[2022] Resource Deficit Punishments are Too Much

Originally posted by yuzhonglu: You sell 100 alloys a month for two months and debuff goes away.

The debuff goes down 5x faster if you go into positive income.

I came here to say this. Deficit situations resolve faster with a positive income than simply having a large stockpile, and the more positive your income the faster they resolve.

The deficit penalties hanging around after the deficit is resolved represents the time it takes for your industries, supply chains, etc. to correct themselves after they had their supplies cut off. -20% combat damage, for instance, could represent the loss of morale from your ship crews not getting paid for several months, or the lack of supplies caused by your empire unexpectedly going broke. Sure, your actual "bullets" are not less effective, but the crews pointing the guns are, or the guns themselves don't work because you haven't been able to afford spare parts for them in months.