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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: How Much is a Credit Worth?  (Read 4512 times)

StarScum

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How Much is a Credit Worth?
« on: February 12, 2020, 01:48:41 PM »

In EVE the basic currency, ISK, is said to be worth as much as a middle-class family would make in a year. A skilled player can casually make millions of ISK in a single sitting and ships cost billions. I thought this was a really cool way to impart on the player the scale of the game and just how far above even a starting player is compared to the average joe.

It got me thinking about the credits in Star Sector and how much they are worth. The best way to gauge it, I think, is to look at the salary of an average crewman. 10 credits a month leads me to believe that 1 credit = $1000 which means a crewman earns $10,000 a month and $120,000 a year. That might seem high, but consider the risks involved with being in a players fleet and the specialized skills needed to keep a starship up and running. In EVE its mentioned that a crewmember of a players ship could be set for life after a few months of service.

It also makes more sense if you consider the 10 credits a month to be the average salary of crewmembers. The deck-swabber isnt making as much as the navigation officer or chief fighter pilot, and I bet the far future has seen many advances in Roomba tech meaning there are more specialists than general manuals to pay.

Am I overthinking this?
« Last Edit: February 12, 2020, 01:51:02 PM by StarScum »
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Plantissue

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #1 on: February 12, 2020, 04:21:52 PM »

1 credits = $1000 would mean that the typical frigate costing $12000 would be $12 million. Modern fighter jets cost + $50 million. A capital ship is $400 million, the cost of a modern multipurpose warship. (Or what the cost would be if manufacturing warships were done in a cost effective manner.) You can say that technology of starsector has drastically reduced the price of manufacturing, especially with essentially no need for research costs and automated additive manufacturing but conversely you can say that higher forms of technology should have higher costs. It best not to think too hard about this. It's just a game mechanic. Crew wages wasn't in the game till relatively recently.
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Thaago

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #2 on: February 12, 2020, 04:43:10 PM »

Its a fun thing to think about, but I agree with Plantissue and wouldn't draw any firm conclusions. I'm pretty sure the cost of crew per month is calibrated from gameplay (what level of costs creates pressure but doesn't bankrupt players too harshly) rather than as an integrated bit of lore.

But I'll join in on silly speculation :D. The cost of a mid sized oil tanker (~100k tons fully loaded but the range is large depending on model) is apparently about $60 million, or 60000 credits. That kind of points towards what we would consider commercial shipbuilding costs to be similar to what costs in the game are for warships.
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Lucky33

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #3 on: February 12, 2020, 08:45:29 PM »

1 unit of food costs 20 credits. Its enough to feed 10 people for a month. In the US, monthly recommended minimum amount of money for food per person is $326.74. 1 credit = $163.37.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2020, 08:51:43 PM by Lucky33 »
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Alex

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #4 on: February 12, 2020, 09:15:07 PM »

I'll join in as well, from another angle! Consider that in some of the bar interactions, you buy drinks. These drinks cost so much less than a credit that their price is, in gameplay terms, zero.
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StarScum

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #5 on: February 12, 2020, 11:10:25 PM »

I'll join in as well, from another angle! Consider that in some of the bar interactions, you buy drinks. These drinks cost so much less than a credit that their price is, in gameplay terms, zero.

I'd imagine you buy drinks by using the money of whatever faction that bar is located in, which is worthless compared to credits. Its like the US dollar vs the Zimbabwean rupee.

The question now is how exactly do credits keep their value?
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bobucles

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #6 on: February 13, 2020, 05:51:31 AM »

1 unit of food costs 20 credits. Its enough to feed 10 people for a month. In the US, monthly recommended minimum amount of money for food per person is $326.74. 1 credit = $163.37.
1 unit of food costs 20 credits after lifting it into orbit, boxing it on a ship, flying 10 light years over and dropping it off at a volcanic world.

Don't forget that our own earth is essentially running a food surplus. There's no nearby worlds to trade with, so prices are going to drop drastically and be much closer to the 3-5 credits for having a disastrous surplus. So, that places a single credit around $1000. ;)

Lucky33

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #7 on: February 13, 2020, 06:12:11 AM »

1 unit of food costs 20 credits. Its enough to feed 10 people for a month. In the US, monthly recommended minimum amount of money for food per person is $326.74. 1 credit = $163.37.
1 unit of food costs 20 credits after lifting it into orbit, boxing it on a ship, flying 10 light years over and dropping it off at a volcanic world.

Don't forget that our own earth is essentially running a food surplus. There's no nearby worlds to trade with, so prices are going to drop drastically and be much closer to the 3-5 credits for having a disastrous surplus. So, that places a single credit around $1000. ;)

It costs 20 credits right from my colony stockpile.

Last time I checked, it was over 800 millions of severely undernourished people on Earth. And 1.3 billion people have experienced food insecurity at moderate levels.
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Plantissue

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #8 on: February 13, 2020, 06:12:36 AM »

Where do you get that 1 Food is enough to feed 10 people for a month from?

Cost of commodities don't include transportation costs. You buy the commodity at the price and then you pay for fuel and supplies separately. The price of the commodity doesn't change on where you flew it from, the only thing that changes is the price you are willing to sell or buy it for.
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Ishman

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #9 on: February 13, 2020, 11:06:54 AM »

It costs 20 credits right from my colony stockpile.

Last time I checked, it was over 800 millions of severely undernourished people on Earth. And 1.3 billion people have experienced food insecurity at moderate levels.

This is incredibly misrepresentative of things. World hunger is a distribution problem, not a production problem.

We produce enough food to feed 1.5x the world's population - enough to feed 10 billion people. 30-40% of all food is wasted, however. This is because of inefficiency in the supply chain, such as the lack of cold storage in India, and because of too large portions being prepared, too much being purchased at once for a household to eat before it goes bad, and so on.

These are infrastructural issues.

As far as it costing 20 credits from your colony stockpile - anything you take from your colony's stockpile, you're giving them back the amount of credits they'd make if they sold it on the open market at a fair deal. No fluctuation above or below that price. The actual cost to produce any of these commodities (total cost including unseen like labor, maintenance, and opportunity (could be making/growing something else with the space)) - only Alex knows.
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Goumindong

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2020, 12:16:20 PM »

Production price should be very close to a high surplus price. While average price would assume some relationship between whether or not food is generally imported or exported(over the galaxy). My guess is that food is generally exported and that production prices are therefore fairly low compared to the average. This does make taking supplies from your own colony generally more expensive than it "ought" to be given that you're a producer (as if you are you're going to be selling at below average prices) but its not something to worry about really
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Lucky33

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #11 on: February 13, 2020, 12:19:02 PM »

It costs 20 credits right from my colony stockpile.

Last time I checked, it was over 800 millions of severely undernourished people on Earth. And 1.3 billion people have experienced food insecurity at moderate levels.

This is incredibly misrepresentative of things. World hunger is a distribution problem, not a production problem.

We produce enough food to feed 1.5x the world's population - enough to feed 10 billion people. 30-40% of all food is wasted, however. This is because of inefficiency in the supply chain, such as the lack of cold storage in India, and because of too large portions being prepared, too much being purchased at once for a household to eat before it goes bad, and so on.

These are infrastructural issues.

As far as it costing 20 credits from your colony stockpile - anything you take from your colony's stockpile, you're giving them back the amount of credits they'd make if they sold it on the open market at a fair deal. No fluctuation above or below that price. The actual cost to produce any of these commodities (total cost including unseen like labor, maintenance, and opportunity (could be making/growing something else with the space)) - only Alex knows.


Starsector has these distribution problems too. When you sell food on the black market it doesnt get distributed properly and equally. Thats for sure. Same as on Earth.

US food price is also based on some median stuff. So what?
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IonDragonX

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #12 on: February 13, 2020, 01:23:35 PM »

The question now is how exactly do credits keep their value?
Not very well. a player can actually pull credits out of CPUs that didn't " blow up quite enough " after a battle.
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Sidestrafe2462

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #13 on: February 13, 2020, 01:25:53 PM »

The question now is how exactly do credits keep their value?
Not very well. a player can actually pull credits out of CPUs that didn't " blow up quite enough " after a battle.

Makes you wonder how many millions of credits have been lost to this.
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StarScum

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Re: How Much is a Credit Worth?
« Reply #14 on: February 13, 2020, 02:04:06 PM »

The question now is how exactly do credits keep their value?
Not very well. a player can actually pull credits out of CPUs that didn't " blow up quite enough " after a battle.

Yeah, I dint understand how an entirely virtual currency works. What's it backed up by?
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