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Manufacturing Total Cost: Missing factor?

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Kylar Renpurs
Dusk Blade
#1 - 2014-07-26 13:25:37 UTC
So I'm checking out the way the System Cost Index works, and spent the best part of a day making sure I'm across all the numbers I need to be. As I understand it, the way the total cost of a manufacturing job is calculated is as follows

( baseCost * numberOfRuns * systemCostIndex) + 10% NPC tax (in this case, as I'm running out of an NPC station)

Seems straightforward. I'm trying to manufacture T2 Components. Prior to this I whipped up a spreadsheet to calculate costs etc and factor in the "total cost". Unfortunately, the figures I'm producing for this cost aren't consistent, which lead me to one of three possibilities:

  1. I'm derping something up
  2. There's some other factor increasing the cost that I've missed/isn't documented
  3. The way it's calculated is borked


In this case, the systemCostIndex is about 5.4%
These are all T2 components, so if there's something like teams/some station bonus affecting it, it should be affecting all jobs. Predicted cost is from my spreadsheet, actual cost is what comes up in EVE for manufacturing 1 run.

Base costs are accurate enough to not skew the results too much

Nuclear Reactor Unit
Base cost =~ 99,000
Predicted Cost =~ 5200
Actual Cost = 1907

Plasma Thruster (in fact, all thrusters seem like this)
Base Cost =~ 26000
Predicted Cost =~ 1400
Actual Cost = 639

Quantum Microprocessor (this one, and the other microprocessors is pretty close)
Base Cost =~ 45000
Predicted Cost =~ 2500
Actual Cost = 2505

Oscillator Capacitor Unit (again, close, at least it's lower)
Base Cost =~ 37000
Predicted cost =~ 1800
Actual Cost =~ 2400

Sustained Shield Emitter (way off again)
Base Cost =~ 25500
Predicted Cost =~ 1380
Actual Cost =541

The only possible influencing factor was that somehow the time to construct has an influence, as the Shield/Thrusters are all =~ 2 minutes manufacture time, and the reactor is =~ 4, so dividing my predicted cost down by the number of minutes seems to get me close, but then that's thrown by the Microprocessor and Capacitor units, which take 1 and 2 minutes respectively...

Anyone observed this?
Qoi
Exert Force
#2 - 2014-07-26 13:33:36 UTC  |  Edited by: Qoi
Your base costs are wrong. What did you do to calculate them?

Nuclear Reactor Unit 32694 ISK
Plasma Thruster 10959 ISK
Quantum Microprocessor 13641 ISK
Oscillator Capacitor Unit 42210 ISK
Sustained Shield Emitter 9273 ISK

Remember, base cost is sum over all materials* multiplied with their adjusted price.

(*Does not take ANY modifiers like ME, teams, facilities into account)

http://eve-industry.org
Kylar Renpurs
Dusk Blade
#3 - 2014-07-26 13:37:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Kylar Renpurs
I used the costs in game... ?

Sustained shield emitter can't be 9200. One unit of ferrogel alone is estimated at 23,000 by the game at the moment.

Sustained Shield Emitter in manufacturing interface with an ME10 blueprint:
20 Titanium Carbide, total ~2400
9 Sylramic Fibers, total =~ 1900
1 Ferrogel, =~ 23000

Similarly story for the Nuclear Reactor Unit & Fermionic Condensates (2 units =~ 99000)

EDIT: Though I'd ask where your figures are from? If they aren't derived from the in-game manufacturing interface, it could be evidence that there's something wrong...

(one more edit...)

Also, it's interesting your base cost for the Quantum Microprocessor is so different from mine considering that was one I got pretty much bang-on.
Qoi
Exert Force
#4 - 2014-07-26 13:45:55 UTC
Ferrogel has an adjusted price of 5427.133, whatever you are seeing ingame is the average price.

I imported the adjusted prices from http://public-crest.eveonline.com/market/prices/ into my database and then calculate the base cost like this:

Quote:

eve=> SELECT SUM(m."quantity" * p."adjustedPrice") FROM "industryActivityMaterials" m JOIN "invPrices" p ON (p."typeID" = m."materialTypeID") WHERE m."typeID" = 17342 AND m."activityID" = 1;
sum
32694.5254


(Nuclear Reactor Unit in this example)

http://eve-industry.org
Kylar Renpurs
Dusk Blade
#5 - 2014-07-26 13:46:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Kylar Renpurs
Ok, so adjusted price != average price.

That seems... dumb?

OK, maybe dumb isn't the right way of putting it, but it's certainly pretty unintuitive from an in-game perspective.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just found this:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4836339#post4836339

Specifically CCP FoxFour's quote:
"Um... it just is that. It's an adjusted price, adjusted in what way we have not said publicly, that we use for things internally."

I go back to "That seems dumb"
Ginger Barbarella
#6 - 2014-07-26 15:36:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Ginger Barbarella
Kylar Renpurs wrote:
Ok, so adjusted price != average price.

That seems... dumb?

OK, maybe dumb isn't the right way of putting it, but it's certainly pretty unintuitive from an in-game perspective.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just found this:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4836339#post4836339

Specifically CCP FoxFour's quote:
"Um... it just is that. It's an adjusted price, adjusted in what way we have not said publicly, that we use for things internally."

I go back to "That seems dumb"


I'm sure the math (both the published and secret parts) is accurate on CCPs part, but the concept behind parts of this expansion just seems flawed to me. It makes one really wonder if the economy here is truly "player-driven", given that key market factors are SECRET and subject to spurious adjustments in CCP's codebase at their whim.

I'm still stuck on the backward Teams concept that players will flock to industrial bases that are MORE expensive because of desired workforces. I can't possibly be the only one that sees the notion of workers defining the economy as nothing but Utopian non-sense. Employers hire cheap employees to save on overall costs: they don't hire the single most expensive worker they can get when they can get the same work from someone who'll do the same job in the same amount of time for one quarter the price.

"Blow it all on Quafe and strippers." --- Sorlac
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#7 - 2014-07-26 16:55:20 UTC
The adjusted price exists to prevent manipulation of that price. It's also used for FW PvP LP payouts, to prevent a reoccurance of that little forex debable which happened.

It's most useful for those situations where the market for something is tiny, because people take care of it themselves. See most t2 components, most cap components and so on.


As for the teams thing Ginger: The employer isn't hiring a more expensive worker, to get the same work that they'd get from someone cheaper. They're hiring a specialist who reduces their other costs. But no-one ever hires consultants, right?

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
Ginger Barbarella
#8 - 2014-07-26 17:07:07 UTC
Steve Ronuken wrote:

As for the teams thing Ginger: The employer isn't hiring a more expensive worker, to get the same work that they'd get from someone cheaper. They're hiring a specialist who reduces their other costs. But no-one ever hires consultants, right?


Consultants are often hired to reduce overall long-term costs of operating a business. Please tell me how using a Team once or twice reduces overall costs over the long term... Please tell me how the the cost of winning a "bid" on a Team to get them to your system for 30 days plus the "salary" plus the tax reduces overall costs over time... Please tell me how use of Teams that INCREASES the cost of jobs is REDUCING my cost of jobs? Unlike skills, which can and do affect overall, long-term success and profit, Teams are short-term "buffs" to job runs that add cost, sometimes for as little as 0.2% reduction in production time or materials.

Do those who voted for you a favor and tell us how starting indies and high sec manufacturers benefit from higher costs and added complexity.

"Blow it all on Quafe and strippers." --- Sorlac
Steve Ronuken
Fuzzwork Enterprises
Vote Steve Ronuken for CSM
#9 - 2014-07-26 17:41:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Steve Ronuken
Ginger Barbarella wrote:
Steve Ronuken wrote:

As for the teams thing Ginger: The employer isn't hiring a more expensive worker, to get the same work that they'd get from someone cheaper. They're hiring a specialist who reduces their other costs. But no-one ever hires consultants, right?


Consultants are often hired to reduce overall long-term costs of operating a business. Please tell me how using a Team once or twice reduces overall costs over the long term... Please tell me how the the cost of winning a "bid" on a Team to get them to your system for 30 days plus the "salary" plus the tax reduces overall costs over time... Please tell me how use of Teams that INCREASES the cost of jobs is REDUCING my cost of jobs? Unlike skills, which can and do affect overall, long-term success and profit, Teams are short-term "buffs" to job runs that add cost, sometimes for as little as 0.2% reduction in production time or materials.

Do those who voted for you a favor and tell us how starting indies and high sec manufacturers benefit from higher costs and added complexity.



It's not long term, sure.

It's hiring people to reduce the cost short term. And it works for that (as long as you do the math. A 2% saving can be fairly significant)

Your overall cost falls, because as long as you're not stupid about it, you're using less materials.

Woo! CSM XI!

Fuzzwork Enterprises

Twitter: @fuzzysteve on Twitter
Ginger Barbarella
#10 - 2014-07-26 19:45:18 UTC
Steve Ronuken wrote:

It's not long term, sure.

It's hiring people to reduce the cost short term. And it works for that (as long as you do the math. A 2% saving can be fairly significant)

Your overall cost falls, because as long as you're not stupid about it, you're using less materials.



Wow.

"Blow it all on Quafe and strippers." --- Sorlac
Kylar Renpurs
Dusk Blade
#11 - 2014-07-26 22:33:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Kylar Renpurs
Steve Ronuken wrote:
The adjusted price exists to prevent manipulation of that price. It's also used for FW PvP LP payouts, to prevent a reoccurance of that little forex debable which happened.

It's most useful for those situations where the market for something is tiny, because people take care of it themselves. See most t2 components, most cap components and so on.


So, I was expecting to go to bed as soon as I posted this topic, but Qoi's response was quick and understandable, so I responded a bit more before I went to bed.

I really need to clarify, I don't find the existence of the adjusted price, or it's use in the formula dumb.

What's dumb is that this adjusted price is in no-way visible in-game. Qoi's values are pulled using the API and all that jazz. I have absolutely nothing wrong with using the API to get that sort of info.

What I've got a problem with is that the adjusted price exists in absolutely no derivable form in-game.

  1. It doesn't appear anywhere
  2. The formula is secret


Point 2 is fair enough, but point 1 needs to be resolved. If this mystery figure is going to play a crucial role in the profit margin of items in the game (and in this case, it's sometimes the difference between making a loss and making a profit), it *must* appear in-game somehow. Using the API to derive information is nice, but frankly, it should never be necessary. At the moment, I cannot work out an item's adjusted price in-game.

The same kinda applies to the System Cost Index, that little red bar tells you practically nothing. You can guesstimate I suppose, but surely the little hover-over popup could display the actual figure?
Ten Bulls
Sons of Olsagard
#12 - 2014-07-26 22:41:43 UTC  |  Edited by: Ten Bulls
Steve Ronuken wrote:

It's hiring people to reduce the cost short term. And it works for that (as long as you do the math. A 2% saving can be fairly significant)

Your overall cost falls, because as long as you're not stupid about it, you're using less materials.


But of course it wont reduce the cost short term either, because when people update their tools they will bid up the price of teams until its within a fraction of a percent of the material savings over time.

Teams is an ISK sink for CCP, thats it.

EDIT: Teams will also drive all but the highest volume manufacturers, CCP is trying to get industrialists to work together in the bidding process, they want players to share a resource, why would they even think this would work...

The trust required to share resources makes a disincentive for industrialists to work together, and they dont want people making profits they could be making. Its better for an industrial to create alts rather than work with another RL player.
Qoi
Exert Force
#13 - 2014-07-26 23:16:48 UTC
Kylar Renpurs wrote:

So, I was expecting to go to bed as soon as I posted this topic, but Qoi's response was quick and understandable, so I responded a bit more before I went to bed.

I really need to clarify, I don't find the existence of the adjusted price, or it's use in the formula dumb.

What's dumb is that this adjusted price is in no-way visible in-game. Qoi's values are pulled using the API and all that jazz. I have absolutely nothing wrong with using the API to get that sort of info.

What I've got a problem with is that the adjusted price exists in absolutely no derivable form in-game.

  1. It doesn't appear anywhere
  2. The formula is secret


Point 2 is fair enough, but point 1 needs to be resolved. If this mystery figure is going to play a crucial role in the profit margin of items in the game (and in this case, it's sometimes the difference between making a loss and making a profit), it *must* appear in-game somehow. Using the API to derive information is nice, but frankly, it should never be necessary. At the moment, I cannot work out an item's adjusted price in-game.

The same kinda applies to the System Cost Index, that little red bar tells you practically nothing. You can guesstimate I suppose, but surely the little hover-over popup could display the actual figure?


The reality is that the new industry system has been better documented in devblogs and dev posts than anything else in eve. That formula is not secret, that formula has been published as an easy to follow step-by-step guide in a dev blog.

Doing serious industry in eve without out of game tools has always been illusory at best, i think CCP has realized that. This has been a very positive development for third party developers, but maybe some way to get at the same data ingame has been neglected.

I think the system cost index needs to be displayed in sufficient precision in the industry window. You can look at the numbers in the star map, but the number of significant digits is too low.

Once you have that, you can easily calculate the base install cost by dividing the job install cost by the system cost index, there is really no need to have the adjusted prices in game, they would only give you a much more complicated way to calculate the same value.

http://eve-industry.org
Kylar Renpurs
Dusk Blade
#14 - 2014-07-27 00:13:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Kylar Renpurs
Qoi wrote:

The reality is that the new industry system has been better documented in devblogs and dev posts than anything else in eve. That formula is not secret, that formula has been published as an easy to follow step-by-step guide in a dev blog.

Depends what you mean by "That formula". If you're referring to the one to calculate the total cost of a job, sure, that's not secret. But everyone (CCP FoxFour included) seem to refer to the formula for the adjusted cost as secret/not announced publicly. I've read a half-dozen or so blogs and I'm yet to find it. If you know of it, I'd be happy to know it, but I find it unlikely since that forum post I linked before cites the adjusted price formula is kept secret so that people can't easily manipulate the costs of manufacturing items

Quote:
Doing serious industry in eve without out of game tools has always been illusory at best, i think CCP has realized that. This has been a very positive development for third party developers, but maybe some way to get at the same data ingame has been neglected.
Agreed

Qoi wrote:
I think the system cost index needs to be displayed in sufficient precision in the industry window. You can look at the numbers in the star map, but the number of significant digits is too low.
Didn't know this, thanks. I don't mind about the precision, I always add a fudge anyway so my numbers result in less profit than I'd actually make, just like aiming off in navigation.

Quote:
Once you have that, you can easily calculate the base install cost by dividing the job install cost by the system cost index, there is really no need to have the adjusted prices in game, they would only give you a much more complicated way to calculate the same value.
Disagreed.

Here's my problem:
I want to calculate a per-run install cost *before* I load up a job.
To do that I need: Adjusted Cost, System Cost Index. Number of runs is 1, and NPC tax is optional and known.
I now know how to get the System Cost Index (from star map, again, thanks!)
Nowhere in the game is the adjusted cost, so I *can't* work this out.

I can derive the adjusted cost *if* I load up a one-run job, based off the system cost index. But that fails to meet my objective of calculating the per-run cost *before* I load the job up.

In other words, I need to know the adjusted cost in order to calculate the total install job. I can derive it for a single item from a total install job figure, but not only is this mandraulic, it defeats the purpose I'm trying to achieve.

I argue that this installation cost is the difference between making a profit and not, and if there's no way to predict it in-game, then profiting off manufacturing becomes no better than a chance-based mechanic (albiet, one you can see the result of before you commit). API tools do overcome this, but a reliance on third-party tools to make certain aspects of the game function is a very fraught path.

EDIT: I suppose the ultimate question I'm asking is, for an actual example, something like "What is the adjusted price of Ferrogel, without using API resources, or deriving it from a sample job install cost".
No API because it should be something derivable in-game
No sample, because the objective is to work out the install cost.
Plleasure Hub
Municorn
#15 - 2014-07-27 02:47:01 UTC
I see your point, Kylar. I agree that if adjustedPrice is going to be used for such an important purpose in industry, it should be visible somehow in-game. Maybe the devs can add it somewhere in the UI or via the blueprint somehow.

Unfortunately, because it is not, use of a 3rd party tool is currently the only way to accurately predict job installation costs.

"There's no meaningful difference between a real and a virtual world. It's pointless to ask anyone who they really are. All you can do is accept and believe in them, because whoever they are in your mind, is their true identity." — Kazuto Kirigaya
Plleasure Hub
Municorn
#16 - 2014-07-27 04:12:23 UTC
It's not in-game, but here is a public spreadsheet I just created with every item's adjustedPrice:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=361242

"There's no meaningful difference between a real and a virtual world. It's pointless to ask anyone who they really are. All you can do is accept and believe in them, because whoever they are in your mind, is their true identity." — Kazuto Kirigaya
Oriella Trikassi
Trikassi Enterprises
#17 - 2014-07-31 11:39:28 UTC
I was having the same head scratching problem as the OP, trying to relate raw material cost to manufacturing cost.

Pleasure Hub's sheet (thanks!) when fed in to my spreadsheet matched up well, not exactly of course as they will drift apart over time. So given an easy way of pulling down those prices that should save the trouble of typing them in manually.

I did come across one anomaly. Two groups of Construction Components are way off, Microprocessors and Capacitors, there being a 2-3 times difference between the 'adjusted' and actual figures. The common factor may be that both use Metamaterials, those pesky 'Extra Materials' that are now no longer special. I'm not seeing the same problem with other such items in my Blueprint collection.
Ms Forum Alt
Doomheim
#18 - 2014-07-31 12:10:07 UTC  |  Edited by: Ms Forum Alt
Yes, with no associated tools allowing you to actually use the feature you need to make spreadsheets and programs out of game.

This is the same as going to a restaurant, ordering a strawberry blancmange and the waiter arriving at your table and tipping the blancmange into your lap. Also you are not provided with a napkin, knife, fork or spoon. And you have to pay before you've been served your blancmange, not afterwards.

To extend the metaphor somewhat, the reason the waiter put it into your lap is because he didn't want to get the table dirty because the restaurant doesn't have enough staff to make dinner AND clean tables. The reason the restaurant is under-staffed is because the restaurant owner has moved staff to his other restaurant where instead of putting strawberry blancmanges into people's laps, they pour bouillon over people's heads.