BA Factory Planner

Factory settings

These apply to every workstation unless you override a line in Advanced mode.

Factory worker skill

%

Output = max × (50% + skill/2). 100% = full speed, 0% = half speed. Ingredients are always consumed at the full rate.

Factory hours

to 24 h/day

Set it the same way as the schedule in BizMan. Workers must be scheduled for every hour you want production.

Days per week

Imports only arrive once a week (Monday 08:00), so the order sheet always covers a full week of these days.

Purchasing agent skill

%

Import discount = 25% × skill. Only affects the cost estimates.

Import price index

× base price

MarketInsider shows today's index per product. 1.00 = base price. Prices also scale with the game's difficulty market multiplier.

Weekly order buffer

% on top of a full week

Imports arrive once a week (Monday 08:00), so the target must cover 7 days. Buffer covers price-index swings and skipped hours.

Urgent order surcharge

%

Default difficulty is +75% for importers. Only used to show what a mid-week emergency order would cost.

Shift length for staffing

Employees can work at most 12 h/day. "Minimum" staffing uses 12 h; "recommended" uses this.

Net out ingredients you make yourself e.g. a Garden workstation growing tomatoes feeds a Food workstation making fries — only the shortfall is ordered.

Workstations

One workstation = one assembly machine + its production machines + one worker per hour. Add a line per product.

Quick start:

How the numbers are calculated (from the 1.0 game code)

Output per hour = round(recipe max/hour × (skill ÷ 2 + 50) ÷ 100) — Recipe.GetScaledOutputAmount. A 100% worker hits the max, a 0% worker makes half.
Ingredients per hour are the recipe amounts, every hour a worker is at the station, regardless of skill — FactoryBusinessSimulator.PlanIngredientsForRatio. They only drop when stock, output space or a "Produce up to" cap limits the hour.
Hours: production is simulated hour by hour; an hour only runs if the factory is open and a worker is scheduled at that workstation. Employees max out at 12 h/day.
Imports arrive once a week: every Monday at 08:00 (DeliveryHelper.GetNextDeliveryDay); contracts lock Sunday 20:00. With Smart Delivery on, the "# target" is the stock level topped up each Monday, so it has to cover the whole week. An Urgent Order lands the next morning with a surcharge (default +75%).
Import price = wholesale price × MarketInsider import index × difficulty multiplier; a purchasing agent discounts up to 25% at 100% skill. Raw factory ingredients from the four pier importers have no weekly order limit.
Storage: a pallet shelf holds 60 boxes; box sizes per item come from the item data.
"Runs out in" in BizMan assumes 24 h/day consumption: floor(stock ÷ (amount × 24)).