Frequently asked questions
Maintained by The Center
Glossary:
Something does not work, but it works for everyone else? (bust caches)
What economy phase are we currently?
How does a contest work?
How to turn on chatrooms?
What does Q mean?
What are the NPC companies on the exchange?
How do I level up?
How do I sell resources on the exchange?
How do I send contracts?
What do building upgrades do?
How is the resource abundance for mines, rigs, and quarries assigned?
Can I sell or destroy my buildings?
Why does my administration cost go up?
What’s accounting overhead?
What’s research for?
Where’s the game time table?
How is Comprehensive Income calculated?
What are those symbols I see on company pics (avatars)?
What does Purchases and Returns mean in the warehouse?
I got a message from the Personal Assistant about worker wages increase/decrease and retail changes.
Can I create more than one account?
Why am I not getting any more Personal Assistant (PA) quests?
How often are new features added?
Why are incoming contracts different colors? (Red, Green, Black)
How do I reset or delete my account?
Attitude Control is not spelled wrong?
Why haven’t I received my Sim Boosts from my purchase?
Got your own question?
1. Something does not work, but it works for everyone else
Sim Companies stores data and code on your device to allow fast screen loads and game performance. However, some devices and browsers (safari), do not really follow industry standards and it may happen that your device does not automatically update when it should. Which can result in problems for your game-play.
Visit this link if you are experiencing issues: bust caches. (You need to visit this link from the device that is experiencing issues. If the link was posted in chat; it may not work.)
If nothing helps, you can report a bug here and write a message to the support.
In issue 99 of Sim Times there is an article about how to write to our support.
Here is a link to the Status page of Sim Companies. This allows players to see if the game is operating as it should.
Refreshing the game also fixes many issues without having to bust caches. To refresh on mobile; pull the screen down until you see the game refresh.
2. What economy phase are we currently?
Current economy phase: see your Headquarters (HQ)
There are three possible phases to the economy. Recession, Normal, and Boom.
Phases can only move one direction or remain the same.
Examples:
Boom, remain the same or go to a Normal economy
Recession, remain the same or go to a Normal economy
Normal, remain the same or go to Boom or Recession economy
Every Friday there is a chance that the economy can change.
15:00 UTC - Economy phase shift. See Time Table article in the Library for your local time when economic changes can occur.
Recession: production quantities are higher; while retailers selling quantity is lower.
Boom: production quantities are lower; while retailers selling quantity is higher.
Normal: is the balance between Boom and Recession.
Scroll down for more information: “I got a message from the Personal Assistant about worker wages increase/decrease and retail changes” (Number 20).
Helpful articles from our local newspaper The Sim Companies Times:
The Numbers behind Economy Phases (1)
The Numbers behind Economy Phases (2)
3. How does a Contest work?
Contests take place over a two week period. But what is that? It is donating a product!
The product remains the same for the entire period of the contest.
Whoever has gathered the most points at the end, receives a certificate which can be displayed in the profile. Points are awarded daily to the people who sent the most in the last 24 hours. The leader board screen will show the top 30 players; and your company rank at the bottom.
How can you donate?
After opening the contest product in the Headquarters (warehouse), another button "Donate to contest" appears.
What does the winner get? A certificate and a trophy on their Logo/Avatar. As well as a unique collectible of the product in that contest.
Please note that winning a contest costs tens of millions in cash and you should NOT donate anything if you’re not serious about it.
For example:
Zipping through the Tulips ~ the winner donated 121,381,007 seeds, roughly $25.2 million.
4. How to turn on chatrooms?
Chatrooms: Game, Social, Sale, Aerospace Sales, Help, Roleplay, (DE) Sozial, (DE) Handel, (DE) Spiel, (FR) French), (FR) Vente, (PT) Jogo, (PT) Social, (PT) Comércio, (TR) Turkish, (IT) Italian, (ES) Spanish, (ZH) Mandarin, (PL) Polish, (CS) Czech, (HI) Hindi.
To see the chatrooms:
Click/press on the three (3) dots above chatrooms.
Account Settings (cog on the right)
Chatrooms
Check mark the ones you want to see
Update
5. What does Q mean?
Q means quality. If you see someone using q0, q1, q2 they are referring to the quality of a product. See Research Guide for more information about Quality.
More game abbreviations can be found in Sim Companies Times; Game Jargon (newspaper 75).
6. What are the NPC companies on the exchange?
NPC stands for Non-Player Character. It is a bot operated by Sim Companies, whose purpose is to provide game-essential resources to the exchange. The pricing is set up at the high side to allow players to sell at lower prices with profit.
7. How do I level up?
By constructing new buildings and using your buildings. Sending contracts and selling goods on the exchange will not contribute to your leveling. Upgrading buildings does not contribute to leveling up either.
8. How do I sell resources on the exchange?
You need to visit your Headquarters (warehouse), click on the resource, click SELL ON THE EXCHANGE, enter a quantity and price, then press SELL ON THE EXCHANGE.
You will pay a market fee of 3% when the order is traded. The market fee is paid before any profit is shown.
Depending on the resource, you may need to provide Transportation units as well. These can be bought on the exchange.
50x is the transport needed
$3 is the 3% fee
$0.030 is cost per unit
Note: transport is pulled from your inventory in your warehouse – if you do not have transport you cannot place anything on the exchange.
You can cancel your order on the market at any time by clicking/pressing on the blue X next to your name. Or going to your profile and finding the Market Orders box and selecting Cancel.
The transportation units will be returned to you since no product was shipped out of your warehouse.
The market fee that was not paid yet is refunded on cancel, but only after 48 hours from posting. Orders already placed cannot be modified, just cancelled.
For example, you place Crude Oil on the exchange for $28. You will pay a fee of $28 x 3% = $0.84 and use one transport unit, assume that transport costs $0.35. Hence, it will cost you $0.84 + $0.35 = $1.19 to sell the Crude Oil on the market, leaving you with $28 - $1.19 = $26.81. If you sold this Crude Oil using contracts, you pay no market fee and only use half of the transportation units. This would cost $0.35/2 = $0.175, meaning you would be left with $28 - $0.175 = $27.825. Remember to take this into account when deciding to sell on the exchange or to sell via contracts
EXCHANGE PRIORITY
When viewing items on the exchange each listing has a priority based on the following:
price / quality / timestamp
Price: lower price has priority
Quality: higher quality has priority
Timestamp: longer time has priority
Timestamp is when it is entered or updated. When updating an order it resets the Timestamp and puts in the back of the line.
9. How do I send contracts?
Need to be level 5+ (Family Business) to send and receive contracts.
Visit your Headquarters (warehouse) and click on the resource, enter quantity and price, and hit SEND CONTRACT. Enter the recipient company's name. The recipient has to accept your contract before the money can be credited to you. Either party can cancel the contract that has not been accepted yet and all resources, including Transportation units will be returned.
25x is the transport needed
There is no fee
Note: transport is pulled from your inventory in your warehouse – if you do not have transport you cannot send a contract.
In comparison to selling on the exchange, by using contracts you will not pay any market fee and need only half as many Transportation units.
10. What do building upgrades do?
All of your buildings can be upgraded to increase production/selling capacity. To upgrade a building you need to visit it and click the UPGRADE BUILDING button. All buildings start at level 1. Upgrading to level 2 doubles the production/selling capacity. A level 3 building will produce/sell 3 times as much as a level 1 building, a level 4 building will produce/sell 4 times as much as a level 1 building and so on.
One level 5 building = Five level 1 buildings (quantity)
11. How is the resource abundance for mines, rigs, and quarries assigned?
The production in the 3 mentioned buildings depends on resource abundance.
The abundance is randomly assigned when buildings is first built and then slowly decreases by 0.032% a day. Each resource produced in the building has its own abundance assigned using Gauss distribution with mean 0.6 (60% abundance) and standard deviation of 0.15. Resulting values over 1 (100%) are truncated to 1 (100%) and values below 0.1 (10%) are truncated to 0.1 (10%).
min(1.0, max(0.1, gauss(mu=0.6, sigma=0.15)))
Helpful information added via the Sim Companies Forum:
Abundance - A quick review
12. Can I sell or destroy my buildings?
You cannot sell your buildings but once you reach level 5 you can scrap buildings and recover some of the investment. If a building is level 1 or 2, you will get the full investment back. Any building above level 2 that is scrapped will not receive the full investment back. Destroying a level 5 building will return 5 times the value of a level 1 building.
Case one, construction resources for level 5 farm costs approximately $6,900 + $6,900 + $13,800 + $20,700 + $27,600 = $75,900 to build. If we scrap this level 5 building then we would receive only $6,900 x 5 = $34,500 worth of construction resources back.
Case two, construction resources for level 2 oil rig costs approximately $69,000 + $69,000 = $138,000 to build. If we scrap this level 2 building then we would receive construction resources back worth of $69,000 x 2 = $138,000.
13. Why does my administration cost go up?
First of all, congratulations on building a huge company. Otherwise, you would not have this problem! The more employees that you have, the more money you spend on administration overhead. Every time you level up a building you increase the number of workers in your company by 100 as well as adding more administration staff. The more building levels that your company has, the more administration staff are recruited each time you level a building up.
If your administration size grows too much, you want to look at the following options: focus on less labor-intensive products, or invest in buildings that deliver high profit even on low levels. You could also invest in research, this will allow you to get a higher profit for the same resources without expanding your buildings. You may also want to look at hiring a COO, they reduce the administration overhead of your company. See the executives guide for more information.
14. What’s accounting overhead?
Managing all your company funds costs money. Here is how much your company pays in accounting overhead. Executives skilled in accounting can help you lower your accounting base.
Accounting base = (Bonds Purchased - Bonds Sold) + Cash - Executives' lift
Accounting base | Percentage |
up to $3,000,000 | 0% |
$3M to $6M | 0.5% |
$6M to $9M | 1.0% |
$9M to $12M | 1.5% |
$12M to $15M | 2% |
over $15,000,000 | 3% |
Example with CFO lift:
$3 million + $4 million = $7 million
Cash and Bonds value over $7 million = $137,918
$137,918 x 0.5% = $690 (rounded up)
Accounting fees are deducted automatically every day at the same time. See Time Table for your local time.
Helpful articles from our local newspaper The Sim Companies Times:
Helpful information added via the Sim Companies Forum:
Bank - Need more Executive Lift?
15. What’s research for?
Research allows the production of higher quality products that sell faster allowing you to make more profit. The ability to research unlocks once your company has reached level 10.
You can build laboratories and research centers that produce research points. You can also buy them from other players on the exchange or through contracts. The research points can then be used to get patents, but not every research point result in a patent. So be prepared for losses from researching areas that bring no money.
Enough patents will allow you to produce higher quality products! Patents cannot be sold or transferred to other players.
See the research guide for more information.
16. Where’s the game time table?
The game runs on UTC time, but all times within the game are displayed in the company's local time zone.
See the time table to find out when the daily processes happen.
17. How is Comprehensive Income calculated?
Comprehensive income is an item listed in the Income Statement in your HQ.
It is a result of a two (2) consecutive Balance Sheets compared. Any Company Value (CV) change that is not covered by the items in the Income Statement are called “other comprehensive income.”
Items on the Income Statement should cover all company activities that impact the Balance Sheet. Except, for the Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP) swings of inventory Valuation Allowance (85% of VWAP of the previous day).
Valuation Allowance is an item listed in the Balance Sheet.
Definition: Sum of price corrections applied to every single resource to account for resource liquidity. The correction estimates price you would get for each resource if you were to liquidate it on the market using the trading price and volume from the previous day.
18. What are those symbols I see on company pics (avatars)?
There are three (3) symbols that can show up on company avatars:
Certificate Winner – A certificate for gaining a top spots in company rankings and years played.
Trophy Winner – A symbol awarded to those that have won the top spots in contests.
Supporter – A symbol notifying other players they support the game. You too can become a supporter!
All three will show up on the player’s profiles. The certificates can be displayed in the display case.
19. What does Purchases and Returns mean in the warehouse?
Purchases, means product purchased from the Exchange and/or Contracts.
Returns, means product cancelled from the Exchange and/or Contracts; and from Scrapping Buildings.
Purchases and Returns will be removed from that product once it is sold off.
20. I got a message from the Personal Assistant about worker wages increase/decrease and retail changes
The economy goes through phases. This message means the phase just changed. The overall margins on all products stay the same no matter the economy phase. However, the cost to produce products alternate so the retail prices alternate with it.
Checkout the encyclopedia to learn what are the new production costs and retail parameters.
This does not impact you as much if you are dealing with products that have an easy pipeline - or you operate on a just-in-time basis and hence do not store intermediate inventory. If, however, you hold a lot of inventory, the shift in pricing can cause your inventory to be worth more on the economic boom, or less on depression.
There are three phases that the economy can be in. When the economy goes up, retail speeds up, hence goods can be sold faster or can be sold at a higher price. However, the rate of production of these goods falls, therefore, producers will increase their prices to make up for this. When the economy goes down, retail slows down, hence goods sell slower or have to be sold at a lower price. In this case, the rate of production increases and hence producers can sell at a lower price.
21. Can I create more than one account?
This is prohibited. That would create an unfair advantage over other players. See Fair Play Association (FPA).
Note: Realms created two (2) companies under one (1) account. One company in Magnates Realm and one company in Entrepreneurs Realm.
22. Why am I not getting any more Personal Assistant (PA) quests?
Make sure to scroll back to the last PA quest and answer the quest. Once you answer it the notification will go away and you will have access to the rest of the PA quests.
PA quests that are not answered will disappear and come back at a later date.
The newer quests that were added to the game have requirements that need to be met:
Time Played
How much cash that your company could potentially lose ($50,000).
Executive requirements (level 15)
23. How often are new features added?
Major features are added to the game every month or two.
Small changes are deployed almost every second day, see the change log for the latest updates. There is always something to improve upon and I actively work on the game. If you want to see a few ideas that are under consideration, check out the future development page.
24. Why are incoming contracts different colors? (Red, Green, Black)
Contracts sent by companies will change colors if the price is different than the last accepted contract from that company. The price will change in color.
Red = Higher price than last accepted contract
Green = Lower price than last accepted contract
Black = Same price as last accepted contract
25. How do I reset or delete my account?
In Account Settings.
RESET ACCOUNT:
You will lose:
Company Level
Company money, warehouse inventory, buildings
All Sim Boosts unlocks
Company loans, bonds, research
Production / sales bonus
You will keep:
Supporter status
Sim Boosts
Certificates
Collectibles
Notes
To Delete your account go to DELETE ACCOUNT.
DELETE ACCOUNT:
Delete this Sim Companies account and all associated companies
Permanently delete all data associated to your account at Sim Companies.
As a safety feature you will have to verify the DELETE ACCOUNT through email.
26. Attitude Control is not spelled wrong?
“Attitude control is the process of controlling the orientation of an aerospace vehicle with respect to an inertial frame of reference.” (wikipedia)
27. Why haven’t I received my Sim Boosts from my purchase?
First of all, thx for for supporting the game!
If you used
Braintree (direct card entry or Paypal) or ALGO, the system checks every hour for payments that did not reflect and auto refund them. The player who is refunded should get a PA message about payment being refunded, this should happen 99% of the time, but it can also happen that the system is not able to find the right player to match it to the refunded payment, in that case it is still refunded, but the PA message doesn't happen. So, please wait an hour, it should be refunded automatically.
If you used
Apple, please try clearing Cache and wait up to 24hrs, sometimes Apple needs some time to confirm the payment. Going back into the Sim Boost checkout and selecting the same Package and pressing "Buy"; may cause apple to process the purchase. If your purchase has still not arrived, please send a screenshot of the purchase confirmation from Apple (Including order ID).
If you used
Google pay (paying from the android app) or armor games: First of all, please clear the game cache on the affected device with this link. You can also try to open the buy screen in game again after about 15 minutes, this could trigger the purchase. Another thing that can help is to close and reopen the game.
Unfortunately, sometimes Google even needs up to one day to complete the purchase. If all failed and 24 hours have passed, we still need to issue refunds manually. If this is the case, please tell us your order details (Order ID and E-Mail, order ID starts with "GPA", you have received it from Google).
Concerning these problems, please contact our support.
www.simcompanies.com/report
28. Got your own question?
Try asking in the help chatroom, where other players will gladly answer your questions.
Game Guides
Guide for Beginners, Research Guide, Bonds Guide, Executive Guide, Government Orders Guide, Aerospace