Economy discussion on Hard/Start from Scratch

[benjaprud]

Greenhouses and contracts do work. They are a valid but easy route around the problem, which is why I stood away from them in the beginning. There's no pride in beating the hard mode if you choose the easy route. Once I did manage to be slightly profitable with canola alone, it did make sense for me to invest the profits in a small greenhouse to ease the pain and bring some variety to the gameplay.

Leasing vs buying is difficult to gauge. One would have to try both approaches on a long run and compare spreadsheets for a definitive answer, which may vary depending on your production and cultivable area. Once I've managed to stay in the green I didn't want to start again to make that comparison but I'd be interested to know if I would have done better with leasing most of the equipment and only buying the tractor and the trailer.

Buying definitely comes with the risk of choosing suboptimal equipment and only realising it later, and the equipment depreciates so fast that you're commited to go on with whatever you bought. That's what happened to me with the cultivator and weed situation. There's also the maintenance costs which rise over time, making it difficult to anticipate what the profitability will be further down the line.

[MagicMagor]

Leasing vs buying is difficult to gauge.

From the numbers alone it seems easy to gauge to me. 5% leasing costs vs 10% interest. However i would agree that using used machinery vs leasing or new machinery is difficult to gauge due to the higher repair costs.

Greenhouses and contracts do work. They are a valid but easy route around the problem, which is why I stood away from them at the beginning. There's no pride in beating the hard mode if you choose the easy route.

I would agree with greenhouses currently. Their profits seems way to high considering how little money and time they cost. I'm on the fence about calling contracts the easy way out, but i can understand that sentiment. Especially when one is playing with a lower timescale or more days per month and can therefore complete more contracts in a month, they might become an easy way.

This thread however gave me the idea to try a fieldwork-only approach and see how much profit i can make in a year. This means no contracts, no greenhouses and using the full 200k loan from the start and all gameplay features on.

[benjaprud]

This thread however gave me the idea to try a fieldwork-only approach and see how much profit i can make in a year. This means no contracts, no greenhouses and using the full 200k loan from the start and all gameplay features on.

I couldn't manage to do it with the loan although I reckon my approach was suboptimal. If you manage to pull it off, I wanna hear all about it !

[rasilo]

From the numbers alone it seems easy to gauge to me. 5% leasing costs vs 10% interest. However i would agree that using used machinery vs leasing or new machinery is difficult to gauge due to the higher repair costs.

I doubt that there are higher repair costs for used vehicles. Where did you get that info?

[Ritchie]

From the numbers alone it seems easy to gauge to me. 5% leasing costs vs 10% interest. However i would agree that using used machinery vs leasing or new machinery is difficult to gauge due to the higher repair costs.

I doubt that there are higher repair costs for used vehicles. Where did you get that info?

https://farming-simulator.com/newsArtic ... ews_id=279

[rasilo]

https://farming-simulator.com/newsArtic ... ews_id=279

I think that is fake news. I did two tests:

First, I bought a used tractor and the very same tractor as a new one. I then drove the same distance and had to pay the same repair cost afterwards. I then bought a tractor and a cultivator, drove to a field and let the AI culticate 6 lanes. I had to pay the same afterwards for both the new tractor and cultivater and the used ones.

I could not find a "used" flag in the vehicles.xml either. So I assume new and old ones have the same repair costs.

What I notices and what has been stated by one of the giant devs already: Repair costs are not linar to the vehicle condition! I drove 5 rounds and had the following repair costs:

Round 1: 5€
Round 2: 13€
Round 3: 23€
Round 4: 34€
Round 5: 36€

You should repair as often as possible to keep the costs down.

[benjaprud]

So... I planted 20 trees on the side of my field for "a little extra cash" and cut the first three ones just now. Well, they're very profitable making them fall into the "turn hard mode into easy" category. As with contracts they require a lot of manual labor so they're not exactly free money, but they're orders of magnitude more profitable than let's say canola farming and require very little base investment.

My investment was 1000$ for a chainsaw, 1000$ for twenty saplings and about 1500$ to rent the tree planting machine, plus 8000$ for a trailer which I already had to transport the lettuce, so I was in for about 3500$. Next batch would be 2500$ plus maybe the cost of removing stumps which I haven't looked into yet.

The first three trees brought about 3700$ each, so I can expect about 75000$ for all twenty of them. It's going to take me a full day of tedious work though, but a full day farming would bring me maybe a fifth of that in profits.

[trackday]

Bossmanslim - what does buying a house or getting the sleep anywhere mod get you?

[benjaprud]

Bossmanslim - what does buying a house or getting the sleep anywhere mod get you?

It allows you to sleep so you don't have to wait hours for your plantations to mature.

I'm disappointed with the hard mode and overall balancing. Going with only fieldwork the game is properly hard, but as soon as you step away for some side activities, the profits are insane and it just feels like you've typed a cheat code. It ruins any feeling of pride and invalidates all the hours I've put on that canola field. I'd love a proper hard mode where most activities match the financial risk and the meager profits of fieldwork.

[bossmanslim]

Bossmanslim - what does buying a house or getting the sleep anywhere mod get you?

Sleeping allows you to skip time forward if you have done everything you currently want to do and are waiting on a the appropriate month/sell price/crop stage/etc.

[AlexB]

That's how it was in previous games, wasn't it, arable farming being barely profitable? The game makes you do tedious things you don't always enjoy, like forestry or silage so that you can fund things you enjoy, like driving tractors and harvesters.

[benjaprud]

Maybe it was. I've only spent some serious time with FS15 which was all about growing cereals. I've never touched the rest on 19, 22 is the first one that tempted me to try the new things. The fact that working fields is now so long and tedious might be the reason. This and all these pallet stacking screenshots

[ajFarmer]

I'm curious on how everyone is setting up there Season Days per month and Time speed. As you know this directly affects amount of contracts one can do in Day/Month/Year.
I play Start From Scratch and not sure I have it balanced yet. I am currently using 1Day/3xTime but concerned weather windows with 1day month could create problems in the future. I know I can change later but I am OCD on setting it at the start and playing on.
I do enjoy 3xTime. I feel I'm not rushed, and I refuse to work at night until there is a fix for the graphics in regards to the motion image bleeding.
I tried 3Day/5x but actually felt I was making to much on contracts. Maybe this is all arbitrary and I'm looking at it wrong. That's why I'm asking

[AlexB]

Maybe it was. I've only spent some serious time with FS15

I haven't played FS15, but that was my takeaway from FS17 and FS19. In FS19 for example, I spent many irl days farming fields 12 and 6 in Ravenport. It was a slow grind to afford land, buildings, and equipment, but at least I was getting somewhere. While with the tiny starting fields that the game for some inexplicable reason offers the only way to progress seemed to be doing forestry and silage instead of farming.

[george.earlslight]

OK, so here's my experience on my second try on French map, which was a successful start.

Started by repaying the whole loan, so having €300k to spend. Bought the starter plot as it seems to have a good price / area ratio.
Placed 2 greenhouses and one large chicken coop with 10 young chicks, 4 hens and a rooster.
Bought a small tractor with front loader for about 60k and the Joskin water trailer for the greenhouses and general yard work.
Had to get a 20k loan, but interest was manageable.
I roleplayed sleeping in the chicken coop in a sleeping bag , so no house.
Next month I leased the old Claas harvester to harvest the sorghum already planted on the starting plot. Didn't lease any trailer.
Dropped most of the harvest in the chicken coop, which I managed to fill and sold the rest 2-3k litres.
The small chicks became hens soon enough, so the coop started to fill up and generate eggs.
Egg pallets can be moved by hand even if full. Eggs are most valuable on November (I think), so I'm planning to sell them only then.
I've managed to repay the 20k loan solely by greenhouse and some spraying/fertilizing contracts.
I'm planning to place a 3rd greenhouse, which will be the last one, since I'm getting a bit bored to transfer water from the nearby lake.
I'll have to see if earnings allow to lease equipment to plant barley. I don't think I'll be having enough to lease for mulching, spraying etc, just plant and harvest.

Long term plans are to hawk the used market and get some equipment for cereals so I can support the chicken coop.
Then, get a second field and sell the excess till I have the 100k to get the grain mill, then the bakery for bread.

So, to summarise, I suggest avoiding big loans, avoid getting a house at least until we get some cheaper mod alternatives, invest on some green houses, take advantage of the used market, advance is slow steps.
It's a slow game, but feels rewarding to me.