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Old 02-03-2023, 05:59 AM   #21
The Colonel
 
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
Probably better to get price per yard, though that seems a similar scale anyway.
Indeed, weaving in the modern era is likely to be a far smaller percentage of the price than it was historically, but there's also likely to be some kind of conversion factor based on how much by mass of that silkworm cocoon converts to silk cloth and how much is wasted (oh, and the mass/area conversion may be different). Presumably historical prices will be for woven cloth and not yarn. Be prepared for apparently arbitrary historical units of measurement that made sense at the time.
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Old 02-03-2023, 06:18 AM   #22
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post
Every price in Low-Tech is subjective. There is no such thing as a fixed historical price.
That's a different thing than saying a theoretical assessment of utility influenced the published prices. You stated a seemingly general view that mail vs. plate prices should be different historically.

Was the utility consideration applied to other prices? Weapons? Tools? Adventure gear? Is there a formula readers could use to unpack the utility factor to derive a more historical price?


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Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
Indeed, weaving in the modern era is likely to be a far smaller percentage of the price than it was historically, but there's also likely to be some kind of conversion factor based on how much by mass of that silkworm cocoon converts to silk cloth and how much is wasted (oh, and the mass/area conversion may be different). Presumably historical prices will be for woven cloth and not yarn. Be prepared for apparently arbitrary historical units of measurement that made sense at the time.
I just found information about advertised prices of a tailor in colonial America which indicated silk suits were about 5x the price of wool.

Last edited by Donny Brook; 02-03-2023 at 06:24 AM.
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Old 02-03-2023, 08:27 AM   #23
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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Originally Posted by Donny Brook View Post
I'm looking at a padded cloth caparison for a horse.

The rules for silk armor (LT104) say it is +19CF for any type of cloth armor to be silk.

The rules for a horse caparison (LT117) say it is 500% the cost of human torso armor.

Is this the same as saying the cost for the silk caparison should be base torso cost ($50) +23CF (=$1150)? Or should it be $50 + 19CF = 1000 x 5 = $5000?

On a less crunchy level, isn't +19CF for silk kind of unrealistically high? I see 100% silk shirts advertised on LL Bean for about $80 bucks which is certainly not 20x the cost of other shirts.
For that caparison, using Low-Tech rules, the cost is 50*5(size)*20(cost factor) = $5000 and the weight is 6*5 = 30 lbs. (or 12 kg, if you prefer, using the 1 lb. = 0.4 kg conversion merely for game purpouses).

If the caparison is Expertly Tailored, then the cost is 50*5*25 = $6250 and the weight is 6*5*0.85 = 25.5 lbs. (rounded to 10.2 kg).

DR is 1* (2* vs. cutting and impaling). Useless against firearms, but quite good against swords and light arrows.

Last edited by Rasna; 02-03-2023 at 12:02 PM.
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Old 02-03-2023, 11:43 AM   #24
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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CF is only a vague approximation. The CF modifier should really depend on location, silk was amazingly expensive in ancient Europe because it needed to be imported from China.
I had a little bit of cross-time arbitrage in Infinite Cabal. A full bolt of grey silk (100 yards by 60") was not cheap in 1960s Rome, but in Rome of 258, used as a tool for influencing Senator's wives, it made a huge difference.
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Old 02-03-2023, 11:48 AM   #25
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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I had a little bit of cross-time arbitrage in Infinite Cabal. A full bolt of grey silk (100 yards by 60") was not cheap in 1960s Rome, but in Rome of 258, used as a tool for influencing Senator's wives, it made a huge difference.
Well, there's a ridiculous number of things that are routinely available in a modern society that would be hugely expensive in an ancient society, the trick is which ones you can move around without it being too obvious that something weird is afoot. Pepper is another good option.
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Old 02-03-2023, 03:08 PM   #26
sir_pudding
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

Stross's Merchant Princes books might be of interest in regards to trying to keep out-time smuggling operations off the modern international radar.
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Old 02-03-2023, 08:50 PM   #27
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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Originally Posted by DanHoward View Post
Low-Tech isn't supposed to be Euro-centric. Silk is only +19CF if the product is sourced locally. If it is imported then you add other modifiers on top. Pricing in LT was determined by both historical pricing and utility. If the price was based purely on historical prices then mail would cost a lot more than plate.
I've possibly read somewhere (Wikipedia possibly) that mail armour might in fact have been cheaper than plate armour in some times and places. Something to do with plate armour being tricky to shape and requiring an experienced smith and/or special equipment, whereas mail, though obviously very labour-intensive, could be worked on a bit at a time by apprentices. Makes sense - after all, there must have been some reason why anyone bothered with mail.

You seem to be one of our armour enthusiasts though so you possibly know more about this than I do :-D

(Also, this is just a guess, but mail armour looks as if it would be a lot easier to repair than plate, so there might have been more of it in circulation at any given time).

The Romans, of course, do seem to have used plate of sorts rather than mail, so apparently they did have the infrastructure to make it cost-effectively. Seems like a prime example of what was said earlier about relative prices varying wildly depending where and when.
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Last edited by Inky; 02-03-2023 at 08:53 PM.
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Old 02-03-2023, 09:53 PM   #28
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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Makes sense - after all, there must have been some reason why anyone bothered with mail.
Well, the main historical reason is that for most of TL 2 and 3 large iron or steel plates simply weren't available and mail compares well to the various armors that are made of small plates linked together. Once large plates were available the point of mail became "I want flexible or concealable armor".
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Old 02-03-2023, 11:02 PM   #29
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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Originally Posted by Donny Brook View Post
On a less crunchy level, isn't +19CF for silk kind of unrealistically high? I see 100% silk shirts advertised on LL Bean for about $80 bucks which is certainly not 20x the cost of other shirts.
If LL Bean had to buy their silk from a Venetian monopoly, who shipped the silk to Venice on ships the size of a modest-sized modern patrol boat, after acquiring it from brokers in Constantinople, who acquired it from brokers in Bukhara, who bought it from merchants who carried it via camel caravan from Shanghai, via the Gobi Desert, with bandits all along the way, the price might be higher. :D

(Anyhow, genuine Silk Road Venetian monopoly silk shirts have more a Banana Republic or J. Peterman vibe and they're (mostly) out of business.)
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Old 02-03-2023, 11:22 PM   #30
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Default Re: [Low-Tech]Question about silk horse armor

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Well, the main historical reason is that for most of TL 2 and 3 large iron or steel plates simply weren't available and mail compares well to the various armors that are made of small plates linked together.
The virtue of mail is that it's easier to get relatively pure iron by forging and drawing wire. You can start with small initial iron billets and wire drawing tends to remove (or at least homogenize) the slag inclusions. If you're lucky, all that forging and drawing gets some carbon into the matrix. Wire drawing is also something you can do with relatively little fuel and very simple tools. It's even easier if you can use a swing to gain mechanical advantage as you draw the wire.

Beating lumps of bloom iron into iron plates to get the slag inclusions out requires much bigger chunk of metals to start with and much more human and thermal energy.
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