Rocket & Income

[Soylent_Greene]

OK, so I'm a noob and I probably missed this but I just watched Europa become a colony (the gubmint paid for it, tax dollars at work)...
Then they offered a subsidy for water there.
Of course I spammed off about 100 of the 10 hold rockets loaded with water.
They cost 1900 + fees
But I cannot find in the balance sheet the cost/benefit information to further decide their value.
Even with the game as slow the numbers whip right off the screen.

I have been having to pause the game immediately before & after an arrival. Then I examine the cash on top of the screen but I am unsure if I am isolating JUST that rocket's income or are there other elements not seen on screen.

Please educate me!!!!!!!!!!

[Krypsyn]

First of all, I think that is far too many for a new colony. I think they start off with demand for around 50 - 80 water, so half a dozen 10 cargo rockets full of water should be enough for a full delivery early on. Space out purchasing a half dozen every few months to let the demand rise a bit after each delivery. Regardless, 100 rockets is far too many; you are literally drowning them. ;)

edit: Actually, maybe you know better than I do, since I have never tried the spamming method for subsidized goods. Is the subsidy enough to counter money loss for supplying to a colony with no demand; is it even possible? I kind of assumed that nothing could be sold when there is no demand (so, with rockets, a total write-off), but perhaps that was a bad assumption.

As for cost/benefit, the best I have been able to do is just check to see how much money I get when each rocket is delivered (by watching the number float off the planet on delivery), then subtracting the cost. If there is a better method, then I haven't been able to find it.

[Dom]

What I do is make a route specifically for rockets. Then, after the rockets land, you can check the financials of that route on the finance screen. Since you set the rocket to a route when ordering it, that screen will include both the rocket, fuel, and cargo costs subtracted from the cargo revenue (i.e. the profit).

[Soylent_Greene]

DOM,

Thanks for that. Very wise.

As to whether the 100 rocket spam was worth it, I started with about 200K and after being bought I was down to about 15K.
When they had all landed I was up around 750K.

BUT, I couldn't accurately tell just how much of that was the rockets and the regular shipping I was doing to Ea-Mars & Ea-Venus. I stopped trying to compete for teh moon.

[Krypsyn]

Ahh, good idea, Dom. So obvious now that you mention it *facepalm*. ;)

[DarnellJenkins]

click finances and chheck the profitability of the route.

[Ironclad]

No offense meant to the OP but spamming 100 rockets feels like an exploit. Maybe the way the game handles rockets needs to be adjusted? Right now it seems like an easy way to take all your cash and turn it into almost instant profit, rinse and repeat.

[celem]

Well its by no means instant. Although rockets build fast theres still a couple of days between ordering and launch, they also have to load and each launch will require a gate. Even later into the game they are going to come off the deck in waves or a stream rather than blobs due to gate count.

They are also not particularly fast in-system, the neptune is average speed, and while the sparrow is quicker its still by no means instant.

Finally using rockets profitably requires careful thought. Throwing 100 rockets at a new colony as the OP did will lose money by drowning the demand, they work best for high value, low volume cargoes such as Machinery, or Rare Resources. I've had some success with first-class seating too. You could argue for blanket rockets to developing worlds where the demand is high enough, but at that point you just buy an actual ship..

Quite honestly one of my primary uses is pro bono work. 90% of the rockets I launch are going to lose money, but not much, and I have reason to send what im sending. (You can keep a totally undeveloped colony fed and watered indefinately using rockets for trivial cost)