Economy discussion on Hard/Start from Scratch

[george.earlslight]

Starting the thread to discuss economy on hard, especially combined with Start from Scratch, where the 200k loan is a major burden.
How did you decide to start? Did you manage to break even on yearly earnings or even repay the loan?


I've probably failed my first start, where the plan was to work with olives.
Purchased the starting plot, the house, 2 large greenhouses and 2 large beehouses, the old pickup, the Landini and a water trailer.
Tried to earn some money, so come March I'd be able to plant an olive grove.
The greenhouses were practically my only source of income and even then I barely managed to break even the monthly loan interest at about 1500-2000 plus.
The honey pallets were too heavy to lift by hand, so I decided to keep them till March where honey has is on highest demand and lease a small front loader. The earnings were pitiful, just about 2000.
On March I managed to plant two rows of olives which cost me 30000, bought the mulcher, subsoiler, sprayer and waiting till October.
Leased the harvester for a hefty 15000 and managed to gather about 1300L of olives.
Even if I had also bought the oil factory for 80000, getting an even bigger loan, the oil earnings would be marginal compared to the loan.
Decided to fill bankruptcy (abandon the savegame) and try something else.

I never used the helper as it was too expensive on the situation I was.
Did a few contracts that helped a bit, but not enough.

I'm thinking of trying a sheep farm for textiles and cloth now.

[Coldlandlord]

I reckon the best way is to decide what you want to do, work out how much it would cost to get going and manually adjust the starting cash in the save game xml. The game isn’t really very good at the economy side of things. IRL you wouldn’t start a business without the required equipment and funds otherwise you wouldn’t be able to produce anything or you would run out of working capital and go bust. By setting the starting funds yourself you can tailor it to be achievable with a struggle or you can go all out. Alternately, being smart with contracts as well as putting in some low input crops on your own land can get you going but it’s a grind as it would be IRL.

[george.earlslight]

Surely I could edit the starting funds on PC, or a console player use the gov subsidy sign.
Although I'm also interested what are the best "return of investment" strategies to use on FS22.
I already know that greenhouse spam is one strategy, but it seems "cheaty" to me.

On FS19 it would probably be horses and grass silage, but now things have changed.

[rasilo]

The economic balancing is barely existant. Interest is the same as in LS 19 and balanced around being able to harvest every other day. With only one harvest in 12 days, loans do not work out. For the default 200.000 loan, you have to pay 20k a year.

In my opinion, there are 3 possibilities to start from scratch:
- Reduce interest rate in your savegame file to 15-20% of its current value. That way you should be able to make a profit, even with only one harvest every 12 days.
- Repay the 200.000 loan instantly and try to live with the free 300.000. There is not much you can do with 300k beside contracts and greenhouses though.
- Abuse greenhouses and/or chicken. Both are incredibly overpowered. A large greenhouse makes you 22k a year, a chicken coop with 360 chicken 70k a year in egg revenue.

[Shintai]

On hard economy I made a test. Ignore seed cost(due to AI), ignore AI cost. All equipment purchase cost ignored.

3.2Ha field. Field started out empty. I first seeded radish, then cultivated, then seeded, then weeding and finally harvesting. No usage of straw was done.

I got 31320L of oats out of it. If sold directly without extra cost to the train. It would yield around 17500cr, or 21000cr with the train. I could obviously wait a bit longer.

Equipment repairs, excluding paint is around 14000cr. With paint its more around 150000cr. Fuel cost is not calculated.

But even then, after the year is over, I sit with a profit between 3500cr to 7000cr depending how you see it. The straw would be pure profit on top of this.

This would have to pay for the field of 790000cr, equipment of around 500000cr with a shed. And then seeds are still not included.

[george.earlslight]

The economic balancing is barely existant. Interest is the same as in LS 19 and balanced around being able to harvest every other day. With only one harvest in 12 days, loans do not work out. For the default 200.000 loan, you have to pay 20k a year.

In my opinion, there are 3 possibilities to start from scratch:
- Reduce interest rate in your savegame file to 15-20% of its current value. That way you should be able to make a profit, even with only one harvest every 12 days.
- Repay the 200.000 loan instantly and try to live with the free 300.000. There is not much you can do with 300k beside contracts and greenhouses though.
- Abuse greenhouses and/or chicken. Both are incredibly overpowered. A large greenhouse makes you 22k a year, a chicken coop with 360 chicken 70k a year in egg revenue.

It seems that greenhouses are pretty much obligatory when starting on hard.
I'll try chickens too on the next play.

This would have to pay for the field of 790000cr, equipment of around 500000cr with a shed. And then seeds are still not included.

Nice test!
Considering the ~1.3mil upfront investment, the load interest would definitely kill you in a "normal" new game scenario.
So, going all in and expecting a huge payout on the first year isn't going to cut it.

I want to test how using production chains would change the situation, but it's probably not something one could do early on Hard.
As expected, Hard makes progress much slower, which can be a good thing as we wait for new maps

I also think that it could be a good idea to take advantage of the used equipment new feature.
I'm regretting that I didn't take advantage of the day one deal where a series 7 Deutz and Ropa towed potato harvester were on deal.

[masterplan]

TBH I'm also not happy with the economy. I started with the medium option, normal prices. Got me one harvester, one tractor, a trailer, sprayer and that's pretty much it. Started being Mr. Smartguy: always bought a field ready to harvest, harvested it and sold the field afterwards. Got me some real good amount of crops. But now in winter after 18 hours of gameplay and all crops sold I pretty can't afford anything. I own a plot beneath my farm with one small field and a second small field. That's it? Well.... Meh.

[gordon861]

I still argue that FS22 feels like it has been 'completed' by multiple teams, one team has been designing the mechanics of the game and another has been balancing the economy. But the problem is the team working on the economy was using an earlier version of the game and since they did their work, the original team has done their own balancing that has thrown the game out of whack.

[GrimHuffer]

Finding collectables (on French map anyway) give 50k credits each (even on hard). I find it's way too easy for far too much money, but whatever.

I suggest editing some game files to massively reduce (but not eliminate) the currently ridiculous repair/repaint costs. With that huge drain on resources gone, I buy a decent mid hp tractor and focus on contracts early on, fast forward if there are none, buy equipment (if needed) for the job and that builds my equipment inventory. I play on very long days so a passive income source adds up. I don't buy a house at the start, keep my equipment either at the store or some random farm/shed looking building, fast forward through the night whilst I take an IRL tea break. You'll be up and running with some land, sheds and plenty of equipment in no time at all.

And I turn those damn stones OFF! Never seen any IRL farmer incorporate stone picking as a staple on the farm. Once in a blue moon maybe, if the soil is badly needing it. Such a waste of time in game and it also cultivates the ground?!? Nope, always off by default for me. Tried it at the beginning, had enough of them.

[bossmanslim]

The economy is a mess in general. The crop prices and fluctuation are reasonable and basically ported over from prior versions. However, there are some issues that make is really hard to get started.

• The helper cost has been increased by 2.5x. It now costs $1 per second, meaning 1 hour of helper time costs $3600, where it costs $1440 in FS19. Giants spent all this effort to put in a new helper system and then cut it off at the knees by making it prohibitively expensive. I took a cultivating contract for $1215, borrowed the equipment, used the AI system for the entire thing and it ended costing me $107. I'm not saying the AI system should be used for free money with contracts, but given how starting is fairly slow anyway, it should be at least 20% profitable (+$243, not -$107). This is all on normal economics.
• Several pieces of equipment have been changed to make tasks take longer. Lots of equipment was slowed down (balers = -3 kph, windrowers = -3 kph, several seeders = -5 kph). There are no big seeders that cultivate and plant (removed from Amazone). On top of all this, there is no big equipment in the game which is ironic because there is also no small equipment for the smaller tractors.
• Used equipment was implemented, but the trade off appears to be increased repair costs and a steep repainting cost. I'm generally fine with this as repainting doesn't appear to matter from what I can see.
• Production buildings were added to offset some of the above, but that is a late game solution which won't help people when starting out.
• The equipment only contracts need to pay out more, they are not worth it currently.4
• The Elmcreek starting farm is tiny and the player is better off to do a farm manager start as they will have more resources.

[Coldlandlord]

I agree that the AI is ridiculously expensive. I wish real life farm workers earned £1000’s an hour! Is there a way to edit this some how? I to used them to help with a contract! Cost £300 to get one to bring an empty trailer from my yard to a field opposite. It also charges while the workers are waiting to load and my worker costs for a £8000 contract exceeded the income from the job.
Hopefully this will get modded and balanced out to a more realistic £20 an hour?

[benjaprud]

I had to start over 4 times before managing to stay afloat.

The first time I bought all the equipment aiming for the cheapest way to farm at high yields without having to rent (Nova 330 harvester, a 2nd hand JCB Fastrac 4220, HK25 + NS3030 cultivator/seeder, AE600 weeder, K105 lime/fertilizer spreader and a DK115 tipper trailer) and bought the largest lot I could afford with what was left (lot 50 on Elmcreek). On the first canola harvest I realised I was way off from being able to cover the loan interests due to the much longer growth rates as well as low yields and grain prices.

2nd and 3rd try I tried to reduce my equipment costs as much as possible to go with a larger lot. I did use the mods released by Giants to make things a tad easier (Claas Dominator 108, Vaderstad R300S and SEK802 trailer), had a better deal on a second hand medium tractor and gave up on lime saving another 20k on the fertilizer spreader. That left me with enough to purchase lot 30. After two or three canola harvests I was barely managing to cover the interests and quickly figured I'd end up drowning with maintenance costs which are quite expensive on these second hand medium tractors. This playthrough may have worked without using workers but it would have been a hell of a grind.

4th try was the successful one. I repaid the loan and went with less equipment. A Fiat 1300dt tractor, Claas Dominator 108, Vaderstad R300S and SEK802 trailer (which are all mods by the way, still haven't figured it out with stock equipment). That left me with enough to buy a small lot (51 on Elmcreek) and went with rental for weeding. I also rent a lime spreader when needed and use it for a fertilizer pass at the same time, I don't fertilize otherwise.

Here's what I've learnt so far.

• I'm not sure if it's possible to repay the loan with just fieldwork. The extra farmland acquired with the loan doesn't seem to cover the interests at least with grain. If you go that route, don't take the full 200k loan.

• Going for a second hand medium tractor sounds like a great deal on paper but they cost a lot more in maintenance due to both higher base value and faster wear and tear.

• To make the loan work for you, you'd have to aim at productions with higher return on investment rates. Greenhouses are a lot more profitable than fields although I didn't want to go that route since it negates the challenge of beating the hard mode.

• You can ease your way through by planting trees around your farmland. The base investment for woodwork is very low.

• Going with a cultivator, the weed will grow instantly from 0 to 75% and you won't be able to remove them all with the base weeder (you'd need the Chopstar 5-90 which is much more expensive). The in-game help will leave you thinking you have small window to catch the weeds early but you don't.

[FarmerJohn89]

Sounds like a bunch of noobs to me
If you can't handle hard play on easy .

[bossmanslim]

There are basically two ways to do a start from scratch start on any difficulty and I am purposely disregarding the collectables which can give some serious bank.

Easy way
- buy a small, flat piece of land
- buy a house or get the sleep anywhere mod
- buy a small tractor and a water tank
- cover the land with large greenhouses, set greenhouses to sell constantly
- fast forward until greenhouses need water refilled or you get enough money to do what you want

Hard way
- buy equipment to do contracts (tractor + sprayer)
- hope the contracts don't get bugged while avoiding harvest contracts for crops that drop straw
- don't use helper AI because it will cost more money than the contract is some cases
- spend ages doing contracts

[MagicMagor]

Staying afloat on hard in FS22 is possible, but it requires some thinking because not every approach is possible.

Things to consider:
- Investment vs operating costs
Some crops require a higher initial investment than others. Especially the new orchard-crops (grapes and olives) and root crops require costly equipment. Loan interest seems to be around 10-11% per year and since you start with little money assume that your initial investment has a 10% cost per year. This means avenues with low investment are preferable.
- Don't be afraid to cross-finance
Crossfinance means that profit from one branch compensates for the loss of another branch. If you want to do olives it is certain that you will be operating olives at a loss at the beginning due to the high investment. Having some greenhouses or doing missions will cross-finance this until your orchard is big enough to sustain itself.
- Be cautious of using the helper
The helper is expensive. Delegating tasks to the helper gives you time to do other things. You need to make more money in this time than the helper costs to make it worthwhile.
- Leasing vs buying
Equipment you only need once per year should be leased rather than bought. Leasing for a day will cost 5% of the purchase price. Buying it on loan will cost 10% of the purchase price in interest. This does not apply if you can buy it used with a 50%+ discount
- Buying means of production rather than equipment
More fields means more yield, which means more income. More equipment does not correlate directly to income in the same way. This means you should rather buy more fields than more equipment. Replace "field" with "animals" if you do animals instead of field work.
- Don't be afraid to be inefficient
In some cases doing things less efficient than possible is more cost-effective than doing the 100%-route. For example does killing weeds by leasing a sprayer and buying herbicide increase profits enough to cover the costs of these things? Or would you have more money if you ignored the weeds for now? The answer depends on your field-sizes (small fields = smaller loss due to weeds vs high sprayer-fees)
Another example is cows. If you need to buy the food for your cows from the shop just giving hay might be better than making TMR. While TMR gives 100% productivity and hay only gives 80%, the former requires you to buy expensive silage.
- Only buy what you need now, not what you might need in the future
Buying a small tractor in the start and upgrading later when you need more horsepower is probably cheaper than buying a bigger tractor at the start.

In my opinion the two most profitable things to start out with are Greenhouses and contracts. Both require little to no investment and have enough profits to cover the initial loan interest and a small growth. Just make sure you transport your greenhouse products yourself. Setting it to "selling" does apparently reduce your sell-price by 50%.