Debt

how to manage it?

I am a newbie to this game, and totally hooked, but am unable to proceed because I can't manage my debts.

I have read a lot of discussions and watched many videos, and what I understand, debt is incurred through the life support requirements

(power, food, oxygen, fuel) I hold balances of all and the input is positive (greater than demand), but still my debt increases.

I am stuck with this problem at the "Proof of Employment" learning stage. What am I missing? Any help would be much appreciated

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Debt is also incurred via auctions, purchasing inputs to your factories and interest on debt.

The combination of auctions and interest that killed me most when I was starting because interest is back breaking so you need to make sure what you purchase in the auction pays for the debt you just acquired.

Inputs to factories can sneak up on you.

A fairly common example is water. It is used by many factories in addition to life support. It can become quite valuable in its own right. You can run massive surpluses and yet still accrue debt from it because it is often targeted by the enemy, it is often valuable enough to sell off your stockpiles, some sources of water only produce during the daytime, and the use of stimulants can outpace your surplus.

The end result being that although you produce a surplus, it doesn't mean you have a surplus when the factory needs more.

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FYI TunaFish... I am not sure of cause and effect, but you were the topic of discussion on Discord last night...

Well sort of.

I had wondered about including the whole 'Inputs to factories can sneak up on you' comment, but felt obligated to do so since I expect that was the primary unaccounted for source of debt.

Anyway... I say you popped up in the discord discussion, because that specific aspect of debt, is actually an advanced strategy, that most beginners (myself included) exploit unwittingly. Of course, since they are exploiting the strategy unwittingly, the strategy usually leads to disaster., but it is the strategy simply stated as: Converting Debt to Cash.

Example: I have 100 water worth 100 gold that I will use to produce 100 oxygen at 200 gold.

Standard Math 1: I sell the water and turn of oxygen. Net 10000 cash

Standard Math 2: I wait for the water to convert to oxygen. Net 20000 cash

Convert Debt to Cash: I sell the water and buy the water for oxygen on the open market then sell the oxygen. Net 30000 cash, 10000 debt (I have thus converted 10K debt into 10K cash because I bought the water used to make oxygen via cash)

They were going into more details and ramifications but last night, you were the muse of discord.

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