Economics of Engineers

[doubleskulls]

I've been doing some analysis on the economic of engineers I wanted to share, to see if there is significant hole in the logic, and maybe help others optimise their gameplay. 

TLDR; its not worth having Engineers just to make money

Initially engineers generate $50 per hour, or $36k per 30 days. Once you have the nanotech workshops this jumps to $75 p/h, or $54k p/m. However the setup costs of buildings and recruitment mean that the payback period is too long to be worthwhile in the scope of the game. 

Each engineer cost $25k to hire, and $25k in wages p/m. We do need to factor in the costs of workshops and living quarters too. With 4 workshops in a 2x2 grid you can employ 28 engineers. which also require 2 living quarters (maybe slightly more, depending on adjacency bonuses). 6 workshops/living quarters costs $1.5m to build and $60k p/m in maintenance. Across 28 engineers that means $2.2m to build/hire, and $760k p/m in recurring costs, for a net profit of  $248k p/m. That takes 8.8 months to repay the initial investment, and I've ignored how long it takes to build/hire and power costs, so the figure is worse. i.e. in the scope of the game building engineers to make money isn't worth it and you are better off spending money elsewhere.

Once you've got Nanotech workshops, which is an additional $500k project, Engineers make 50% more profit, or $54k p/m each. Across our 28 engineer example above, that means the monthly profit is now $752k for an investment of $2.7m, and the payback period is down to 3.6 months. Nanotech research itself pays back in the first month. 

I've only got early access, so I'm not sure how much longer after the 180 days the game is expected to last. If a game is ~270 days, or 9 months. That would mean all your engineering needs to be fully online by day 160, anything you add after that will not generate any overall profit, so in practice probably around day 100-120 you are better off investing money on things that make it more profitable to take on UFOs (i.e. better air defences to shoot down more of them, better soldiers to suffer fewer losses when taking them on).  

I think that means strategically there isn't really the time to invest in a long term payback by having excess engineering capacity just to generate income. Strategically you have to have engineers, but the economics would seem to point to keeping that to minimum level you need to actually build the items and upgrades you do want in the campaign. 

[DaviddesJ]

I think it's by design that engineers not building useful things kind of pay for themselves (so you aren't digging a financial hole if they are idle for short periods), but you don't want to invest your money in more engineers than you have useful work for them to do.

[Vitruviansquid]

Yeah... isn't that working as intended?

[doubleskulls]

59 minutes ago, Vitruviansquid said:

Yeah... isn't that working as intended?

I wasn't really commenting on what the intent was or how it ought to work, just sharing my analysis, and maybe helping some avoid a pitfall. 

[Chris]

Yup. As others have said, that's the intent of the system - it's just so that your staff aren't dead weight in the idle periods where they're not working, but they're not actually meant to generate substantial profits.

I appreciate that's not necessarily the point you're making with your post but I feel like it's worth making that clear anyway.

[cman1983]

Instead of selling every alien weapon for example could the engineers not on idle days strip down the material and give the resources to the required field that we use for building eg the alenium or atleast the option of do u want this or do u want the money just a we thought