Ultra-Tech vs. Bio-Tech Drug cost

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

I'm compiling a list of drugs for my upcoming space campaign, and I noticed a discrepancy: drugs listed in UT cost around G$100 on average, but ones from BIO are mostly below $10 and often better. What gives?

It's probably not a big issue for my campaign, since the fleet will mostly rely on distributing pre-produced supplies on a per-need basis, but this still seems like a big discrepancy.

Thanks in advance!

[panton41]

Ultra-Tech uses prices from the United States, Biotech prices are from the rest of the world.

Sorry, couldn't resist...

[Desthro]

By any chance is there a difference in the TL of the drugs? I don't have my books on hand, but TL differences in the drugs could be responsible for the cost differences. I don't know if that is the case, but it would make sense...

[Kale]

Biotech also assumes a genetic engineering and bioscience revolution as part of the campaign background (at least to some extent). This means cheaper drugs, since organisms can be engineered to naturally produce the drug cheaply.

[Langy]

Originally Posted by Kale

Biotech also assumes a genetic engineering and bioscience revolution as part of the campaign background (at least to some extent). This means cheaper drugs, since organisms can be engineered to naturally produce the drug cheaply.

Biotech isn't a campaign setting. It's a tech book, ala Ultra-Tech, High-Tech, or Low-Tech.

[DreadPirateLynx]

Originally Posted by Langy

Biotech isn't a campaign setting. It's a tech book, ala Ultra-Tech, High-Tech, or Low-Tech.

Kale didn't say otherwise. He simply stated that use of the book assumes that the campaign world you're running has had a genetic/bioengineering revolution, much as using High Tech (for the most part anyways) assumes that the campaign world (or at least parts of it) has had an industrial revolution/discovered gunpowder.

[David L Pulver]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Greetings, all!

I'm compiling a list of drugs for my upcoming space campaign, and I noticed a discrepancy: drugs listed in UT cost around G$100 on average, but ones from BIO are mostly below $10 and often better. What gives?

Thanks in advance!

In general, the UT drugs tend to be the more sci-fi wonder drug types so they're usually priced higher. The price ranges do vary considerably even in UT, though, with many being below $100.

Now, there are a couple of instances where identical drugs are (usually) 10x as expensive in UT as in BIO, e.g., $24 and $240. I think this occurs with about 3-4 drugs. This is clearly a mistake: they should be the same price.

Why this is, I don't know. Most likely, I or one of my co-authors made a mistake five years ago, and no one noticed it until you did just now. Probably it was decided to change the price of the original drug derived from UT, CYBERPUNK, or SPACE, but no note was made to do that in the other book, perhaps because of a missed email between distant co-authors (one of whom was in Canada and the other in Australia, and who have never met in person...)

Anyway, I have no idea whether the higher or the lower prices are better. In most cases, I would say the lower price is probably more realistic, but the higher price may be more playable and be a better "street value." If you wish an official value, I would say "use the BIO-TECH numbers" because it is the book that focuses more on drugs, and also received the best playtesting and closest editing.

(UT was written under the same heavy pressure that also resulted in the MAGIC problems, only to be further disrupted when one author was faced with a lost job and two deaths and the other with a sudden overseas deployment, even as the line editor was himself unable to exercise his normal diligence due to other things (writing POWERS, I think). The outline was also incredibly over-ambitious and required close coordination with two other teams of authors which proved impossible. The resulting mess was disowned by its authors and largely rejected by the playtesters, many of whom hated the direction the book was taking. As a result, I had to scrap and totally rewrite the entire book under a tight deadline. It then suffered further when its editor left the company half way through the process, leaving behind partial notes and losing most of the correspondence with the authors (including numerous corrections). Many of these issues were fixed by heroic last minute efforts by all concerned, and the book turned out pretty well! But it was marred by minor errors scattered through it. We fixed many of these in the paperback and errata, but some may have slipped through.

(BT in contrast followed all normal procedures: a reasonable deadline, authors working on the book in close accord, the line editor carefully reviewing the manuscript, a good playtest, no deaths or layoffs, close coordination between authors and editors. In general, I'd trust it more...)

[Darekun]

Originally Posted by David L Pulver

We fixed many of these in the paperback and errata, but some may have slipped through.

OooOOOo, there's a paperback? I have another copy of UT to buy <3

(And presumably other books, if paperback versions of the hardbacks are on offer now. Less convenient than PDF, but more convenient than hardback, and a proper superset of a hardback's convenience :J)

[David L Pulver]

Originally Posted by Darekun

OooOOOo, there's a paperback? I have another copy of UT to buy <3

(And presumably other books, if paperback versions of the hardbacks are on offer now. Less convenient than PDF, but more convenient than hardback, and a proper superset of a hardback's convenience :J)

Thanks!

Yes, a somewhat cheaper black-and-white softcover version of Ultra-Tech came out fairly recently at circa $29.95.

It's here
http://www.warehouse23.com/item.html?id=SJG01-6104
(And also on Amazon, maybe your friendly neighborhood game store, etc.)

I went through the book with Kromm and we fixed quite a lot of errata (everything on the errata page plus a few dozen additional entries that haven't been updated yet, e.g., the Light Support Weapon being Acc 5 or the expendable jammer ammo having a 30 minute duration).

[lexington]

Originally Posted by David L Pulver

Thanks!

Yes, a somewhat cheaper black-and-white softcover version of Ultra-Tech came out fairly recently at circa $29.95.

It's here
http://www.warehouse23.com/item.html?id=SJG01-6104
(And also on Amazon, maybe your friendly neighborhood game store, etc.)

I went through the book with Kromm and we fixed quite a lot of errata (everything on the errata page plus a few dozen additional entries that haven't been updated yet, e.g., the Light Support Weapon being Acc 5 or the expendable jammer ammo having a 30 minute duration).

I hear the latest printings have the errata updated. Is the pdf version going to get the same treatment?