If you have just started playing Arms Trade Tycoon Tanks, you may be wondering how you can pass the first stages without going bankrupt. We explained how to survive in this survival guide.
Starting Survival Guide
Until you get through the first four or five contracts your starting company is often close to bankrupt and game end. Having played in the Demo/Beta days I found myself crushed several times on returning for the start of Early Access. There are a few things you need to properly at the start to survive. It can be frustrating for a new player to die off so soon. This is a simple guide for surviving starting the game.
Start Cycling Cheap Slow Supplies
Order supplies to avoid bottle necking. You can’t build tanks without materials.
Cheap goods are slow goods. You can keep getting better goods prices by ordering from slow to send places like Africa. Start now with an order of:
- 9000 Iron
- 9000 Medium carbon steel
- 4000 Rubber
- 4000 High carbon steel
- 1000 Glass
Later you can order by tank needs. Once you have a design complete then in the ordering goods window select the tank on the left. In the middle select the number of tanks to order for. I typically found that Africa could only supply for 9 tanks at a time. So it is important to start the cycle of slow cheap deliveries right away.
Goods on hand will type up funds. The amount of funds tied up is comparatively low. Failing to have goods on hand means production stops and order isn’t filled. That’s bad.
First tank readying
To ready a tank to offer on a contract you need to go through Research > Engineering > Design > Proving grounds (not test drive).
Test drive is optional. Removing defects is optional but a good idea for a small cost.
Until you put the design through proving the stats aren’t understood by the customer.
You don’t need to produce a tank to put it in the proving ground!
For an initial British request for a Vanguard tank there is just enough time to add these research to your first tank. There is three of them so if nervous leave on out:
In order of importance to the vanguard
- Armor piercing round under firepower = important for anti-tank scores of the vanguard
- Improved high pass running gear = slightly more points gained then the engine
- Twin engine under mobility
You can just get those done, design and prove the tank with about a single day to spare.
Save often under different names
Save often under different names.
As you accept and finish contracts save the game under a new name. This is to avoid the frustration of restarting over and over if you missed things like a delivery arriving 1 day too late.
On the map if you hit ESC you will see a pop up menu with orange buttons. One of those is “Save As”.
Filling the first Vanguard Contracts
Filling the first vanguard contracts.
As you build tanks order more supplies from cheap slow Africa. Keep your goods total around 100+. In long pauses between contracts consider doing a balancing order from one of the more expensive faster people to rebalance the goods according to usage.
During production at a third or half produced ship the first load now under slower cheaper methods. Check that the time with a delay added is less than the time needed to finish the tanks. If so you might as well ship now and safeguard some of the investment.
Prebuild Vanguards for contracts 2 and 3.
As you sell vanguard tanks prebuild the next order. Britian will be building several battalions so they too will want vanguard tanks.
Use the prebuilds to shorten delivery day to charge more money! This is a key thing to surviving the starting days. When you look to shorten the days. Remember to buffer for delivery time and a margin of error for disasters like fire. A fire might take 9 days or more to repair the production building. That is one way to collapse into bankruptcy if you had many tanks still needing to be built and ship before a narrow contract end date. Hence why shipping part of the order early can keep you alive.
Remember during the contracts to keep cycling in goods from cheap slow Africa.
By the time you complete four or more contracts of high price narrow date you should have build up a reserve of money well beyond what you started with. Now you can try experiments.
It can be good idea to save the game under a new name at this point in case you wish to restart and avoid the repetition of same choices game play.
Building
Limit buildings at the start. You can wreck yourself by adding lots of sub buildings like cutting hall and so on. A bunch of these could suck out over $500,000 plus the monthly fees will start and suck out $50,000+ every month. In the start limit your choices.
I recommend:
Early on:
Production = Sub-Assembly Hall
- reduces labor time thus letting you shorten a contract to charge a higher price per tank
Administration = Maintenance Hall
Reduces costs of other buildings though a bit of a trade off since you have to fund this buildings
Middle time frames:
- Engineering = ergonomics building
Make designs faster though takes hiring engineers so also adds their wages as a cost
Research = ergonomics building
- Make research faster though takes hiring engineers so also adds their wages as a cost
Administration = Fire Hall
- Reduces but not eliminate the chance of fire which can add a huge delay causing a missed contract.
Tycoon Accounting
This section deals with general concepts:
Key to running a business:
- Profit = Sales – Costs
Sales you determine in the contract menu by the price per tank you set and the number of tanks. You can charge a higher price by adjusting the time to deliver. You can lower the delivery time frame by prebuilding tanks, if those tanks sell.
Costs arent entirely obvious. Your costs include:
- Per tank materials and labour which is shown on the tank info cards
- Building maintenance
- Shipping costs
- Non productive times still having wages
- Bank fees/loans if any
- Buffer from accidents causing delays
You really need to make sure you have enough profit in your contracts to cover the costs no on the tank card.
Time needed:
Estimating the build time can be done at production and keying up the tanks, typically 20 for the first contract and counting the days. You MUST add on a delivery time! Its only completed when the tanks show up at the unit!
Build in a buffer for delays like fires in production. They happen and it can kill you in the early days by making you fail delivery.
Cheap materials are slow materials.
Cheap shipping is slow and prone to being slower. Ship some early. Ship the rest later and if need be at fast reliable expensive ways.
You need what is called a “float”. In business a float is the amount in the bank going in and out, up and down, as costs and sales don’t match up nicely. Think of it as having enough water to float your boat.
Bank Loan
In the admin building you can get a bank loan. Try to only use this in an emergency. The strategy provided didn’t need a bank loan.
Before getting the loan do a “save as” in case you got the amount wrong.
If you want to limit the amount of Bank Loan make your estimate then add 33% as a buffer.
You can repay the loan early for a small fee. Then the loan slot is immediately available again.
