196 réponses à ce sujet

[Erez Kristal]

AlexMBrennan wrote...

OP, do you actually have any sources of any kind for those numbers or did you just make them up?

Plus, I'd be careful with using in-game prices as that assumes that someone at Bioware worked out the value of a credit rather than the writers just making up whatever numbers sound good at the time

you are welcome to try to put your numbers based on ingame lore.
like han solo the first put it.

The goal is to come up with numbers that would match the lore. not act all batarian about it.

as for the value of credits. it is obvious shepard overpayed for the automated fish feeder. but that was the economy of war crisis. the value of credit dropped sharply in me3.
i am basing the value of credit on me1&me2.

The fish for 5 credits or magazines for 2 credits are good examples for high pricing in the galaxy most expensive place. 5 credits- 50 dollars sound right for a fish on the citadel considering how you have to pay 20$ in hawai for a meal. where they catch the fishes a few km away and the rents and export  cost are much lower.

dont forget me1 where the weapons you get cost a few credits each.

afcourse the value of credits could also be a bit lower. anywhere between six dollars to ten dollars would be reasonable. which is why i opened this thread. to reach a consensus

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

The economy is pretty much broken erezike. If you're looking for a consensus for your project, my suggestion is to just make it up. Bioware couldn't come up with anything reasonable from one game to the next. 50 credits for a gun on Omega gets you a "Saturday Night Special" in 2185 terms, in other words something really cheap - like that kid had. It might not even work. 1 cr for an "expensive bottle" of Serrice Ice Brandy? At a bar? Do you know how much they'd soak you for that? It was cheap because it was a quest item. Fish for your aquarium so expensive? Luxury item. 416 cr for the models? outrageous. The economy is broken. Make it up.

Moderate crime areas, goods will cost more or will be of lesser quality for the same priced better quality equivalent product in a low crime area. Then supply and demand. And when the galaxy goes to hell, the price of goods becomes a bullet away.

Modifié par sH0tgUn jUliA, 27 octobre 2013 - 10:25 .

[Erez Kristal]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

The economy is pretty much broken erezike. If you're looking for a consensus for your project, my suggestion is to just make it up. Bioware couldn't come up with anything reasonable from one game to the next. 50 credits for a gun on Omega gets you a "Saturday Night Special" in 2185 terms, in other words something really cheap - like that kid had. It might not even work. 1 cr for an "expensive bottle" of Serrice Ice Brandy? At a bar? Do you know how much they'd soak you for that? It was cheap because it was a quest item. Fish for your aquarium so expensive? Luxury item. 416 cr for the models? outrageous. The economy is broken. Make it up.

Moderate crime areas, goods will cost more or will be of lesser quality for the same priced better quality equivalent product in a low crime area. Then supply and demand. And when the galaxy goes to hell, the price of goods becomes a bullet away.

i agree that the economy is broken. but there is an ability to salavage some of it.
if we ignore the luxury items and the quests items.
and just focus on the day to day economy.  five dollars per credits in the lower limits and ten dollars per credit is the upper limit. now we just have to find a consesnsus. 
Important questions are how much would a fighter, frigate, cruiser and dreadnought cost.


nowdays 332 meters carrier  - 2008USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77) - cost  6.2 billions.
the us military expenditure for 2012- 682.0 billions.  4.4% of its gdp.

Modifié par erezike, 27 octobre 2013 - 11:05 .

[Arcian]

erezike wrote...

AlexMBrennan wrote...

OP, do you actually have any sources of any kind for those numbers or did you just make them up?

Plus, I'd be careful with using in-game prices as that assumes that someone at Bioware worked out the value of a credit rather than the writers just making up whatever numbers sound good at the time

you are welcome to try to put your numbers based on ingame lore.
like han solo the first put it.

The goal is to come up with numbers that would match the lore. not act all batarian about it.

as for the value of credits. it is obvious shepard overpayed for the automated fish feeder. but that was the economy of war crisis. the value of credit dropped sharply in me3.
i am basing the value of credit on me1&me2.

You shouldn't be basing it on anything in the games, because like AlexMBrennan said, BioWare didn't put any thought into it. It's just a currency sink for the player, not a well-developed, realistic monetary system.

erezike wrote...

The fish for 5 credits or magazines for 2 credits are good examples for high pricing in the galaxy most expensive place. 5 credits- 50 dollars sound right for a fish on the citadel considering how you have to pay 20$ in hawai for a meal. where they catch the fishes a few km away and the rents and export  cost are much lower.

Let me get this straight - you are balancing the value of the credit on what you think is the price class on the Citadel? Don't you realize how faulty this line of reasoning is? That's not mentioning the fact that BioWare's number mean nothing - no research was done and no thought was put into deciding on those numbers.

Each of the Citadel's wards suffer from poverty problems. The only part of the Citadel that is even remotely close to the standards of wealth you percieve is the Presidium, which is reserved for the galaxy's elite of the elite.

erezike wrote...

dont forget me1 where the weapons you get cost a few credits each.

Tier 1 armors and weapons in ME1 costs at least a few hundred credits, and they get progressively more expensive with each tier.

erezike wrote...

afcourse the value of credits could also be a bit lower. anywhere between six dollars to ten dollars would be reasonable. which is why i opened this thread. to reach a consensus

No it's not reasonable, Erezike. There is absolutely no logical reason for the credit to be that strong 170 years from now, especially when it's a currency used primarily for trade by hundreds of billions of galactic citizens. It can't be too strong or too weak, otherwise it would be useless as a trade currency.

If you're going to assign values to fictional currencies, at least do some research about real currencies before you do so. Based on the historical rate of inflation (2-3% per year, should be fairly similar in Council economies), the Alliance's booming economy and their emphasis on export over import, it's more likely that 1C equals around 1.5$ in 2183, and that 1$ in 2013 equals to about 100C in 2183 or 2-3C in 2013. Because their dollar is weaker than the credit, they benefit more from exports, whereas the credit benefits more when it comes to importing Alliance goods.

erezike wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

The economy is pretty much broken erezike. If you're looking for a consensus for your project, my suggestion is to just make it up. Bioware couldn't come up with anything reasonable from one game to the next. 50 credits for a gun on Omega gets you a "Saturday Night Special" in 2185 terms, in other words something really cheap - like that kid had. It might not even work. 1 cr for an "expensive bottle" of Serrice Ice Brandy? At a bar? Do you know how much they'd soak you for that? It was cheap because it was a quest item. Fish for your aquarium so expensive? Luxury item. 416 cr for the models? outrageous. The economy is broken. Make it up. 

Moderate crime areas, goods will cost more or will be of lesser quality for the same priced better quality equivalent product in a low crime area. Then supply and demand. And when the galaxy goes to hell, the price of goods becomes a bullet away.

i agree that the economy is broken. but there is an ability to salavage some of it.
if we ignore the luxury items and the quests items.
and just focus on the day to day economy.  five dollars per credits in the lower limits and ten dollars per credit is the upper limit. now we just have to find a consesnsus. 

We can't find a consensus when your reasoning is as broken as the economy, Erezike. I would be happy to help you create a realistic credit value, but right now you're really, really far off. Five of today's dollars for each credit 170 years from now... that's ridiculously overvalued. Maybe if you said five dollars for each credit in 2013, but that would still be very overvalued. More realistically so, but still very overvalued.

Modifié par Arcian, 27 octobre 2013 - 04:36 .

[Erez Kristal]

We are leaving infaltion out of it because its irrelevant. if you wish we can compare it to gold like they used to in the old times...
we are talking about the buying power of today dollar in comparasion to the credit.
for example 1 brithish pound = 1.62 dollars
1 credit = 5 dollars.

as for the poor people on the citadel wards. there are poor people in every expensive place in the world. there are poor people in norway and swizerland as well. but most of the people have to make a lot of money in order to survive in the citadel overpriced reality.
a person who makes 200 credits a month in the citadel would have a hard time to survive. would probaly live in rooms packed with ten people and suffer from bad nutrition.

if you think 1 credit = 1,5 dollars.
then try to justify it in the ingame currency.

if you think that poor people living on the citadel mean its cheap to live there please explain why.

[Erez Kristal]

Amakiir wrote...


If your interested you can find some related notes from the aforementioned writer. Look for the posts from Stormwaltz ( warning - some language here and there )

http://forums.penny-...omment_10519136
http://forums.f13.ne...?topic=21953.35

thanks this helps a lot in quelling the doubts of people who misunderstand the lore of the game.
The only thing that might need a change is lowering down The gdp of humanity. however i do feel the current number make a lot of sense considering humanity economic success in mass effect 2.
Waves of tourism and nonexisting unemployment rates. 
achieving double the time the gdp of the asari of salarian makes a lot of sense from a small country
which is why norway today have that much gdp.

the gdp is based on real countries gdp. 


The benefit of lowering the human gdp is in lowering the elcor numbers or decreasing the elcor gdp which is tied in close with the system alliance gdp.

Modifié par erezike, 27 octobre 2013 - 05:17 .

[Arcian]

erezike wrote...

We are leaving infaltion out of it because its irrelevant. if you wish we can compare it to gold like they used to in the old times...
we are talking about the buying power of today dollar in comparasion to the credit.
for example 1 brithish pound = 1.62 dollars
1 credit = 5 dollars.

1£ = 1.62$ is calculated using the currency values of today. That's the exchange rate.

Your 1C = 5$ isn't calculated with contemporary currency values. You can't get a proper exchange rate by comparing the dollar of today with the credit of 2183. That's like trying to get an exchange rate between the GBP and dollar by comparing the GBP of 1913 to the dollar of 2013.

To get the exchange rate you are looking for, you have to account for the dollar's projected inflation rate for 170 years. That's a dollar that's worth only 0.0065 dollars of today. In other words, on one credit, there's 1530$ in the projected value of the dollar in 2183. Ergo, your estimated value of the credit completely obliterated the Alliance's economy when they first integrated with the credit network. Only by downvaluing the credit can you get a realistic exchange rate that won't completely annihilate the Alliance's economy.

erezike wrote...

as for the poor people on the citadel wards. there are poor people in every expensive place in the world. there are poor people in norway and swizerland as well. but most of the people have to make a lot of money in order to survive in the citadel overpriced reality.

Of course there are destitute people everywhere, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the low and middle class. Are you really telling me that every single person who lives on the Citadel are rich? Including the waitresses, cleaners and C-Sec agents?

erezike wrote...

a person who makes 200 credits a month in the citadel would have a hard time to survive. would probaly live in rooms packed with ten people and suffer from bad nutrition.

If the Citadel is so expensive, why would anyone be paid a pittance of 200 credits a month? Income is relative to wealth.

erezike wrote...

if you think 1 credit = 1,5 dollars.
then try to justify it in the ingame currency.

The in-game currency is broken. This is what we've been trying to tell you this entire time. If you want to create a proper monetary system for Mass Effect, you need to:

1) Establish a realistic value of the credit.
2) Rebalance all the costs of everything that can be purchased in-game according to this value.

As it stands, BioWare just had a bunch of items and assigned them a bunch of arbitrary in-game values to act as a currency sink for the player. That is not how real-life pricing works.

erezike wrote...

if you think that poor people living on the citadel mean its cheap to live there please explain why.

I'm not saying it's all cheap, I'm saying that like with every other city in the galaxy, there are low-income residential areas, middle-income residential areas and high-income residential areas. The Wards are reserved for low and middle class, while the Presidium is reserved for the high class.

Doesn't that make sense to you? The waitresses, cleaners and C-Sec agents have to live somewhere, and it has to be affordable for them. The Citadel needs their services.

[Arcian]

erezike wrote...

Amakiir wrote...

If your interested you can find some related notes from the aforementioned writer. Look for the posts from Stormwaltz ( warning - some language here and there )

http://forums.penny-...omment_10519136
http://forums.f13.ne...?topic=21953.35

thanks this helps a lot in quelling the doubts of people who misunderstand the lore of the game.
The only thing that might need a change is lowering down The gdp of humanity. however i do feel the current number make a lot of sense considering humanity economic success in mass effect 2.
Waves of tourism and nonexisting unemployment rates. 
achieving double the time the gdp of the asari of salarian makes a lot of sense from a small country
which is why norway today have that much gdp.

the gdp is based on real countries gdp. 

The benefit of lowering the human gdp is in lowering the elcor numbers or decreasing the elcor gdp which is tied in close with the system alliance gdp.

You do know that this is bad, right? Unemployment drives the creation of new jobs and services, which contributes to economic growth. With zero unemployment, new jobs and services can't be created, and the service and development market stagnates. That's very, very bad thing for the economy.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

erezike, your misidentifying the USA as the salarians. The USA should be the Turians. We spend more on military than the rest of the galaxy combined.

I also want to caution against making things too expensive. You are going to have people who are stranded on the Citadel in certain parts of the wards. Yes, the wards will have slums. There will be parts of them C-sec won't even patrol because it is simply too dangerous. You want a realistic situation? There you go. During the war the Presidium is just one bad day away from Omega. We got this bright and shiny clean view of the Citadel living among the rich and famous. 

I think for a game setting up a galactic economy like this is getting a bit too detailed. Set it up to make the story do what you need. It doesn't have to be that detailed to make a story work.

Modifié par sH0tgUn jUliA, 27 octobre 2013 - 07:18 .

[shodiswe]

I got a few things to say abotu a couple of comments from people on this thread.

1. The amount of war assets provided by each galactic government isn't nessesarily all they got. A lot of their military resources are still protecting their homeworlds or colonies or refugees.

What we see is the amount of resources made available for the final push on earth to get the Crusible in place aswell as the resources used to build, fuel and maintain the crusible.

2. Humanity's GDP. Just because there are a lot of poor people on earth doesnt' mean there are a lot of extremely wealthy people and corporations on Earth. People have mentioned Ashfeld the galaxywide starship fuel depot Owner. Then we got Lawson, Mirandas father who was said to be wealthiest man in the Galaxy, least according to that Asari Mercenary in Mirandas loyalty quest.

The Alliance and Earth is experiencing an industrial, financial and cultural golden age before ME3. That doesn't nessesarily mean everyone is getting rich. Average GDP/Capita might be up but that doesn't mean there won't be both Trilionaires and poor people out there at the same time.

[shodiswe]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

erezike, your misidentifying the USA as the salarians. The USA should be the Turians. We spend more on military than the rest of the galaxy combined.

I also want to caution against making things too expensive. You are going to have people who are stranded on the Citadel in certain parts of the wards. Yes, the wards will have slums. There will be parts of them C-sec won't even patrol because it is simply too dangerous. You want a realistic situation? There you go. During the war the Presidium is just one bad day away from Omega. We got this bright and shiny clean view of the Citadel living among the rich and famous. 

I think for a game setting up a galactic economy like this is getting a bit too detailed. Set it up to make the story do what you need. It doesn't have to be that detailed to make a story work.

I don't think any of the Mass Effect universe governments are spending as large a part of their GDP on the military as the USA, the USA is currently borrowing money to sustain it's current spending. Given their population numbers and financial support from the Volus I don't think they are anywhere close to allocating that large a portion of their GDP to the military. Unless ofcourse their economy is terribly poorly managed.
With a pending Reaper invasion that fiscal model would make sense however.
The Turians had grown complacent by the Treaty of Farixen that lowered most of their possible oponents military buildup. It was explicitly signed to prevent a future arms race that might hurt the economy.

Tbh, it wouldn't surprise me if the Reapers or the Catalyst had a hand in it having their indoctrinated servants atempt to keep resistance at an all time low. That asside, it seems like a smart idea to keep military spendings down and ensure safety and financial stability by ensuring armsraces are prevented. Maybe it's part of their manipulation each cycle.
In the Protean case they were keept down by making sure their slave races had minimal weapons access and no spaceships.

Modifié par shodiswe, 27 octobre 2013 - 07:41 .

[BioWareM0d13]

1. The amount of war assets provided by each galactic government isn't nessesarily all they got. A lot of their military resources are still protecting their homeworlds or colonies or refugees.

That was my impression as well.

The War assets don't represent the entirety of the galactic fleets. They just represent the resources allocated to the Earth counteroffensive. Obviously the Salarians for example, would have more than a couple fleets. Their fleet is canonically larger than the fleet fielded by the Alliance.

[Wulfram]

Though IIRC the Turians pretty explicitly abandoned the fight for their homeworld to come to earth IIRC a conversation with Garrus. And the fight for Thessia is already lost - though probably a big chunk of the Asari fleet is debris after that.

[Barquiel]

The turian fleet is in ruins. Victus abandoned Palavan to help preserving the last remaining turian forces for the assault on Earth. I guess the salarians are holding back (Hackett says the Salarians are fully committed to the war effort if you sabotaged the cure...but that doesn't make much sense, or the salarians are really weak). The asari sent all commandos and fleets "they can spare".

Modifié par Barquiel, 27 octobre 2013 - 08:31 .

[Ieldra]

@OP:
Overall your population numbers look plausible, though I would change the distribution between the species somewhat. One thing though: the figure of 1-20 billion planets taken from the 1% quote from the Codex, that means that Citadel civilization has *mapped* a few billion star systems, not that they were ever visited. I have once estimated the total number of colonies of all species in Citadel Civilization as about 20000. If we posit that about 10% of those worlds are developed worlds counting for 90% of the population, we'll end up with 2000 developed colonies with an average population of a billion each, which makes two trillion equal to 90% of the total population, with the other 18000 colonies being outposts or smaller settlements with populations up to 100 million.

Note that even if we multiply these numbers by 10 (!), Citadel Civilization is still insignificant on a galactic scale, and there could easily exist a few other civlization clusters of the same size in the galaxy which we have never seen. For that reason, I have an issue with Citadel Civilization being referred to the "the galaxy" at various points in the story.  

Modifié par Ieldra2, 27 octobre 2013 - 08:39 .

[CroGamer002]

I find number of population too large.

No planet, but homeworlds, had population even close to 1 billion.

It would be too hugely expensive to build so many large cities on colonies, especially since the biggest cut of colony resources goes for homeworlds.

Seriously, if Asari owned like 1000 colonies they would need to have an average of 2,310,000,000 population per planet.
That's insane overpopulation problem and you have to note only humans and drell had overpopulation issues. As well it's highly unlikely they can own 1000's planets, even without laws limiting explorations and colonial expansions after rachni invasions.

[Wulfram]

Mesina2 wrote...

No planet, but homeworlds, had population even close to 1 billion.

That's not true

Lusia (asari): 2.2 billion
Caleston (?): 1.8 billion
Digeris (Turian): 1.9 billion
Korlus (garbage scow with a climate) 3.8 billion

I think the reason why the Asari etc don't have overpopulation problems is because they've spread their population over a bunch of major worlds, rather than just the one.

Modifié par Wulfram, 27 octobre 2013 - 08:54 .

[Arcian]

Ieldra2 wrote...

@OP:
Overall your population numbers look plausible, though I would change the distribution between the species somewhat. One thing though: the figure of 1-20 billion planets taken from the 1% quote from the Codex, that means that Citadel civilization has *mapped* a few billion star systems, not that they were ever visited. I have once estimated the total number of colonies of all species in Citadel Civilization as about 20000. If we posit that about 10% of those worlds are developed worlds counting for 90% of the population, we'll end up with 2000 developed colonies with an average population of a billion each, which makes two trillion equal to 90% of the total population, with the other 18000 colonies being outposts or smaller settlements with populations up to 100 million.

Note that even if we multiply these numbers by 10 (!), Citadel Civilization is still insignificant on a galactic scale, and there could easily exist a few other civlization clusters of the same size in the galaxy which we have never seen. For that reason, I have an issue with Citadel Civilization being referred to the "the galaxy" at various points in the story.  

To them, that 1% is the entire galaxy and will remain such until they explore more of it.

[shodiswe]

Ieldra2 wrote...

@OP:
Overall your population numbers look plausible, though I would change the distribution between the species somewhat. One thing though: the figure of 1-20 billion planets taken from the 1% quote from the Codex, that means that Citadel civilization has *mapped* a few billion star systems, not that they were ever visited. I have once estimated the total number of colonies of all species in Citadel Civilization as about 20000. If we posit that about 10% of those worlds are developed worlds counting for 90% of the population, we'll end up with 2000 developed colonies with an average population of a billion each, which makes two trillion equal to 90% of the total population, with the other 18000 colonies being outposts or smaller settlements with populations up to 100 million.

Note that even if we multiply these numbers by 10 (!), Citadel Civilization is still insignificant on a galactic scale, and there could easily exist a few other civlization clusters of the same size in the galaxy which we have never seen. For that reason, I have an issue with Citadel Civilization being referred to the "the galaxy" at various points in the story.  

Given that the Reapers sweep the galaxy every 50 000 years and setup relays where evolving races can find them I doubt there will be a lot of major races out there. It's possible a few are hiding like the Liviathan species that might have been hiding for a billion years. They had a head start compared to other civilizations that would try to avoid the Reapers however by beign mroe advanced and the relative infancy of the Reapers when they decided to retreat of the galactic stage and merely "observe" what was going on.

[CroGamer002]

Wulfram wrote...

Mesina2 wrote...

No planet, but homeworlds, had population even close to 1 billion.

That's not true

Lusia (asari): 2.2 billion
Caleston (?): 1.8 billion
Digeris (Turian): 1.9 billion
Korlus (garbage scow with a climate) 3.8 billion

Damn it, how did I missed those planets?!


Still, even with those planets its highly unlikely average asari owned planet is near a billion and as well to have close to own 1000 of planets. And that's with planets sustainable to basic living conditions in while being profitable and let alone self-sustaining.

Wulfram wrote...

I think the reason why the Asari etc don't have overpopulation problems is because they've spread their population over a bunch of major worlds, rather than just the one.

As well, they reach space flight capabilities before overpopulation got to be an issue.

Humans just barely avoided catastrophy that happen to drell.

Modifié par Mesina2, 27 octobre 2013 - 09:01 .

[Erez Kristal]

Arcian wrote...

snip

The dollar repesent its buying power. i am trying to reach a consensus here about what is the real value of the credits in terms of its buying power in a way we would be able to grasp it using our day to day terms.
obviously things in the future will take different % of our yearly income than they do today. in the past food was much more expensive then it is today. now day people living in first world country can have a lot more time and wealth to spend on luxuries. the future indicate people will have even more time to spend on luxuries and that day to day commodities will cost less.

in terms we can grasp the credit is worth 5 dollars. you can apply this inequation to most things in the mass effect universe. i agree that the first number 1 credit=10 dollars was too high. 1 credit = 5 dollars hit the spot.

if you think the value should be different please make your case for it . 1=2 dollars would mean shepard is working for pinnance in mass effect 2. and that the normandy was at all that expensive for a superduper prototype warship.
the F-22A Raptor at 2008 Andrews cost 150 million dollars per unit. i put the price of mass effect fighers at 20 million credits= nowday dollars. the 20 million credits is deducted from in game lore. drive core for one fighter cost ten million credits.
 
about people salaries in the citadel. just like norway and switzerland the basic wage is much higher than other places in the world local support workers would make higher wages which will allow them to buy goods in the citadel. people without jobs would hit the rock bottom extremely fast. the reason for low crime n the citadel is high ccec presence the need to be able to arrive to the citadel in the first place. premits and cost of flight
expect every thing to cost many times more than what you are accustomed in the most expensive places on earth now days.think airport in switzerland/norway kind of expensive

Modifié par erezike, 28 octobre 2013 - 01:46 .

[Arcian]

[quote]erezike wrote...

[quote]Arcian wrote...

snip
[/quote]

The dollar repesent its buying power.[/quote]
The credit is a trade currency. It has to be balanced between thousands of different currencies. It can't be ludicrously strong, and neither can it be weak. It needs to be perfectly balanced, and according to the codex, it is. Some native currencies are stronger than the credit, others are weaker. The stronger currencies belong to species like the asari and volus, who imports a lot but doesn't export nearly as much. Conversely, humans and likely the turians have the weaker currencies, because they produce and export more wares than they import.

[quote]erezike wrote...

i am trying to reach a consensus here about what is the real value of the credits in terms of its buying power in a way we would be able to grasp it using our day to day terms.[/quote]
I have no elegant way of saying this, but I don't think you understand what you're talking about. For example, you're talking about purchasing power, but at the same time you call inflation irrelevant. Purchasing power is COMPLETELY dependant on inflation. In fact, the inflation rate is a key element in the formula to calculate purchasing power. Without understanding or accounting for inflation, you have no basis for purchasing power.

[quote]erezike wrote...

obviously things in the future will take different % of our yearly income than they do today. in the past food was much more expensive then it is today. now day people living in first world country can have a lot more time and wealth to spend on luxuries. the future indicate people will have even more time to spend on luxuries and that day to day commodities will cost less.[/quote]
That's completely wrong. Everything was proportionally cheaper before, because people worked less hours a day for less money. The market price was proportionally adjusted. A low-income worker could support a full family of sometimes eight or more individuals while his wife stayed at home.

But then some jackass decided to do away with the gold standard and bloat the market with useless, imaginary fiat currency. They create more money, which drives up prices, but in order to earn the money to enjoy luxuries, people also have to work longer. In America, this is especially self-evident when middle-class families with two children have to take several jobs just to pay their bills every month. Forty years ago, this scenario was unthinkable.

No, we get less and less time for luxuries today. In the future, unless someone restores the gold standard, it's only going to get worse.

But I digress. The problem here is that the value you're giving the credit is completely arbitrary because it is based on completely arbitrary values in-game. BioWare did not put any thought into it. None whatsoever. You CANNOT use their values as a basis for a realistic credit value, because the numbers are bollocks.

[quote]erezike wrote...

in terms we can grasp the credit is worth 5 dollars. you can apply this inequation to most things in the mass effect universe. i agree that the first number 1 credit=10 dollars was too high. 1 credit = 5 dollars hit the spot.[/quote]
I have already explained what a catastrophe such a strong currency would have on the Alliance's economy, but you persist in ignoring me. That's beside the fact that you're throwing out logic and common sense by trying to establish an exchange rate between two currencies that are 170 years apart. If you were to estimate the value of the credit in 2013 compared to the dollar in 2013, that would be an entirely different thing - but then you would still have to account for inflation to get the proper values AND exchange rate between the credit and dollar in 2183.

[quote]erezike wrote...

if you think the value should be different please make your case for it .[/quote]
I have made my case. You are ignoring it.

[quote]erezike wrote...

1=2 dollars would mean shepard is working for pinnance in mass effect 2.[/quote]
Once more you make the mistake of taking the credit rewards set by BioWare for in-game purchases as serious and realistic values. They're not. The numbers are only there to serve as a money sink for the player.

[quote]erezike wrote...

and that the normandy was at all that expensive for a superduper prototype warship.[/quote]
The Tantalus drive core alone cost 120 billion credits. Using my exchange rate, that's 180-240 billion dollars depending on the value of the dollar in 2183. Most of the budget goes into the program, not the unit costs.

Using your exchange rate, that cost skyrockets to 183 trillion dollars. I shudder to even imagine how expensive the program would be in comparison.

[quote]erezike wrote...

the F-22A Raptor at 2008 Andrews cost 150 million dollars per unit. i put the price of mass effect fighers at 20 million credits= nowday dollars. the 20 million credits is deducted from in game lore. drive core for one fighter cost ten million credits.[/quote]
That's not realistic. Due to improved production methods and cheaper, more readily available materials in the future, the cost of a fighter will be a fraction of today's costs.
 
[quote]erezike wrote...

about people salaries in the citadel. just like norway and switzerland the basic wage is much higher than other places in the world local support workers would make higher wages which will allow them to buy goods in the citadel.[/quote]
And how do they afford to pay people without jobs would hit the rock bottom extremely fast. the reason for low crime n the citadel is high ccec presence the need to be able to arrive to the citadel in the first place. premits and cost of flight
expect every thing to cost many times more than what you are accustomed in the most expensive places on earth now days.think airport in switzerland/norway kind of expensive[/quote]
People don't live in airports. Unless they are Tom Hanks.

Besides the fact that you need to break away from this pet idea of yours that the Citadel is a giant 6-star hotel with exorbitant costs for everyone who lives there, you're also confusing high living costs with a strong currency.
The dirham used in Dubai is worth about 1/4 of a dollar. The yen is worth close to 1/100 of a dollar. Yet Dubai and Tokyo are still a crazy expensive places despite their weak currencies. And those weak currencies are exactly why they get so much tourism. Middle-class families can still afford to live in both of these cities - they simply can't enjoy luxuries. And both of these places have low-cost alternatives. Every city does. The same goes for the Citadel.

Your problem, Erezike, is that you refuse to acknowledge the credit costs in-game as illegitimate. You are basing your ENTIRE argument on the flimsy premise that BioWare put a lot of thought into the in-game credit system. As I've tried to tell you numerous times, they didn't. All numbers are arbitrarily chosen for the sole purpose of draining the player's credit reserves.

Once you get past this, you can get to creating a proper, realistic currency system that doesn't hyperinflate and murder the economy of every species using the currency.

Modifié par Arcian, 28 octobre 2013 - 11:45 .

[billy the squid]

^ don't bother he doesn't understand the concept of capital asset pricing or inflation frankly by the look of it, the fact that directly integrating the dollar into the current value of a credit would obliterate the alliance economy on a par with Weimar Republic Germany's crippling currency devaluation in the 1930's.

Also the concept of the turian hierarchy being less powerful and having a lower population or on a par with the alliance is ridiculous considering to finance the hierarchy's military juggernaut the military expenditure per capita of GDP would be significant. In addition to cover the hierarchy's peace keeping obligations the number of enlisted Turians will be a significant again especially considering all parts of turian society are linked in done way to the military and all Turians undergo basic training.

It was Machiavelli who said, I believe, money is the sinew of war. Or words to that effect. And frankly to run a military of that size and engage in research and development, the revenue available for taxation would be enormous.

In addition the volus are a client race of the hierarchy, their economy and population shouldn't be differentiated from that of the Turian Heirarchy as the Heirarchy obviously levies taxation on the Volus for the service it provided and the weight that the Heirarchy can lend to volus matters on the council. There's also going to be the issue that the Volus are a key factor in maintaining the smooth running if the Turian's economy.

There are just so many holes in the op, it looks like the numbers were just pulled out of the air.

[Massa FX]

Question was raised as to how Anderson could afford an Apartment on the Citadel. It's prolly been answered, but I didn't read the entire thread.

My answer: He was on the Council. I'm sure he made more money in that position than he made in the Alliance. Plus, he's older. Investments? 401K? Reverse Mortgage? 

Note: for those that put Udina on the council instead of Anderson... well, I guess he came from money.

Modifié par Massa FX, 29 octobre 2013 - 04:37 .

[Erez Kristal]

Arcian wrote...

Using your exchange rate, that cost skyrockets to 183 trillion dollars. I shudder to even imagine how expensive the program would be in comparison.

I just wanted to put, that your exchange rate is way off here.
the normandy would have cost in us dollars pricing 0.32 billions credits. (cost as much as a cruiser in my pricing)  thats 1.6 trillion dollars. i dont know where you came up with the 183 trillion dollars.
drive core would be 0.6 trillion dollars.

you are basing your export and import prices for strong and weak currencies. but what modern age thought us is. that the prices of import and export mostly affect low quality goods. most of the income is generated by high quality goods. these are are not as affected by high local currency. people will still buy your product because its the best around.

And since we arent taking infaltion into the equation. the value of the alliance currency  could be much lower in the future which will allow them to sell more low product earth create goods. we arent dealing with different races currencies because they dont matter. the equation here is just to make things easier to understand.
Medi gel.

Products like the ashland refinery and the hanee kedar mechs. have a global cost. they are only affected by the cost of manufacturing

More so. Nowday. people have a lot more free time. yes. in the past women used to stay at home, but it was a ful time job raising the family. nowdays you have many things to help you and save you free times. machinary has boosted our freetime in a way we can debate on lore of mass effect in game.
that is how much we progressed. people in first world countries can travel half their lives around the world and work the other half.
this was never possible in the past.
period.(unless you were nobility obviously)

billy the squid wrote...
snip
.

You talk about my assumptions and things being pulled from air yet you proposed little aletrnative with no explination. again the value of inflation is meaningless here because we need to establish what is the value of the credit in terms we understand. using local world concepts of countries going into crisis after using stronger currncies is meaningless here.
We dont know how strong is the alliance currency in  2185. as far as we know by 2150 they no longer use the dollar.

all we need to know is how much can you purchase in nowdays terms when using dollars.  now one is talking about intergrating the dollars into the credit system.
What would be the salary for a hit>
How much does it cost to buy a car?
How much does it cost to buy a common product?

About the volus and turians. canada and australlia both rely on the us for protection but they dont pay taxes to the us. we dont know what sort of terms the volus have with the turian.

the volus are hiring the turians services. the turians are mercs

Modifié par erezike, 29 octobre 2013 - 10:31 .