Negative Cash flow, what to do?

[Darth Merlin]

Greetings,

so... I spend quite some time playing prison tycoon and assumed the same tactics would apply: do as much grants as possible without taking in a single prisoner... eh... student, so you don't have to worry about their well-being and focus on building instead.

This... works for some time, but at some point the grants grant less money then their completion does cost. Not necessary the research itself, but laying out new rooms (and hireing staff that does nothing for the moment), and... suddenly your cash flow turns bright red.

Even taking in the students does not help, because that bit of money one is granted for their teaching is more of an insult than actually helpful.

But wait, one can take in a loan. And guess what happens? Sooner than later the negative cash flow did eat up your savings again, and... well, what now?


That is my third attemt to get such an academy up and running, but every time half way through the first year the funds rund dry.

Is it supposed to be this way?

[tristan.angeles]

Hi! have you tried checking your expenses(click on your money in the top panel), to see which items are eating up your money the most? Based on experience, sometimes people overspend on higher level teachers at the beginning. Also check for water and electricity expenses. You can also try starting with a small school at the beginning, and gradual build up as you get more students.

[Darth Merlin]

Yes, I had a look in that expanse list. I already took just the most cheap teachers, so hopefully they are not responsible for it. Still, there are a lot of people in that school that are not teachers, but rather people I had to hire to fulfil more grants. *sigh*

And dont even start with electricity and water; even the "Field" seems to have a well used outlet somewhere, even if it only consists of two benches, a lot of grass and a water fountain.

As a point of reference, after ten Building Days I started with about 20000, but with a cashflow of -3500 per day I will not last even until the first years end.

[Great Sage Equal of Heaven]

OK, you hired some people to win grants right. Like 2 cooks for example, or 3 monitors or the like. Is your school large enough to justify the cost of these staff? (as a rule, I can get away with one of each per 100 students)

If you have more staff than you need, fire them. A lot of the times I will hire staff just to complete the grant, then fire them straight away

CAPITALISM RULES

[Nekoteru]

after playing and experimenting for a bit, I could at least stay on the green for the first year by doing grants that only fulfill essentials, aka stuff that prevents students from dropping out.

for staff grants: teachers, cafeteria/kitchen, clinic, accountant office, janitors (I end up hiring 4-5 cause of how big I like to build), and monitors.

for hiring teachers, try to find at least 30 points in whatever subject you want to hire said teacher. researching the Greg list would really help out

sometimes I have to fire some of the construction dudes to save money from expenses, so you can do that too. I like to keep at least 3 in the end


Other than that, just fulfill easy grants like common area, field, etc. Once you survive your first year, you can finally hire the lawyer and sell school research to earn more money for your next school. It's not much, but hope this helps!

[eXeZ|Gamer433]

I know how you feel, I made also many mistakes, until I understood that completely.
Here are some tipps from me:

1. Saving daily expenses or how to rise the daily income:

- Try to start your school in the end of the FIRST day of the building phase, because during this phases, you are always in (deep) red. But NEVER forget to add students before you start!
- The room or zone size is always a recommendation, not a must. You can save a lot of money and space, when you build very tight. (Only few things are blocking. This plant for example.)
- Hire cheap teachers, but nothing under 35 or at least 30. One teacher can teach 6 (!) classes in a single day.
- At the end of building phase day 1, fire all builders, until you have 3 left.
- You only need security, when you have criminals in your school. And even then, you just need only a few of them.
- I dont know why all are saying, that they need tons of janitors. For me, 430 students, 12 janitors kept all clean. So, for the start, just hire one or max. two of them.
- After you hired a accountant, check your income and try to avoid to build rooms, which are listed as "special zones".
- IF you want to build those zones, remember, that 2 littles are expensier than one larger.
- Try to unlock the activity hall, build a small one and make every day a cake day.
- Researching and building Recycle Room converts trash costs in income. A tiny room with 1 or 2 recycle bins is enough for this.
- You should research water/electricity costs reducing very quick.
- Research the one with getting money back for not used food. For me, it means often 20-40% of my daily food costs as a cash back.
- Dont build many of this vending machines! They are too expensive and not good.
- Building windmills and water pumps can reduce your water and power costs to ZERO (but they NEVER generate money above your usage!).
- Solve grants, grants and grants! Very often you should research a thing, then buld a thing to get money. After build this, just remove it. Selling or demolishing stuff gives you 100% back. So you got often a free research AND money. But clear the 3 grants (where you need 4 days) very late in the game, because, you can always have just one grant at same time.
- Be VERY careful of taking grants you cant solve, It can be expensive very quick. Save your game before you take one.
- There are (in total) 7 grants, where you get asked to take students. NEVER accept this grants after passing day 1, because every day after day one means, that they missed lessons to solve their graduation. Getting those kids at day 4 (for example) means, that this kids will never reach the graduation and this drags your result down, which means, lower bonus at end of school year and fewer kids are interested in your school.
- Take a small loan and build the best windmills and pumps (if researched, of course). The daily loan costs are lower than the saved money from these items. But be careful! You can not generate money with them. When you balanced your costs, they dont have any use above. Also, if you took a loan, you could kill your very last rescue when you need money quick, until you paid all back before.
- You can sell all bushes on the map. Every of this brings 1 Dollar. There are some hundreds of them. A little helper in the beginning.

2. If the game is still too hard for you, here are some tricks to exploit the game (its not nice, but its better than losing all the time):

- After each day (not building phase), erase zones with costs, reduce meal quality, toilet paper and coffee. Next day, hit space bar for pause and change that back.
- Do this also with selling toilets, sinks and all other water comsumpting stuff. The result with both tipps is a better income for the next day. Replacing the stuff next day early and there are no problems. Expecially, because you get 100% cash back if you sell items.
- After year one, all students of 4th class are gone, but there are still students left and they burn a hole in your wallet during build phase. Just save your game and load it again. Now, this students are paying their money and you are back in green. Now you can kill all costing things and skip some days/weeks, until you have enough money for start the next school year.

Ouh, sorry, I was deep in my nerd flow.
I had more ideas, but i think, this is enough for now.