Hello everyone!
I´ve been playin Fonlin for a while and noticed some "problems" and also thought about solutions.
In this topic I want to make some suggestions about Fonlines Economy and currency system.
Main problem is in my oppinion that caps are quite rare, large ammounts of caps are therefore hard to earn.
Description of the problem
Reason for rareness of caps is, that they can only be created by
-shoveling dung
-selling brahmins and slaves
-lifting boxes
-maybe some quests
-interest on bank account
Caps are removed from the Fonline world by
-buying mercs/dogs
-buying brahmins
-buying bases/mines
-learning professions
-buying caravans/cars
-buying books
As you all know you don´t get much caps for shoveling dung, lifting boxes and from quests. Selling brahmins and slaves don´t make you a millionaire either.
At least it will take a long time.
Buying and learning all the things you only get for caps is realy expensive expensive on the other hand.
In addition caps are hoarded by higher level players, or stored on a bank account and therefore removed from circulation in the economy.
About caps and the monetary system in Fonline
Currency system of Fonline is (at the moment) Fiat money, that is money created out of nothing.
That is the system we actually have in real world. So caps, exactly like Dollar, Euro etc. has no inherent value.
So why should it be an accepted currency, why should anyone accept caps as legal tender?
Applying real world logic the answer would be, because someone powerfull forces the people to accept it as legal tender.
In Fonline world this could be the NCR, Enclave, BOS, or other factions powerfull enough. It would be somewhat reasonable that NCR money/caps is worthless outside the NCR, because it is unlikely that all Factions would agree on a common currency.
In reality caps are accepted currency because the Fonline programmers programmed the software the way that it is.
Why monetary system in Fonline is flawed
Problems arise because the amount of money in circulation is growing much slower than amount of goods.
It is easy to craft allot of valuable stuff in short time, but caps are not created in a similar ammount. So the ratio caps/goods is getting more and more out of balance.
Applying real world mechanisms there would be a serious deflation. Today 100caps could buy a 10mm gun, tomorrow the same 100caps (when saved) could buy an assault rifle, and the next week a improved plasma rifle plus combat armor.
As this does not happen (because Fonline economy is not created that way) caps become realy rare and often not available at all (from merchants).
Ways to improve monetary system in Fonline
I see two methods to fix the monetary system.
1. Keep Fiat money sytem, but change controll over it.
At the moment Brahmin herders and slave traders controll money system and creating way to much caps. That would be like the FED prints only 500$ every year.
personal remark:
I´m ignoring the interest topic in this thread, as I don´t want to start a discussion about real world economy problems.
So it would be a very easy solution, if the game masters supply the merchants with significant ammounts of caps from time to time manually. This could be also solved with a caps respawn programmed, but would need checking from time to time.
2. Change monetary system from fiat money to gold stuff standard
In the past most currencys used to be backed up by gold, the so called "gold standard".
So you could take your money to the bank and exchange it to a certain ammount of gold. As gold is existing only in small numbers in fonline, and (as far as I know) has no real use in fonline, it would not solve the problem to base caps on gold. It wouldn´t be very reasonable from a ingame point of view, and I guess total ammount of caps would be also to small and slowly growing.
But as I don´t know how much gold is created everyday (and this can be changed from the programmers) it would be possible to implement a working gold standard. Wouldn´t be 100% logical, but could work (and that´s most important).
I would prefer (and therefore I propose) to base fonline caps monetary system on "stuff".
Merchants dont need to have the item "caps" in their inventory, but just a button for balance the deal with the apropriate ammount of caps.
This is basicly giving the merchants an unlimited ammount of cash, but making their caps deposit unlootable (don´t know if you can loot merchants of their stuff, never tried this).
Explanation (I ingore barting and merchants profit):
Now: Player sells a 10mm gun to a merchant, he could get a 10mm gun in the same condition in return (I know this would be senseless).
Or he could sell it for 100 caps, if the merchant does have enough caps.
Vision:
Caps based on stuff means that caps are a coupon for stuff, so
1. you could still trade your 10mm gun for a 10mm gun, but
2. you could also give the merchant your 10mm gun, for a coupon/voucher for another 10mm gun.
That coupon would be 100 caps.
You can alway bring the 100 caps back and buy your 10mm gun, or whatelse is worth 100 caps.
This should be simple and working, without need for mantainance by the programmers.
Drawbacks
-If you kill the merchant and loot him of his stuff (if this is possible), you would have the caps and the stuff.
This problem is created by the merchants coupon/caps are accepted by everyone in fallout.
I see two solutions to this problem:
1. make merchants invulnerable or not lootable.
2. Give those unlimited caps only to few institutions.
Maybe make caps the official currency of the NCR, accepted also in the rest of the wasteland (except for enclave).
You can trade all stuff you want to a NCR (federal) bank, or army official (ingame explanation: NCR is buying for their arsenal, or ressources for their industry.) who stores all stuff in a perfectly safe vault, not reachable for anyone, in plain speak destroying the items. So you could sell everything to this NCR bank for caps, but you cannot buy anything from them, nor loot/steal.
This would also reduce the problem that merchants inventory is overgrowing with radios, bb gun ammo, 9mm mauser pistols and other stuff.
I will open another thread regarding this problem.
I hope my suggestions are read and prove somewhat usefull.
