As I watched my Inventor Sim crank away at his workbench, I started wondering which items had the best ROI. ROI stands for "Return On Investment," and it's a useful way to compare several different items to see which is most profitable.
In this case, the initial investment is pieces of scrap. You can even put an actual price on each item of scrap, which is $5.50 per piece if you buy it through the workbench. My Sim doesn't buy scrap, but he spends time digging each piece out of the junkyard. For all that work, I want him to really get his time's worth!
| Item | # Scrap | Sells For |
Per Scrap |
| Time Machine | 63 | $1600 | $25 |
| Robot Toy (Cheap) | 2 | $50 | $25 |
| Whale Toy (Cheap) | 1 | $23 | $23 |
| Harvester | 21 | $400 | $19 |
| Miner | 42 | $800 | $19 |
| Floor Hygeinator | 8 | $150 | $18.75 |
| Floating Duck | 5 | $84 | $16.80 |
| Cow Toy (Cheap) | 1 | $16 | $16 |
| Flying Fighters | 6 | $90 | $15 |
| Dog Toy (Cheap) | 1 | $12 | $12 |
| Smasher | 1 | $12 | $12 |
| Robot Toy (Regular) | 5 | $50 | $10 |
| Air Bender | 4 | $37 | $9.25 |
| Rotational Pull | 2 | $15 | $7.50 |
| Claw Dipper | 2 | $15 | $7.50 |
| Whale Toy (Regular) | 4 | $23 | $5.75 |
| Dog Toy (Regular) | 2 | $11 | $5.50 |
| Cow Toy (Regular) | 3 | $16 | $5.30 |
| Drinking Llama | 1 | $4 | $4 |
| Localized Static Tester | 5 | $20 | $4 |
| Tentacled Wind-Up | 3 | $9 | $3 |
I should note that these prices are for a Sim at the top of his game. The toys you make at the beginning are worth a lot less. As your Sim improves, so does the price you can get for them. These are the prices for a Sim at level 8 of the Inventor profession, and with maxed out (level 10) Inventing skill.
For each item, I have listed the number of scrap pieces it takes to make it, what it sells for, and the sale price per scrap. If an item takes 2 scrap and sells for $10, that's a per-scrap sales price of $5. As you can see, the table is sorted by per-scrap value, with the best value at the top.
Some interesting things popped out at me, once I put it all in table form. There are two high-value items, the Time Machine and… the Cheap Robot Toy! At $25 per scrap each, these are far and away a better value than almost anything else.
A regular Robot Toy and a Cheap Robot Toy both sell for the same amount. But the Cheap Robot Toy only takes 2 scrap, where a regular one takes 5 scrap. That's a pretty big difference! I imagine the Cheap Robot Toy breaks faster, but who cares? You're just trying to maximize your profits.
From a strictly profit-oriented perspective, the Cheap Robot Toy gives you the best bang for your buck. It earns the same amount, per scrap, as the big-ticket item (the Time Machine). But because you're making lots of small toys, you can cash out a lot faster.
The worst value on this chart is the Tentacled Wind-Up, at a mere $3 per scrap. And note that if you're buying scrap from the workbench (instead of scavenging it), you are actually LOSING MONEY if you make anything which is worth $5.50 per scrap or less! (I colored those losers red.)
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