AtE TL Price Multiplication Too Harsh?

[Minuteman37]

Is it just me or are the price multiplications in AtE too harsh? It seems to me that some of the differences in price points don't make a lot of sense.

A Beretta Mod 92 that was created in 1975 costs 5,600 GURPS Bucks or 2800 cans of food that would feed you for 933 days. Now if we flash forward 8 years to the Glock 17, it costs 9,600 GURPS Bucks! or 4,800 cans of food that would feed you for 1600 days.

Sure is a Glock a superior weapon to a Beretta? Yea sure most would say it has some minor advantages, but in a situation where I have enough money to choose between the two and know I'm going to be worry about my ability to procure food I'd settle for the Beretta and use the rest of my cash on other essentials.

[panton41]

My mind sees AtE like Fallout where you'll start with next to nothing and loot guns and ammo off bodies, ruins, etc. rather than always buying them for "cash." Wastelanders makes it feel more like an action movie like Mad Max or most video games as opposed a serious look at a post-apocalyptic world like The Postman or Twilight: 2000.

For that matter I'll probably do something similar to those games and have something that's not a useful consumable be currency. Gold never goes out of style or some other agreed upon barter currency like Fallout's bottlecaps. Going from wealthy to destitute because you didn't count your shots in an action game doesn't sound like that much fun.

[zoncxs]

So...are you suggesting to make it cheaper to purchase guns in a world where manufacturing weapons greater than TL 4 has become almost impossible?

Also, it is suggested that most weapons should have CF that reduce the final cost. so if you find a mint Beretta, yeah that will cost 5,600 bottle caps. But a cheap Glock 17? thats only 3,840 bottle caps, and a cheap Beretta is 2240.


Now, if you decide to run a post apo game and want guns to be in the center than you can simply forgo the TL price hike for them. It just means a lot of people in the wasteland will be armed.

[Ternas]

Considering that they're pulled directly from the Basic Set (B27), I really wouldn't set them as being overly harsh.

I can understand that it seems overly expensive comparing the two with what appears to be a small amount of difference in years. But in actuality, you're comparing two different things with different methods of manufacturing. Trying to compare a pristine Beretta 92 from 1975-ish that was based off previous designs and made from an aluminum frame to a pristine Glock 17 from around 15 years later, according to my sources, which was modeled from scratch and made from synthetic materials that are probably just as hard if not harder to reproduce in a wasteland environment.

Now call me crazy but I think I'd go for a cheap revolver every time and just use it to scavenge some food from unsuspecting bandits and brigands to make up the difference in costs and eventually either pick up a new gun from them or try to make up some costs.


Slightly more off topic, but I personally like the idea of using poker chips for currency, especially if you get special casino branded ones that make them harder to counterfeit. The metal and such from bottle caps or gold and silver would probably have too much of an actual use in alloys or whatever they can get going to make much sense as a real currency while all you get from melting down poker chips is probably a big lump of smokey melted plastics.

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

So...are you suggesting to make it cheaper to purchase guns in a world where manufacturing weapons greater than TL 4 has become almost impossible?

Also, it is suggested that most weapons should have CF that reduce the final cost. so if you find a mint Beretta, yeah that will cost 5,600 bottle caps. But a cheap Glock 17? thats only 3,840 bottle caps, and a cheap Beretta is 2240.


Now, if you decide to run a post apo game and want guns to be in the center than you can simply forgo the TL price hike for them. It just means a lot of people in the wasteland will be armed.

I'm not saying things overall should be cheaper just that the TL multiplication leads to certain items being priced in a manner that's unrealistic. If I'm a Glock salesmen how can I get away with charging twice as much as the Beretta salesmen when he's already charging what amounts to 3 years worth of food for his product?

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

I'm not saying things overall should be cheaper just that the TL multiplication leads to certain items being priced in a manner that's unrealistic. If I'm a Glock salesmen how can I get away with charging twice as much as the Beretta salesmen when he's already charging what amounts to 3 years worth of food for his product?

How do Mercedes Benz or BMW salesmen get away with charging so much more for cars than Toyota or VW salesmen ask?

[Minuteman37]

Originally Posted by whswhs

How do Mercedes Benz or BMW salesmen get away with charging so much more for cars than Toyota or VW salesmen ask?

A combination of marketing and consumer ignorance, something post-apocalyptic Glock salesmen doesn't have the luxury of.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by zoncxs

Now, if you decide to run a post apo game and want guns to be in the center than you can simply forgo the TL price hike for them. It just means a lot of people in the wasteland will be armed.

I know this makes me sound like an NRA spokesperson, but it seems fairly obvious to me that in the years immediately after an apocalypse, there'll be two kinds of people in the wasteland: Those with guns and those who are slaves.

I don't own a gun, personally, nor do the vast majority of other Europeans, but in a PA situation, I'd want a handgun, a spare gun, a backup gun, and several rifles. Because I'm somewhat allergic to shovels.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

Is it just me or are the price multiplications in AtE too harsh? It seems to me that some of the differences in price points don't make a lot of sense.

A Beretta Mod 92 that was created in 1975 costs 5,600 GURPS Bucks or 2800 cans of food that would feed you for 933 days. Now if we flash forward 8 years to the Glock 17, it costs 9,600 GURPS Bucks! or 4,800 cans of food that would feed you for 1600 days.

Sure is a Glock a superior weapon to a Beretta? Yea sure most would say it has some minor advantages, but in a situation where I have enough money to choose between the two and know I'm going to be worry about my ability to procure food I'd settle for the Beretta and use the rest of my cash on other essentials.

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

I'm not saying things overall should be cheaper just that the TL multiplication leads to certain items being priced in a manner that's unrealistic. If I'm a Glock salesmen how can I get away with charging twice as much as the Beretta salesmen when he's already charging what amounts to 3 years worth of food for his product?

I think the real issue here is not all jumps in TL in all areas are equal in effect and so are tough to justify an equal increase in price.


So yeah a Glock 17 is probably not worth almost double a Beretta Mod 92, nor come to that is the Beretta really going to be worth almost double what a FN Browing-HP is either.


Thing is in High tech you see reality of weapon development in semi automatic hand guns i.e pretty slow and incremental once the initial technology is created getting spread over a TL system that could map much greater changes. Look at what a 3-TL spread looks like in other areas. Even if you extend it on hand guns in the other direction TL8 - TL10 gets you Glock 17 - laser and gauss pistols

TBH I'm pretty sure that multiplier is really just meant as a guideline and for specific stuff like this I'd just use your GM-sense. It's also probably a better fit for the general equipment tables like the ones in UT and basic. Rather than very specific ones in HT, where price difference that were often due to pre apocalypse socio-economic conditions as much as GURPS stats can turn into huge post apocalyptic savings.

Context is going to be key here. How are these guns available, are they being scavenged from original sources (in which cases age and scarcity of older TLs might work in reverse here depending on how far back the apocalypse was). or are they being recreated from schematics, again a different situation.

[Polydamas]

Any time you have an arbitrary breakpoint like the TL system, there will be things which you can point to on either side which are not very different. But finding an alternative which is just as simple but does not have those few breakpoints is hard.

Originally Posted by Minuteman37

A combination of marketing and consumer ignorance, something post-apocalyptic Glock salesmen doesn't have the luxury of.

I don't know. Sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe was post-apocalyptic in some ways, and it had plenty of 'luxury brands,' marketing BS, and clever scams to put a prestigious brand on an everyday product in the arms and armour industry. Fake +ULFBHRT+ swords go back to the Viking Age and someone was buying them ...