Robot Crafting economics

[Gus Smedstad]

I did a little data collecting.  There may be some errors in some of my numbers, due to say not writing something down correctly, or misjudging precisely when a build cycle stopped, but here are my conclusions.

Badges affect build times as well as what you can build.  A Sim with a Silver badge takes 40% longer to complete a task than a Sim with a Gold badge.  A Sim with a Bronze badge takes 100% longer (twice as long) as a Sim with a Gold badge.  A Sim with no skill at all takes 200% longer (3x) as a sim with a Gold badge.

Completed robots can be sold for their wholesale price, or sold at retail.  Robots sold at retail are at a disadvantage compared to ordinary merchandise, because you can reduce the wholesale price of ordinary items without affecting the retail price, but you can't reduce the cost of building a robot.  If you plan to build a shop with nothing but crafted items, there's no point in pursuing the discount perks.

If we ignore the wholesale business perk, electing to put up a robot for sale is the same as purchasing it at wholesale.  You're trading the $2000 you could have gotten for selling a MunchiBot for the opportunity to make $2300-$2500 at retail via the usual methods.  It isn't any easier to sell a MunchiBot than any other item with a $2000 wholesale price.

Thus, crafting generates profit solely through the difference between build cost and wholesale price.  Without exception, the more expensive an item is, the more profit per hour you generate by crafting it.

Toy Robots generate $42 / hour for a Gold badge, $30 / hour for a Silver, $21 / hour for a Bronze, and $14 / hour for unskilled.
Hydrobots generate $110 / hour for a Gold badge, $78 for a Silver, and $55 for a Bronze.
Cleanbots generate $156 / hour for a Gold, $111 for a Silver, and $78 for a Bronze.
SentryBots generate $178 / hour for a Gold, and $127 for a Silver.
MunchieBots generate $185 / hour for a Gold, and $132 for a Silver.
Servos generate $235 / hour, and can only be built by a Gold.  It took me 760 minutes (12 hours, 40 minutes) to build one.

I've never been able to hire anyone for much less than $40 / hour, but maybe my pool of Sims have too many skills.  Generally once they've gotten up to Silver I'm paying then $110 / hour or so to keep them happy.  Hiring crafters then costs you money when they're first learning, generates a slight profit at Bronze and Silver, and is probably a decent source of profit at Gold.

 - Gus

[Li'l Brudder]

Thanks Gus!  Really helpful!

[Gus Smedstad]

If you want to earn infinite money, build a servo, put him in a business on a community lot with a robot crafting station, and let him rip.  In my experience he never runs out of power, and never you need never open the business to deal with customers.  Building robots feeds the Fun meter, so only his Social will drop.  Periodically he'll have to call someone on the phone.

Of course at that point you might as well just use the money cheat codes, or something equivalent like moving people back and forth without the No20KHandout mod.  If you find you want a huge inventory of robots, this is the easy way (and cheaty way) to do it.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

Servo will run out of power eventually, but it takes a goodly length of time for this to happen. Recharging is relatively quick, though. He does, however, make the ideal factory worker because he will work until he runs out of power.

Of course, this is why workers get replaced by robots in real life, too.