Farming Simulator 22 (FS22) offers players the chance to run their own virtual farm, managing crops, livestock, forestry, and more. One of the key mechanics in the game is productions – processing raw ingredients like wool, grain or fruit into more valuable products like cloth, flour or jam. Choosing the right productions and optimizing your supply chains can massively boost your farming profits. In this guide, we’ll break down the most lucrative options based on insights from popular FS22 YouTuber Farmer Cop.
An Introduction to Productions
Before jumping into the profit analysis, let’s quickly recap how productions work in Farming Simulator 22. At specialized production facilities like bakeries, you can process raw ingredients like eggs and flour into baked goods like cakes. The production cycle turns your inputs into outputs after a set duration, and outputs can even be used in further production chains. The key considerations are:
- Input costs – How much do you spend on the ingredients?
- Process duration – Shorter is better to enable more cycles.
- Output value – What’s the end product worth?
- Profit margin – The all-important percentage of how much money you make.
Balancing these factors allows you to zero in on the options that will bring in the most money over time.
Analyzing Input Costs vs. Output Profits
When assessing production chains, your first step should always be to analyze the input costs versus output value. As Farmer Cop demonstrates in his video “Productions Profit Test”, there are some instances where you generate more profit simply by selling the ingredients outright instead of processing them further.
For example, 1,000 liters of sugarcane juice costs $660. Processing it into sugar would cost an additional $20 and result in a value of $760. You’d make only $80 profit instead of pocketing $660 right away by selling the sugarcane juice. This shows how vital that very first profit calculation is.
However, in most cases, putting ingredients through production cycles nets you vastly more money – especially when optimized efficiently with high cycle frequencies. As we’ll see next, productions like cakes, wool and clothing offer excellent returns.
Pinpointing the Most Profitable Productions
Here are some of the most lucrative production options in Farming Simulator 22:
A Sweet Money-Maker: Cakes
Cakes offer the highest profit per production cycle according to Farmer Cop’s testing, netting $14.04. To make a batch of 28 cakes requires:
- 6 eggs = $42
- 1 bag of flour = $84
- Total input: $126
Those ingredients get processed into cakes that sell for $798, making the profit $798 – $126 = $672. Divide that by 28 cakes and you get $14.04 profit per cake.
What makes cakes particularly lucrative is that the cake production facility can complete 192 cycles per month. At 28 cakes per cycle, that’s 5,376 cakes getting churned out, resulting in $75,512 in profit per month from this single production chain!
Clearly, getting your virtual bakery up and running should be a top priority. The high demand for cakes means you’ll face no problems selling all that sweet, sweet product.
Shear Profits: Wool & Clothing
Another series of excellent production chains is wool getting processed into fabric, which then gets crafted into clothing. As Farmer Cop breaks it down:
- 1,600 liters of wool costs $12,800
- Processing into fabric has a duration of 60 minutes and value of $18,048
- Profit margin: 141%
After getting turned into fabric, a further round of production can turn it into clothes:
- 1,600 fabric costs $18,048
- Processing into clothes takes 70 minutes
- Clothes sell for $36,096
- Profit margin: 100%
As you can see, the wool alone nets you 141% profit. You can double that by additionally making it into clothes for an incredible 241% total profit margin.
This demonstrates how lucrative further processing stages can be in Farming Simulator 22. Optimizing supply chains to boost margins is vital.
An Olive Branch: Olive Oil
Farmer Cop’s testing shows olive oil as one of the strongest standalone production options (i.e. not counting additional processing stages). Here’s what the math looks like:
- 1,000 olives cost $260
- Processing into olive oil takes 60 minutes
- 1,000 liters of olive oil sells for $3,200
- Profit per cycle = $2,940
With high demand guaranteeing brisk sales, olive oil deserves its place among the most profitable productions. An efficient olive orchard and oil mill will keep this liquid gold flowing nicely.
Optimizing Your Productions Strategy
Now that we’ve highlighted some profitable options, here are tips for optimizing your productions from start to finish:
Pick Only the Most Profitable Chains
By thoroughly analyzing profit margins as shown earlier, determine 2-3 focus productions for your farm. Balance high profits with sufficient input ingredient supply and storage for outputs.
Reinvest Profits Into Upgrades
As soon as possible, invest your earnings into production building upgrades like increased cycle speeds or additional output slots. This further improves efficiency over time.
Streamline with Clustered Buildings
Minimize travel and logistics headaches by clustering together complementary production buildings. For example, have your wheat and flour mills side-by-side to enable efficient feeding of ingredients.
Leave Sufficient Storage Headroom
Always leave at least 10-20% extra storage capacity for produced goods. Overflowing storage tanks bottlenecks everything fast. Upgrade as needed.
Use Autoload Trailers
Transport produced goods to sell points quicker by using autoload trailers. Reduce the time taken traveling back and forth.
Avoiding Pitfalls
While optimizing your burgeoning production empire, beware of some common pitfalls:
Failing to Upgrade Storage
Especially in the early game, it’s easy to overlook your storage capacities. Once tanks hit 100%, everything grinds to a halt. Build buffer room.
Not Accounting for Transport Time
You need sufficient tractors, trucks or conveyors to transport inputs and outputs without delays. This gets challenging as operations expand.
Overlooking Staffing Needs
Additional workers help enormously in harvesting, transporting goods, operating production buildings etc. Assign helpers whenever affordable.
Limited Selling Point Access
If you’re able to produce goods far quicker than a sell point can accept them, see if adding more selling points helps avoid backups.
Conclusion
With shrewd analysis of profit margins and optimized productions chains, Farming Simulator 22 players can reap immense rewards. Our guide has just scratched the surface of the many ways to leverage productions for bigger profits. Here are some key tips to remember:
🔼 Choose options with high profit cycles like cakes or wool.
🔼 Further processing boosts margins tremendously. Go for vertical integration!
🔼 Scale up productions rapidly by reinvesting profits.
We hope these insights on maximizing profits will set your virtual farm on the path to tremendous success. Let us know which production strategies have worked best for you! There are always more refinements to explore.