Brand new to the game - income fluctuating wildly but I'm not doing anything - why?

[gecman]

Title says it all. I'm into the game, but my income is violently fluctuating. I just got through the part in the campaign where you blow up the stone wall. I started mining iron and my income just started violently going up and down but I can't figure out why.

I look at my costs but there's no way as far as I can tell to determine what is constantly changing

[Sarsgamer]

It's likely you're running out of stock of something causing your populations to leave, then once supplied again they come back. You wouldn't look at your costs (your costs don't fluctuate) for that you'd look at your storage/ production.

[Hundinger]

Look at the production tab of your statistics screen and make sure you don't underproduce goods your people need. The blue bar stands for demand, the green bar for supply. Make sure the green bar is bigger than the blue bar and you will be fine.

You can look at two or more islands by pressing ctrl, which is important if you produce a good on one island or several islands and consume it on another island or several islands. Looking at global statistics can make sense too in some cases, you can choose all islands for that.

[SpannerMonkey]

Hi also a new player, so I'm still finding out how things work, probably having the same kind of issues.

The number of available workers above that needed to run the industry, and therefore the amount of total building occupation seem to play a profound effect on the stability of income, if the numbers drop too low, it's very easy to dip into the red.

It seems to relate directly to how happy the population is, how well you've filled all the needs, including the lifestyle needs. what you ideally need is everyone happy and every house ready for an upgrade, with that arrangement you find a balance, with a decent population, in the thousands, rather than the pennies. Leave any of the needs unaddressed for any length of time and it seriously starts to cut into your finances, then the city as a whole.

Like you I'd been prompted into getting the Iron, Steel and Weapons together, and had indeed constructed them, this was way before I was in a position to upgrade into the Artisan class, but noticed the same behaviour as you, from an income of several thousand, it dropped to 100's and then into the negative, not having that, so I paused all Iron related stuff, the income goes right back up.
As I was doing OK financially I bought in 150 steel beams, they kept me going until I was well set to go up to Artisans, sort out the glass, canned food etc and only the fur coats remained to be dealt with, which means I need the Iron works all running and that trip to the New World
Once I had the first few Artisans housed I gradually fired up the Iron works etc and initially the balance was great, back up in the thousands, but combined with now managing six islands in two worlds the lack of fur coats and the hassles of the New World mean I'm barley seeing a profit and it doesn't take much to make it dive into negative.

Summary,
I don't think you need to fire up the steel production so early,, get it built by all means but pause it. buy in the early Steel beams
Don't run any building short staffed, it's better to pause the building rather than incur the huge maintenance costs that inefficient running causes
Try to keep everything operating slightly at a surplus, check the production tab, green bar must be longer than blue bar, if it's not or close, even small delays moving goods will start to hammer the balance
Try to keep ALL the needs satisfied

Although I'm just a fellow new player and this could all be wrong, it feels right though :)

[Tankfriend]

Originally posted by SpannerMonkey:

The number of available workers above that needed to run the industry, and therefore the amount of total building occupation seem to play a profound effect on the stability of income, if the numbers drop too low, it's very easy to dip into the red.

Yes, your population provides both your work force and your primary source of income. When your work force fluctuates, it's just a result of your population fluctuating, likely from missing goods or having lost access to goods they had access to previously.

It seems to relate directly to how happy the population is, how well you've filled all the needs, including the lifestyle needs.

It does, because a happy population will grow to fill empty slots in your houses. A larger population then also results in a larger work force and more income.

but noticed the same behaviour as you, from an income of several thousand, it dropped to 100's and then into the negative, not having that, so I paused all Iron related stuff, the income goes right back up.

Iron industry is the first very expensive industry both in running cost and workers per building you can build, so accidentally running into the red can happen quickly here.

Once I had the first few Artisans housed I gradually fired up the Iron works etc and initially the balance was great, back up in the thousands, but combined with now managing six islands in two worlds the lack of fur coats and the hassles of the New World mean I'm barley seeing a profit and it doesn't take much to make it dive into negative.

You can overproduce on soap and sell it to Eli Bleakworth/prison island to make a profit.
Putting a sizeable population (up to 1000 each of peasants and workers) on every old world island you have as long as the island is self-sufficient can also bolster your income early on.

[Sarsgamer]

Originally posted by SpannerMonkey:

Although I'm just a fellow new player and this could all be wrong, it feels right though :)

Sounds like you're on track.

Your perspective on steel and steel beams is pretty spot on. On my latest game I just bought steel beams, as needed, when settling a new island. Only started producing my own once I needed sewing machines. Similar, can do the same in new world with aluminum. You don't need very much until later.

My very first game I was trying to keep my resident tiers at around 0 extra, that game failed, but next game I aimed at always have around 500 extra residents for every tier and that has worked well for me. With 500 extra per tier it's highly unlikely they'll dip into the negatives. I'd only go beyond that when I was looking to upgrade them to the next tier and I'd get higher before I upgrade them. When workforce starts to dip into the negatives it could really cause a chain effect that find you can't get out of.

I feel I'm pretty experienced and even on my new game I had to use newspaper income boost at one point in the early game just so my per minute income wasn't in the negatives. But I expanded pretty quickly and had several islands settled where I was setting up production only islands pretty early in the game.

One thing on this game I've been doing is going a bit slower in new world, especially with the late tier demands. Already at around 400k population and still haven't done the last few goods in new world (scooters and fans to be specific) and stabilized a lot of things before I even started doing perfume and anything after that. The production chains on those last few items in new world are extensive. Especially anything needing ethanol, ethanol eventually has a pretty massive demand.

[Moridin]

you dont need that many extra population. having a little bit over can be useful, however i build population as i need it. that way i can keep costs down on producing items. one of the buttons in the top left can bring you to your Production/consumption screen. keeping item production higher then consumption and adding more as needed is much easier to stop income and population fluctuating.

there are some chains that are better to put off making, and even then avoid getting 100% production out of since its too costly in manpower and income. i typically make enough for 1 steel beam factory and 1 cannon factory instead of getting perfect production ratios.

somethings are worth overproducing to sell to npc's like soap to the prison.