The Total Unit Costs found in the Branch Distribution windows is an estimation of next turn's Total Delivery Costs.

The Total Delivery Costs found in the reports is the actual value for the previous turn.

The game can not accurately predict Total Unit Costs because there are many factors that can disrupt the prediction. With the numbers you gave, you could be shipping from factories far away, adding $1000+ to your unit costs. So I recommend using the TUC as an indicator of expense/production. For example if your TUC was showing $15,000. You know you're spending too much money or your production numbers are too low based on your expenses.

At the same time, Total Delivery Costs is stale information. Any little change in expenses, production, branch sales (changing shipping routes), and so forth can alter the numbers.

So as long as im selling it for more than the $6045 im making not losing cash?

Not quite. You need to sell EVERY unit you make, and ALL vehicles in inventory for this number to be close to accurate. And that is assuming shipping is optimal. You may not have enough units locally, so the amount you pay for shipping will be greater than the TUC estimate. I would say TDC is a more accurate number IF you're not changing anything turn to turn. But it still relies on you selling everything and shipping/randomness to be nearly the same.

I advice that you use Material Costs for pricing. Use TUC/TDC as indicators of expense and production numbers. If your TUC/TDC are way higher than your sales price, you have an expense problem. Easiest way to solve that is to build more units. But you also need to sell them. (Horizontal expansion (building new branches) is a good to move more units). If your TUC and TDC are far apart, you likely have a shipping problem. If your sales price is greater than TUC/TDC and you're selling all or most of your units, your company is doing healthy.

thanks for the prompt response.

Once a sales branch is set up and is profitable, i had been making both lines 2 Stars initially, then i go and add 2 more stars to it, is it a process over time that it will expand its dealership network isnt it?
Is there a time period that say after 5 years a 2 star branch is maxxed out or will it still grow slowly over time?

the depth of this game is brilliant, i havent even started playing with wages/pensions, havent spent a dollar on marketing yet either and still making $20m+ a month

Dealerships networks will continue to expand, the stars generally affect the rate which new dealerships sign up.

Don't forget, you can subsidize new dealerships with the #2 button in this image: https://wiki.gearcity.info/doku.php?id=gamemanual:gui_world_map#view_branch

cool thanks.

last night and today i have had the game just close on me for no reason, have you seen that before? i am clicking in and out of the game to use an excel spreadsheet to help me track stuff in game, when i come back to the game i have to do a few clicks on the screen for it to realise im trying to access the game.

Originally posted by DJB1974:

cool thanks.

last night and today i have had the game just close on me for no reason, have you seen that before? i am clicking in and out of the game to use an excel spreadsheet to help me track stuff in game, when i come back to the game i have to do a few clicks on the screen for it to realise im trying to access the game.

If you're using DirectX, switch to OpenGL in the settings if you plan on doing things outside of the game. Microsoft did not design DirectX9 to properly support defocusing the window.

Remember, GC tech is 20 years old, Alt-tab didn't work very well 20 years ago.

yup that worked a treat, thank a lot.