Running a hideout costs money: production uses electricity and water, and the properties you own accrue a bill that is paid periodically. All costs of using a hideout are paid automatically from the wealth vault, so keep money in it. Falling into debt costs you reputation in the region of the indebted hideout. See Cash, Wealth & Carrying Money.
Contents: Unit costs · Hideout debt · Influencer balances and reputation bleed · Employee wages · Scaling the costs
Unit costs
| Cost | Rate |
|---|---|
| Electricity | B200 per kilowatt |
| Running water | B80 per litre |
| Waste removal | B2 per gram of waste, minimum B1,000 |
| Phone booth | B15 per minute |
A hideout bill includes electricity, water, waste removal and the daily cost of the hideout itself. Each hideout row stores three costs — a daily base cost, a daily rent and a total buy-out price (BaseCostDaily, RentCostDaily, BuyCostTotal); there is no field called "lease". 71 of the 79 hideouts carry all three, the other 8 being free story locations. Buying outright is confirmed by an in-game hint. A lease-to-own mechanic — paying rent until the buy-out price is cleared — is described only in a hint no row displays, and the stored numbers support no single payoff period (buy-out divided by daily rent ranges from about 7 days to about 420), so treat leasing as unconfirmed. That hint also says bills are paid at special spots in the village or by phone with a bank account, but no row of the hint table references its text, so the only payment method confirmed here is the automatic one from the wealth vault. Hideout details are on Hideouts & Properties and Pedro Alvarez Real Estate Agency guide.
Hideout debt
| Flag | Meaning | Value |
|---|---|---|
HIDEOUT-DEBT-LEVEL | Debt at which a hideout is marked as indebted. | B5,000 |
HIDEOUT-DEBT-PENALTY-LEVEL | Debt per town from which daily reputation penalties start. | B15,000 |
HIDEOUT-DEBT-EXECUTION-LEVEL | Debt per town from which enforcement ("executions") begins. | B30,000 |
HIDEOUT-DEBT-REPUTATION-PENALTY | Daily reputation penalty for debt (the developer note says "above 4k", while the indebted-hideout level above is 5,000). | 100 reputation per day |
The debt note in the files says the daily reputation penalty applies to debt "above 4k", while the indebted level is B5,000, so the exact trigger is unclear.
Influencer balances and reputation bleed
Influencers who sell for you keep a running balance with you. These flags set when you get reminders and penalties.
| Flag | Meaning | Value |
|---|---|---|
DEBT-POSITIVE-LEVEL | Positive balance from which collection reminders start. | 27,000 |
DEBT-WARNING-LEVEL | Debt level below which the player gets debt warnings. | -13,500 |
DEBT-PENALTY-LEVEL | Debt level from which a daily penalty applies. | -54,000 |
DEBT-REPUTATION-PENALTY | Daily penalty for a large debt to an influencer. | 135 |
DEBT-NOTIFICATION-INTERVAL | Maximum frequency of debt warnings. | 320 |
REP-BLEED-PER-DEBT-10K | Reputation lost per minute for every B10,000 of debt. | 0.45 |
REP-BLEED-RATE-MAX | Maximum possible reputation bleed per minute. | 80 |
Employee wages
| Role | Daily wage |
|---|---|
| Lab technician | B30,000 per day |
Bodyguard (flag CREW-DAILY-FEE-MUSCLE) | B65,000 per day |
Bodyguard (flag CREW-DAILY-FEE-BODYGUARD) | B45,000 per day |
Two flags carry a bodyguard wage, and both carry the same developer label. MUSCLE is the role token the rest of the game data uses — the Bodyguard station, the bodyguard auto-heal flags and the Bodyguards hint are all keyed MUSCLE — while the string BODYGUARD appears in no other table, so B65,000 is almost certainly the live wage. Confirming it needs the payment code. Dealer and distributor pay is a share of sales, not a wage; see Balance Flags (Developer Values).
Scaling the costs
The Loss multiplier cartel setting multiplies maintenance costs (power, water, employee fees and so on) and fines. It does not change shop prices. Chillout uses 0.75, Economic 1.2 and Default 1.0. See Cartel Settings & Difficulty Presets.
Source: game DataTables (BalanceFlagsDatabase, CartelConfigPresetDatabase, GameHintDatabase strings). Values are as stored in the current Steam build; bolivars are written with a leading B.