Private Sector Going Broke

[Zygon]

Help.

I'm not sure what's happening. My private sector is over 500K in the red. It shows a positive cashflow of just over 70K.

What I'm wondering about are Free Trade Agreements. I'm playing pre-warp and my freighters currently cannot reach other empires to trade, but I have Free Trade Agreements all over the place. Is that somehow draining my private sector since I cannot currently trade in kind?

[Bingeling]

The free trade agreements are not important in this. It is some trade income bonus, you got.

Now, why are the privates broke? It is because they spend more money than they got, obviously. What can you do that will make this happen?

You can tax them too hard.
You can over-build mines of expensive designs or create very expensive freighter designs.
You can possibly expand too fast, making private order too many freighters and go broke by maintenance.

If you allow a whole lot of private ships to be destroyed (war, pirates), it could also help in making them go broke. Since the privates will then order (and pay for) more ships.

I am sure there are more ways to mess them up. Having a major disaster on the capital in early game, for instance...

[Zygon]

There are several pirates in the area and I've been fighting them off as best I can. I haven't built any mines in a while and taxes having changed.

It shows them earning around 150K, after maintenance and taxes, their cash flow is a positive 70K+, but their current cash on hand has gone from negative 500K to negative 1500K in the time since I posted that first question.

Frustrating!!

... but, can I say, I LOVE THIS GAME! I've never felt this challenged in a 4x since Master of Orion 1 when it was new.

[Bingeling]

If they got positive cashflow it should fix itself. Try to avoid getting new colonies until they got some cash on hand. And try bust those pirates.

Do you run at a higher difficulty setting? Have you modified the private sector designs?

[Jeeves]

In the latest beta release the passenger ships focus more on heavily taxed colonies than previously. Up to the upgrade I was taxing my homeworld at 90% and still happy 24, but I lost 20 of 28 billion population by passenger ships picking up emigrants in just a few months after upgrade, losing 8 of 10.5 million in homeworld revenue. I LEARNED that lesson the HARD way lol. Check your colony happiness levels, don't go below 32 happy with taxation, and don't tax over 75% is my new rule of thumb, which seems to be working for me.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Jeeves

In the latest beta release the passenger ships focus more on heavily taxed colonies than previously. Up to the upgrade I was taxing my homeworld at 90% and still happy 24, but I lost 20 of 28 billion population by passenger ships picking up emigrants in just a few months after upgrade, losing 8 of 10.5 million in homeworld revenue. I LEARNED that lesson the HARD way lol. Check your colony happiness levels, don't go below 32 happy with taxation, and don't tax over 75% is my new rule of thumb, which seems to be working for me.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

If you taxed me at 90% I couldn't get away from your tyrannical rule fast enough either...I don't blame 20 billion for leaving. [;)]

[Deathball]

ORIGINAL: Jeeves

In the latest beta release the passenger ships focus more on heavily taxed colonies than previously. Up to the upgrade I was taxing my homeworld at 90% and still happy 24, but I lost 20 of 28 billion population by passenger ships picking up emigrants in just a few months after upgrade, losing 8 of 10.5 million in homeworld revenue. I LEARNED that lesson the HARD way lol. Check your colony happiness levels, don't go below 32 happy with taxation, and don't tax over 75% is my new rule of thumb, which seems to be working for me.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

How would you get happiness that high? I get in the red if I just tax at 50% let alone 90

[Zygon]

My tax rate is 34% and all I did to the freighter designs was add the first warp drive and another reactor.

If the private sector has a negative cash on hand can it still buy ships? Based on what you're saying, it sounds like my pirate problem is maybe the issue. If they are continually buying ships as replacements. I haven't see the pirates actually destroying anything, but it sounds plausible. Unless they cannot buy ships while having a negative balance, then I'm just confused.

I have had just one planet for most of the game but colonized another hoping it would fix this problem just before I quit for the night.

I just couldn't figure out how they were going further and further in debt with a positive cash flow.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Deathball

ORIGINAL: Jeeves

In the latest beta release the passenger ships focus more on heavily taxed colonies than previously. Up to the upgrade I was taxing my homeworld at 90% and still happy 24, but I lost 20 of 28 billion population by passenger ships picking up emigrants in just a few months after upgrade, losing 8 of 10.5 million in homeworld revenue. I LEARNED that lesson the HARD way lol. Check your colony happiness levels, don't go below 32 happy with taxation, and don't tax over 75% is my new rule of thumb, which seems to be working for me.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

How would you get happiness that high? I get in the red if I just tax at 50% let alone 90

You need to build some type of station with medical and recreation facilities above the planet (does NOT have to be a starport). You also need to have a good supply of luxury resources for your planets. Yarras Marble won't build star ships, but it sure makes the citizens happy.

[Sithuk]

Can you post a screenshot of your empire summary screen? I have experienced a bug where the cash on account of the private sector was reducing even with a positive cashflow. You might have the same bug. I've reported the bug to the lead programmer and uploaded a save. You might be experiencing the same bug.

Upload a screenshot of the summary page, then another a year or so later and we hopefully can have a better idea.

I just couldn't figure out how they were going further and further in debt with a positive cash flow.

[Jeeves]

ORIGINAL: Deathball

ORIGINAL: Jeeves

In the latest beta release the passenger ships focus more on heavily taxed colonies than previously. Up to the upgrade I was taxing my homeworld at 90% and still happy 24, but I lost 20 of 28 billion population by passenger ships picking up emigrants in just a few months after upgrade, losing 8 of 10.5 million in homeworld revenue. I LEARNED that lesson the HARD way lol. Check your colony happiness levels, don't go below 32 happy with taxation, and don't tax over 75% is my new rule of thumb, which seems to be working for me.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

How would you get happiness that high? I get in the red if I just tax at 50% let alone 90

I've learned all techs, have over ten luxuries in stock and homeworld has super luxury in stock. Also my Wekkarus capital planet has built the +50% development underwater palace wonder. When you add all the pluses to my governor and leader bonuses, you get very happy citizens...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Zygon]

ORIGINAL: Sithuk

Can you post a screenshot of your empire summary screen? I have experienced a bug where the cash on account of the private sector was reducing even with a positive cashflow. You might have the same bug. I've reported the bug to the lead programmer and uploaded a save. You might be experiencing the same bug.

Upload a screenshot of the summary page, then another a year or so later and we hopefully can have a better idea.

I just couldn't figure out how they were going further and further in debt with a positive cash flow.

I gave up on that game

I started a new one and I'm being a lot more careful in watching the development of the private sector. I never figured out the loss they were suffering but with the nearby pirates I think it's plausible they were suffering losses that I hadn't noticed. I'm assuming that unlike my options, they can continue to purchase ships while having negative cash on hand (maybe because they had a positive cash flow?), and that could have been why they continued to go further and further in debt.

[Sithuk]

I don't believe that the private sector can purchase anything unless it has a positive cash balance.

[edited: can't should have been can]

[Bingeling]

Last time I checked, you could not build a mine if the privates had no cash.

[Zygon]

Yeah, I was unable to build a mine, that's now when I learned the private sector cash is important.

But since they were in debt, with a positive cash flow, and continued to go further in debt, I could only assume they were still spending money on something, but I couldn't tell what it might have been. No worries, I'm learning.

[Flinkebeinchen]

You can always just click on the location where you want to build your mine and then click on the appropriate mine/base beneath the lower left window. Your nearest Construction Ship will be queued with the order. This works with negative Cash amounts.

[aaatoysandmore]

It's funny because it is usually my private sector that has me rolling in the dough. From building ships to taxation I'm floating in credits. Are you taxing your new colonies? I always set at least a 10% minimum tax rate and as my colony grows so does my taxation. I'm at 40% on my main colony from the start and I keep my quality likeablilty rating as low as it will go before rebelling as I can. Like around 50% so that means high taxes. I only let it go higher when I want a population to grow fast. Then only in the 80% range for a lil bit. It's just like our world if you grow without resources to support us then your govenment will go broke like ours is now. They spent spent spent and now there's nothing left to spend so the rest of us now will starve or go out of business. Nobody has any money to spend for want of taxation lol works in games too. [:D]

[Zygon]

I left taxation on auto, it's something else I need to learn.

[Henzington]

The best tax policy is zero till the population caps on a world.