Suddenly In Debt.

[Guest Genericata]

Been playing for about 10 months of game time.

Have 7 bases with a mixture of soldiers/engineers/scientists and approx $2 million in the bank.

The maintenance on all my bases comes to about $8 million.

 

Just received the latest status report where I received $11 million from the funding committe but saying they were unhappy with my being in debt???

 

Immeadiately checked the graphs where maintenance was shown at $20 million spent ??? Which is why I'm in debt, but checking the base information screens again still only adds up to abour $8 million for maintenance.

So where's all my money gone? Or is this a bug?

 

I know I can change the amount of money using the Xcom game editor - and I have - but the fact I was in debt still shows in my score and if the same thing happens at the end of the current month I could lose the game. Which will really annoy me.

 

Has anyone else experienced this? Any ideas to help?

Thanks

[Sporb]

did you factor in man costs and aircraft rental?

[Guest Genericata]

Yep; man costs and aircraft rental are included in the figures relating to base maintenance.

[Hobbes]

How many scientists/engineers/soldiers/Skyrangers/Interceptors do you have?

On my current game (more than 1 year past by) I have some 250 scientists, 200 engineers and 70 soldiers and 1 Skyranger, with 7 bases, costing me some 16 million $ (by adding the values of the maintenance for all bases I get that value). Right now I have some 18 million $ in cash plus 9 million funding.

 

20 $ million for 7 bases with scientists and engineers on all of them, plus aircraft sounds right. You probably forgot to add something.

 

You don't really need to use the editor to jack up your monies. Here's a couple of things you can do:

- Get rid of the Interceptors and most Skyrangers and replace them with advanced craft to eliminate rental costs. It will cost you Elerium to fuel them but if you raid 2-3 undamaged UFOs (preferably Supply Ships) you will have enough fuel.

- Concentrate scientists/engineers on 1 base and don't hire more than 250 of them on the entire game. If you have a dedicated research base and another for manufacturing they will provide you with everything you need.

- Raid as many UFOs as possible and sell all the unnecessary goodies (alien corpses, unneeded ammo/weapons, etc.)

- Produce Motion Scanners or Laser Cannons and sell them for a profit.

[Zombie]

We had a similar discussion about this at the StrategyCore forums a while back.

 

Q: Did you have a bad previous month in terms of funding from the countries?

 

See, funding increases/decreases don't get applied till the end of a month. It lags. Low funding from the month before could be sapping some of your current reserves. Combine this with the fact that bases generally increase in size over time (and thus need more money to operate), and cash drains away fast when contributors are unhappy.

 

I'm thinking that Hobbes may be right here with the idea that you forgot to add something in (it happens). What, with 7 bases on the map it's kinda hard to pin down an exact figure. :wink1:

 

- Zombie

[Guest Genericata]

I can't see that I forgot anything. Here's what I get from the Base Information screen;

 

-----------------Craft--------Salaries----------Base Maintenance------------Total

Base 1----1,100,000--------700,000-------------323,000---------------2,123,000

Base 2------500,000--------200,000-------------209,000-----------------909,000

Base 3--------------0------2,500,000-------------289,000---------------2,739,000

Base 4----1,100,000--------200,000-------------164,000---------------1,464,000

Base 5------500,000--------200,000-------------164,000-----------------864,000

Base 6--------------0--------200,000-------------164,000-----------------364,000

Base 7--------------0--------200,000-------------150,000-----------------350,000

 

Giving a grand total of $8,813,000

With the $12 million funding for this month plus approx $2 million cash, I still should be in credit.

 

Funding has stayed about level the last 2 - 3 months. However, the maintenance graph shows that I spent $20 million in maintence this month but only £8 million last month.

And I've also got rid of 3 interceptors since then so I should have saved $1.8 million in craft rental.

I don't understand it.

 

Thanks for the tips Hobbes, I'm slowly moving to a pure research/manufacturing base. I hope I can last the month.

[Hobbes]

My impression is that the salary values look too low from what I'd expect into being 10 months into the game. From those values it looks as if you have a total of 80 soldiers (1.6 million $ monthly cost), 20 engineers (0.5 million $) and 70 scientists (2.1 million $).

If the totals of soldiers/engineers/scientists are correct then there's something wrong with the monthly costs, since salaries are what usually eats up more money. The jump from 8 million $ to 20 million $ on the graphs between months that you mentioned would have to be explained by a massive hiring/craft rental.

 

Check the picture I've attached and look at the jump on maintenance between July/August (from 4 mil to 12 mil). That corresponded to a massive hiring/building on July (which cost me 20 million in expenditures). Of those 8 million came from funding plus 16 million from garage sales, leaving me with a surplus of 4 million at the end of that year.

 

Try one thing: make a separate save of your present game and edit it to give yourself a lot of money, then reload and set the clock to its highest speed, ignoring any UFO reports. After you reach the end of the month and receive the Council's report go to the graphs section and select the first four options for display like in my pic. Then take a picture (if you are using Windows version press F12 or F1, if you are running it on Dosbox press Ctrl+F5). That way it would be easier to explain your current results.

[[stewart]]

Just build TONS of laser cannons all the time and money is effectively no longer part of the game for you.

 

See the "When To Stock-up on Engineers" thread.

[Guest Genericata]

Done as you suggested Hobbes and raced through the next month ignoring all UFO alerts - actually lost a base as well.

Couldn't get a screen shot but made my own graph.

 

Does appear to a big jump in expenditure in Oct, I think I hired a lot of soldiers so all my bases were defended. But you pay for them straight away and then their salaries are added to the base maintenance when they arrive. So still dosen't make a lot of sense as I never went overdrawn.

[Hobbes]

I've just looked at the graphic but there are a couple of things that don't make sense.

Unless the money given by each country has been increased by editing, that yellow line can't represent income, otherwise your income would have doubled from October to November, something that I believe impossible since you never get such big increases in allowance You probably simply confused the income with the maintenance.

 

The problem was that you had a lot of money and made a massive increase of bases/personnel/etc without realizing how much the extra maintenance would cost you. Then when the end of November arrived, you had some 19 million expenses from maintenance, and to pay you only had 2 million in the bank and 11 million from the income.

 

Just do like stewart said or start raiding UFOs and selling their parts. Income from donors never pays for all expenses. I usually try to keep some 5 million or more in the bank to keep up with big increases on maintenance but sometimes I get the "friendly" reminder from the donors as well. Just don't let it to struck you twice in a row and you only will have to deal with the aliens.

[Guest Genericata]

Thanks for that Hobbes.

I understand what you mean about the income; it was a sharp rise and dosen't make sense but I've never edited the income.

I'm fairly certain the graph is right but can't check it until I get home tonight.

 

I'll just have to follow yours and stewarts suggestion and raid every UFO I find. At least I have 2 bases now with hyper-wave decoders so I should find moe of them. Also re-allocate my existing engineers to build lasers until I'm out of debt.

 

Thanks for your help.