BEST EXPORTS BY VALUE PER WORKER - Complete Analysis (October 2025)

[stranma5]

AI generated table below gives answer to a question what industry to start with to maximize profit per worker. Profit=revenue-cost, Revenue = sell price * quantity produced and Cost = for all inputs(buy price * quantity consumed). Prices are from game started at 1960.

Transportation cost not included.

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COMPLETE RANKING - All values in Rubles per worker per day
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Rank Building Workers Revenue/W Cost/W Profit/W
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1 Asphalt Plant 5 956.13 668.75 287.38
2 Concrete Plant 5 499.10 323.01 176.09
3 Nuclear Fuel Fabrication 120 86.05 22.53 63.52
4 Incinerator Power Plant 20 23.30 -19.92 43.22
5 Oil Refinery 500 60.15 23.57 36.58
6 Coal Power Plant 20 48.71 16.92 31.79
7 Gas Power Plant 15 48.01 27.66 20.35
8 Uranium Conversion Plant 120 35.03 16.89 18.14
9 Distillery 100 19.49 5.37 14.12
10 Uranium Processing Plant 75 21.14 8.22 12.92
11 Explosives Factory 75 18.83 9.65 9.18
12 Alumina Plant 370 25.54 16.51 9.03
13 Fabric Factory 100 17.06 8.27 8.79
14 Prefab Panels Factory 65 19.23 10.57 8.66
15 Food Factory 170 13.09 4.48 8.61
16 Brick Factory 75 14.37 6.34 8.02
17 Clothing Factory 80 18.84 11.31 7.53
18 Chemical Plant 50 8.49 1.29 7.20
19 Electrical Components Factory 150 24.45 17.55 6.91
20 Mechanical Components Factory 150 51.48 44.72 6.77
21 Gravel Processing 15 38.17 31.44 6.73
22 Steel Mill 500 22.91 17.21 5.70
23 Livestock Farm 50 8.66 3.58 5.08
24 Cement Plant 30 67.07 64.27 2.80
25 Coal Ore Processing 15 102.08 100.94 1.14
26 Sawmill 20 82.46 81.36 1.10
27 Aluminium Plant 370 51.37 50.82 0.55
28 Electronics Assembly Hall 150 32.76 33.47 -0.71
29 Iron Ore Processing 15 105.07 108.15 -3.08
30 Bauxite Processing 15 191.60 195.42 -3.82
31 Plastics Factory 100 95.80 110.31 -14.52
32 Zaporozie Reactor 68 60.43 99.47 -39.05
33 Single Reactor Nuclear 60 55.07 100.20 -45.13
34 Twin Reactor Nuclear 120 55.07 100.20 -45.13
35 Slaughterhouse 50 22.38 113.81 -91.43

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[Kaia]

Well this table seems pretty useless.

Transportation being one of, if not the main concern in early game industry, this ignores it and as such is garbo. Cost complete analysis is the only way to get actual actionable insights about supply chains.

It looks at profit per worker but fails to account for the amount of workers needed for the intermediate products inputs to deduct that from the end ratio.

It ignores some money makers like tourism.

It ignores research requirements all together.

It ignores set up costs with infrastructure needed to run it or electrical overheads.

It doesn't realise that you can't store asphalt or concrete and that as such exporting those is pretty garbage tier.

To quote a few of the issues with this. Perfect example of how AI shouldn't replace your thinky bits tbh because it leads to very silly results.

Besides maximising profit per worker is just about the least interesting kpi to be looking at (btw in this Analysis ignoring transport and tonnage in favor of profit per worker farming is number one woth infinity profit ratio lmao) A much more interesting metric is instead to look at profit per tonnage in cost complete analysis. And ofc taking into account all the criteria that this pranced over.

[esbenmf]

I mean, you can't export asphalt and concrete.

And value pr. worker for raw oil, is sort of infinite.

[Novu]

Fabric and clothing factories have low input costs and it is easy enough to grow your own crops. On realistic mode with the smallest starting money it is the most efficient starting industry.

[Kaia]

I used to think that but nowadays I think tourism and hazardous waste incineration are by far easier to implement at all starting years tbh. These days I'd even consider chemicals to be easier to start with rather than clothing.

They require fewer employees, less infrastructure or use overlapping existing infrastructure and thus accommodate a smaller first city better in many ways and it means you're starting earlier, with fewer risks of overdraft and loans.

Ofc a lot of things work, including in the hardest difficulty. Some things just work better than others. It's also dependant on start year.

[ling.speed]

Forgot to include powerplants, those would be up top the list, and number 1 by far if you include the production boosting effect of critical infrastructure.

its a terrible investment but hey, if invitation price goes up by order of magnitude or two up the chart will be here to use!

[stranma5]

Originally posted by Kaia:

Transportation being one of, if not the main concern in early game industry, this ignores it and as such is garbo. Cost complete analysis is the only way to get actual actionable insights about supply chains.

I dont think so. You can start your game near borders and use short tracks or roads. Yes, there are different costs in road supply chain and road supply chain, but you need it either way.

BTW How would you count that if it is different for each map.

Originally posted by Kaia:

It looks at profit per worker but fails to account for the amount of workers needed for the intermediate products inputs to deduct that from the end ratio.

No, it counts that. You are an idiot, so you only criticize and can't understand the hard parts.

Originally posted by Kaia:

It ignores research requirements all together.

Yes. Why do you care. If it is not available, don't do it.

Originally posted by Kaia:

It doesn't realise that you can't store asphalt or concrete and that as such exporting those is pretty garbage tier.

That is correct, but it was not omitted intentionally. It shows how much you can spare on construction using own concrete/asphalt even with imported inputs. But again, that requires some intelligence to realise.

Originally posted by Kaia:

A much more interesting metric is instead to look at profit per tonnage in cost complete analysis

It is not. The simplest thing in the game is to build a train track and depot and a train. The hardest thing is to bulid efficient residential area.

[stranma5]

Originally posted by ling.speed:

Forgot to include powerplants, those would be up top the list, and number 1 by far if you include the production boosting effect of critical infrastructure.

its a terrible investment but hey, if invitation price goes up by order of magnitude or two up the chart will be here to use!

Hey, good call. Will edit.

[Kaia]

Originally posted by stranma5:

No, it counts that. You are an idiot, so you only criticize and can't understand the hard parts.

Yeah no, sorry none of this is convincing.

Originally posted by stranma5:

That is correct, but it was not omitted intentionally. It shows how much you can spare on construction using own concrete/asphalt even with imported inputs. But again, that requires some intelligence to realise.

Lol, oh you're something else ^^

The premise of your thread is :

AI generated table below gives answer to a question what industry to start with

and you reply flippantly to just ignore research requirements or transportation costs related to the sheer tonnage.

Sorry not sorry, this KPI you decided to use in this thread is mediocre to look at in all contexts, and especially in the context of quote, "the best industry to start with."

Imagine getting upset about an analysis you didn't make yourself and resorting to insults.

[Silent_Shadow]

I think the most important metric for industries in the early game will be the payback period, i.e. how long it takes for the profits to pay off the capital costs and start producing more money than you sank into it. Industries that need little time and money investment and have a decent profit can quickly generate money you can use to build up your economy, transportation, research, and such along with loans.

The map can change the payback period quite a bit by making some transportation options more or less feasible, mainly customs size/number, water access, and the distance from them to good building areas.

[Kaia]

Originally posted by Silent_Shadow:

I think the most important metric for industries in the early game will be the payback period, i.e. how long it takes for the profits to pay off the capital costs and start producing more money than you sank into it. Industries that need little time and money investment and have a decent profit can quickly generate money you can use to build up your economy, transportation, research, and such along with loans.

The map can change the payback period quite a bit by making some transportation options more or less feasible, mainly customs size/number, water access, and the distance from them to good building areas.

Which is why profit per worker tells very, very little and profit per tonnage tells so much more. Profit per worker on its own is so useless, it makes farming and raw oil appear as champions of profit. Transportation is the main driver for eating into raw profitability that it has to be taken into consideration for any and all analyses.

For me the main things to look at would be transportation and set up costs: how much piping/electricity/sewage/railway infrastructure and intermediate product steps it takes to get going.

[Silent_Shadow]

Profit per worker isn't that useless a metric, as workers are very expensive to invite and house. You need around 400 rubles to invite one citizen and another 80-150 rubles to build their flat, so even a workforce for just 200 jobs will cost around 300,000 rubles to invite and house. Even if you use dollars, that would be around 56k to 99k rubles and 60,000 dollars for 600 workers, and then they must be educated before they can work.

I would also say that transportation is more of a capital cost than an ongoing one, as most of the expense is for buying the vehicles and building their infrastructure, so the transportation an industry requires doesn't really impact its profit margins so much as its payback period.

Needless to say, but both should be considered when selecting industries for maximum profit.

[Kaia]

Fair enough, but who plays like that and invites 600 people?? I would think the vast majority of players start the game and get their small town going ASAP by inviting maybe 250/300 people tops (and never again invite anyone after that)... there is also a case to be made there that the investment to get those initial people in cannot be sensibly allocated to your industry because it serves to run the city amenities to then breed more people, not to the industry workers itself.

As for Transportation being a one off vs running costs, it is really both. You have to invest more to get it going initially, but you run networks for decades and so over time, the difference between industries requiring a lot of fuel and maintenance to run and small volume industries with little transportation overheads will be very substantial, and given enough time, it will have cost less to set the infrastructure up than the running total in fuel."

Besides the initial large "capital" investment in infrastructure is most likely spread over the several industries using the same infrastructure.

Running crop industries for instance, you cannot make the case that transportation is a negligible factor by the sheer volume of fuel (and maintenance) required to keep using all the mechanisms involved. Some industries have much, much less of that.

[Silent_Shadow]

A citizen's childhood lasts for almost a year before they can work, and you will be paying for their food, meat, and education during that time. Inviting workers is expensive, but most factories' profits will pay off their workers' invite/housing costs well before a year, and inviting workers also gives a instant boost to the population growth rate for an even bigger workforce down the line. You could also use profit/worker ratios to help determine how to produce the most value with a limited starting workforce, in addition to transportation costs and the set up time.

Fuel costs add up, but they are nothing compared to the profit from selling most factory produced goods. For example, the Skd-706 RTTN burns about a ton of fuel to go 30 km (on gravel roads), so at 125 rubles per ton of fuel, that is roughly 4.2 rubles spent per km traveled. This adds about 35 rubles to the operating costs of a food factory per km the crops need to travel, which with a base profit around 1,250 rubles per day, means each km reduces the profit by only 2.8%. For clothes, trucking in fabric only adds about 2.22 rubles per km to the operating costs, which reduces a clothing factory's base profit of ~520 rubles/day by only 0.43% per km. Most starter factories are around this amount due to the low amounts involved.

Even if you just compare the cost of the fuel to the cost of the vehicles using it, it takes years before they break even. The Skd-706 RTTN would take about 4 years to burn an amount of fuel worth its purchase price for example. Any decent factory can make enough money in a week or two to cover the fuel costs for years.

The only time fuel costs become significant is when you are dealing with low value resources (< 40 rubles/ton), like crops, coal, iron, wood, boards, bricks, prefabs, gravel, waste, etc. but these products tend not to be very profitable even before considering their transportation costs.

Basically, the capital costs of transportation are usually much more important than the ongoing costs because the profit of most factories far exceeds the cost of transporting goods to them, and you only get this profit if you can afford the setup costs.

[melkij]

Originally posted by Kaia:

Fair enough, but who plays like that and invites 600 people?? I would think the vast majority of players start the game and get their small town going ASAP by inviting maybe 250/300 people tops (and never again invite anyone after that)...

From my observations on the forum... This is, on the contrary, an extreme and rare approach (I personally start with one or two houses, initially with about 110 invited, then increase to 200 as I build more houses). Many players prefer to build a city for several years with 1,000-3,000 workers and only then settle it (I doubt they only invite 300 workers instead of at least half the city).

Originally posted by stranma5:

Rank Building Workers Revenue/W Cost/W Profit/W
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1 Asphalt Plant 5 956.13 668.75 287.38

Please help me find a calculation error. Prices are from new game in 1960, all settings are set to the far right.
145 tons of asphalt at the import price of 35.29 rubles = 5112.7 rubles if you buy ready-made asphalt.
To produce 145 tons of asphalt, the plant will use:
125 tons of gravel at 7.66 rubles = 957.5
20 tons of bitumen at 214.43 rubles = 4288.6
a little electricity at 0.41 rubles = 6.15 rubles
Total materials: 5252.25 rubles.

I keep finding that importing ready-made asphalt is simply cheaper. Building an asphalt plant can only be profitable from a logistical standpoint. What did I miscalculate if your asphalt plant turned out to be so profitable?

[Silent_Shadow]

Asphalt is normally cheaper if you are making your own gravel, which should generally be done if possible, but the savings aren't really big enough to justify the cost of the plant in my opinion.