9 KiB
Player's Guide: Production - The Idle Game
Welcome, CEO! Whether you're a seasoned tycoon strategist or jumping into your very first incremental business game, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know to take a modest wheat farm and build it into a multi-billion dollar industrial empire spanning aerospace, microelectronics, pharmaceuticals, and heavy robotics.
🏭 1. What Is the Game About?
At its core, Production - The Idle Game is all about interconnected supply chains.
Unlike simple clicker games where money just appears from thin air, in this game every single high-value product needs physical ingredients:
- You start by growing raw Wheat in fields.
- Grind that wheat into Milled Flour in a mill.
- Mix flour with Refined Sugar to bake Artisan Bread.
- Later on, you'll extract Silica Sand and Crude Oil to manufacture Purified Silicon and Polymers, feeding them into high-tech fabs to produce Microchips, Display Panels, and Smartphones—eventually constructing Commercial Jetliners and Orbital Launch Vehicles!
Your role as CEO is to balance production, eliminate bottlenecks, manage cash flow, expand factory lines, fulfill corporate contracts, and decide when to take your company public on Wall Street.
🚀 2. Getting Started (Your First 5 Minutes)
Step 1: Launch & Register (or Play as a Guest)
- Open the game in your browser.
- You can play immediately as a Guest! Your game automatically saves in your browser's local storage.
- Creating an Account (Recommended): Click on your company badge in the top navigation bar to open your Profile. Choose a username and password to create an account. Creating an account backs up your progress to the cloud so you can log in and play across different computers or browsers.
- Backing up your Save: You can also export your entire game to a
.jsontext file at any time (or paste one in to restore) directly from your Profile modal!
Step 2: Run Your First Batches
- On the main Production Floor, you'll see your starting facility: the Wheat Field.
- Click the "Run Batch" button a few times to harvest wheat.
- Notice your cash and warehouse stock start ticking upward!
Step 3: Hire an Operations Lead (Automation)
- Clicking manually gets tiring quickly. As soon as you have a few dollars, click "Hire Lead".
- Each facility has a dedicated Operations Lead (like Farmer Giles for Wheat or Miller Hansen for Flour). Once hired, they will automatically run production cycles for you 24/7—even while you're away!
Step 4: Expand Lines & Unlock Downstream Factories
- Use "+1 Lines" to add more capacity. More lines produce larger batches of goods each cycle.
- When your balance reaches the permit cost, click "Acquire Permit" on the next facility (like Milled Flour or Sugar Beet) to expand your industrial footprint.
📈 3. How You Make Money: The Two Revenue Streams
Your enterprise earns revenue through two distinct channels:
1. Passive Wholesale Distribution (Fleet Logistics)
Every facility can deploy a Wholesale Fleet (trucks, tankers, cargo haulers).
- Each fleet unit automatically sells up to 0.75 items per second directly onto the open regional wholesale market.
- This provides a continuous, reliable stream of passive income ($/sec).
- Tip: If a downstream factory is starving for raw materials, you can click "Wholesale Fleet: ON/OFF" on the card to pause open-market sales and save all materials for your own production lines!
2. B2B Corporate Procurement Tenders (Big Contracts)
Click the "B2B Contracts" tab in the top header.
- Giant MegaCorps (like Apex Resources, Titan Heavy Industries, Omni Dynamics, and Vanguard Shipping) regularly post emergency requests for large batches of specific commodities.
- Stockpile the required amount, hit "Deliver Shipment", and collect:
- Massive lump-sum cash payouts (often hundreds or thousands of times higher than standard wholesale).
- Corporate Reputation points (Rep) to boost your company's standing!
🎖️ 4. Corporate Reputation (Rep) & The Strategy Hub
Located directly at the top of the B2B Contracts view is the Corporate Standing & Reputation Hub.
When you deliver contracts, you earn Rep Points. You can freely allocate these points across three strategic departments, tailoring your company's advantages to your playstyle:
-
Model 1: B2B Procurement Standing
- The Benefit: Grants +0.5% bonus cash payout on all future contract tenders per point.
- Best For: Players who love stockpiling goods to cash in on high-value corporate deals.
-
Model 2: Client Strategic Relations (MegaCorp Synergies)
- The Benefit: Deepens ties with the four corporate giants to unlock four simultaneous perks:
- Apex Resources: Increases raw extraction yields (+0.2%/pt).
- Titan Heavy Industries: Gives a discount on building new lines (+0.2%/pt, up to a whopping 50% off!).
- Omni Dynamics: Accelerates factory speed and cycle times (+0.15%/pt).
- Vanguard Shipping: Increases wholesale logistics fleet throughput (+0.25%/pt).
- Best For: Industrial optimizers looking to build massive production complexes at lower cost.
- The Benefit: Deepens ties with the four corporate giants to unlock four simultaneous perks:
-
Model 3: Wholesale Brand Premium
- The Benefit: Boosts the baseline open-market wholesale sale price by +0.25% per point across all fleet sales.
- Best For: Idle enthusiasts who rely on continuous, set-and-forget passive cash flow.
💡 Pro-Tip: You can click "Reset Allocations" at any time with zero penalty to recall all your points and re-invest them!
🔍 5. Facility Dossier & Smart Controls
Want to know why a factory is paused or how much money it's making? Click the blue info icon or the title on any card to open the Full Facility Intelligence Dossier:
- Detailed Financials: View exact revenue per second, projected earnings per hour, and total asset valuation.
- The Net Flow Calculator: Shows transparently:
[Production Rate] - [Downstream Consumption] - [Logistics Sales] = [Net Stock Change (Δ/s)] - Production Throttling (100% / 75% / 50% / 25% / Paused): If an upstream factory (e.g. Purified Silicon) is running out because downstream chips are eating it too fast, dial the consumer down to 50% or 25% to restore balance.
- Emergency Stock Liquidation: Need fast cash to buy a critical permit? Instantly sell 50% or 100% of the facility's stockpiles at market rates.
- DAG Navigation: Click on any required input or downstream consumer in the dossier to jump straight to that facility!
👁️ 6. Standard View vs. Compact View
At the top right of your production floor, you'll find the View Mode Toggle:
- Standard View: Generous, card-based cards featuring rich, cropped photographs of your finished commodities, interactive input chips, and full operational switches.
- Compact View: A dense, high-speed summary grid designed for rapid scanning. It shows square thumbnails, real-time batch progress bars, line counts, and quick-purchase buttons so you can manage dozens of factories at a glance without endless scrolling.
🏛️ 7. Initial Public Offering (IPO) & Wall Street Prestige
Eventually, your company will reach an astronomical valuation. When you're ready to cement your legacy:
- Click on the "Boardroom" tab.
- If your lifetime revenue exceeds $100,000, you can authorize an IPO (Initial Public Offering).
- What happens during an IPO?
- Your current factories, inventory, and cash are liquidated.
- In return, you receive permanent Venture Shares ($V-Shares) based on your lifetime earnings!
- The Boardroom Tech Tree:
Spend your $V-Shares on permanent corporate upgrades that persist across all future runs:
- Automated Supply Routing: +15% raw yield per level.
- Industrial Robotics & AI: +20% faster cycle speeds across all factories.
- Fleet Optimization: +25% higher wholesale sale prices.
- State Subsidies: +35% larger payouts on B2B contracts.
- Venture Capital Syndicate: Start your next company with up to $5,000,000 in starting capital!
- Brand Legacy & Heritage: Keep 10% to 50% of your accumulated Corporate Reputation across IPOs instead of starting from scratch!
💡 Quick Tips for Aspiring Tycoons
- Watch the Flashing Alerts: If a facility shows a yellow "Starved / Bottlenecked" badge, check its input chips. It's waiting for an ingredient from an upstream supplier!
- Use the Multiplier Switcher: In the top header bar, switch between 1x, 10x, 100x, or Next (buys just enough lines to reach the next speed milestone).
- Speed Milestones: Every 25, 50, 100, and 200 lines you buy doubles or triples that facility's speed multiplier!
- Offline Progress: Need to step away? Go ahead! When you return, the game calculates up to 8 hours of offline production and logistics sales automatically.
Good luck, CEO. The global market is waiting for your supply chain!