn't like the work it involved. for the money invested it would be much easier to just get a couple solar panels.
my thoughts on the placeables are that they are only really good to offset some of the daily maintenance costs. you could save up and grab a wind turbine asap and just fast forward to pay it off but it's not much fun.
IMO the money is best spent on better equipment to turn the fields around faster, then more fields and more equipment, maybe a solar panel thrown in here and there to offset daily costs.

Can you elaborate on the work that was required, which you didn't like? Like I was saying before, it looks, in theory, that the work is minimal. Is that no the case?


To me, the interesting thing about greenhouses is that they are kind of in between fields and placables. They take an initial investment, but not as much as purely passive placables. They still require some work, but relatively little (at least on paper, since I haven't tried it yet). And for that work they pay much better than other placables and may even approach the payoff from fields.

I haven't really figured in the cost of water, which sounds like it would be somewhat significant. I found figures of $400 per greenhouse refill, so that drops profitability closer to 20K/day assuming daily refills with water. I probably wouldn't do manure, though, since it sounds like too much of a pain to line up a loader all the time.

I figured right now I'm making about 50K profit on 15K expenses, so I could invest in more machinery to turn around these fields twice as fast. That would make it 35K profit (but in about half of the time, so as far as real-time perception goes it will be 70K profit). That's only 20K more than before, and the price to re-buy all the equipment I have new would be about 300K. So that would be 15 days to break even as well, with the big difference being that in 15 days the equipment will be wearing out, while the greenhouses will not, except for the truck and water trailer.

We also haven't considered the extra work on the player of lining up these new machines and emptying the harvesters and shipping the grain to sell.

The other alternative is to get bigger and more efficient machines so that the wage costs will go down and the player has fewer machines to babysit while enjoying higher productivity. But those cost a fortune, and unless you upgrade all of them at the same time, the overall process would still not be twice as fast. Say I have a harvester that's twice as productive and a corresponding hauler to keep up with it. All that means is that the harvest will be done quick, but I will still be waiting for the tractor to cultivate and sow after. Bigger tractors alone - harvest is just as slow as before.

I haven't run the numbers on upgrading to all the bigger equipment yet, because the cost would be prohibitive for me anyway.


So I think I should do a combo approach. Shore up the weakest link in my field machinery by getting a new small tractor and a plow, and then build greenhouses.

[KayDawg13]

pretty much just driving the wheel loader for the manure, my setup with the greenhouses was too close together and hard to get that big machine in there easily. I can't remember exactly but I think that you needed the manure to make the greenhouses work in FS15. 17 might be easier with just water but the manure adds more profit and depending on how you plan it out, you could have a front loader, or wheel loader, and manure close enough to make it easier to do, maybe make a pile to load from.
also I don't really like to crunch numbers. I will look at costs but I don't plan out very much, first think I will buy is a big tipper, then harvester, then tractors.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by kadawg13:

pretty much just driving the wheel loader for the manure, my setup with the greenhouses was too close together and hard to get that big machine in there easily. I can't remember exactly but I think that you needed the manure to make the greenhouses work in FS15. 17 might be easier with just water but the manure adds more profit and depending on how you plan it out, you could have a front loader, or wheel loader, and manure close enough to make it easier to do, maybe make a pile to load from.

Yes, from what I read they make $90/hour with water and $180/hour with both water and manure. But lining up a manure shovel sounds like a pain, plus I'd also need a source of manure, which I don't have yet. And a dedicated shovel loader probably. So I was counting on just doing water. Nice to have an option to boost productivity even further, though, in case I get bored waiting for tractors to finish longer tasks like plowing.

[fidelio]

Quagmire, thanks for doing the legwork.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by fidelio:

Quagmire, thanks for doing the legwork.

Seconded. Very helpful analysis. Even though I already ran the numbers on passive structures, I assumed before Quagmire's post that water would be free.

[Parcelyte]

@Corporate Commander http://steamcommunity.com/id/Steam_forums_4_nerds/posthistory/ trying to scam again? Nice.

[fidelio]

Originally posted by Moralschaden:

@Corporate Commander http://steamcommunity.com/id/Steam_forums_4_nerds/posthistory/ trying to scam again? Nice.

lol ouch

[Sirisma™❸]

For me, personally, I spend the first 20 minutes or so on each map collecting the gold nuggets for that free $1mil, then sell some starting equipment and buy a windmill. Then again this is also because I play Seasons and the large per day with only 1 building and no upkeep makes early game seasons substantially easier as field turnaround is MUCH slower and manure production and space are always an issue.

[cycleboxer]

Yes, as a person who uses a LOT of placeables they work. I have right now 15 greenhouses and make close to $2,000 an hour. I custom built mine near the sheep farm on Lone Oak as I combined all the fields nearby into grass/hay. I have 350 sheep and 15 greenhouses and I make a ton of money. I use the Buy/Sell Manure Mod till I invest in a cattle farm, but for now this makes me a ton of steady money even through the Winter also getting 2 cuts of hay a year helps as well. Next will be a $1,000,000+ dollar investment into an Agriculture Operation.

Get a front end loader helps with Manure.

[Giezer1984]

Passive income is the way to get really rich. Check out farmsimhobby.com