User:Hordes/Money making guide

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There are lots of ways of "making money" in RimWorld. Depending on a colony's location, progress, and inhabitants, certain means of production will be more viable than others. Some can give profit in the long-term, but require more set-up or work. And there are (at least!) two ways to measure "best" - making the fastest profit in the least time, or squeezing the most profit out of a limited amount of starting material, even if it takes longer.

This guide will give an overview of the different options, with links to guides that expand in more detail on that specific pursuit.

In no particular order:

Note on trading

There is no "buy low, sell high" in RimWorld. In general, trader prices do not vary by a lot. At most, any faction base offers a +2% Trade Price Improvement. However, certain traders will only accept certain types of items. While a faction base will buy almost everything in their tech level, a combat supplier may not be interested in your human leather.

What's more important to note is the default 0.6x price multiplier for selling, and a seperate 1.4x price multiplier for buying. The Trade price disadvantage storyteller difficulty setting will make things even worse. Your trading disadvantage can be reduced by increasing Social skill (and other means of raising TPI).

All values in this guide assume Strive to Survive difficulty, and use Market Value instead of "actual" value. Difficulty impacts most item yields and the trade price disadvantage. If you have 0 Social skill, expect things to become 233% more expensive in Strive to Survive, and 350% more expensive in Losing is Fun.

Food Crops

In general, (SUMMARY HERE)

Crop Total Work
(per plant)[1]
Raw material
(per plant)[2]
Market Value
(per plant)
Value
(hour work)
Real days
to grow[3]
Profit / day
Corn plant 370 ticks (Plants) Corn 22 Silver 24.2 Silver 163.5 20.86 days 0.696
Haygrass 370 ticks (Plants) Hay 18 Silver 10.8 Silver 73.0 12.92 days 0.501
Rice plant 370 ticks (Plants) Rice 6 Silver 6.6 Silver 44.6 5.54 days 0.715
1 Time it takes to sow and then harvest. Directly reduced by Plant Work Speed. Does not account for travel/hauling time.
2 Assuming 100% harvest yield (difficulty stat) and 100% Plant Harvest Yield (pawn stat, impacted by Plants skill).
3 Time to grow, taking into account day/night cycles. Assuming 100% soil fertility. Rice and Corn are equally affected by soil, but corn cannot be grown in hydroponics.

Corn is the best crop for both human food/work and cash/work. It is actually more profitable per unit work than any of the cash crops, but cannot be processed any further, meaning it is reliant entirely on the grow cycle. It also is less valuable per item than psychoid, meaning more time is spent hauling. Corn is more difficult to grow in biomes with winter. In addition, the slow growing cycle makes it vulnerable to destruction, whenever by fire or blight.

Haygrass gives more nutrition/day than corn, but cannot be eaten by humans unless produced into kibble, which gives a −12 moodlet. Rice is good as a stable source of food, but is not efficient at all in terms of product / work.

Drug crops

Crop Planter Work
(per plant)[1]
Raw material
(per plant)[2]
Market Value
(per plant)
Value
(hr work)
Real days
to grow[3]
Profit / day
Hops 370 ticks (Plants) Hops 8 Silver 10.4 Silver 70.27 9.23 days A
Smokeleaf plant 370 ticks (Plants) Smokeleaf leaves 9 Silver 14.4 Silver 97.3 12.92 days B
Psychoid plant 370 ticks (Plants) Psychoid leaves 8 Silver 15.2 Silver 102.7 16.62 days C
Ambrosia bush[4] 200 ticks (Plants) Ambrosia 4 Silver 60 Silver (750) N/A N/A
1 Time it takes to sow and then harvest. Directly reduced by Plant Work Speed. Does not account for travel/hauling time.
2 Assuming 100% harvest yield (difficulty stat) and 100% Plant Harvest Yield (pawn stat, impacted by Plants skill).
3 Assuming 100% soil fertility. Hops and Psychoid plants have reduced Fert. Sensitivity.
4 Ambrosia bushes cannot be planted, only appearing from the event. You cannot control where the ambrosia sprouts, meaning that travel time is highly variable.
Drug Synthesis Work
(per plant)
Raw material
(per plant)
Added Value
(per plant)
Added Value
(hr work)
M. Value Drug
(total hr work)
Real days
to grow
Profit / day
Beer 320 ticks (Cook)[1] Beer 1.6 Silver 8.8 Silver 68.75 Silver 69.56 9.23 days A
Smokeleaf joint 1012.5 ticks (Cook) Smokeleaf joint 2.25 Silver 10.35 Silver 25.56 Silver 46.22 12.92 days B
Psychite tea 800 ticks (Intel.) Psychite tea 2 Silver 2.4 Silver 7.5 Silver 42.73 16.62 days C
Flake 500 ticks (Intel.) Flake 2 Silver 12.8 Silver 64 Silver 80.46 16.62 days C
Yayo 350 ticks (Intel.) Yayo 1 Silver 5.8 Silver 41.43 Silver 72.92 16.62 days C
1 For beer, hops need to be converted into wort, then put into a fermenting barrel to make beer. This extra hauling work is not accounted for.

Despite having a lower value/work ratio than their raw plants, drugs have several major advantages.

All calculations assume that a drug is constantly being planted and harvested by 1 pawn. This is comparing 1000 leaves-turned-flake to selling 1675 raw leaves, not 1000 to 1000 leaves. In other words, drug synthesis allows you to get more value from the same growing space. Creating drugs allows 2 pawns, perhaps with different skills, to work at the same sized field at the same time. Certain biomes may be limited in grow space. Other biomes can let you grow in the summer, and synthesize in the winter. But even in a tropical rainforest, large fields can be difficult to protect from fire, raiders, and blight - not even considering walk distance.

The second advantage is logistic. More traders accept drugs than raw plants. Drugs are much lighter than their raw materials, meaning caravans and transport pods can carry much more at a time. In addition, plant matter will rot when unrefrigerated; drugs don't.