Trade Tables Values Way Off

[marvo]

I was looking at the Trade Table on p360/361 and noticed some oddities with the value of the items listed there. Even if you assume that a lot of the dton is packing, some of the items are still way off. In particular the value of Gems looks to be far to low. I guess you could always assume they are only semi precious.

My idea was to have these in kilograms or 10's of kilograms instead of tons. (Like the old Elite game). This would also allow players, without vast amounts of cargo space, to do some speculative trading a.k.a smuggling.

A variable value might also work. Each ton of gems ranges from 1 to 10 million per ton etc. This would also work for a lot of the other items on the tables. Any thoughts?

 

[archhealer]

I just use them as is, I tried to briefly improve their accuracy, but felt it was nitpicking beyond what I wanted to deal with... I leave my nitpicking for the design system.

I did notice that 1 DT of laser rifles is equal to EIGHT rifles. In a 1 DT container. That seemed wrong to me. Ah well.

 

[c_osborne]

Comparing the retail prices to the cargo prices might not make give an accurate picture. Perhaps laser rifles aren't really that expensive when traded in bulk. And considering how fragile lasers are, packaging could also factor in heavily.

As for gems, I just assumed they are talking low-grade gems for industrial use, not cut diamonds or anything like that.

I agree that getting into that level of detail doesn't work for my game. But I suppose it depends on the group.

Chad

 

[princelian]

Gems on the trade tables, I assume, are low-grade and synthetic gems for industrial use, as Chad does. For specie, which includes high-grade jewel-quality gemstones, I treated them differently from "cargo" gemstones. If the party rolled "gems," they'd roll again 12+ (2D) to see if they were jewel-quality gemstones, otherwise they were as listed on the tables.

Basically, if the party buys 1 MCr of platinum, and platinum's worth Cr 15 per gram (that's about Cr 450 per troy ounce, multiplying by 3 for USD is $1350/troy ounce, which is about right for today's prices), then they've bought 66.67 kg of platinum, which takes up about 3 liters of space (density ~21 kg/L).

Likewise, 1 MCr of gemstone quality diamonds are a little harder to price, because diamond cut and clarity vary so highly. But according to www.bluenile.com, a 1.07 carat, D-color, VVS1 clarity, Ideal cut, AGSL-certified diamond costs $13,420. 1.07 carats is 0.214 grams, so 1 MCr of this particular cut of diamond weighs (1E6 Cr x $3/Cr x 1 diamond/$13,420 x 0.214 grams/diamond) about 50 grams and has a volume of 14 MILLILITERS.

Now, lower-quality diamonds (this thing is a pretty pricey specimen) would be larger, but it's safe to assume that if you had a dton of gemstone quality diamonds, your ship's mortgage troubles are over. Your piracy and mutiny problems may just be getting started, though.

Let's look at diamonds worth 1% of that per unit mass. 1 MCr would weigh 5 kg and have a volume of 1.4 L. One dton = 14 cubic meters = 14,000 L; let's assume you lose half the volume to packing materials and the space between the stones. 7,000 L / (1.4L/MCr) = MCr 5000.

If you had a dton of the really high quality diamonds, that's GCr 500!

Thus, one can pretty much safely assume that specie (especially gem-quality precious stones) doesn't take up that much cargo, and can be hidden in "loose" space in cabins, ventilators, and such, even in something as small as a ship's boat.

 

[marvo]

I like the idea of an extra roll to determine 'grade' of gems. This could also be used on any of the precious metals to determine purity. Diamonds are not a very good basis for a price system though since they are controlled by a cartel and their price is way high compared to their rarity. (Sounds like a Megacorp scenario.) There are a number of gems on earth that are far scarcer than diamonds, but because they are not popular or price controlled, they are cheaper to buy.

The laser rifles can be explained by the fragile nature and extra packing needed etc, but how about this one......

1 dton of ATV's costs 3 MCr. But an individual ATV costs 51 or 52 KCr. So without any packing, 1 dton should be almost 60 ATVs.

Inflatable ATV anyone? It could be ATV parts, but then setting up a 'chop shop' for ATV's would be very profitable.

 

[princelian]

I'd have to say that the ATV value or tonnage is in error....typo, in other words...

ATVs for Small or Tiny humanoid races? Scale-model RC ATVs?

 

[archhealer]

Personal scale ATVs. The little open-top six-wheeled ones. A normal ATV is about 8 DT, unless I'm mistaken? I don't have my book handy.

Of course, I still dont' think 1 dt of personal ATVs would cost nearly 3MCr