I made a spreadsheet to calculate station profitability

[Beric01]

Link is here[docs.google.com], feel free make a copy and edit for your own use or let me know of any updates needed.

The first tab (Stations) has a list of all stations, with production formulas. Note this info is taken from the wiki, so if that's out of date these formulas will be as well. The profit/day column is based on base product prices, and Profit/day (buying) column gives you profitability factoring in transport fees, so if you bought the inputs from competitors stations and then subsequently sold the outputs to competitors.

The second tab (Prices) is where you input the prices of products in your game. Naturally this will vary from system to system, so this isn't an exact science. The transport fees were checked in-game per the current patch, but please let me know if any of them are incorrect.

As you can see, the profitability of different stations can vary by a factor of 100x within a game. At least in my game, hydrogen pumps are horrible and Helium pumps are incredibly profitable. Again, some of these formulas may be out of date so if they have been changed since, please let me know.

[sa1977]

Nice work. Thank you!

[Luke]

Great stuff, thanks!

[Chivalrybean]

Yay, spreadsheets!

[Stranger]

That is pretty good. Also, you found a bug - hydrogen pumps should definitely not have negative returns. We're checking how this happened, and we'll update production costs in the next update.

[Beric01]

Originally posted by Stranger:

That is pretty good. Also, you found a bug - hydrogen pumps should definitely not have negative returns. We're checking how this happened, and we'll update production costs in the next update.

Awesome! Looking forward to the update!

One thing that might help is if prices reacted to demand a little more. For example, one reason steel has been so short in my current game is that almost no dihydrogen is being delivered to The Forge. As such, I would expect H2 prices to rise dramatically in The Forge and delivering dihydrogen to that system to become more profitable, thus making hydrogen pumps better buys. But that doesn’t seem to have happened -H2 still sells for around 10 in The Forge.

[Stranger]

We initially had very dynamic prices, but we had to reduce the variation range drastically during Early Access. Players were having a really hard time making money, and the economy had wild swings with price changes. Should still have variation, but they're capped.

[Beric01]

Originally posted by Stranger:

We initially had very dynamic prices, but we had to reduce the variation range drastically during Early Access. Players were having a really hard time making money, and the economy had wild swings with price changes. Should still have variation, but they're capped.

Yeah, I think caps are fine, as long as the minimum price still allows for some profit to be made, and the maximum price actually encourages you to focus on trading that resource. I assume you could also limit wild swings by limiting the amount the price can change per day, no?

Anyway, definitely looking forward to the next patch!

[Luke]

The shipping fees make it almost always worthwhile.

I used to worry that many goods were slightly more expensive at supply centers than they were at demand centers, and I thought that all the trades were at a loss -- but then I realized the shipping fees get applied in your favor on each end of the transaction.

So it seems like the behaviour is that it does not fluctuate more than the fees?

[Stranger]

Beric, we checked on our side and I believe the cost for Hydrogen was wrong - it should never cost 100 to produce. Can you confirm ?

[Beric01]

Originally posted by Luke:

The shipping fees make it almost always worthwhile.

I used to worry that many goods were slightly more expensive at supply centers than they were at demand centers, and I thought that all the trades were at a loss -- but then I realized the shipping fees get applied in your favor on each end of the transaction.

So it seems like the behaviour is that it does not fluctuate more than the fees?

I'm sure the shipping fees eventually make trading everything worthwhile, but not earlier in the game when your shipping capacity is limited and some sectors are very far away. Then you have to focus on the best routes, and shipping H2 from the Spire to the Forge (a 1-way route) is not a great option. Same with shipping iron.

Right now I have a Sphinx shipping water from The Depths to The Lighthouse.That's actually a very profitable route, because I can fill up the entire ship each time and the route isn't too long, even if it's 1-way and only a 5 credit fee. But if there isn't volume for the product (like H2, iron, etc.) then it's just not worth the time.

Tools are also something I'm willing to do 1-way routes in from the Forge for, because with the 20-credit fee they're incredibly profitable. But of course the systems that need tools are never the systems that have something the Forge needs.

[Beric01]

Originally posted by Stranger:

Beric, we checked on our side and I believe the cost for Hydrogen was wrong - it should never cost 100 to produce. Can you confirm ?

Cool! This was just from the wiki[heliumrain.gamepedia.com] as I noted - it was possible it was wrong. Do you have the correct price? I made this spreadsheet using the wiki to decide on what stations to invest in.

[Stranger]

Sounds like the Wiki is not up to date ! We'll fix it.

[Beric01]

Originally posted by Stranger:

Sounds like the Wiki is not up to date ! We'll fix it.

Thanks a lot! Yeah I've yet to build a lot of the stations myself or I would have double-checked all of the formulas. I know several people seemed to have found this spreadsheet helpful, so I'm happy to update it once the wiki gets updated with the new formulas.

[Niavok]

I just updated this wiki page. Only the hydrogen pump was wrong but it allow me to see that the Fusion Reactor plant rentability was very wrong. The Fusion Reactor will be fixed in the next version and I updated the wiki with its new cycle.

[Beric01]

Originally posted by Niavok:

I just updated this wiki page. Only the hydrogen pump was wrong but it allow me to see that the Fusion Reactor plant rentability was very wrong. The Fusion Reactor will be fixed in the next version and I updated the wiki with its new cycle.

Awesome! I updated the sheet.

And wow, that's a massive buff to the fusion reactor. Are you sure you're prepared for just how much fuel it will unleash? :P

I'm also wondering what the exact production cycle of the habitat is. I know it takes some resources and turns them into money, but I'm not sure exactly how much.