Money Money Money and machines

[Zarthull]

MONEY $$$
I would like to see a money system in place since the game world seems way too rural for a place set in the future.

It’s the future, I think there should be machines in some stores like automated gas pumps at gas stations, which would cost money to buy fuel, or vending machines for small items like water, soda, lighters, cigarettes, (possibly ammo at gun stores), etc.
Money to trade for gear with traveling Npc’s
And for the crazy fuel to keep that fire nice and toasty.
also possibly some new starting attributes associated with money.

Even though there is no power things like robots can still function so i’m thinking these machines would be like them and get magical energy for no good reason.

[sup]Also as a side note the game needs better AI especially for wild animals[/sup]

[Hyena_Grin]

Money as an object for getting access to things that aren’t aware of the apocalypse (machines) is a great idea, honestly. Vending machines and coin-operated fuel pumps etc. It’d be an interesting way of putting more stuff (as there should be more stuff) in the environment without making it too easy to access everything you need to survive.

Just not sold on money for trade with people. I’d rather see a rudimentary bartering system where NPCs value things differently and will trade X for Y. Like a gang of thugs might value guns and bullets more than medical supplies, so you trade a bunch of .22 for some bandages and first aid kits. Meanwhile a lone traveling doctor might highly prize medical supplies but since he’s a light eater and alone doesn’t need food much, so values it less. So you trade a few bandages for some canned food. Etc.

[Rivet]

magical energy for no good reason.

With the prevalence of atomic and solar power we see in Cataworld, I’m guessing that the computers and robots and such are all self-powered by something similar.

From The Gunslinger by Stephen King:

It probably ran on an atomic slug, as there was no electricity within a thousand miles of here and even dry batteries would have lost their charge long ago.

[kevin.granade]

hah, I like the idea of some kind of kiosk where the easiest way to get at the contents (without risking their destruction at least) is to hook up some kind of power supply and then feed it cash.

Also yea, robots would be a possibility. Smash a window, the eyebots demand you pay a fine, if you do they leave you alone. Hilarious.

As was pointed out though, survivors aren’t going to value money (except for use in the above scenario), so it won’t generally be useful as a currency. We have a rudimentary barter system, but as has been reported it’s EXTREMELY gameable and broken at the moment. Personally I’m all for going pure barter and not having any kind of currency at all, immediately after the cataclysm like this nothing would have stabalized. That means that depending on how bartering goes, you might end up not being able to trade with certain individuals because you don’t have anything they want or vice versa. As far as I’m concerned that’s a feature.

An exception is when we do factions they could have some kind of in-faction fiat currency (and only ever pay you with that, so you have to go to the faction store to buy stuff at outrageous prices, good times)

And regarding powered locations, that’s going to default to no. Things designed to be autonomous (like security robots) are one thing, but stationary kiosks and such aren’t going to go to the additional expense of having an autonomous power supply when there’s cheap grid power available.

In the future we want to have opportunities for you to restore power to some locations, but very few things are going to default to having power.

[GlyphGryph]

What I would find most hilarious is vending machines with valuable objects inside that ask for lots and lots of money…

but which you can also pry open with a crowbar. Options!

[Hyena_Grin]

Breaking into vending machines should cause alarms to go off (alerting enemies) and possibly bring in the robot eyes.

[ClaytonRISING]

There is no currency in this apocalypse that could have any kind of monetary value. Like GlyphGryph said, if there was a vending machine there would be nothing stopping you from blowing it open.

Plus, there is already a value system on things you can trade. In a real apocalypse there would be a barter economy, as again, monetary value would should from currency to trading.

[Aggrons_shell]

All of this doesn’t mean we should have money, I mean, think of all the fires I could start with the dollars off of zombies, which I could get from throwing pennies at hulks in a river!

[drake1storm]

Why not just go full on Metro and use bullets as currency?

They are semi -plentiful, hard to reproduce, and have a limited life expectancy that is directly due to their value. In a rl apocalyptic situation, they would very likely be a common form of barter.

[Rivet]

[quote=“drake1storm, post:9, topic:2573”]Why not just go full on Metro and use bullets as currency?

They are semi -plentiful, hard to reproduce, and have a limited life expectancy that is directly due to their value. In a rl apocalyptic situation, they would very likely be a common form of barter.[/quote]

I second every bit of this.

[Otaku]

IIRC we already have money, crazy right? Yeah, it is sorta that small insignificant number on the trade screen. But yeah it is underpowered.

I am sorta OK with the idea of faction money, I mean, what is keeping order there? What federal reserves do they have? Is their money gold backed?
I find bullet currency sorta like bartering. You want this knife? I will trade it for 30 bullets. How is that not bartering?

[Rivet]

It is bartering, but it’s more readily quantifiable than some other options. Plus it really drives home the desperation of the situation if your most common form of currency is a tool of destruction.

[ClaytonRISING]

Bullets as currency? Already played enough Metro, no thanks ;D

[Kazymir]

Bottlecaps. That is all.

[Hyena_Grin]

No bullets or bottlecaps as currency. =(

Bullets would kinda make sense (just about anyone can make use of bullets) but it’s obviously straight out of Metro.

Bottlecaps makes no sense whatsoever. Fallout had two hundred-or-so years for the economy to crumble and be replaced by bottlecaps. Which is still silly. If there’s any reason to use bottlecaps as an exchange currency then there’s equal reason to use the existing metal or paper currency which is more varied and better suited to being carried.

Frankly the idea of a new, non-barter economy developing within a week of the death of 99% of the population is just absurd.

People are going to be asking themselves ‘what do I need, what am I ill-suited to get myself.’

I’d really like to see ‘archetypes’ set up for NPCs that have their own trade-interests. NPCs are always willing to trade but have High, Normal, and Low value for items based on their own personal needs (based on their skill-sets and faction), as well as many (most) items they just aren’t interested in. A character with a lot of food may be willing to trade their food for less than someone who has very little, but as you trade for more of their food the value of the food goes up. They aren’t going to trade their last can of spam to you for a handful of .22 rounds, but they might sell one of their stack of twenty cans of spam for a handful of .22 rounds. And skills can play a part also. A character with a lot of Survival may be willing to trade food for cheaper than someone who can only get their food by trading (they have no combat or survival skills).

Once in a while you’d find dedicated ‘merchants’ who operate with larger stocks and a more capitalist look at goods; they aren’t just interested in goods for themselves, they are interested in goods they know they can trade with others. As a result they will rarely trade top-dollar for any item but have a wider selection of items they will trade away and for. These people have probably occupied and barricaded a store front, they might have guards, and if you try to steal their stuff they will go hostile. (Warning on pickup?)

I imagine the devs have all kinds of ideas on what to do with NPCs so there’s probably some overlap there.

[kevin.granade]

1. Ammunition wouldn’t be currency but rather barter, for one very important reason, if you’re trading with a NPC, and they have a gun that accepts a certain type of ammo, that ammo will be FAR more valuable to them, making it a currency with some fixed value relative to other items is unnecessarally limiting. Similarly, if they SEE that you have a certain gun, they should demand a premium on its ammo. This would tend to even out if you’re dealing with a trader of some kind, as they’re playing a numbers game of how good the ammo is versus how common it is, but even then it could vary widely if they were e.g. attached to a faction that values certain things, like pistols over rifles for some reason.

2. Bottlecaps are one of the dumbest things about fallout, they have a 90% barter system, but wussed out and stuck in a bizarre fiat currency to smooth things out. As they were aiming for semi-mainstream I can’t really fault them on it, and they dressed it up nicely with humor, but it’s definitely a departure from the otherwise nice and gritty representation of an apocalyptic scenario.

As usual, Hyena Grin read my freaking mind

[ted]

Similarly, if they SEE that you have a certain gun, they should demand a premium on its ammo.

This is a bad idea. It will probably be difficult to write a gun-finding algorithm that the player can’t easily trick. It would be better to assume the player has an appropriate gun and charge a uniform price, because the player just won’t buy the ammo if it’s not usable.

Price gouging for medicines could work, since the player can’t hide low HP or illnesses like a physical item.

[drake1storm]

[quote=“Otaku, post:11, topic:2573”]IIRC we already have money, crazy right? Yeah, it is sorta that small insignificant number on the trade screen. But yeah it is underpowered.

I am sorta OK with the idea of faction money, I mean, what is keeping order there? What federal reserves do they have? Is their money gold backed?
I find bullet currency sorta like bartering. You want this knife? I will trade it for 30 bullets. How is that not bartering?[/quote]

The same can be said for paper currency. It is all bartering.

Also, ted, that wouldn’t be very hard at all. You would just need a function that would be called when the barter screen opens that will get the id of the target npc, search through both it and the players inventory for anything flagged as a ‘gun’ while adding any gun types found to a separate array for each. It would then run, for each array, checking if that ammo type is in the others inventory, and adjust prices accordingly.

That is likely not the most efficient way (hard to be efficient when using text), but it should be effective while running too quickly to tell, so long as we don’t go gun nuts and add in 50 bagillian of them.

[kevin.granade]

But I want the player to work around it, that’s the whole point.
Of course that means you have to have your favorite gun stashed somewhere the NPC can’t see it at all times you’re in sight range of the NPC, which means you don’t have easy access to it if there’s trouble… decisions, decisions…

[Zarthull]

I like the suggestions for bartening with npc’s for items.

I think there should be traveling npc caravans (possibly a car full of 4 or so traveling npcs) all armed with guns and good loot (food, guns & ammo, bionics)
These NPC’s would tell the player to put away there weapon or they will open fire on him/her, this allows the player to have the opportunity to try and kill them for loot or just trade normally.
Also same thing goes for future NPC’s towns.