Any Plushie Tycoon expert here?

[Dilley88]

So I am giving Plushie Tycoon a try this month. I have been reading and re-reading http://www.neopets.com/~MapleHood's guide as I go along. 

But I am so confused =/

 

 

 

Quote

Add up the cost to make 1 job of a 4 roll plushie (4 green cloth + 1 neocotton + 1 rare gem + 1 paper bag):

Does it have to be GREEN CLOTH, NEOCOTTON, RARE GEM and PAPER BAG? Is this just an example, or can I choose the cheapest material such as NEOFOAMS or NEOPIAN TIMES for "stuffing"?

Quote

If the cost is more than 3900: wait - do nothing

If the cost is less than 3900: Start with 6 jobs

If the cost is less than 2900: start with 8 jobs

If the cost is less than 1800: start with 10 jobs

So if I want to start producing Chia Plushies and the materials (3 GREEN CLOTH + 1 NEOCOTTON + 1 RARE GEM + 1 PAPER BAG) cost less than 2900np, am I FORCED to start 8 jobs for these Chia Plushies? (100*8=800 chia plushies). Or can I mix and match these jobs? For example - 4 jobs for Chia Plushies + 4 jobs for Kacheek Plushies?

[Duma]

Not sure anymore about the first question, it's been too long ago, but for the second: You're not forced to do 8 jobs but they will be the most profitable if you do 8 or less. With 8 you'll have more profit then if you only did 4.

[Dilley88]

@Duma I might need to restart my game. I started EIGHT Kacheek plushies jobs yesterday and they are NOT doing good... lol

[Scoobert_Doo]

MapleHood's guide is to get you started. And SungMinty's is more of a "visual" version of MapleHood's guide:

http://www.neopets.com/~sungminty

Highly recommend you read SungMinty's page, as it compliments MapleHood's.

The "cost", for your first few batches of plushies, are to keep you on track. Yes, stick with Green Cloth, NeoCotton, Rare Gem, and Paper Bag. And make sure it is 3900 or less, before buying. Why? If I recall correctly, green cloth is the cheapest. HOWEVER, if red cloth, for example, is on special, and your cost is 3900 or less, then buy red cloth. NeoCotton, Rare Gem, and Paper Bag all add value to your plushies, when they are sold in your store. If you use Neofoams or the Neopian Times, sure, they will be cheaper to make, but, also, will not sell as much as if you use NeoCotton, so stick with it, for the first couple of jobs. If, at any time, any of the higher priced items are on special (gems, velvet bags) and you are under the 3900 or less purchase limit, then buy those.

If you stick with MapleHood's recommendations, you "should" get the avatar at the end. Once you start a few batches, and have seen a few cycles, you will get the hang of it.

The reason for the 3900 cost for your first job? Take a look at SungMinty's page under "Cost Accounting for the First Build ", and you may notice that after all of your first rents, recommended upgrades, labor costs, shipping costs, etc, that you will have approx. 3992 "cash on hand", from your initial 50, 000.

Yes, you can mix & match jobs. The idea is to find which type of plushie (Chia, Kacheeck, etc) sells for the best price. That price can change though, so while Chias might sell for a good price the first two cycles, the price could go down, the next, so making different types of plushies is a good idea.

If you have any questions, there is ALWAYS, a "Plushie Tycoon Help Board" topic, on the "Games" Neoboard, for the current month. Here is April's:

http://www.neopets.com/neoboards/topic.phtml?topic=159952254

They are friendly, and someone will try to answer your question, as best they can. There are "regulars", on the board. If you look through all of the topic pages, you will get an idea who is a "regular". They usually have the "best/correct" answers.

[escrapunzel]

Oooh… I was so obsessed with PT when I started back up with Neopets. Came up with spreadsheets and everything, figuring out which plushie styles to make each month based on what sold the best for me that round. Haven't done it in almost a year now, but some sites I found helpful: JellyNeo's guide (http://www.jellyneo.net/?go=plushie_tycoon) which links to another great guide (http://petpages.neopets.com/~GrundyTycoon). 

Beginning tips: make sure you have the correct time zone. Not necessarily your time zone, but the time zone where 10-5 will be when you're online, since that's when the updates happen. Second, start the game tomorrow. Taxes come due every 7 days (to the exact minute of when you started that round) and can't be put off like rent can. If you time it so that the last rent cycle is 6 days before the end of the month, you won't lose money paying it (just keep your cash on hand under 50,000 every 7th day) and you'll have the maximum amount of time to rake in money in the last 6 days.

I think anything else I would say is already on those sites. 

And yes, definitely green cloth and rare gems!

[Dilley88]

@Scoobert_Doo Thanks! I will look at SungMinty's guide.

@escrapunzel Do you still have the spreadsheet? lol. I am also trying to set up excel spreadsheets but it is not efficient yet! I will continue to experiment by following Maplehood, GrundyTycoon and SungMinty's guide. 

[escrapunzel]

2 hours ago, Dilley88 said:

 

@escrapunzel Do you still have the spreadsheet? lol. I am also trying to set up excel spreadsheets but it is not efficient yet! I will continue to experiment by following Maplehood, GrundyTycoon and SungMinty's guide. 

I do, posting a sample of my first spreadsheet, to keep track of production costs:

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

						Costs
			Cloth	Accessories		Cloth	Stuffing	Gems	Packing			Est Labor	Cost		Sold for:		Profit:
Ixi		6	3	1		393	276	1613	456	Red		1247	5049		6700		1651
Kau		7	3	1		393	276	1613	456	Red		1295	5097		10100		5003
Bori		6	3	1		393	276	1613	456	Red		1247	5049		6700		1651

 

C is the complexity, which I never used but kept track of in case I needed to in the future. D is how many cloth the plushie needed. E is how many accessories. G thru J is how much each of those cost (1 unit of each, even if the plushie needed say 3 cloth, since the spreadsheet did the multiplying later for me). M was my estimate of how much labor divided by how many 100's were finished that hour. N is =(G9*D9)+H9+I9+J9+278+M9 (with the 9 being whichever row I'm on). R is =P9-N9. I think the other columns are explained but ask if I've missed something!

Keeping track of selling and which ones were selling faster and for more was a whole other spreadsheet that I got into once I had production figured out. Some plushies will sell for more but take hours and sometimes days to sell out. And some will sell for less but take 2-3 hours to sell out, meaning you can make another batch quickly with the profits. I tended to like those more, gave me more to do every day in the game. And for that one I had pretty colorful graphs too, because who doesn't love pretty colorful graphs?

	Bruce	Elephante	Eyrie	Buzz
0 hrs	0	0	0	0
1hrs	5	17	4	37
2hrs	11	34	11	56
3hrs	17	47	16	81
4hrs	20	55	19	90
5hrs	26	78	32	100
6hrs
7hrs
8hrs
9hrs
10hrs

 

[Dilley88]

@escrapunzel OMG! You have a great spreadsheet! Thank you for sharing~ LOVEEEEE THE COLORFUL GRAPH! 

I still don't understand the labor cost calculation... For 250 trainees + 25 managers it is 5,550np.

According to SungMinty's guide: Labor Cost = Total Labor Cost / No. of Jobs.

That means, starting more than one job is better right? So how did you get 1,247np for the Ixi jobs?

And the unfireable manager is confusing me. Is he paid only during plushie tycoon operating hours (10:01 am to 5:01 pm). Or do I have to pay him daily (24 hours)?

 

 

[Scoobert_Doo]

Per MapleHood's guide, concerning the unfireable manager:

Quote

PT runs 8 hours every day, 7 days a week. The game is based on updates, which is when you will see changes in your game. These updates happen hourly at 1 minute past the hour from 10:01 am to 5:01 pm game time...

And,

Quote

NOTE!!!

Always leave 1000 nps cash on hand. Why? Because even though workers are fired, you always have one manager that you can't fire. And he drains you for 82 nps each update no matter what. Since you wont get any money from your plushies until the entire job has sold (100 out of 100 plushies), you need some money on hand to pay him while your plushies sell.

Based on that, and it's been awhile since I played, I believe the manager gets paid every update, which would be 8 times a PT day - 656 NP a day (82 NP per update, X 8 = 656), - only during the PT hours.

EDIT: To answer your question directly, yes, I believe the Manager only gets paid during the PT operating hours. May want to ask on the PT topic on the "Games" Neoboard.

[escrapunzel]

10 hours ago, Dilley88 said:

@escrapunzel OMG! You have a great spreadsheet! Thank you for sharing~ LOVEEEEE THE COLORFUL GRAPH! 

I still don't understand the labor cost calculation... For 250 trainees + 25 managers it is 5,550np.

According to SungMinty's guide: Labor Cost = Total Labor Cost / No. of Jobs.

That means, starting more than one job is better right? So how did you get 1,247np for the Ixi jobs?

And the unfireable manager is confusing me. Is he paid only during plushie tycoon operating hours (10:01 am to 5:01 pm). Or do I have to pay him daily (24 hours)?

 

 

Yes, manager is paid 8 times a day, not 24 luckily!

Starting more than one job is preferable. The workers go faster the more work they have to do. Which is kinda like me at work too, now that I think about it! I don't know of any exact figures on it, but if you give them say 1 job of 100 to do, they may do 80. But if you give them 3 jobs of 100 to do, those same workers may get 220 done. There's an upper limit to how many they can do, so you'll end up hiring more than the 250/25 at times. They'll do less and less as they get through your jobs, unless you add more jobs into their list. Remember that near the end of the month when you might feel the urge to finish the jobs that are in the factory. It's probably not worth the extra cost, just let them rot. Don't do 1000 item jobs near the end, or if you do then also do some 100 jobs after to kind of push those through.

The amounts I estimated for the workers were probably based on more than 250 trainees and 25 managers so the numbers are pretty big. And it was my own crazy estimates. Hopefully I can make my thoughts clear here. So... let's say you had 250 trainees and 25 managers and they did 350 plushies. In that column, on the 3 jobs they finished, I'd put 1,586 (5,550/3.5) and on the one they didn't, I'd put 793 (1,586 * .5 since they finished half a batch). Next time, maybe they finish that half batch plus another 200. Now I'd put 2,220 (5,550/2.5) on the 2 they started and finished totally in that round and 1,903 on the one that was half finished the first time and half finished the second time (1,110 +793 from before). They almost never finish exactly half a batch, so the math gets really screwy! I really like spreadsheets, so that entire step is probably more detailed than need be for this game, but that's me lol 

And thanks, I had forgotten how much I loved that graph until I looked at it again today

 

[Dilley88]

3 hours ago, escrapunzel said:

The amounts I estimated for the workers were probably based on more than 250 trainees and 25 managers so the numbers are pretty big. And it was my own crazy estimates. Hopefully I can make my thoughts clear here. So... let's say you had 250 trainees and 25 managers and they did 350 plushies. In that column, on the 3 jobs they finished, I'd put 1,586 (5,550/3.5) and on the one they didn't, I'd put 793 (1,586 * .5 since they finished half a batch). Next time, maybe they finish that half batch plus another 200. Now I'd put 2,220 (5,550/2.5) on the 2 they started and finished totally in that round and 1,903 on the one that was half finished the first time and half finished the second time (1,110 +793 from before). They almost never finish exactly half a batch, so the math gets really screwy! I really like spreadsheets, so that entire step is probably more detailed than need be for this game, but that's me lol 

Thank you for clearing this up! I understand it better now. I will observe this calculation method during my next PT time. I appreciate detailed spreadsheets. My husband thinks I'm nuts for preparing a spreadsheet just to play Neopets! lol

And thank you @Scoobert_Doo

I think I am going to enjoy Plushie Tycoon! 

[Boppityboop]

The super plushie is yellow cloth and it is a 4/5 roll plushie by memory of playing it 8-10 years ago - it has not changed (i feel it was ruki or something).
There is also a mathematical (algebra-like formula) when you get so big to constantly have plushies finishing and fill your store. Time is the key component in creating the formula.  Unfortunately i lost it over the years and the exact permanent super plushie.
It is all a closely guarded secret, but if i could remember it i would just post it at this point - the formula at least.
My plushie tycoon score i got was very high my second moth after figuring it all out: 

1,753 Points

Grand Master

 

First month follow the guides to get a feel for the game - second month you dont have to use green cloth to start - just play your cards right from learning the first month.
I am going to play again and will update this if i find the formula (because you really need a mind for algebra to figure it out) - but i may leave out the super plushie info as is even if i find it.  The formula is one of the most kept secrets and the only way to get the super high scores regardless of the plush you make, the super plush is secondary to it...

[Boppityboop]

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[Boppityboop]

So this is as far as i got with the algebra-like formula...

It is something like the attached image, but i think mine is incorrect ('job size' in the formula is using the manually entered max # of plushies) - cell G6 has this function entered:

=((G4/100)*((C2/B2)+G5))+(G3*60)

You usually only need the formula after all upgrades are purchased, but the formula could be used for any warehouse level.

 

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