[Blarg]

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I'll take the laser pistol. Quick turn-around means a lot because liquidity means a lot, and the dollars back per unit of time is very high. I remember calculating it out from the guides back in the day, and if laser pistols weren't top, they were close enough even in this extremely money-tight game. I do remember the laser cannons were good though, as all the laser stuff was.

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Laser cannons take 300 hours to make and return 29k. Laser pistols take the same amount of time and return 12k. Of course the ROI is smaller but the $/hr is higher (just like playing high stakes SnGs, whaddaya know). Anyway back on track - so yeah, laser cannons are significantly better, you just need to make fewer of them at once and go to the sell screen more often.

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You're right.



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-COM Profitability study -- by Jeff Shaffer [edited]

Recently, we at the XCOM Business Institute (our motto: "If it's
worth doing, it's worth analyzing to death") spent all last night
to bring you the following table. The basic assumption is that
you are willing to support engineers long-term in order to make a
profit. I calculated results for a hypothetical 2 workshop
operation. You would get slightly better results with larger
facilities, due to the economy of scale.

[some numbers are rounded to the nearest 1000 for space]

Work Eng Raw Sale Unit|Monthly|Net
Item Space Hrs Material Cost Price P R O F I T
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Motion Scanner 4 220 - 34K 45K 11K 3765K 1275K
Medikit 4 420 - 28K 46K 18K 3146K 656K
Psi Amp 4 500 1E 160K 194K 29K 4242K 1752K
Personal Armor 12 800 4A 22K 54K 6K 491K -
Power Suit 16 1000 5E+5A 42K 85K - - -
Flying Suit 16 1400 16E+5A 58K 115K - - -
Alien Alloys 10 100 - 3K 6K 3K 2343K 3K
Elerium 115 - - - - 5K - - -
Laser Pistol 2 300 - 8K 20K 12K 2916K 376K
Laser Rifle 3 400 - 2K0 36K 16K 3049K 534K
Heavy Laser 4 700 - 32K 61K 29K 2958K 468K
Plasma Pistol 3 600 1A 56K 84K 21K 2586K 71K
Plasma Pistol Clip 4 60 1E 2K 4K - - -
Plasma Rifle 4 820 1A 88K 126K 32K 2787K 297K
Plasma Rifle Clip 4 80 2E 3K 6K - - -
Heavy Plasma 4 1000 1A 122K 171K 43K 3078K 588K
Heavy Plasma Clip 4 80 3E 6K 9K - - -
Blaster Launcher 5 1200 1A 9K0 144K 47K 2797K 332K
Blaster Bomb 3 220 3E 8K 17K - - -
Small Launcher 3 900 1A 78K 120K 35K 2846K 331K
Stun Bomb 2 200 1E 7K 15K 3K 1166K -
Alien Grenade 2 200 2E 6K 14K - - -
Mind Probe 4 1200 1E 262K 304K 37K 2202K -
UFO Power Source 22 1400 16E+5A 130K 250K 7K 310K -
UFO Navigation 18 1600 3A 150K 80K - - -
Fusion Ball L'cher 6 400 1A 242K 281K 39K 6836K 4396K
Fusion Ball 6 600 4E 28K 53K 5K 617K -
Laser Cannon 6 300 - 182K 211K 29K 6760K 4320K
Plasma Beam 8 500 15E 226K 267K - - -
Tank/Laser Cannon 25 1200 - 500K 594K 94K 4371K 2406K
Hovertank/Plasma 30 1200 30E+5A 850K 980K - - -
Hovertank/Launcher30 1400 25E+8A 900K 1043K - - -
HWP Fusion Bomb 25 400 5E+8A 15K 31K - - -


First six columns are just basic information from my version of
XCOM. (Editor-- I have seen posts stating that UFO:EU has higher
sale prices for some items, notably armor! However, this has NOT
been confirmed!)

The 'Unit Profit' column is sale price minus cost, minus the cost
of any E-115/Alloy used in manufacture. A '-' means a net loss,
no further analysis.

'Monthly Profit' column is based on "XCOM Month" of 24*31 = 744
hours. The calculation is number of engineers that fit in two
workshops times 744 times unit profit, divided by the hours
required to make one item. For example, the monthly profit for
Motion Scanners is 96*744*11600/220 = 1275993 (1275K).

The 'Net Profit' column is the bottom line. Monthly expenses are
the salaries of as many engineers as fit in the workshops times
$50K, plus the maintenance on 2 workshops and 2 living quarters.

As you can see, Fusion Ball Launchers are the winner, narrowly
edging out Laser Cannons. A profit can be made early in the game
on motion scanners, however. However, fusion ball launchers
require alien alloy, while laser cannons do NOT.

One final note: It costs roughly $7M to hire engineers and build
the facilities, so you'll need to 'borrow' some money (preferably
from alien supply ships [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] to get started.


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Oh well, memory wasn't that bad for not playing it for half a decade!