What do you think the price of water should be in the SARP?

[Wes]

How much should water be worth in the SARP?

Purified drinking water and/or synthesized (lab quality) pure water of course would be the more expensive kind due to processing requirements, and ocean water would probably be much less expensive. Bottles of drinking water would be the most expensive due to packaging.

Here's my suggestion:

In Yamatai, fresh (potable) water would be priced around 2.5 KS per cubic meter (1000 liters).

Most inhabited planets would have eco-laws against transporting bulk ocean water offworld, or at least set a minimum price set to keep desert planets from just going to the ocean worlds and sucking up their resources. For uninhabited worlds, the price would mainly be set on the cost of operating starships to go get it. And starships crews need to be paid. I don't want to do the calculations on those because they vary wildly so maybe we should arbitrarily say 1 KS for 100 cubic meters of ocean water.

Bottled water would probably cost about 1 KS per bottle from a store.

 

[Soresu]

Re: What do you think the price of water should be in the SA

Water is relatively cheap in a space setting. Not only do we have multiple worlds with ready fresh water sources but also desalination plants could be made. Or just smash some hydrogen and O2 together. There is also the glamorous life of the comet miner. So you should probably price water according to these factors.

 

[Exhack]

Re: What do you think the price of water should be in the SA

Water probably doesn't have a consistent price, but probably has one based on consumer factors. Like water might be expensive in an oasis on Maekardan (because of price gauging by local merchants), but then be free and basically only cost the container you put it in on a water world like Albini.

 

[Sigma]

Re: What do you think the price of water should be in the SA

Agreed. Water is a commodity, but a rare one on some worlds. Like all market products, it is dependent on the demand and supply. Setting a price to water is impossible, IMO. Governments on drier planets may subsidize water production, artificially reducing the price.

It's much, pardon the pun, too fluid to put a definite price on. For example, when I was visited Thailand on a family vacation, we could only drink bottled water because the tap water was too dirty. Bottled water was pretty cheap, strangely enough. And that's because there's a lot of companies, local and international, competing against each other. Since there's a number of competitors, that also drives down the price and causes it to fluctuate.

Coming from Singapore where, even with desalination plants, we still have to buy water from Malaysia, water is a premium. Our reservoirs and desalination plants cannot sustain the country's water needs. We're less dependent on foreign water (as compared to prior to the plants) but there were numerous instances when Malaysia threatened to cut off the water supply or increase prices unless Singapore did something for Malaysia. Can't remember exact instances.

In any case, we don't need a fixed price on water because situations and circumstances cause pricing fluctuations. Something like water is so basic to the needs of all SARP characters that I really don't think it ought to be priced. It's not like we're running an Economic RPG here.

 

[Ira]

Re: What do you think the price of water should be in the SA

I have never put much thought into it. I just figured like the other guys said, it is easily accessible on other worlds, and not on others.

Now that I do think about it..the Garts come from an arid world. So while they do need water, they draw it from the food they eat and their bodies tend to store it during droughts.

So while water is prized (and they are getting it thanks to spess mining) It is probably not something that is expensive.