CDS Discussion

I think that those figures would be really excellent guidelines, but the RA needs to have the flexibility to be able to contravene them for a good reason.

And Neufreistadt or other sims like them are pretty good reasons.

I love the analysis, and if you want to maximize plots, and minimize public building, this is an excellent template.

Sudane Erato wrote:I am with total respect for Trebor's work on this very much needed resolution. He indeed thoroughly understands sim numbers and economics, and he has presented them in as clear way as I have ever seen... despite the seeming profusion of numbers for those who may be more number-impaired.

The only question I would raise is purely conceptual. Trebor proposes an economic template for each new sim that we add. In the interest of making this somewhat complex task as easy as possible for everyone to understand, which intent I TOTALLY agree with, the template has fixed numbers for public/private land ratios and prim multipliers.

The numbers as presented create a sim like LA, with a very low number of public prims and a high ratio of private prims. This template would completely prevent creation of a sim like Neufreistadt, which has a comparatively huge number of public prims (I don't have the numbers offhand, but I think as many as a third or more of the prims of NFS are public). I suggest that it might be a shame to constrain ourselves to a new sim template that eliminates the option of creating a sim such as NFS.

Sadly, my suggestion can only make Trebor's elegant and accurate solution much more complex... and he is quite right to urgently propose that the details of this be simple. But perhaps a tiny clause might be inserted into the proposal that, subject to the same requirements of break-even calculations, modifications to the template will be considered by the RA for justifiable cause.


Sudane.....................

Ceasar Xigalia wrote “We are prospering, in the black, posting a surplus and part of that is due to the attractiveness of our regions. I would point out that we have had our breakeven point at around 80% for all the regions for the past 10 years and we are thriving.”

Absolutely incorrect and coming from someone who has been involved with the CDS for as many years as you have Ceasar it saddens me that you did absolutely no research before you made this post. Our breakeven point has only been at around 80% since August 2011. That was when my proposal to lower the tier to a uniform rate was passed into legislation.

Before August of 2011 we “thrived” on an overall breakeven point of 68%, broken down as NFS 75%, CN 52%, AM 58%, LA 71% and MON 68%. With 100% occupancy we were collecting $1698.11 in tier. Our cost to LL has remained unchanged since each region was brought online, $1,075.00 a month. That is how we “thrived” Ceasar, by making a profit of up to $623.00 a month. That is how and why we have a healthy reserve in our treasury and that was why the tier was adjusted to the breakeven point of 80% in August, 2011.

Here is the link to the treasury and the financial reports from April 2005 to current. http://portal.slcds.info/index.php/bran ... treasurer/

Ceasar Xigalia also wrote “it introduces a more stringent requirement for occupancy to break even (the current recommendation is 80% occupancy to break even, this law would make it 75%) which Sudane pointed out in the forums greatly reduces the type of region design one can do.”

Once again absolutely incorrect, quite the opposite in fact. The Oxford Dictionary defines stringent as “(of regulations, requirements, or conditions) strict, precise, and exacting.” Sample sentence “their produce must be processed under the most stringent conditions by well-trained staff.”

By lowering the breakeven point we are making it easier for CDS to meet their financial obligations, not stringent. When we increased the breakeven point in August 2011 that would have been considered more stringent.

This paragraph is addressed to everyone who posts in the forums. Get your shit straight before you start posting. I’ve ranted about it before and I’ll rant about it again. Nothing pisses me off more than having to waste hours upon hours correcting other people’s mistakes, lies, accusations, misstatements, misinformation, so on and so forth. In Ceasars post an unknowing CDS citizen would think our breakeven point has been at 80 percent when in reality for the majority of those years it was 52 – 75 percent depending on what region you examined. Quite a big difference from 80 percent, in fact a 12 percent difference.

Now to address and clear up some concerns that Sudane has brought to the table.
Sudane states, “Which intent I TOTALLY agree with, the template has fixed numbers for public/private land ratios and prim multipliers.”

In reality, no, the template does not have fixed numbers for public/private land ratios and prim multipliers. The only fixed number is the breakeven point. If we want all of our regions, current and future, to have a breakeven point of 75 percent than we must have the ability to collect at the most, (100 percent occupancy) of US$393.00.

I will remind readers that the development of our original five regions was performed with no template in mind. That is why, until August 2011, CDS had five regions with five totally different tier rates. Three of those five regions were also grandfathered in, meaning our cost to LL is less than the current rates. I was asked by Sudane and many other supporters of my 2011 tier proposal to make the tier uniform. Whether we own 5 regions or 50 regions I was asked to calculate it out so the per prim rate was uniform across all regions the only difference being the type of region (Full or Homestead). I explained in my proposal that slight adjustments would need to be made once we began expanding beyond our original five because of the cost to LL.

The Land Sale and Tier Act doesn’t restrict our expansion based on prim multipliers. It does restrict our expansion to the per prim tier rate based on the type of region and the breakeven point. The tier rate for a full region under this act is US$0.03 per prim (3 cents). The tier rate for a homestead region under this act is US$0.06 (6 cents).

Sudane mentions, “This template would completely prevent creation of a region like Neufreistadt, which has a comparatively huge number of public prims.”

Without digging through tons of files I do believe that NFS has a private/public ratio of around 50 percent. The limitation on developing a region like NFS (private/public ratio at 50 percent) isn’t due to the constraints of the template it’s due to the fact NFS costs us only $195.00 a month. So how would/could we develop a region with a 50/50 ratio and still maintain a breakeven point of 75 percent? By adjusting the price per prim.

Tier needed to collect at 100 percent to maintain a 75 percent breakeven point - $393.00

Private prims for a 50/50 ratio – 7,500

Public prims for a 50/50 ratio – 7,500

Tier per prim – (393.00 / 7500) = US$ .0524 (5.24 cents).

So based on this information we could put a clause into the Land Sale and Tier Act that any adjustments to the public/private land ratio must be adjusted by the tier per prim rate. This will change our per prim rate for that region but all regions will still have the same breakeven point and in turn the same amount of tier collected at 100 percent.

Well I’ve put in my 5 hours of work today on behalf of the CDS. Give me some feedback on this scenario and let’s see where it goes. It does provide more flexibility in the design of future regions but it takes away what was originally requested in 2011, uniform per prim rate for all regions. Kind of a “you can’t have your cake and eat it to” situation.

Trebor Warcliffe

Trebor Warcliffe wrote: Now to address and clear up some concerns that Sudane has brought to the table.
Sudane states, “Which intent I TOTALLY agree with, the template has fixed numbers for public/private land ratios and prim multipliers.”

In reality, no, the template does not have fixed numbers for public/private land ratios and prim multipliers. The only fixed number is the breakeven point. If we want all of our regions, current and future, to have a breakeven point of 75 percent than we must have the ability to collect at the most, (100 percent occupancy) of US$393.00.

I stand corrected. I read the original proposal as setting "all" the parameters (break-even and tier/prim/month) and not just the break-even.

Trebor Warcliffe wrote: The Land Sale and Tier Act doesn’t restrict our expansion based on prim multipliers. It does restrict our expansion to the per prim tier rate based on the type of region and the breakeven point. The tier rate for a full region under this act is US$0.03 per prim (3 cents). The tier rate for a homestead region under this act is US$0.06 (6 cents).

Sudane mentions, “This template would completely prevent creation of a region like Neufreistadt, which has a comparatively huge number of public prims.”

Without digging through tons of files I do believe that NFS has a private/public ratio of around 50 percent. The limitation on developing a region like NFS (private/public ratio at 50 percent) isn’t due to the constraints of the template it’s due to the fact NFS costs us only $195.00 a month. So how would/could we develop a region with a 50/50 ratio and still maintain a breakeven point of 75 percent? By adjusting the price per prim.

Tier needed to collect at 100 percent to maintain a 75 percent breakeven point - $393.00

Private prims for a 50/50 ratio – 7,500

Public prims for a 50/50 ratio – 7,500

Tier per prim – (393.00 / 7500) = US$ .0524 (5.24 cents).

So based on this information we could put a clause into the Land Sale and Tier Act that any adjustments to the public/private land ratio must be adjusted by the tier per prim rate. This will change our per prim rate for that region but all regions will still have the same breakeven point and in turn the same amount of tier collected at 100 percent.

This would work for me. As I noted, adding this kind of flexibility would, sadly, make the situation more complex. But it would also enable us to add new sims with a range of public/private land/prim ratios. As Trebor notes, and I suspect that he's right, NFS has perhaps a 50/50 public/private prim ratio, yet in many ways it is our most popular sim. Repeating that would be very difficult (since NFS has an emotional and historical significance beyond its economic structure)... but at least it would be good to allow this kind of structure in legislation.


Sudane...................

I was concerned with not having the flexibility to set private/public percentages as well, but with this sorted out I would agree with the proposal. We need these guidelines in place before the purchasing of a new sim. Nice work!

Now this is where I am genuinely asking how we handle the price per prim today?

Because, say, the public works in a Neufreistadt SIM arguably benefits everyone in CDS, yet this bill will saddle only the residents of that sim with the bill?

Could we have a CDS wide ratio that must be maintained between private a public between certain limits (say give leeway so you don't have to add 5 sims in order to have a NFS-like SIM) since the public buildings are arguably for the benefit of the entire community? This would also allow the flexibility of having, a SIM around a single big build if everyone wanted it with no plots on it or just a couple for aesthetic reasons?

It might actually simplify things a little instead of accounting for things SIM by SIM - but the entirety of CDS?

Just a couple of thoughts. I was in planning meetings all day today, does it show?

Bromo Ivory wrote:Now this is where I am genuinely asking how we handle the price per prim today?

Because, say, the public works in a Neufreistadt SIM arguably benefits everyone in CDS, yet this bill will saddle only the residents of that sim with the bill?

Could we have a CDS wide ratio that must be maintained between private a public between certain limits (say give leeway so you don't have to add 5 sims in order to have a NFS-like SIM) since the public buildings are arguably for the benefit of the entire community? This would also allow the flexibility of having, a SIM around a single big build if everyone wanted it with no plots on it or just a couple for aesthetic reasons?

It might actually simplify things a little instead of accounting for things SIM by SIM - but the entirety of CDS?

Just a couple of thoughts. I was in planning meetings all day today, does it show?

Thank you for your questions Bromo, I will do my best to address them. To repeat what I've mentioned multiple times in previous posts in this thread, we already have a CDS ratio that must be maintained between private and public land. As of August 2011 all of our Full Regions have the same per prim rate which is based on the cost of a region and where we want our breakeven point at. The uniform per prim rate was one of the main issues I was asked to address back than. A uniform per prim rate sets the public/private prim ratio to a set amount for every single prim which is in your words accounting for things by the entirety of the CDS.

Sudane posed the question of what if we want to deviate from the public/private prim ratio. Our cost per region to LL is a constant amount, $295 & $125 so we need to have our breakeven point (75%) constant. So what is left that can be adjusted? The amount we charge per prim, that is the variable. So to answer the question, no if we want a region with a public/private land/prim ratio that is different than the set amounts described in my proposal than the per prim rate on that particular region will be different. That region will either be a premium (per prim rate above 3 cents) or a discount (per prim rate below 3 cents) all based on the public/private ratio.

Trebor Warcliffe

Thanks for answering, Trebor.

I guess my main concern at this point is that while it might be able to account of prims and prim prices on a "per SIM" basis, it will make large NFS-like builds economically impossible if desired.

If we were to apply the law, today, to all the SIMs, we'd find exhorbinant rates in NFS, Monastery and less exhorbinant in CN, and the cheapest in the places like AM and LA.

You could accomplish the same effect with additional flexibility as the law quite simply by making the per-prim rate uniform through CDS, and that the overall economic plan break even rate needs to be based around a certain occupancy rate that remains constant, but across all of CDS.

You could post the suggested public/private ratios as guidelines to achieving this, but not give the force of law. The Force of law is the intended effect (we want to make sure the whole of CDS is break even at 80% (or was it 75%?) occupancy rates).

That way the law would allow for people to plan a NFS like sim that can actually be occupied.

I guess, I am not seeing the requirement to make each and every SIM stand on its own if the whole region, if 75% (0r 80%) full is rented and break even, since it would limit our ability to do something really cool down the road without having to amend, repeal or make and exception to this law.

And with doing an aggregate "whole SIM" basis, it would also make us think of our collection of public works all together - for instance, if we wanted to build a giant public arena in a SIM, and just a couple of plots, in order to make it work, we might have to de-prim and repacel, or rethink other works in other sims, rather than just make incredibly expensive plots in the one to make the numbers for that one sim work out. It would also allow us to create, say, some sailing sims, without socking the few parcel owners with the tab, we could reallocate, and reparcel, and de-prim in some public works elsewhere to make the "prim room" for it all and still have it economically work out without raising people's rents.

Bromo Ivory wrote:Thanks for answering, Trebor.

I guess my main concern at this point is that while it might be able to account of prims and prim prices on a "per SIM" basis, it will make large NFS-like builds economically impossible if desired.

If we were to apply the law, today, to all the SIMs, we'd find exhorbinant rates in NFS, Monastery and less exhorbinant in CN, and the cheapest in the places like AM and LA.

You could accomplish the same effect with additional flexibility as the law quite simply by making the per-prim rate uniform through CDS, and that the overall economic plan break even rate needs to be based around a certain occupancy rate that remains constant, but across all of CDS.

You could post the suggested public/private ratios as guidelines to achieving this, but not give the force of law. The Force of law is the intended effect (we want to make sure the whole of CDS is break even at 80% (or was it 75%?) occupancy rates).

That way the law would allow for people to plan a NFS like sim that can actually be occupied.

I guess, I am not seeing the requirement to make each and every SIM stand on its own if the whole region, if 75% (0r 80%) full is rented and break even, since it would limit our ability to do something really cool down the road without having to amend, repeal or make and exception to this law.

And with doing an aggregate "whole SIM" basis, it would also make us think of our collection of public works all together - for instance, if we wanted to build a giant public arena in a SIM, and just a couple of plots, in order to make it work, we might have to de-prim and repacel, or rethink other works in other sims, rather than just make incredibly expensive plots in the one to make the numbers for that one sim work out. It would also allow us to create, say, some sailing sims, without socking the few parcel owners with the tab, we could reallocate, and reparcel, and de-prim in some public works elsewhere to make the "prim room" for it all and still have it economically work out without raising people's rents.

Bromo you have to remember our cost for our original 5 regions is $195, 195, 295, 295, 95. Any new regions are 295 and 125. If you go back in the forums to around August 2011 you'll see the analysis and work that went into our current tier structure which has a uniform per prim or per sqm rate which is what was requested at that time. The "increase" in tier to bring on a new region and still keep the per prim rate uniform is 0.0023. Current per prim rate 0.0277 + 0.0023 = 0.0300. That's an increase of less than 1/4th of a PENNY.

As a citizen and not the avatar working on this proposal my personal opinion is I don't want to have to pay more for my little home in NFS to support another region I have no interest in. The only way I would find that acceptable is if an entire region was all public prims. Then I could possibly justify a uniform increase in tier across all the other regions to support that particular public region. Please remember the MAIN objective in August 2011 asked of me was to have a uniform per prim rate across all regions. We were trying to get away from the idea of each region having their own per prim rate. Please look back at my work and you'll see how varied the per prim rate was because of the land ratio.

Trebor Warcliffe

Trebor Warcliffe wrote:

Bromo Ivory wrote:Thanks for answering, Trebor.

I guess my main concern at this point is that while it might be able to account of prims and prim prices on a "per SIM" basis, it will make large NFS-like builds economically impossible if desired.

If we were to apply the law, today, to all the SIMs, we'd find exhorbinant rates in NFS, Monastery and less exhorbinant in CN, and the cheapest in the places like AM and LA.

You could accomplish the same effect with additional flexibility as the law quite simply by making the per-prim rate uniform through CDS, and that the overall economic plan break even rate needs to be based around a certain occupancy rate that remains constant, but across all of CDS.

You could post the suggested public/private ratios as guidelines to achieving this, but not give the force of law. The Force of law is the intended effect (we want to make sure the whole of CDS is break even at 80% (or was it 75%?) occupancy rates).

That way the law would allow for people to plan a NFS like sim that can actually be occupied.

I guess, I am not seeing the requirement to make each and every SIM stand on its own if the whole region, if 75% (0r 80%) full is rented and break even, since it would limit our ability to do something really cool down the road without having to amend, repeal or make and exception to this law.

And with doing an aggregate "whole SIM" basis, it would also make us think of our collection of public works all together - for instance, if we wanted to build a giant public arena in a SIM, and just a couple of plots, in order to make it work, we might have to de-prim and repacel, or rethink other works in other sims, rather than just make incredibly expensive plots in the one to make the numbers for that one sim work out. It would also allow us to create, say, some sailing sims, without socking the few parcel owners with the tab, we could reallocate, and reparcel, and de-prim in some public works elsewhere to make the "prim room" for it all and still have it economically work out without raising people's rents.

Bromo you have to remember our cost for our original 5 regions is $195, 195, 295, 295, 95. Any new regions are 295 and 125. If you go back in the forums to around August 2011 you'll see the analysis and work that went into our current tier structure which has a uniform per prim or per sqm rate which is what was requested at that time. The "increase" in tier to bring on a new region and still keep the per prim rate uniform is 0.0023. Current per prim rate 0.0277 + 0.0023 = 0.0300. That's an increase of less than 1/4th of a PENNY.

As a citizen and not the avatar working on this proposal my personal opinion is I don't want to have to pay more for my little home in NFS to support another region I have no interest in. The only way I would find that acceptable is if an entire region was all public prims. Then I could possibly justify a uniform increase in tier across all the other regions to support that particular public region. Please remember the MAIN objective in August 2011 asked of me was to have a uniform per prim rate across all regions. We were trying to get away from the idea of each region having their own per prim rate. Please look back at my work and you'll see how varied the per prim rate was because of the land ratio.

Trebor Warcliffe

Hey Trebor,

I understand your proposal, and also what it might mean for furture growth and expansion in CDS. As a former (I guess current, too) SIM owner I am well aware of the overall tier rates, land ratios and price per prim, and what that means for rentals.

Just understanding the rationale behind your proposal was what I was asking - and I think your opinion on the proposal hinges upon whether you want CDS to be flexible on how they grow and expand, or inflexible. This proposal will essentially make impossible large projects and single purpose sims, or really even another NFS like SIM. Is that a bad thing? Will it impact how we expand CDS? Who knows. I just would rather give the future RA's the flexibility and ability to plan so long as the whole region was economically viable. I'm also of the mind that the public buildings are public buildings and are everyone's in CDS and the burden should be shared. If nobody cares about it to pay for it, then the discussion should be what to do with them, not really anything else.

If we can craft a bill that would set up these templates as examples, but not taking away the RA flexibility to set prim rates as they see fit (either sim wide, per SIM or somewhere in between) as CDS expands so long as overall viability of CDS is maintained, and not force the economic model into any one particular mold.

You mentioned that you were asked in 2011. Were you asked this time to make this proposal? If so, by whom?