Going bankrupt???

[ChristopherC]

I am playing a heavily modded game of MOO3 which is suddenly warning me that in nine turns I
am about to go bankrupt! Even though my financial indicators suggest I am still in the black! Is
there a bug here with which other players have had to contend?

Live long and prosper.

[Hydro]

I've seen this in two instances. First, for some reason early in the game my account is increased by ~2000 credits. The AI then thinks your economy is now 2000 credits/turn vs. ~200/turn, and the result is a huge negative balance. If you let this go unchecked you will be bankrupt since you’ll burn through your surplus, and then kill your economy. But, this is actually a boon since all you have to do is set your finances to meet your income (check in your finance tab, and then adjust the sliders accordingly), and once you’ve fixed this you will also have a nice bankroll to feed off. You can run smaller deficits with this surplus, which are hugely beneficial in the early game. I’m still not sure if this is a ‘feature’ or a glitch. I’ve never seen it deduct a large sum of cash, only add it.

The second instance is one a good friend had. His empire was well along around year 400+ or so and he had a huge economy ($1M or more a turn). Suddenly his account went massively negative, and in about 5 turns his empire completely imploded. He figured out he had exceeded some set number in the code, which then wrapped his income to make it 'negative'. No matter what he did it was doomed. I've been told one of the modder patches fixed this problem.

On a side note, I have also seen what I call a ‘depression planet’. This occurs for no apparent reason where income at a planet does not meet expenses, and the AI reacts by clamping down, resulting in a death spiral. You’ll get your first notice of this when the Sit Rep tells you that facilities have been disbanded due to lack of maintenance. Even when I intervene it seem to do no good. It is very sad to see a well developed planet implode, and I’m lucky it has never happened early in the game.

Hydro

[Vince278]

Hate those depression planets. The AI isn't smart enough to send money where its really needed. I'd like to be able to target a certain amount of funds to certain worlds.