The pallet company buys in raw materials of wood at 20 foot lengths of two-by-four's and 20 foot planks of three-by-one-inch that get delivered to the docks via ship. Your business premises only needs a workshop that can house your tools or machinery, the most important requirement is land space to store your pallets when made.
 |
| Wooden Pallet 01 NewGTAgame.co.uk Business Ideas |
 | |
|
You arrange flatbed-truck delivery of wood, via one of three transport and haulage companies, (that you may can also own later in the game, whenever you can afford them). They deliver to the factory where you make wooden pallets.
 |
| Flatbed GTA4 vehicle mounted crane self side loader NewGTAgame.co.uk |
The wooden pallets can be sold to other factories that produce other stuff that need to be stacked on a pallet. And you also can export any excess produce overseas or to the mainland by filling a 20 foot container and getting it delivered to the docks.
 |
| Footprint of eight 48 inch sq pallets in a 20 foot container. |
Trading and Economy.
For ease of trading in the game, I thought that it should be, that anything you produce should be salable to export. Even stuff like shredded rubber from car tires, (another post elsewhere on this blog), and waste of all sorts, goes to recycling and used as power generation fuel. You would get the best prices for your good produced that could be sold in the game-world islands, getting less revenue for exports per unit. But, then again, exporting is about bulk selling.
 |
| Shipping Container 01 NewGTAgame.co.uk Business Ideas |
Starting Out.
When you first start up your pallet business, you look around for premises and choose any suitable lockup. It must have a large yard to accept 20 foot bails of wood. You need two sizes of wood dimensions to start out with. Like in this video, 'Making a Pallet the Old Fashioned Way'.
The Pallet.
I want to keep the pallets and stacking as simple as possible, so I thought that a 48" by 48" pallet would be a great size to start out with and maybe keep throughout the game in all its formats. Then, because it is square, it should be easy to see how and where it will fit in containers and warehouses.
Upgrading Your Business.
As your business grows, you would invest in machinery, to help you build more pallets quicker and cheaper, as well as making the job easier for your workers. (Less stress and injury and less time off work). h yes, I've got it all in there!
One Man Job.
Making pallets the old fashioned way, can be done with just one man. You would either take control of your worker and do the job once with a button pressing sequence similar to dancing. From then on the worker could be left to do the job. He would turn up at the start of work, (occasionally late, (as you do)). Park his car, get on with the job, take breaks at certain intervals and lunch etc. And go home after work.
Moving Pallets.
Putting the pallets on the floor beside him, when he had 12 high, he would get a hydraulic hand trolley and move them either to a open waiting container, or just stack them in a designated area of the yard. I would love the opportunity to layout my own yards and warehouses. This is where you will personalize your own game, develop your common sense and make plenty of mistakes along the way. That is where all the fun is in playing shops or playing cars, or playing at having a big business.
Get On With It!
You can leave the guy, (or girl), to get on with work, you can employ more staff, have four guys making pallets. Put on a yard man, who locks up, sweeps and fills the bins with sawdust, and even pulls the finished stack of pallets out of the way and stores them so that the builders don't have to stop.
With just one guy, you would need to return at closing time and open up for him in the morning.
Order Stock.
You order your stock and arrange pickup at the docks. It takes several days to be delivered, so you need to order in plenty of time. Next you would need to get your office sorted out, whilst pallets are building up. Hire containers for export and storage or products.
Not GTA!
Now, I know this doesn't sound like GTA, but its not GTA as such. In my perfect GTA style of game, you would own and run businesses, (like the ice-creme factory and others), just as we are talking about here. But, we would have an integration of crime, (if we wanted to), selling drugs and guns, hiding them in goods shipments and the like. I love the GTA4 game-world and San Andreas, (the best of the GTA games), before Liberty City.
Fork-Lift-Truck.
As you expand you would buy a fork lift truck and in my perfect GTA style game, it would be fully working and able to lift anything as it normally would in the real world. The fork-lift allows you to stack higher and get better use out of your floor-space. As you complete a full container load, you shut the doors and have it collected by ringing and paying for a haulage company to take it to the docks. Each dock side would have a certain purpose and the container needs delivering to the right dock.
 |
| ForkTruck Pallet Factory NewGTAgame.co.uk |
Selling To Export.
As soon as it arrives at the dock the shipping company buys it for selling to export, and send you your money. Not all products for the different business types will work this way, I am just using this explanation to get my point over as quick as possible. You can also sell to other factories who will either collect or ask you to deliver the order.
Doing It All Right.
This is difficult to explain, because I don't want you to get bored with thinking that I want to make the game all work legit, with red tape and dotted I's and crossed T's. What I really want is a fully proper economic strategy game on the inside, that you can choose to ignore if you want and just play the game like the current GTA4. Like I say, anyone can blast an innocent bystander in the face with a shotgun and rob them. It takes more skill to build a business in the game world and run it profitably!
Forget all that for the minute!
Expanding the business, since you have already bought a secondhand Fork Lift Truck, (Or stolen one, its up to you). The next thing to do is either look for bigger premises with more storage or rent extra storage elsewhere. Alternately, if you have the space, you could invest in machinery for your workers, so that the can produce more.
Business Upgrades.
Next you get your workers a better machine! Something like in the video below. Then add more workers.
Next you get your employees a better machine!
Then you get more pallet handling machines!
Dockland.
I love the dockland area's both in GTA4 and in Mafia 2. The types of jobs people are working at are logical to some extent. In my version of a GTA style of game, you would see people doing the jobs and actually witness progress. In Mafia 2, you don't really see this, you can see guys endlessly hammering nails into the same place on a crate, or carrying boxes to nowhere! Whats that about?
How it should be!
So, whats my answer? I don't know technically how to make what follows work, but I know someone must know how to make this work! ... When you see people working at a job, they will actually produce something that will add to a stockpile. Or, if loading a vehicle, the vehicle will actually fill up and move off, then another will take its place. You would always have the option to put goods into an empty container for export and various companies would earn money for being a part of the chain.
GTH - Crate Worker.
In Red Dead Redemption, (a game I call Grand Theft Horse-O), there is a chap working at the Las Hermanas train and stage coach station, who opens a crate with a crow-bar, counts the stock inside, (perhaps these could be boxes of shoes from your factory or cigars you've imported), then he puts the lid back on and hammers nails back in to seal the crate!
Just the Ticket!
This is another perfect example of what I mean about working and jobs. You see those guys with the clip-boards in GTA4, this is what they should be doing!
The story-lines and missions that could be generated from the Pallet Business Companies are varied, ranging from turf wars with other companies as you eventually take them over, by either legal or illegal methods; Through to unions and trouble with low paid workers
 |
| Plastic Pallet NewGTAgame.co.uk Pallet Business Idea. |
You would have to slowly change over the manufacturing processes from wooden to plastic pallets. More highly skilled workers required and fewer employees, since it is less labor intensive. Then the problems arise of people loosing jobs to technological advances. And so the story goes on.
Niko.
If the LISTEN NOW LINK is not working or unavailable, then
CLICK THIS LINK
to open the recordings page and
SELECT THE POST you want to listen to, from the list.
SELECT THE POST you want to listen to, from the list.
Facebook Like button.
Facebook Comments.
Article © AndyGold 2011, all other material used like but not limited to images and video, is copyright to either its creator or originator or is used under a creative commons / public domain license.
