Buying out the shop is the win condition, and it is a separate mortgage goal tied to the station's landlord rather than a kiosk side quest. The live figure is the one shown on your HUD, so treat early playtest totals as history rather than as a target.
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Probably Stolen buy out the shop: how the mortgage works
Paying rent does not move you toward the buyout; rent is the recurring cost of staying open. You build a cash reserve on top of rent until the till meets the HUD requirement, then purchase the shop on the morning the till clears it. Early playtest players targeted a five-figure total, with 12,000 credits mentioned in one playtest opening week, but economy values get retuned by patches.
Once the purchase goes through, rent stops being the central objective — but the same reputation, inspection, faction and production systems stay in play, so the run does not become free of risk at the end.
Keep rent paid while the reserve builds
Keep rent fully paid the entire time you accumulate, because late rent cuts attractiveness, thins the customer flow, lowers revenue and turns into a worsening deficit. A failed run can end in eviction or with reduced recovery prospects, which means the reserve you failed to build can be taken away as well — the money and rent cycle explains why a single late week costs more than the rent itself.
Two risks specifically threaten the reserve:
A wrong Aug confrontation
It can destroy a regular customer and cut income permanently.
Higher faction reputation
It cuts both ways — Security favours inspections while black-market access attracts hostility.
Fund these four things first
In priority order, before you buy:
Insurance and protection.
Particularly if a single burglary could eat the whole reserve.
Traffic equipment.
Display cases, food stock and attractiveness devices like the Mirage Projector.
Offline production.
The furnace and smelter, wine fermentation and water purification.
Required licences.
An underground trading permit ran around 1,500 credits during playtests.
Scavenging capacity.
Recovers scrap for production and avoids buying processed material at full retail — provided you account for the late opening it costs you.
Stop expanding when you get close
When the till is within reach, stop buying things:
Skip another purchase.
Another hydroponic bay, labeler or contraband shipment.
Sell inventory you do not need.
Use the shop inventory page to work out which stock is genuinely spare against the surfaces you actually store on.
Keep food stocked.
So attractiveness does not slide while you wait.
Preserve enough cash.
Cover the next rent alongside the remainder.
Joe Wild's insurance is worth buying before the buyout rather than after, because the burglary it covers is exactly the event that would reset your reserve. It claws stolen items back, but it does not bring back the customers who did not walk in.
Achievement milestones: what a rent-safe buyout unlocks
Seven public milestones sit on top of the ordinary loop. None of them changes how you fund the reserve — they tell you which day to spend and which day to stop:
| Milestone | What it needs | How it fits the buyout |
|---|---|---|
Keys to the Kingdom | Own the deed to the store | The purchase itself — the same morning the till clears the HUD requirement |
Prodigious | Acquire the deed before day 50 | The one that costs you pace: expansion bought early is expansion you cannot buy back later |
Comfortably Afloat | Begin a day holding over 10,000 credits of estimated total wealth | Checked at the start of a day, so a sale on day N only counts from day N+1 |
Swimming in Credits | Begin a day with more than 100,000 credits of estimated total wealth | The same check at a higher bar, and it competes with the deposit you are saving |
Shiny | Start a day with 1,000 store attractiveness | Driven by the case, food stock and traffic equipment in the funding list above |
Diplomatic | Reach the highest possible reputation with any one faction | Whichever faction you already move best — the routes are compared on the station factions page |
From Nothing | Finish the game after starting from Rock Bottom | A different opening, not a different buyout plan — see the starting professions page |
Insurance still sits first in the funding order: a burglary between one qualifying morning and the next wipes out the streak as well as the reserve, and that is the one loss no amount of patience brings back.