Happenings and Musings...a thread on theory and observations

It's safe to say that I am really enjoying my time with Farmerama. Sure, there are some design elements which seem very counter productive from a game play aspect, but overall the game is quite good in it's ability to let us be virtual farmers and active participants in a virtual economy and community. I'm nearing my year long mark and I've consistently scribbled down notes and thoughts about the game. I wanted a place to put some of these thoughts to share and receive some feedback, but the strategy thread didn't quite fit as this is more theory and observational assumptions. I expect from time to time I'll add more as different thoughts I feel compelled to share come to mind, and as my schedule allows.

I only ask that those who choose to participate in this thread, discuss and add in a thorough manner, or at least as much as can be thoroughly discussed. Vague musings don't really help much and I'd like for this thread to be helpful to anyone who stops by to read it. Essentially, if there's something you've noticed or observed and you would like to write about it, then feel free, but also include the possible factors which affect the observation and what possible outcomes can be seen.

My first musing was about Anacondas and their feed. On my server, Anaconda feed always seems to be more expensive than the actual Anaconda animal itself. Currently, the feed is 5450 and the animal itself is 5150 (I bought the few that were below 5000). I've always found this interesting because there's really no reasoning for this. The ingredients for making Anaconda feed are always available at prices which are lower than the price Anaconda feed sells for, currently the cost of materials is 5073.86. Upon first glance this feed appears to be a profitable feed, selling for just under 400 CC of profit. However, upon deeper investigation a player must also account for additional costs. One such cost in this case is the market fee to sell anything. This means that the actual cost to sell feed turns your positive into a negative. Using the current price being discussed for food, the amount of coins gained after a successful sale would be 4905. This is a loss. So it's easy to see why this is perplexing, but there's more to this example to learn from.​

We also need to take into account the time it takes to mill and what impact that has on the farm. It takes 17 minutes and 33 seconds to mill one Anaconda feed, and that's only if you have both windmill buffs. At the rate discussed above a player would actually be losing 28.5 country coins per minute by milling this feed. A loss of 57 coins a minute if the player had no windmill buffs.

A third factor to take into account is the stable itself. The Anaconda currently have three different stables: Anaconda Terrarium, Classic Anaconda Terrarium I, and Classic Anaconda Terrarium II. The biggest factor for stables to note is that none of these stables produce more than one Anaconda per cycle.

A fourth factor that I like to account for is field profitability. Meaning how much gain can I squeeze out of those little 1x1 fields. Not overlooking the fact that stables are 2x2 this gives them a multiplier of .25 since it takes four 1x1 fields to produce an animal with a stable. Assuming that the player bought the ingredients for the feed off the market and milled the feed, saving themselves from taking a loss due to market fees (because they didn't sell it), they would be a bit more ahead, but not by much. The calculation for this amounts to .86 CC/minute for an Anaconda Terrarium, .96 CC/minute for an Classic Anaconda Terrarium I and, 1.46 CC/minute for an Classic Anaconda Terrarium II. But again, if they decided to sell this Anaconda they'd still lose out due to the market fees.
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So what did I learn from the Anaconda? In this case I found that it's better for me to focus my limited amount of time and resources making something which will bring me a higher rate of return. As farmer_broke wrote in a different thread, "I will profit from your work." I've also learned to be very keen and to check prices daily. If Anacondas should increase in price, then it's a good time to sell. Should they decrease in price, it's a good time to buy and profit from someone else's work. After all, they're the ones selling the goods.

But that's not all...nope, there's actually even more. Just focusing on factors which impact Anacondas. Bahamarama recently added five new animals: Toucan, Anteater, Flamingo, Red Panda, and Tiger. All of these feeds are now competing with Anaconda feed for milling time. This could contribute to several things. First, the price of Anaconda feed should rise. After all, there are fewer people milling Anaconda feed. Second, the ingredients for Anaconda feed will actually have a small decrease in their demand which could decrease the average cost of those goods in the long term. Theoretically, there will be less Anaconda feed milled as a result of the new animals and their respective feeds, thus this equates to the demand for Rabbits and Chickens declining. Once the cost of Anaconda feed increases so that the impact of it is felt on farmers selling Anacondas, there should be an overall growth in pricing for the Anaconda.

That's long enough to dissect the Anaconda for now...but these are the things that go through my head when I'm farming event crops non stop. To end though, at this time on my server the three most profitable Bahamarama feeds to make/sell are: Toucan, Elephant, and Camel. Feeds at the top of the cc/minute differ slightly in that Toucan and Elephant stay the same but Parrot feed edges out Camel and Monkey feed is just behind Camels. All five would still be more beneficial than making Anaconda feed on my server, but I have to assume there is a relative level of similarity between all servers.

Other thoughts which will likely be added later could includes my theories on:

• Value based farming
• Market trends and how to read/prepare for them
• Key things every farmer should be doing
• Using BB's to achieve the most impact out of the farm
• A look at both Products and Trade Goods
• A review on using Powerfeed, Supergrow, etc.
• Refinements are our friends
• Buff combinations to maximize your farm output
• Farm configurations for improving efficiency

I encourage any additional insight and thoughts. I also welcome any additional topic ideas.

 

The market value for lettuce, wheat and carrot far exceeds its supply store price.

Lettuce
Market: 4 cc
Supply store: 1 cc

Wheat
Market: 11 cc
Supply store: 1.8 cc

Carrot
Market: 12 cc
Supply Store: 2.5 cc

So what I do everyday is buy 100 of each. Then sell 50 at the market. So i get free 50 stock of each and some profit in the market.

 

Menagerie is the new thing. I'm pretty excited about this and want to tip my hat to the game developers for coming up with this innovative way to introduce new space without having to create a whole new field (or island) in order to provide that space. Even with this excitement there are still a few concerns and thoughts which are running through my mind.

The first is whether or not the next thing which comes along (say a tree nursery) will be an additional 500 stars? The cost of 500 stars is very prohibitive. I've been playing for about 10 months now. I've got all the "mandatory" runes unlocked and have saved an additional 451 stars. I've also got quite a few quests nearly completed which would get me to 500 stars quite easily in order to unlock this new building. So currently I'm still on the fence. If they follow this up a month later with a nursery, and it cost the same 500 stars, it's going to be a long road, and to make matters worse we know there's supposed to be one for workshops as well.

The second thought is of the additional cost needed to upgrade these pens. Nine million barn value worth of breeding animals is nothing to write off. On my server the average barn value to market price is between 15-20% of each CC. This roughly translates to roughly 45 million to 60 million in CC's to complete that portion of the quest for upgrades. This does not include the time it's going to take to gather all the tools needed, nor the crops. It has me questioning whether or not it's really worth the investment. Which leads me to question just how much value these Menagerie will actually provide.

The average value of any given animal is approximately 1.133 CC/min. This means that the average amount I can make on my server would be 1.133 per any given animal, per minute. This amounts to 4.532 CC per minutes if they were combined. Assuming I invest 45 million CC's into upgrading a menagerie, giving me an additional four stables I would be at 9.564 CC per minute. This means It would take me about 8.9 years of constant production for the upgrade to pay for itself. So this isn't looking very good.

Strategically speaking, these buildings are about saving space, so logically the best option is to wait until the workshop version is released. Workshops tend to take much longer until they can be harvested. Meaning they take up a lot of space and take a lot of time. Value wise, it's still not worth upgrading, but it will save space.

 

I decided a week ago that the best of the 3 for me would be the workshop one. But then again I may change my mind about that too As much as I would like to fill them with reg animals, I just think it would be more beneficial to fill them with workshops. Still on the fence about purchasing one though

 

wow.. Decree.. if i can put multiple likes to ur post, i wud give 1000 likes!!!
i'm gonna look forward to read more of ur thoughts n all the discussions in this thread..!
thxs for starting it up..