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Old 03-21-2012, 10:43 PM   #1
Flyndaran
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Default Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

If bronze costs around 4 times iron, but the labor is the same, then why should the armor have a +3 CF as well?
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Old 03-21-2012, 11:00 PM   #2
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Default Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
If bronze costs around 4 times iron, but the labor is the same, then why should the armor have a +3 CF as well?
Because GURPS is not a complete economic model.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 03-21-2012, 11:02 PM   #3
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
Because GURPS is not a complete economic model.

Bill Stoddard
So it's just a disagreement between LT 3 and every other gurps product? At least that's an answer.
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Old 03-21-2012, 11:05 PM   #4
Anthony
 
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Default Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
So it's just a disagreement between LT 3 and every other gurps product? At least that's an answer.
CF for materials in general don't make sense. Additive CFs also frequently don't make sense.
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Old 03-21-2012, 11:16 PM   #5
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Default Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
So it's just a disagreement between LT 3 and every other gurps product? At least that's an answer.
Could you spell out this disagreement? As far as I know, the CF system only appears outside the Basic Set, and a price for bronze and for bronze armour only appears in the Low Tech companions.

GURPS doesn't have a realistic economic model; it has simple rules to let a busy GM answer "what weapons can I buy?" and "how much money does my day job leave me for adventuring?" Just a comprehensive, gamable, game-balanced model for armour prices would be the work of several PhD dissertations.
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Old 03-21-2012, 11:52 PM   #6
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

Bronze materials cost 4 times iron using the example prices of tin and copper in LTC 3, but most of the price of bronze items is labor which wouldn't change based on material. That means bronze items should be no where near 4 times the price of iron as used in other book(s).
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Old 03-22-2012, 12:22 AM   #7
Peter Knutsen
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Default Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Bronze materials cost 4 times iron using the example prices of tin and copper in LTC 3, but most of the price of bronze items is labor which wouldn't change based on material. That means bronze items should be no where near 4 times the price of iron as used in other book(s).
Unless I've misunderstood something, bronze is also cast, while anything made out of iron or steel requires a strong (and skilled) dude to stand there and bang away at it with a hammer for hours and hours and hours. And more hours. So there's a labour cost element that seems to favour bronze, even if iron is much cheaper in terms of materials.
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Old 03-22-2012, 12:52 AM   #8
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Default Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

I have no idea which is more laborious, but making bronze armour is significantly different from making iron armour. On the rare occasions that an item was simultaneously available in iron and in bronze, I strongly suspect that different trades made the two versions. So I don't think you can assume that making a helmet should require the same number of hours, at the same cost per hour, whether it is cupric or ferrous.

I would guess that it would take around two years of research by three or four people (a bronzesmith, a blacksmith, an ancient historian, and possibly an economist or archaeologist) to get a plausible guess at the relative price of bronze plate, iron plate, bronze scale, and iron scale in a hypothetical preindustrial economy that produced both. For what its worth, some back-of-the-envelope calculations from historical prices suggested that quadrupling GURPS prices produces something vaguely plausible for Bronze Age weapons.
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Old 03-22-2012, 01:08 AM   #9
Flyndaran
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Default Re: Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

Making bronze items require significantly more time to make would result in keeping the times 4 final cost. But I haven't heard anyone say that it does with anything other than a "makes sense for gaming" opinion.
I don't have a problem with any reasons or results, I just want more than a shoulder shrugging for why.
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Old 03-22-2012, 01:48 AM   #10
Anthony
 
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I'm pretty sure that bronze is easier to work than iron.
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