I did end up addressing the difficulty by making it easier for each route to complete the debt payoff. It should now be possible to complete the debt payoff in your first run, but it still is not easy and will require planning and upgrades.
The game does not end at the debt payoff though, but from that point on the dynamic shifts significantly, promoting the use of different methods without the punishing interest rate looming
Cool, I gave the game another shot. On my first run I was mostly doing mining which is probably not the most lucrative route. On this run, I tried playing the game more like the old drug war game (buying goods cheap and travelling to sell them high somewhere else).
The game is fun, maybe adding some more information for the player like rumour about prices of goods in a region or adding costs to travel could help with decision making a bit.
It's funny you say that, mining is the route I always run when I'm not play testing. As long as you buy the first and second upgrade it's pretty much a guaranteed path out of debt. It becomes basically useless after you pay off the debt though, because there's too much risk of pirate encounters. I will look into adding some more guidance as a sort of mandatory radio chatter in the early game, that's a good idea. I guess I could also consider adding a proper 1->2->3 intro that plays out over your first 3 days of play. I will look into it tomorrow!
