A few hours after completing the first round of missions, the game generated a second set. Alamosa (KALS) wanted pilot watches and emergency supplies (the latter do not appear to be present in the game). Jeffco (KBJC) wanted haggis and scooters. In Alamosa, there was a demand for pilot watches. There were no missions out of Pueblo.
The haggis mission is easy to do. The cargo plane already is at Jeffco, where enough sheep could be purchased to fill the order, fly them to the Alamosa haggis plant, and then fly the haggis back to Jeffco. 176 pounds of haggis sold for $121,792.
A haggis plant could not build at Jeffco at this time because tje base there is still being built. One must have a finished base before one can build a factory. So far, my mistaken build of a haggis factory in Alamosa has actually paid off. Two orders of haggis were made in succeeding mission cycles. The money has not been wasted. However, an order be received after the Jeffco base is completed, I might build a second factory at Jeffco.
Motoscooters are a highly lucrative mission, a mission one does not want to pass up. Unlike haggis which might only yield a couple hundred thousand dollars in profits, motoscooters can result in million dollar profits. Fortunately, much of the infrastructure of motorscooter production already exists in Alamosa. First of all, a base already exists there. Second Alamosa has factories for radios and plastic. Radios and plastic are tier two commodities used in making motorscooters. I do have to build a motorscooter factory in Alamosa. It's pricey, but worth the price.
Alamosa is home to a plastic factory to build all of the plastic I will need to make my motorscooters, including the plastic which will go in the radios. There is an electronics factory start making the radios that go into the motorscooters. Other commodities can be bought to make motorscooters.
Since I am avoiding night flights at the moment, given my bad experience with the last one, I will wait until morning to deliver both the haggis and motorscooters to Jeffco. My factories are actually done producing by midnight. The flight to Jeffco is uneventful. 515 pounds of motorscooters sold for $1,771,136
Pilot watches are more problematic. In the region where San Luis Enterprises operates, there is one place ideal for making pilot watches: Raton, New Mexico. Raton has all the commodities needed to make pilot watches. Locations like that are very rare in the game.
However, building in Raton will be both time consuming and costly. A new base will have to be built there. Fortunately, no other factories will be required to build any of the other components for these watches; there are no tier two commodities in pilot watches.
A second alternative is to build a pilots watch factory in San Luis Enterprises home base of Alamosa. Alamosa lacks both the precious metals and watches needed to make pilots watches. These two components can be flown in from Pueblo, where my base will be done in another 33 hours. But components can be purchased without a base.
This is an important decision because a pilots watch factory does cost about $300,000. However, pilots watches also are the most profitable commodity in the game. Again, this is another mission I do not want to pass up.
There are certain efficiencies in having all or most manufacturing in one location. For example, multiple cargos can be flown, including cargos to different locations. It also makes for a nice hub and spoke operation: all raw goods flow into one location, and all manufactured goods flow out of that same location.
While another base might be useful, Raton is not a big population center. The arbitrage opportunities are limited. The commodity prices on expensive items are not all that different from Pueblo. Besides, Pueblo is right on the path from Alamosa to all of the front range cities. Stopping there does not take me far out of my way. So I will build my chronograph factory in Alamosa -- when I get the money. But I should have that after selling haggis and motorscooters in Jeffco. On the way back I can pick up watches and precious metals in Pueblo and might even find a half decent arbitrage opportunity with goods from Jeffco.
I stopped in Pueblo and picked up a load of precious metals. Originally, these were to be used for the watches, but they were used for making jewelry instead.
Meanwhile, I purchased a new cargo aircraft with some of the money I made: a Quest Kodiak. This plane holds about twice the cargo of a Bonanza. I failed my first test flight; something happened during the landing; probably a random failure. Second test flight went fine.
By this time the jewelry was finished, which was then loaded on the plane and sold in Pueblo. 500 pounds of jewelry sold for $106,000.
Even though I swore off of night flights, I was going to try again with the Kodiak. After selling off the jewelry, the plane was loaded with 650 pounds each of watches and precious metals for the pilots watches. The rest of the plane was filled with precious metals for more jewelry production.
Finally with the watches and precious metals arriving in Alamosa, production of the pilots watches began. 650 pounds of watches were sold in Alamosa for $959,075.
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