Book 2 Trade using Merchant Prince

[robject]

Merchant Prince and Book 2 Trade appear to me to be opposites of one another. That said, I wonder if something Book-2-like can be created by turning Merchant Prince on its head?

The Theory

The keystone to both trade systems is a mapping of trade codes to value modifications. In theory, Merchant Prince's table can be used in a Book-2-like way.

What's needed is a front-end that has trade goods and their base prices, plus a way to randomly determine one. From there, use the trade code map to build an Actual Value DM. Add in Broker skill and you've got something like a Book 2 system.

 

[aramis]

The keystone to both trade systems is a mapping of trade codes to value modifications. In theory, Merchant Prince's table can be used in a Book-2-like way.

I don't think it really can. The keystone of Bk2 is each different good has its own modifiers list. The keystone of Bk5 is that everything uses a modifier list based upon where it's from.

The MT tables provide (unlike CT Bk7) explicit lists of what kinds of goods they are, and whether they are hazardous, require power, require atmosphere, etc.

Adding prices to it ala Bk2 isn't going to make the system any more able to be used in a Bk2 fashion - It may as well be a single roll for base value as an exponent of ten.

Instead, to get Book 2 like play, use the tables of MT to generate a cargo type and its traits, and have a value assigned based upon that type. Then, you can use it in a book 2 like way. The problem is the Book 2 and T20 cargo values are only a subset of those needed to match the MT tables.

Plus, there's the issue of the credit values - the goods on the Bk2 tables were priced pretty much by rounding off the 1976 spot market prices... per metric ton. But cargo tonnage later became displacement tons, and those are generally 5 to 10 metric tons per each. The general goods in CT are also priced in roughly 1976 US dollars as the credit value. (The ground car is a Ford $3995 list price... the prices of firearms and ammo can be found to be taken straight from advertisements in magazines from 1976.) Which leads to some interesting wonkiness...

Computers are not priced by any apparent methodology other than an idea that a TL10 hand computer would be a TL6 mainframe in a pocket sized package. (Assuming we're TL8, we've exceeded that a bit. Note that ENIAC is a TL6 mainframe. So is a CDC 7600 - at 10 MFlops and $5,000,000. Let's use that as the Model 1 (it's pretty close). The TL8 Surface Pro 3 has a 30MFLOP processor, more memory, and is about $1200... in 2015 US dollars. Or about $500 in 1977 dollars.

Still, this does underly the issues of the trade and commerce: it's based upon a different assumption than the ship design rules give for deck plans, which means consumer goods are marked up about 900%...

 

[mike wightman]

The two systems are intended to model different things.

LBB2 is tramp trader based speculative trade and picking up the dregs left over from the larger mercantile operations.

MP was meant to be able to model the interface and megacorporation trade - something it fails at IMHO.

 

[Timerover51]

Merchant Prince and Book 2 Trade appear to me to be opposites of one another. That said, I wonder if something Book-2-like can be created by turning Merchant Prince on its head?

The Theory

The keystone to both trade systems is a mapping of trade codes to value modifications. In theory, Merchant Prince's table can be used in a Book-2-like way.

What's needed is a front-end that has trade goods and their base prices, plus a way to randomly determine one. From there, use the trade code map to build an Actual Value DM. Add in Broker skill and you've got something like a Book 2 system.

Book 2 is what I base my trading system on, Merchant Prince is good for character generation if you want the detail. A shipment of aquatic produce from a Water World to a Desert World has a considerably different modifier than a shipment of aquatic produce to an Agricultural World. Tech Level 5 and lower worlds expect payment in specie for goods, and will take Imperial Credits, if in an Empire, at a discount subject to brokerage roll. Tech Level 5 or lower worlds will pay in specie at the rate of 12,000 Credits per Kilogram of Gold, or 150 Credits per Kilogram of Silver.

 

[rancke]

What's needed is a front-end that has trade goods and their base prices, plus a way to randomly determine one. From there, use the trade code map to build an Actual Value DM. Add in Broker skill and you've got something like a Book 2 system.

What's needed is to differentiate between generic goods and luxury goods. Assuming the same quality, a gross of TL10 underwater breathing masks is worth the same on any specific world regardless of where it originally came from (It's worth more on a water world than on a desert world, of course), so once you're the furthest you can get from any place that manufactures underwater breathing masks the value begins going down again since you're now getting closer to a different source of supply. But a gross of bottles of Reginan nutberry brandy is worth more the further you get from Regina. And the fact that you're getting closer and closer to the source of Moran Twinkleberry liqueur makes little or no difference.

Useful stuff and luxury stuff are two different kinds of goods with two different pricing mechanisms.


Hans

 

[aramis]

What's needed is to differentiate between generic goods and luxury goods. Assuming the same quality, a gross of TL10 underwater breathing masks is worth the same on any specific world regardless of where it originally came from (It's worth more on a water world than on a desert world, of course), so once you're the furthest you can get from any place that manufactures underwater breathing masks the value begins going down again since you're now getting closer to a different source of supply. But a gross of bottles of Reginan nutberry brandy is worth more the further you get from Regina. And the fact that you're getting closer and closer to the source of Moran Twinkleberry liqueur makes little or no difference.

Useful stuff and luxury stuff are two different kinds of goods with two different pricing mechanisms.


Hans

By the same token, TL2 copper billet and TL20 copper billet shouldn't be getting a huge boost from TL difference, while those TL 10 masks should seel for more on a TL 9 world than a TL 11.

 

[rancke]

By the same token, TL2 copper billet and TL20 copper billet shouldn't be getting a huge boost from TL difference, while those TL 10 masks should seel for more on a TL 9 world than a TL 11.

Right you are. Raw material has a third pricing mechanism. The masks will sell for less on a TL11 world that manufactures its own masks, true. But if it doesn't, I see no reason why TL10 masks shouldn't be worth the full value.


Hans

 

[Timerover51]

But a gross of bottles of Reginan nutberry brandy is worth more the further you get from Regina.

Actually, the further you get from Regina, the less the brandy might be worth, as the planet where an attempt to sell it is made may have no experience or knowledge of it, and view it as simply another variety of alcoholic beverage. An Agricultural Planet may even bar shipments of foreign alcohol to protect planetary producers and maintain a favorable balance of trade.

Luxury goods are valued only to the degree the potential buyer views them as luxuries. A culture with a societal rule of not consuming caffeine would not view either Jamaican Blue Mountain or Hawaiian Kona coffee as luxuries, while the Vargr would not view chocolate as a luxury good but a toxic substance to be prohibited from import. If someone offered me a truckload of Coors beer for $1000, it would not mean anything to me as I do not drink. Conversely, if someone offered me a complete set of the original printing of the Official US Army HIstory of World War 2 for $20 a volume, I would be grabbing my check book to cash in on the offer before it expired.

To me, in the example quoted, I would only value the alcohol for its fuel value and the value of the glass in the bottles. I would put no other value on it.

 

[rancke]

Actually, the further you get from Regina, the less the brandy might be worth, as the planet where an attempt to sell it is made may have no experience or knowledge of it, and view it as simply another variety of alcoholic beverage.

So we'd need to come up with a way to figure out if this is a factor on the current world. Wait, what about some sort of table that establishes the resale value of a commodity according to a roll of two dice?

An Agricultural Planet may even bar shipments of foreign alcohol to protect planetary producers and maintain a favorable balance of trade.

Another trade aspect that needs to be addressed.

Or ignored.

Luxury goods are valued only to the degree the potential buyer views them as luxuries. A culture with a societal rule of not consuming caffeine would not view either Jamaican Blue Mountain or Hawaiian Kona coffee as luxuries, while the Vargr would not view chocolate as a luxury good but a toxic substance to be prohibited from import.

And intelligent being don't eat or drink anything toxic, right?

To me, in the example quoted, I would only value the alcohol for its fuel value and the value of the glass in the bottles. I would put no other value on it.

On the other hand, one of the other seven billion people on Earth might have a different attitude.


Hans