One thing that has repeatedly cropped up in my games has been the vast ability of a driven player to accumulate vast hordes of gear, services and facilities. With what the game is capable of producing in terms of earning numbers (Its not hard to get a earnings of 8+ or even 12+ with the right careers) this often means that with the Investments talents at rank 3 and a high lifestyle, purchasing items at their default restriction (aka it takes but moments to source them) is pretty trivial.
Similarly with a earnings so high the majority of items with Maintenance are not a consideration, as most things with Maintenance are at roughly a 4.
Without getting into the weeds I was hoping for an official answer to the follow.
Do individual Maintenance amounts stack?
i.e if I have one item at Maintenance of 3 and another at 4 is the total essentially 7? or is each item appraise individually.
The text in the book implies things in either manner, I have to this point assumed they do not stack, but after looking things over again i realize that their is nothing in that section (pg. ) that suggests they don’t stack either and the sidebar for Multiple Homes on p.390 talks about things as is a Secondary facilities having a regular Maintenance of 2 or 1 as if they are a major factor. An Earning 5 “Elite” could (assuming non stacking maintenance) have 4 further Upper Class homes before they see any impact to their cashflow
Many other instances of maintenance seem to start to fall apart under the idea of each item with Maintenance not stacking or having some for of compacting number, you could buy dozens of Large Offices or skilled NPC’s with Expertise 13/Focus 3 without effort, not to mention that with the right numbers “Power Armour for All” becomes possible.
I know that silly levels of personal wealth is meant to be a staple of a nigh-post-scarcity world, but I do thing that I am missing something here.