Rent is the pressure behind every run. It falls due every week, it climbs each time you pay it, and missing it can end the run. You win by buying the store from the Landlord, either outright or through the Loan Shark’s mortgage, before the rent outgrows your income.
The difficulty you pick sets how fast the rent grows, what the store costs and the mortgage terms. The numbers below are for Mark Up (Normal) unless a table lists every difficulty.
Rent
Your rent starts at 200 credits a week. The Bad Lease perk adds 40 and Prime Real Estate adds 75, and some specializations start higher: Fence and Gunsmith start at 250; Hydroponic Farmer and Aquafarmer start at 240. Rent is due every Sunday, on days 7, 14, 21 and so on. The Landlord comes to collect.
Every time you pay, the rent goes up by a percentage, rounded down to whole credits. The increase compounds, so budget for next week’s bill as well as this one.
| Difficulty | Rent increase per payment | Rent Grace at the start |
|---|---|---|
| Price Gouge (Cozy) | 2.5% (the difficulty screen says 2%) | Yes |
| Mark Up (Normal) | 5% | Yes |
| Thin Margins (Hard) | 10% | No |
| Red Ink (Challenge) | 10% | No |
The Lease Agreement says the Landlord can raise the rent by up to 5%, but on Thin Margins (Hard) and Red Ink (Challenge) it rises 10% each time. The schedule below assumes a 200-credit starting rent.
| Payment | Day due | Price Gouge (Cozy) | Mark Up (Normal) | Thin Margins (Hard) and Red Ink (Challenge) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 7 | 200 | 200 | 200 |
| 2 | 14 | 204 | 209 | 220 |
| 3 | 21 | 209 | 219 | 242 |
| 4 | 28 | 214 | 229 | 266 |
| 5 | 35 | 219 | 240 | 292 |
| 6 | 42 | 224 | 251 | 321 |
| 7 | 49 | 229 | 263 | 353 |
| 8 | 56 | 234 | 276 | 388 |
| 9 | 63 | 239 | 289 | 426 |
| 10 | 70 | 244 | 303 | 468 |
The Landlord may also offer to put a Vending Machine or a Vending Fountain in your store. Accepting either one adds 150 credits to your weekly rent, so only take it if the machine will earn more than that.
Missing a payment
You can always tell the Landlord you won’t pay. What happens next depends on Joe Wild’s Rent Grace favor:
- With Rent Grace, the Landlord leaves and adds the missed rent to next week’s bill. The favor is used up, and the rent still goes up as if you’d paid.
- Without it, you’re evicted and the run ends.
You start with Rent Grace on Price Gouge (Cozy) and Mark Up (Normal). On Thin Margins (Hard) and Red Ink (Challenge) you have to buy it first. Buying it again after you’ve used it costs 100 credits on Mark Up (Normal), and the price doubles each time.
Buying the store
On rent day, the Landlord also offers Buyout the store once you can afford it. On Mark Up (Normal) the store costs 12,000 credits up to day 50. After that the price rises by 50 credits a day until it stops at 17,000 on day 150. Buying early is the cheapest way out, and every week you wait costs you another rent payment too.
| Difficulty | Price up to day 50 | Daily rise after that | Highest price | Reached on day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price Gouge (Cozy) | 12,000 | +25 | 15,000 | 170 |
| Mark Up (Normal) | 12,000 | +50 | 17,000 | 150 |
| Thin Margins (Hard) | 24,000 | +50 | 34,000 | 250 |
| Red Ink (Challenge) | 36,000 | +100 | 56,000 | 250 |
The buyout wins the run, and you can keep playing afterwards. Joe Wild drops by to congratulate you, and the Advanced tab of his network upgrades opens: Hypertech Smuggler, Wild’s Endorsement I, Wild’s Endorsement II and Wild’s Endorsement III.
The Loan Shark’s mortgage
The Upper Levels banks won’t lend to you, so the mortgage comes from the Loan Shark. He introduces himself once you have the down payment in cash: 2,000 credits on Mark Up (Normal) at the starting price. After that, he comes back on rent day whenever you start the day with at least twice the down payment: 4,000 credits at first, and 5,000 once the rising price lifts the down payment to 2,500, by day 111 at the latest. His own line says he’ll return once you have 5,000 credits; the 4,000 above is what actually brings him back.
When he makes the offer, you can agree and make the down payment, ask him to come back in a week, or decline. Declining is final: he won’t offer again.
On Mark Up (Normal) the down payment is 15% of the current price, rounded to the nearest 500. The rest is paid off over 12 weekly payments at 50% interest a year. The payments replace your rent and fall due on the same day. At the starting price that’s 930 credits a week, 11,160 in total, which makes the mortgage 1,160 credits dearer than buying outright. Once the last payment goes through, the store is yours.
That extra is about what your first 5 rent payments add up to (1,097 credits). You stop paying rent the moment you sign, so if saving the full price would take you more than 5 weeks, the mortgage comes out cheaper. Each payment is several times the rent it replaces, though, so sign only when your weekly profit can carry it.
| Difficulty | Down payment (at the starting price) | Weekly payments | Yearly interest | Weekly payment at the starting price | Extra over buying outright |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price Gouge (Cozy) | 20% (2,500) | 8 | 25% | 1,233 | 364 |
| Mark Up (Normal) | 15% (2,000) | 12 | 50% | 930 | 1,160 |
| Thin Margins (Hard) | 12.5% (3,000) | 16 | 75% | 1,615 | 4,840 |
| Red Ink (Challenge) | 20% (7,000) | 16 | 100% | 2,370 | 8,920 |
Sign later and the higher price means a bigger loan. On Mark Up (Normal):
| When you sign | Full price | Down payment | Financed by the mortgage | Weekly payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day 50 or earlier | 12,000 | 2,000 | 10,000 | 930 |
| Day 60 | 12,500 | 2,000 | 10,500 | 975 |
| Day 70 | 13,000 | 2,000 | 11,000 | 1,022 |
| Day 80 | 13,500 | 2,000 | 11,500 | 1,069 |
| Day 90 | 14,000 | 2,000 | 12,000 | 1,115 |
| Day 100 | 14,500 | 2,000 | 12,500 | 1,162 |
| Day 125 | 15,750 | 2,500 | 13,250 | 1,232 |
| Day 150 | 17,000 | 2,500 | 14,500 | 1,348 |
Repossession
If you can’t or won’t make a mortgage payment, the Loan Shark takes items from your store to cover it and comes back next week. If everything he could take is worth less than the payment, he seizes the store and the run ends in Repossession. He only takes loose stock: machines, containers, documents, key items, worthless items, anything locked away, anything in a Smuggler’s Bay and anything inside Lou’s box are off limits, and they don’t count toward the payment either. A store full of hidden goods can still be seized, so keep enough ordinary stock on hand to cover a payment in a bad week.
How a run ends
Buying the store is the only win. Everything else on this list ends your run early.
| Ending | What happened |
|---|---|
| Buyout | You bought the store from the Landlord. This is the ending you’re playing for. |
| Buyout (mortgage) | You paid off the mortgage and own the store outright. |
| You Defaulted On Your Rent | You missed the rent with no Rent Grace left and were evicted. |
| Repossession | You fell behind on what you owed the Loan Shark, and the store was taken from you. |
| Arrested | Security arrested you for crimes against the station, and the store was leased to someone else. |
| Executed | Security executed you for capital crimes. |
| Framed | Security jailed you on trumped-up charges and sold the store to cover your fine. |
| Lynched | A Lower Levels mob stormed the store after too many offences against them. |
| Bombed (Revolution) | The Revolution declared you an enemy and bombed the store. |
| Bombed (Lou’s toys) | You touched Lou’s toys after she told you not to, and her next present on your counter was a real bomb. |
| Bombed (Lou’s debt) | You couldn’t pay what you owed Lou, and she settled it with a real bomb. |
| Retired | The Cartel decided you were no longer worth keeping around. |
| Sentinel Collapse | You skipped too many Immunivax injections while living with Sentinel Collapse Disorder. |
| Augmented | Augs broke in overnight and implanted a chip in you. It happens when Aug presence reaches 100, but only on Thin Margins (Hard) and Red Ink (Challenge) or with the Aug Menace starting perk. |
| Meltdown | The reactor from the Makeshift Reactor starting perk blew after too little maintenance, taking the store with it. |
Most of the violent endings come from reputation. Lou’s storyline starts when you buy the Business Permit.