Just the facs, ma’am
After finally making your 500 TCs, you’re ready to issue your IPO and become an Industrialist. This begins a 3 week journey to Manufacturer. Of course, if you aren’t online much, it can take up to 5 weeks to promote, but most players do the three week minimum.
Now, the great debate: how much is enough, but not too much, for an IPO? Remember, your IPO will offer out 10,000 shares, so an IPO of 1,000 per share will start your company off with 10Mig. Factories cost 2Mig to build, and depots are another 1Mig. Plus, once you buy inputs, your company balance will decrease; if you buy all of your facilities before setting wages and purchasing inputs, you can go into the red as you buy inputs. But if you only have 1.5Mig in your balance and try to buy a factory, you’ll have to wait until you actually have the 2Mig.
Now, the higher the IPO, the more cash you have. But, when you reach Manufacturer, the shareholders will expect more in the way of dividends, so if you IPO high, you had better expect to dividend high later on. This is where warehouses can help out – if you have stocked warehouses that you can use to increase your company balance quickly, you don’t need to IPO as high. You can make that extra cash selling your commods from warehouses (now depots) directly to the exchange (sell bay #, not fetch and sell).
Whatever your IPO, I try to buy as many facs and any needed depots for those facs as soon as possible, and THEN set wages and buy inputs. Like I said before, you can go into the red when you buy inputs or pay wages, but you can’t go into the red to buy facilities. As your facs make money, your company balance will get back into the black soon enough. If your fac outputs to depot, your company balance will increase when the goods are sold from the depot. If your fac outputs to exchange, the factory makes the money, and it will be transferred to the company at reset.
How do you choose factories? Well, first, you need permission from the PO. Actually, you don’t need it, but it’s a good idea, since the PO can quickly expropriate your facilities with no compensation. So, you need to find a planet with workthingies (WT) to spare and a PO who will allow you to build.
Some POs will offer facs based on what deficits they have. Some will offer any fac as long as they have available WTs, but you may have to haul in inputs or haul out the goods. Make sure to set your output appropriately – if the PO offers you a “no haul” fac, they usually expect your fac to buy direct from the exchange and to output direct to exchange as well. Thus, the no haul – you won’t even need a depot for those facs. If the PO tells you to set your output to depot, then you’ll need to haul out every so often to other planets before your depot fills up. If the PO expects you to output to exchange, and you decide you want to output to depot and look for better prices elsewhere, better to talk to the PO up front, or else you may find yourself without a fac. Same thing applies if you plan to remove your fac and take a better deal elsewhere – POs would prefer to be notified ahead of time, since unemployment can have disastrous consequences on more advanced economies.
Some facs are worth a lot more than others, although every fac has the potential to be very profitable depending on the cost of inputs and the price you can get for outputs. Some POs will set favorable spreads so the FO (that’s you, you Factory Owner you) makes the maximum profit. The most common and profitable facs in Fed seem to be TQuarks, NanFab, and Arts. Each factory requires different inputs and WTs. Also, if you have more than one fac producing the same commod on the same planet, you may want to stagger their start times so they are on different cycles, and not both dumping 150 tons at the same time. It’s not that big a deal, but every little bit of profit helps.
Let’s backtrack for a minute. As previously mentioned, your IPO will issue 10,000 shares. You will get 500 personal shares, and 10 more shares for each warehouse you own. The broker will always hold 1000 shares, so if you own 7 warehouses, upon completion of your IPO, you would hold 570 shares, and the broker would hold 9430 shares, and will attempt to sell 8430 shares to Financiers (Fins).
Now, you cannot buy any shares for yourself or for your company until you promote to Manufacturer. The odds of any shares actually being left at that point are just slightly lower than the odds of Arlene becoming a Founder. In fact, most of your shares will probably be bought up within hours or even minutes of your IPO. So, before you IPO, it’s best to find some Fins who are willing to hold shares for you, so that they can be online when you IPO and will have a good shot at buying up to 1000 shares apiece. Some Fins will buy 1000 and hold them pretty much forever. Some will hold them until you make Fin (at which point you don’t have to issue any more dividends until you promote to Founder). Some will sell back 500 later on. Some will sell them all back. Some will make deals if you pay them off with slithies.
Basically, if you want a good chance to get some shares back later on, make friends with Fins. Ask other players who might be willing to hold shares. Some POs have Financier alternates (alts) who are in the game simply to hold shares for up and coming Industrialists and will sell most or all of them back later on. If your goal is to get to Founder with a decent portfolio and treasury, find Fins ahead of time and play nice.
So, a quick rundown on Industrialist strategy: If you want to get shares back later, find agreeable Fins before issuing your IPO. Once you issue the IPO, buy your facilities as quickly as possible, and try to get to your full 15 facs as soon as possible – the sooner your facs make money, the sooner your company balance starts looking better and better. Find profitable facs, even better if you can find POs who will offer no haul facs with good spreads on the inputs and outputs. And play nice – if you have a fac expropriated, or build facs that are not very profitable, you will find yourself taking longer and longer to build up that treasury.
This guide has been written by Desaxman. 
Please direct any enquiries to desaxman13ATsection3vballDOTcom