Tycoon Zone

Should I Upgrade My Factory?

In the online game Tycoon Online, you build factories which produce goods. After a factory has produced a total of 1000 units of a good, you have the option to upgrade it. Once it has produced a total of 3500 units, you can upgrade it a second time. The first upgrade costs 15,000 iKr, and the second costs 25,000 iKr.

So, should you upgrade? In general, the answer is almost always yes. This is because the extra production you will get from upgrading will more than make up for the cost of the upgrade. Even the more expensive upgrade, at 25,000 iKr, requires only 1250 iKr of Company Value to break even. Remember that every unit you produce in a factory increases your Company Value by 1 iKr. So, it would take an extra 1250 units of production to make a 25,000 iKr upgrade worthwhile. If the upgrade increases your production by about 125 units per day, it will take 10 days for the upgrade to pay for itself. (You should do the math yourself to figure out how much extra production you can expect from the upgrade.) This doesn’t even consider the price of the goods when you sell them, or the potential market bonus from selling them on the market.

However, the question really should be: Should I upgrade now? Things get much more complicated when you think about the opportunity cost of upgrading a factory versus doing something else with your money. If you have 15,000 iKr to spend, you may be better off building another factory instead of upgrading an existing one. Or you may want to buy a vehicle instead. You’ll need to evaluate the earnings potential for each option and go with the one that gives you a better return on investment.

Here are some things to consider when deciding whether to upgrade versus spending your money on something else:

• If you are not at 25 buildings yet, it is almost always better to build another building instead of upgrading. However, if you cannot obtain the zones you want for your next building, you might choose to upgrade while you wait for the zones you want. Just make sure you keep enough savings to jump on those zones as soon as they become available.
• Don’t upgrade a factory unless you know you will keep it long enough to make the upgrade worthwhile. If you know you are going to demolish the building in a few days to build something else, don’t upgrade it.
• Don’t choose the 4th person upgrade unless you have a person available to fill that slot.
• Upgrades can be a good place to spend your money when you are trying to reduce your savings to avoid wealth tax.