OFB Business Type Questions
sudaki:
Most of my regular families don't run home businesses, but the Temple of Holy Cats runs one. Customers are charged an hourly fee to use a bubble blower and pet cats. I use the No Unauthorized Persons thingie to keep "customers" out of my sims' living areas. If you start at a low price and up it gradually, tickets sell themselves. And there's no reason to ever close!
witch:
Quote from: J. M. Pescado on 2007 May 09, 08:38:16
In theory, at the very end, but one does not need to ever actually call in or use said manager, to avoid paying his bloated salary at all.
Now that's handy to know, I thought s/he had to be on the lot, although I'm sure BRY uses the Manager for jobs? I haven't played a business in a wee while.
Zazazu:
Quote from: sudaki on 2007 May 09, 08:46:40
Most of my regular families don't run home businesses, but the Temple of Holy Cats runs one. Customers are charged an hourly fee to use a bubble blower and pet cats. I use the No Unauthorized Persons thingie to keep "customers" out of my sims' living areas. If you start at a low price and up it gradually, tickets sell themselves. And there's no reason to ever close!
That's something I keep meaning to set up: a petting zoo. Overall, home businesses are incredibly cash cows. Just put a poker table or even just a chess set out on the front lawn at low levels with a ticket taker on Cheap. Lock the doors of the house to "household only". Leave it be. You don't have to interact with the customers at all, and just readjust the ticket cost to the new Cheap every business level. Add another game and give the place walls and a public toilet around level 3. With the ticket moneys and the monetary level rewards, sims are swimming in it quickly.
When I first got OFB, I took the entire downstairs of a home and converted it into three rotating businesses. One was a mirror shop, the other a robotics/electronics store, the other was an arcade with ticket machine. At all times when the two shops weren't open, the arcade was going. $$$
Orikes:
Quote from: J. M. Pescado on 2007 May 09, 08:38:16
Quote from: Orikes on 2007 May 09, 08:05:43
I probably will install BRU, but I wanted to get a feel for how OFB works otherwise.
It Doesn't. BRY + Macros is the single most important thing for using OFB. Without it, businesses do not function. It makes such a HUGE difference by overriding the brick-stupid AI..but you're welcome to try "without" first. You might appreciate it more afterwards.
That's generally my approach to mods in the first place. I want to know how the game works on its own before I throw any mods at it. My tolerance level for frustration in the game is probably higher than yours, so there are hacks in your director's cut that I don't really see a need for. When I do realize I need one, I just throw it at the game and move on. Since I'm not planning on doing OFB businesses all the time (too much time suckage), I may just get by without BRY and forget about businesses once this particular sim gets the 5 top businesses LTW finished.
Hook:
I must be doing something wrong, because I've run many businesses, never charged more than average, seldom used anything but "basic sell", and have always made money. Never used any of the shiny macros to help the business along either. Some businesses have snapdragons, others do not. The ones that don't will require you send employees on break at least once per day, but they go eat, pee and play without problems, and come back to work when they're feeling better without my asking. If you have an employee who can't get his motives green on his own, replace him. Just make sure you have everything he needs to get his motives up.
Since a lot of my business sell things to other playable Sims, I'm not going to jack the price up just to make more money I don't need. For example, one business is a flower shop, selling mostly catalog items but also snapdragons. Got a cashier, a salesperson, a manager (who is assigned to stocking), and most recently another employee to make snapdragons so my playable Sim doesn't have to do it all day and all night (after she goes home for the day) to keep up with demand. Another business sells produce and fish. Only time I've raised prices above normal is when I'm low on stock for some item like apples and I don't want the customers clearing the shelves. Raising prices this way isn't about making more money, it's about inventory control. The grocery market uses the customer controller so only non-poor local playable Sims buy there.
A real estate business, either out of your home or on a community lot, is special because it doesn't need a cash register or restocking. You simply go to the phone and buy the lot back from the community (after selling it to some Sim) and place it for sale again. You might want to make a few smaller commercial lots for "speculation" so you have something to sell.
Restaurants are a pain. I ran one once, but got tired of it quickly.
A car lot is good. High ticket items so you make quite a bit of money, but not a lot of items to sell so you're not overwhelmed. You can sell cars off a driveway extension instead of the auto display, although you'll have to cheat to place more than a very few driveway extensions.
If you're just starting out with a single Sim, buy one of the tiny shops. Edit it before you buy it so that it has enough display cases. Money you spend to upgrade the shop comes out of your profits, so don't upgrade it when you own it. Go in around 9 am, go home around 9 pm. Don't stay past midnight, as that's when depreciation hits you. Hire someone to run the cash register and spend all your time selling and restocking. At the end of the day, you should have 3 to 4 business levels. Go home, sell the lot back to the community, and get 5000 per business level in addition to the sale price of the business plus whatever money you made that day. Then buy the lot back again and repeat the next day. As long as you aren't on the lot at midnight, you don't get hit with depreciation. Don't bother trying to get one of these tiny shops to level 10, as you won't have room for the number of customers you'll get.
In my level 10 flower shop, the owner spends all her time helping confused customers, doing an occasional sales action, and helping restock if necessary. She's not exactly overworked at the shop. :)
Hook
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