Is it just me, or does the money making options on TV/Radio/Newspapers not work properly?

I have a radio station on a hill whose influence covers my entire populated area, both where they live and work. I was able to squeeze 4 radio stations on this well-placed hill, so 2 of them are set to money making stations, yet after 2 years one of these stations has made $0 and the other one has only made about $800, nowhere near enough to overcome 2 years of wages and maintenance. Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Or at least confirm that it is a bug?

It says "per uneducated Tropican" - maybe you've done too good a job in education and no illiterate people are within range?

I have exactly 254 uneducated tropicans, 167 of whom are adults

Check an radio- or TV-station that already exists and check the possible income there overlaying the mouse over the option. If you set up a newsmag, or station, it takes a while until the residents find the frequency of the new channel on their old 1950s TV. Basically stations and mags find their new customers slowly like using viral marketing. This has been already the modus operandi in T1.

Any way to speed that along? My other two have $0 potential if I were to switch it to commercial broadcasts for them too...I'm getting towards 5 years with not a single bit of profit from these things.

maybe some workers were pregnant during the two years, maybe the workers rotated so no one gained much experience, maybe only one moneymaking station is allowed, maybe a station limit (3)...

im just guessing, but that are points that you could test in your setup

maybe you still dont have enough people so that the income is still lower that the expenses, dont know if it works that way

I'm not sure if The Radio/TV/Newspaper have equal radii for Liberty and other bonuses.
I think the "money bonus" radius is lower than you think it is. I can't remember the actual number, though.

Anyway the, way those buildings were imagined was as being placed in the center of a building block. I.e. with many houses near them. Not on a mountain.
As far as I remember, one of the three had a global effect. The other two had to be placed near actual buildings to work.

Try to put them closer to buildings, see if they're still at $0 profits and then post again if the issue still persists.

chrono Wrote:I'm not sure if The Radio/TV/Newspaper have equal radii for Liberty and other bonuses.
I think the "money bonus" radius is lower than you think it is. I can't remember the actual number, though.

Anyway the, way those buildings were imagined was as being placed in the center of a building block. I.e. with many houses near them. Not on a mountain.
As far as I remember, one of the three had a global effect. The other two had to be placed near actual buildings to work.

Try to put them closer to buildings, see if they're still at $0 profits and then post again if the issue still persists.

I will experiment and post my results, but I must say that the description of 'for every X tropican in range' combined with the gigantic green circle displaying its radius of effect makes one think that everyone within that radius will be able to tune in. After all, if they can tune into the radio free tropico and all presidente all day at the outer rangers of that circle, why can't they hear the commercial broadcasts too?

I've had the same problem on occasion. Sometimes switching between the types of programs help, but sometimes they just stay at $0 profit.

and shouldnt the radius get bigger, the higher the building is placed?

Okay, experimentation complete.

I built a housing development center and built my two commercial radio stations next to it and got some very interesting data.
One radio station immediatly started pulling in 6000+ on the opera station. That made sense since this development was all my higher class citizens, free of any tenements. The radio station next to it started out only pulling about $98 profit when set to 'bubblegum pop' which was the next most profitable station for the area.

Now I noticed that the opera station got two transfers from some of my other stations, and they were practically at 100% skill, where as the two journalists that went into the pop station were fresh out of college and had no journalism skill. However, over the course of a year they built up enough skill to push the station into a break-even range.

To further test this, I built a newspaper in the same area set to Coupons 'N More. Three fresh college grads came in and they gave me a whopping $7 profit. However, over the course of a year, they had not grown in profits nearly as much as their radio counterparts, at around maybe $27 in profits.

So your suggestion of putting them near residences is working, though it does fly in the face of the 'stick these on high mountains for better effects'. I wish I could see the 'commercial radius' as well as the 'respect/liberty' radius if it is different. Now I am paranoid that my beloved stations that are set to the liberty/respect stations aren't actually hitting anyone, despite the %s that they show.

Perhaps the further out the housing buildings are, the longer it takes for the profit to come in? Kinda as if the signal is crystal clear right next to the station, but all static-like further away, or paper routes aren't as well planned with the fresh journalist there. Which might help in having better trained journalist at the stations/newspapers and be a bit more realistic.

Perhaps try starting a new game and cheating to build everything how you want it, set journalist into these and record the profits they pull in year after year as they gather experience. You can try this with different games and having the housing complexes further and further distances away. I'd try but I won't be able to play T3 for about a week, so you can run this test, or I can run it later for ya if you want.

no I got the same results, the area of influence the color coding shows has absolutely nothing to do with its actual area of effect. which makes the newspaper especially useless since the model is so unreasonably huge.

You have correctly discovered that the opera is potentially the most profitable of all stations(due to subtle differences in the way the formulas are calculated). Still, to utilize it, you'll need a whole block of College people

The newspaper is indeed bigger, but its *respect-giving* modes are active *for the entire map*.

I just checked, the Liberty radius is quite large. Who in their right mind made it so big? Kids these days, they have their games too easy for them
Well, for the most part of that huge radius, you only get a partial Liberty bonus, so I guess it's okay.

The "living in the area" radius for the buildings is about 100 meters. For reference, the TV station is about 35 meters on its longest side. That allows you to put no more than ~30 buildings near a station. It isn't very big, but it counts people *living* in the area, not just passing by, so it gives large bonuses.

And I was always putting big, ugly news paper buildings on the outskirts of the city.

tropicotim Wrote:and shouldn't the radius get bigger, the higher the building is placed?

In T1, that worked only for the Radio Station.

SEE -- this isn't T1 anymore!!!! It's a new game, and needs to be learned anew.

chrono Wrote:You have correctly discovered that the opera is potentially the most profitable of all stations(due to subtle differences in the way the formulas are calculated). Still, to utilize it, you'll need a whole block of College people

The newspaper is indeed bigger, but its *respect-giving* modes are active *for the entire map*.

I just checked, the Liberty radius is quite large. Who in their right mind made it so big? Kids these days, they have their games too easy for them
Well, for the most part of that huge radius, you only get a partial Liberty bonus, so I guess it's okay.

The "living in the area" radius for the buildings is about 100 meters. For reference, the TV station is about 35 meters on its longest side. That allows you to put no more than ~30 buildings near a station. It isn't very big, but it counts people *living* in the area, not just passing by, so it gives large bonuses.

Thank you for that clarification! And I guess global effects for the newspapers (aside from Coupons) kinda justifies their size. Now I see why you gave them their own garages. This also throws a monkey wrench in my original plans to develop a standard residential zone. Back to the drawing board I guess


My remaining question is how large is the radius of the liberty/respect/learning with Larry stations for TV and/or Radio? I'm specifically concerned about Learning with Larry, as I want that to hit as many people as possible to leverage its effect. And do people have to live within that radius or merely be working there? Or both?

It's the same as with other stations. The workplace needs to be close to the TV station.

Hi, chrono, what about the liberty bonus radii of TV/Radio/Newspaper?
You just mentioned that liberty radii were quite huge, but for the most part, we could only get a partial liberty bonus. I wonder how much percentage/amount is decreased.

I guess that TV station has the largest dark green liberty radius, then radio station and newspaper has a quite small one, am I right?

Your newspaper is just run by noobs

But my TV station is also run by noobs.
Is the size of radius decided by the average skill of journalists? I'm afraid not...

chrono Wrote:Your newspaper is just run by noobs

I suppose the full answer is get them killed and replaced by new, highly motivated, individuals.

Promotions run fast sometimes

The range of the stations seems to be static, regardless of the skill of the journalists. However the $ per tropican in that radius is heavily influenced by journalist skill.

I haven't noticed any glitches with this... I have an island of 800 with a fairly dense population. My bubble gum pop radio station is making $12000 a year. And the "male tv programming" (I forget the cutesy name for it) makes $2000 a year or so...

There's a perhaps useful summary here:
http://forum.kalypsomedia.com/showthread...6#pid93496

Once again, effects are not as simple as they are presented. Not quite intuitive for players?

> "Homes" per occupants whether or not "resting" (at home)

> "Workers at work" i.e. gaining experience on-the-job

> Global effects at a dimishing rate from media building

Revenue calculated at an undefined count point.

Bonus effect(s) applied at unit life cycle count point.