How would you like to pay for that, sir?

[Alex]

Is there an established and fully detailed monetary system in any version, any era Trek? I know FASA liked Credits, and DS9 often referred to Latinum, but can anyone explain the monetary systems of Trek RPGs? Basically, for a campaign where the PCs are independent traders, how can they be paid, and how far will it go. Examples of prices would be really helpful, such as clothing, basic equipment, weapons, shuttles and starships. Thanks.

[black campbellq]

There was some stuff in the old LUG DS9 books.

I use the credit for the UFP, which is tied to replicator power usage. The Ferengi and Orions in our universe tie their economies to latinum. The rate of exchange I figure would be pretty variable, but in our campaign the Fed has artificially stabilized the rate of exchange and value, no matter the access to replicators or power generation. This would probably lead to serious probkems between the UFP and other powers.

Figure the non-fed powers without widespread replicator access would have serious problems with the Federation economy. Their goods would have to be cheap enough that using the replicator would not be worth the use of credits (which, if they had realistic mass-energy physics, it would always be.) Having the UFP able to pump tons of cheap replicated goods into the other powers, while having a near universal lock on their own market would be a good motivation for animosity between capitalistic, or lower-tech, powers and the UFP.

Of course, the UFP would be willing to spread its benificence to these powers...if they were accept the social and governmental norms of the Federation. You've got a great parable for the expansion of a 'monoculture' (that isn't actually one, but an amalgamation of multiple cultures under a unifying set of values...) versus the 'poor, unwitting cultures that can't defend themselves from cultural expansion. (sound familiar?)

More and more, I find myself being on the side of the non-Fed powers...

[Tobian]

Good commentaries BQ, though there are a number of factors which would mitigate those...

The Federation as a whole does not trade with wholesalers, rather they establish trade agreements with governments based on commodities exchange, rather than currency. An example of this is seen in the TNG Episode 'the price' where the Federation was trading based on mining rights, mineral exports and mass commodities, rather than the Ferengi who traded often in cold hard latinum. I see this as a likelly good way to ballance such inequities, and to help stop market saturation or collapse. The Federation would not likelly sell mass produced replicated goods, rather trade access to the technology for mineral wealth, allowing that government to maintain it's economy. Technically speaking the Federation would try and uphold the prime directive as much as Starfleet would: I can't see them forcing an economy to bow before it by pressurising it's economy to the point of collapse 'or else' they join the Federation.

In working pracrice you see it in DS9: With more advanced federation technology, and no overheads they could effectivelly collapse Quarks empire on the station, but because it's presence is good for the station they exist in a reciprocal symbiosis: Quark pays for the facilities the federation provides, and in turn he provides them with actual latinum to 'pay' their officers, who in turn spend it at Quarks!

As a rule of thumb the 'Replicator' is not a be all and end all of the Federation economy. using a replicator is energy intensive and wasteful, when simple manufacture would do in it's place. You generally can only manufacture 'soft' goods, and few replicators can make advanced technology - You can't replicate most of the hard stuff on starships - Phasers, warp cores, hull plating, warp coils, isolinear chips or computer sub processors.. there are numerous examples of objects, accross all of the shows, if they had been simply replicated could have solved the dilema! If everything could be replicated why would they even trade ores!! it has ot be said of course that the manufacturing plants they use to make a 'warp core' or a 'dilithium crystal' or thousands of self sealing stem bolts must be pheonomenal places!

Monetary value in the future is a complicated issue!

[Alex]

Yes, it does seem to have inticacies.

How about those of you who have run independent trader scenarios. How have you handled purchase of goods, sale of goods, greasing palms, and acquiring repair and replacement parts for the ship?

[redwood973]

Sometime back (I mean way back, when LUG was in full swing) one of our members was very interested in the economics of Trek. He had a web page with nothing but Trek economics stuff. Most, I think, was based on the old FASA stuff which he had updated to TNG standards. He had a file you could download showing costs and availablity on hundreds of items (and if they could be replicated or not).

I have been unalbe to find it (or him for that matter). Perhaps someone here can point you in the right direction? I can't remember his user name, but I remember he was from Alaska. (Use to have his web page bookmarked, but lost it in the great system crash of '03. Forgot all about his stuff up to now when I read this thread.)

[Tobian]

These pages?

http://www.geocities.com/willbswift/costchart2.html

http://www.geocities.com/willbswift/costchart1.html

I had to think hard about that one

[redwood973]

Yes, that's it! Hrm, I had thought The B.S Big Bad Ferengi/Orion Equipment Price List was a .pdf file, but that is exactly what I was thinking of.

Kudos to Tobian!

[Tobian]

No problem, I think i probably found those on here at some point.. one of the many unlooked at links on my favourites that have been there for years

To me the technobabble on that site helps to explain away the specifics of why some things are not replicateable: the higher the atomic number of an atomic compound, the more likelly it would break down explosivelly if the computer made single bit errors

[Alex]

That site provided a good starting point. Curious. The exchange rate is set to 100cr/slip, 100slips/strip, 20strips/bar, 20bars/brick. I would have set the exchange rates at the same amount per different level (100/all or 20/all). The colored text indicates this information is official and cannon. Does anybody have a reference episode that established this? I didn't think there was one.

I thought of two other ways to set prices in-game. One method is to use Star Wars as a basis, since that is a more exchange based universe. The problems with that is the not everything is priced and ships tend to have very low prices...a freighter would cost just a few 10,000 credits. I just can't see buying a small warp freighter for 15,000 or 20,000 credits. The second method is to use real world prices as a basis. Obviously, we don't have all the things that are used in Star Trek, but we have analogues. So to buy a ship in Trek would cost a comparable number of credits as buying an ocean-going ship in dollars (or pounds or euros for our European friends). To buy a PADD knock-off would be the same as a high-end PDA. To buy an emergency first aid kit would be the same. To buy a disruptor would be the same as a typical .45 handgun. Etc. That seems to work.

What I found as far as ships goes...all I could find was used, nothing new. But a recent model slow cargo ship costs 7M-10M, a generation old slow cargo ship costs 500K-2M, a recent model medium tanker costs 13.7M, a past generation small tanker just 155K. Tugs range from 300K-3M. A retired military submarine from the Korean War era, stripped of weapons, sold for 497K while a retired and stripped aircraft carrier of the same era went for 45M. These can equate to a stripped Klingon BoP and a stripped TOS Movie era vessel like the Excelsior. Don't know where to find prices on new commercial vessels.

[Owen E Oulton]

I disagree with the exhange rate between the credit and the slip, which originates with LUG's DS9 CRB. The few times the credit is shown, it appears to be analogous in value to modern currencies. Slips are shown to be of relatively low value, certainly not 100 times the value indicated for a credit. I've pegged a slip at 10 credits, and a credit as roughly equal to a dollar or euro in purchasing power.