Conversion and Currency Inconsistencies

[Dragon_God]

I'm going to start this conversation since it has been rattling my mind and I rather there be a place where it is finally approved on. WHAT is the conversion rate for KS to IRL USD? And what is the cost of producing items? Because from what I understand KS, DS, and DA are 1:1 to USD which makes absolutely no sense when KSAS is 1:2:4. So I'd like to ask what is it Actually? And why is it that money doesn't really mean anything? Or at least to me, money exists but isn't a resource really managed.

 

[Whisper]

You've got a handful of questions here, so I'll break them apart and answer as best I can. All of this is based on my own opinions/understandings and may not be 100% accurate, so keep that in mind.

SARP and Currency​

First off, let me get this out of the way: SARP doesn't really track currency for characters, corporations, etc. We trust our GMs and players to make reasonable decisions about what can be done. Currency is there as a guideline and an IC helper more than anything else.

• If a player wants to run a plot for their PC where they win the lottery and buy a ship, I personally wouldn't think twice about giving it the thumbs up.
• On the other hand, if a PC who doesn't have a reason to be wealthy is running around with a personal ship, fighters, various riches, etc, I'd at least want to know why. If it was important to the player that their character have that wealth, then I'd want to help them find a reason for it.
• If there's simply no reason and it can't make sense, then we should figure that out.

I think this is a good approach, personally, and one that seems to serve the site well right now. I believe that currency was tracked more seriously in the past, but for various reasons I suppose SARP has eased off on that. It wouldn't be hard to make some kind of SARP bank site or spreadsheet where we actually kept up with it.

If anything, SARP has been moving progressively further away from simulation-style RP towards a purer narrative-style RP, so I think something like that site/spreadsheet are unlikely to be made. I could be wrong!

Some examples -

• One of the corps I made, Noval, is all about over-the-top luxury and top-end products. I RP them like they're rolling in cash, because that's what I feel makes sense for a company of that type.
• Another Corp, Default Industrial Tools and Manufacturing, is more down-to-earth, so the CEO might be wealthy but the day-to-day RP would be pretty blue collar.
• Someone in the NDC's Duskerian Legion doesn't earn a ton of money, so I'd expect them to be a bit more frugal.
• Officers in NDC's CAFF (fleet) make a decent income, so they can afford to be a little more frivolous.

'Use your best judgement' and 'be fair' are the best rules to follow when it comes to income, etc. This isn't a license to go and buy everything in the sector, but it does mean that we (SARP staff, etc) don't want to get too involved in your character's finances if it can be avoided.

At the end of the day, story trumps pretty much everything else on SARP, so long as it isn't doing something really egregious. When it comes to currency, I wouldn't want every character to be rich, because then - what's the point? But if someone needs extra cash for a plot idea or something, then let's figure out how to make that happen in a way that makes sense.

Conversion Rates​

This is one of those things you're going to get a dozen answers on and part of that is because it just isn't easy to figure out.

Stuff in SARP can literally be printed from infinite energy or created using resources from asteroid belts, gas giants, etc.. material and manufacturing costs just aren't what they are in our OOC world. It's entirely possible, if not likely, that something like bread (which can't simply be printed ... probably) might cost more than a laptop if prices aren't controlled somehow.

I've heard that 1 KS = 1 USD a few times, but I've also seen it said that 1 KS = 4 USD... and so on. Personally, I try to assume it's 1:1 for the small stuff. Larger stuff gets weird fast (some spaceships and stuff are ridiculously cheap), but if you consider that making those things isn't that complicated in a world of advanced, starship-scale 3d printers, then it starts to make a little more sense.

When I'm pricing out large stuff, I look at what's already on the wiki. If I can grab a few things and average them out, that's a good start - and then I try to make some kind of modifier depending on if I think what I'm making is 'better/more complex/harder to manufacture' or the inverse, and if so, by how much? I tend to markup everything that Noval makes by a bit, just for the sake of them being 'luxury' items.

When you start to work in other currencies, it gets more complicated. The currency conversion charts are the easiest thing to go off of, but like currency conversions in real life, this isn't straight-forward, either. The same hamburger might cost 4 KS on Yamatai, 4 DS on Sirris VI, and 4 DA in Funky City, but none of those currencies should add up like that. Some currencies are just 'stronger' than others, even if local prices seem similar.

To continue on that, Officers in the NDC start around 150,000 DS or so. That's a perfectly good income assuming the local economy is based around the idea that 1 DS = 1 USD. If we went by the conversion chart, however, that's only around 37,500 KS. That seems pretty low for an Officer. I imagine that, locally, their income works out just fine. Someone visiting from Yamatai might be surprised to see just how far their currency goes.

So, what drives costs?​

This isn't part of your question, but it seems relevant.

I think, to some extent, prices and manufacturing are influenced by their respective factions, just how things like food prices are influenced by modern governments or corporations controlling how much of a certain thing gets produced (by paying farmers not to farm, etc).

One book series I like, 'The Bobiverse' (highly recommend it!), eventually lands on an idea that prices are based on time spent using the automanufactories. So, instead of a gold standard or something, you can literally cash in your money to buy time on the automanufactory. Most people don't, since it's easier to just buy from companies, but it's a solid basis. The government has to put real thought into whether or not they should add more automanufactories, because it might collapse their economy. This approach makes a lot of sense to me.

I think shipping is also a major driver. Not all goods are manufactured near the consumer. If something has to be hauled in from another system, go through customs, etc, etc, at the least someone wants to pay off their freighter, port fees, have a good salary, etc.

'Printing from energy' is also a Yamatai-only thing and, as far as I know, not something they do a lot of. So most goods come from actual resources somewhere, which also involves shipping, mining/harvesting costs, etc.

Not everyone has access to automanufactories, either. The Freespacer models seem fairly ubiquitous at this point, but I don't imagine they're that pervasive in the consumer space. Most factories are probably tailor made for certain types of goods. I imagine they're way better at it than what we have today, and can probably be easily changed to do something else, but it's still not 'unlimited free manufacturing on demand'.

Labor costs are probably low, overall. A factory might only need a few technicians/managers to operate, even if they're massive. Transportation of goods doesn't have to be manned, but it probably is - if only because the alternative is kind've boring in a setting like this.

All of that comes together to suggest that costs overall are probably considerably lower than they are for us today, but they aren't negligible. Smaller items are probably priced fairly similarly, as they always have been, but by that same token more expensive things tend to go down in price rapidly.

Luxury goods are still a thing and are likely to be priced higher. Yamatai and the New Dusk Conclave both provide quite a lot for their citizens in terms of housing, healthcare, etc, so it's possible that things outside of the state-provided stuff might be artisanal and, therefore, more expensive.



That's a lot of text, but I hope it helps.

 

[Alex Hart]

One of the good concrete touchpoints for price in comparison to real life are things that we know exist in both SARP and the real world, such as gold and water. While prices are lower because of an increase in abundance, this also creates a touchpoint by which we can establish the KS's strength against real life currency.

Water varies based on its uses, for example, water from utilities costs less than bottled drinking water and this makes finding an accurate comparison much harder. For this reason, I find a more consistent point of reference to establish the relative value of currencies to be gold.

Referencing this thread (In which we can find a post establishing roughly what the Star Army considers to be a fair price for Gold) and the current price of gold, we can find that based on that point of reference, the KS is about 28.8 times more valuable as a currency.

From this, we can find that a DA is worth about 14.4 US dollars, and a DS 7.2.

 

[Soban]

Whisper's breakdown is really good. Roughly 1 USD = 1 KS. However, there are some strange parts, gold especially. Raw elements can not just be mined, but pretty much created out of thin air. Why? Because we have aether which is essentially unlimited power.

 

[Charmaylarg Dufrain]

Hey hey! Another bobiverse fan!

I dont think i can give an answer better than whisper. Frankly in setting resources arent scarce and with autofactory printers, fabricators, etc. You can make almost anything from the conversion of elements to already assembled complex goods.

What you essentially would pay for, to reference the bobiverse again is time and labor. There are only so many fabricators on hand, so much raw material you can cram into one at a time, and so many bodies you can task with the middle management and go-between. So the majority of what you are paying for isnt for raw materials but for the time of production.

So since you dont have to worry about raw materials then your economy and currency is likely backed by its industrial and logistical base. Which larger factions like Nep and Yamatai have a monopoly in (OOC because of how long they've been around. IC because you would join your cause/corp to these giants because of their worth and value and the trickle-down you would get compared to going it on your own which would likely bankrupt you without the already established infrastructure of the two superpowers to rely on; Look at it as taking an already built road to your destination as compared to trying to cut and build your own, by yourself, with only what you have on hand).

As an example; Yamatai's digital currency isnt backed entirely by its sheer abundance of resources but also by the guarantee that its industrial base is ceaseless and indomitable and is a guarantee that anything they seek to manufacture will be manufactured on time and as advertised. If yamatai or nep ever had an economical collapse it would likely be triggered not by a sheer body count but by removing the faith in their industrial bases that back their economies which would cause a domino collapse of industry. But thats a topic for another time and likely not anything most faction managers understand or would want to/care to RP compared to the norm.