Startups & walkthroughs/hints

[Dedmoin]

How do startups work?
I have to create a plan to fulfill its requirements and try to serve all potential customers.
Is there anthing more I can do to keep and gain customers?... and hype?
What about those days cycles?
Is there a reason why time is stopped and I have to pass days manually?
Anything to consider when passing days?

Is there a site with hints and walkthrough?
I think I already tried everything but still cannot manage to meet some targets

[Tiwaking! 56k NZ]

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

How do startups work?

Only the developer can answer exactly how they work, but here are my observations:

- Startups, like a normal puzzle, have 4 resources: inputs allowed, outputs required, components allowed, cost per second. It also has 2 other resources, these are: initial money and time. There are three gauges which display how successful your solution is, these are money per day, users processed, and users not processed. There is also one final gauge, Hype, which technically does nothing.

- The maximum number of users that a solution can process is 10,002. This is not the actual number that can be processed, but is the biggest number that will be displayed (unless you run into 'the bug').

- Some startups, like Blood Center and Tracking System, will say they lose money when they start (-$60 or -$90, then -$13) and it will take about 3 days before it says they are generating money.

- ALL startups generate money. All of them. Without exception. If you're not getting money, you've done something seriously wrong.

- You cant process everyone unless the Startup is one of the short lived Startups (Mommas Pizza, Self Driving Cars, Tatari)

- If a startup runs out of money then it goes bankrupt.

- Startups have a maximum amount of time they will remain active. This time limit can be reduced if you create a poor/inefficient algorithm.

- some Startups have a maximum amount of users that will be reached before declining, notably Tatari and Pizza.

- some Startups will artificially slow down some algorithms. I am looking at you High-tech cars!

- Startups end user requirements are different for every Startup. What I mean is, with some startups you can totally ignore required outputs, with others you cant ignore them.

- Startups require indepth game knowledge and an extraordinary amount of time to truly master

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

I have to create a plan to fulfill its requirements and try to serve all potential customers.

Unless it is one of the short lived Startups then it is impossible to process all requests. I've tried almost everything. Almost.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Is there anthing more I can do to keep and gain customers?... and hype?

Hype can be ignored as it doesnt seem to indicate anything. For example: The Anti-Terror System will immediately go grey the day after release.

Now that you know that there is an absolute limit (10,002) that can be processed then all you have to do is create a solution which can process that many people as soon as the startup begins. You dont need to upgrade or tweak the solution ever. If made correctly from the start then It just sits there generating money.

This means once you've properly solved a startup, then you can use that solution when you play the game again unless you keep a save and keep testing different ideas.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

What about those days cycles?
Is there a reason why time is stopped and I have to pass days manually?
Anything to consider when passing days?

Lots of people have asked the Developer to make Startups to run in real time and they are considering implementing real time Startups. My guess is that its a lot simpler to have the Startups run using a Turn-Based system instead of running in the background.

The passing of days can make you worry about your solution initially if it is losing money.

There is nothing to consider when passing days. However, its best to begin a startup on a Monday (day 1/7) as that gives the startup time to generate the most amount of money from the first week.

Once you've made the best solution, you never have to tweak or change it.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Is there a site with hints and walkthrough?
I think I already tried everything but still cannot manage to meet some targets

Unfortunately there is no site with hints, and most walkthroughs are out of date. I was considering making a guide for Startups, but I keep finding new things.

I can give you a list of targets/absolute values that you can strive for when attempting Startup solutions. I am 100% sure that two of my solutions (Blood Center, High Tech Cars) are the best and I am 99% sure that my Weather predicting app solution is the best.


Mommas Pizza: $??? 175 users [max]
Self driving cars: $840 502 users [max]
Tatari: $536 354 users [max 357 users]
Tracking System: $2706 9999 users
Gamazon: $4915 10001 users
Blood center: $4196 5499 users
Rare items: $??? 461 users [max]
Evolver: $3120 5001 users
Mr Cats School: $9151 9997 users
Soap making: $3239 243 [max]
High-tech cars: $31814 9998 users (note: This makes $2.2 million profit)
Weather predicting app: $19682 2999 users

note: [max] means that is the maximum amount of people who use the system. $ is money per day. $??? means too few users to care about money (they make money but I was only interested about the max number of users).


And no I wont tell you how to do it. You'll have to work that out for yourself.

[Dedmoin]

Wow thanks for the long reply

So basically the live time and number of user of a start up is already given and all I can do is get max money out of it by creating and updating my solution so as much users as possible are serviced while reducing processing costs (if any) as much as possible?

And after user level is too low I sell the start-up?

Answers seem to be obvious but I just go the impression I missed something. My start-up seem to lose users quite soon and only thing to do is to wait until I eventually sell them.
Then there are user screen shots showing lots of money making start-ups.

[Tiwaking! 56k NZ]

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Wow thanks for the long reply

So basically the live time and number of user of a start up is already given and all I can do is get max money out of it by creating and updating my solution so as much users as possible are serviced while reducing processing costs (if any) as much as possible?

And after user level is too low I sell the start-up?

Answers seem to be obvious but I just go the impression I missed something. My start-up seem to lose users quite soon and only thing to do is to wait until I eventually sell them.
Then there are user screen shots showing lots of money making start-ups.

I used to think that you should update your startup when it gets more users, but the truth is you are meant to make the perfect startup from the beginning and leave it until the money goes into negative and then immediately sell.

A good example of this is Gamazon which goes from over 1000 users to 0 users in a single day (right before you sell it).

You cant actually reduce processing costs beyond the 'perfect' solution. What I mean is, when you make the best solution, thats the best. The most amount of balancers to use in any solution is 1. Adding more than 1 balancer does nothing and you lose money. Some Startups dont need balancers, but those are the small ones like Momma's Pizza and Self Driving cars which dont allow you to use Balancers anyway.

You can reduce costs in several ways, but the main way is to reduce the components used in the solution. To increase profit, you need to processes as much information as possible based on the true Startup output requirements (which are not given).

I'll give you an example: In the Weather Prediction App you need to fulfil the following outputs;

Red Only 90%
Green and Red 20%
Green Only 50%
Blue Only 90%


These outputs are hard to achieve and I am very lazy. So I focus on Green/Red and Blue Only. In fact, Blue Only is the only important output for this Startup as all Blue information can ONLY go to the Blue output.

This is only one example and all of the Startups are different in what is required/desired.

[Tiwaking! 56k NZ]

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

Wow thanks for the long reply

So basically the live time and number of user of a start up is already given and all I can do is get max money out of it by creating and updating my solution so as much users as possible are serviced while reducing processing costs (if any) as much as possible?

The latest patch has rendered the user number somewhat meaningless now. The number of users processed can fluctuate, even if no changes have been implemented.

The length of time for a startup can now be extended if your algorithm serves a lot of users and unprocessed users. The number of unprocessed users represents how long your Startup will stay alive for. This means the Time To Live for a Startup is no longer truly 'fixed'.

Originally posted by Dedmoin:

And after user level is too low I sell the start-up?

If your Startup doesnt show a profit after 2 weeks you should definitely sell it or somehow improve your algorithm.

If the amount of users drops to.....I dont know, 71 users or less? they you should sell. It depends on how well your algorithm was constructed. Some algorithms can survive below 71 users, but most Startups will immediately drop to 0 people once it gets below 71 users. Its usually something like -$50 if you miss selling it earlier.


Thanks to the patch, I'm going to have to see how the changes have affected all of the Startups. Heres to another 100 hours of While True: learn()!

[spathianon]

Originally posted by Tiwaking! 56k NZ:

High-tech cars: $31814 9998 users (note: This makes $2.2 million profit)

Insane numbers. Are those even possible any longer? I felt like I cheezed it with 6892 income.
https://postimg.cc/v4QxPJqN

[Tiwaking! 56k NZ]

Originally posted by spfnym:

Originally posted by Tiwaking! 56k NZ:

High-tech cars: $31814 9998 users (note: This makes $2.2 million profit)

Insane numbers. Are those even possible any longer? I felt like I cheezed it with 6892 income.
https://postimg.cc/v4QxPJqN

Thank you for the warning. There have been several patches since this post. I'll have to try High Tech Cars again when I have time.

My High Tech Cars score was absolutely smashed by this guy:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2384163563

3,770,634 and still going strong!