[Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Nah, there is no power n such that x^n = 0 for x !=0.
It does make cheap useful things cost $10 or $1 or $0.1.

And yeah, it flattens out a lot of resource allocation decisions when most hand weapons cost $100 and most good armors cost $1000, but that's sort of the point about unrealistic pricing by utility, it's largely there to [enable] those kind of play issues, which may well not be realistic.

While true, curiously GURPS does officially avoid fractional prices, so for n=-1 GURPS would usually round to either 1 or 0.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

While true, curiously GURPS does officially avoid fractional prices, so for n=-1 GURPS would usually round to either 1 or 0.

Officially where? There are lots of fractional prices in GURPS Low-Tech eg. ammunition or Inflated Skins (p. 138) or containers (p. 34). And if GURPS prices were rethought on a 1:10 or 1:3:10 scale, conventions would presumably change.

Another way to handle objects under $1 is to give the price for a set of n things (eg. $1 for 10 wooden beads or 20 sheets of rag paper)

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Officially where? There are lots of fractional prices in GURPS Low-Tech eg. ammunition or Inflated Skins (p. 138) or containers (p. 34)

Ammunition, I knew, but assumed was because you'll usually end up with whole number prices. The others I've forgotten.

I guess I was thinking about how the various published $ to coins schemes never have denominations less than $1 (and particularly if it's $ farthings, there really isn't a way to do more than quarter a penny).

At any rate, never mind.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I guess I was thinking about how the various published $ to coins schemes never have denominations less than $1 (and particularly if it's $ farthings, there really isn't a way to do more than quarter a penny).

Well, in most low-tech societies with coins that was how it was! There were rarely coins worth less than 1/10 of an ordinary worker's daily wage (so a few GURPS dollars). For small transactions, people kept tabs or bartered or traded favours. Its only in the 19th and 20th century that really small change became a common and official part of money systems.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

As for the CF for silk, it seems pretty vague. The setting for this horse is the Near East in the 900s.

Given that Byzantium/Constantinople was a silk weaving center from the 4th to 15th centuries, prices might be surprisingly reasonable. There would certainly be a mark-up in price, but not as crazy as it would be in Western Europe. As a guess, 5x to 10x normal cost seems fair depending on the quality of the silk and your haggling skills.

Just beware of "raw" silk, which isn't as finely woven and has a rougher texture. It's far cheaper than the good stuff so it usually wasn't exported. It makes comfortable garments, but isn't obviously shiny and smooth like fine silk. It probably doesn't have the same "arrow catching" properties, either.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Mail requires the metal to be highly refined so that most of the slag has either been removed or finely distributed throughout the metal. Otherwise it can't be pulled through the drawplate. Plate can be made from poorer quality iron.

Exactly.

The wire will break when slaggy bits get drawn into the die, which means that the wire that didn't break as it was drawn is good enough to make mail. 2-3 failed attempts to draw wire from a given billet mean that it's not good enough to make armor. That makes quality control easy.

Cut the slaggy bit of wire off near the break and use the rest. Even if you just have a few inches of usable wire you can still wrap it around a mandel to make mail links.

Making mail that way would have been time consuming and inefficient, but it would have allowed people to work with smaller billets of metal (cheaper and easier to work with) using very simple, portable tools.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Just beware of "raw" silk, which isn't as finely woven and has a rougher texture. It's far cheaper than the good stuff so it usually wasn't exported. It makes comfortable garments, but isn't obviously shiny and smooth like fine silk. It probably doesn't have the same "arrow catching" properties, either.

The stats in Low-Tech for things such as armour, rope, and so on, are for raw silk. Silk loses a lot of tensile strength when it is exposed to heat, moisture, mechanical processing, or sunlight.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Exactly.

The wire will break when slaggy bits get drawn into the die, which means that the wire that didn't break as it was drawn is good enough to make mail. 2-3 failed attempts to draw wire from a given billet mean that it's not good enough to make armor. That makes quality control easy.

Cut the slaggy bit of wire off near the break and use the rest. Even if you just have a few inches of usable wire you can still wrap it around a mandel to make mail links.

Making mail that way would have been time consuming and inefficient, but it would have allowed people to work with smaller billets of metal (cheaper and easier to work with) using very simple, portable tools.

Except they didn't. The guilds were very strict about the quality of iron that wire drawers could use. If it contained too much slag, it was sent to the plateners instead.