galcop's

[Disembodied]

Only if Galcop has the forces to at least make smuggling risky, so we're looking at a need for near-total control of planetary orbital space, not just the station, even in high-risk systems. It would explain why they never have the ships to patrol any further out, I suppose. You'd also need to have some pretty thorough searches to stop people carrying a few grams of concealed gemstones through customs.

We're dealing with very, very low numbers of ships, though. There will be some smuggling from time to time but generally the limiting factor would be the size of the market on the planet itself. A pilot takes his ship down, and meets up with some smugglers; he swaps a couple of tons of firearms and gets a few tons of luxuries in return, or a few kilos of gold maybe: it's going to be limited by what the black market - well aware of the trade restrictions which commanders have to deal with - will pay. The physical amounts of goods capable of being carried are a limiting factor, too. Smuggling is risky not because of Galcop, so much, but because of the locals: you're dealing with criminals, after all, on their home turf, and then there's the planetary law enforcement to worry about.

There's also the effect of the exchange rate on trade. If a credit would naturally trade at 1 Cr = £10,000 based on relative values of goods, but Galcop is forcing the rate to 1 Cr = £10, then that makes imports of goods denominated in credits extremely cheap and popular - but also means you get basically no money for exports, so where are these imports coming from? Or I guess it could do it with an incredibly high transfer tax, so both imports and exports are really expensive. This is definitely getting away from the popular view of Galcop as a facilitator of trade.

But you're assuming that the Credit is a currency. If it's a form of scrip - if it can only be used to buy and sell certain types of goods, or fuel, or ship equipment, from certain (above-atmosphere) traders, in certain places - then it doesn't work with the same system of values. I can't pay my mortgage with Nectar points, or buy shoes with air miles: there is no exchange rate between these things and "real money".

The Co-operative might issue Credits to planetary merchants and trading companies in return for their support for and maintenance of the station and the Viper patrols - at that end the "exchange rate", such as it is, is based on a mixture of raw materials, labour and political support. On the station, these planetary merchants and companies control the prices quite closely: although they do fluctuate, they're pretty stable (with the exception of narcotics). But there's no real crossover between planetary currencies and the Credit, so there is no real scale of equivalent value. It's the locals (or a small group of them, at least) who have the power - the Co-operative has no real existence as a separate entity: it's just the sum of its members, and most of its members are planet-based merchants and trading companies.

What a Credit buys you on a station has no true relation to what values are on the planet. In orbit, Cr6 might get you a ton of food, or half a tank of quirium fuel, or 0.15kg (150g) of gold. On the planet, a ton of food might be worth the equivalent of just 0.03kg (3g) of gold (a ton of potatoes is about $120; a gram of gold is around $40: that's here and now on earth, of course: gold prices might be a lot lower if asteroid mining was common), and there might be no quirium to be had at all - regardless of the value, it's just not there to be bought. And if you try to offer the planet-side locals a "Credit", they wouldn't know what to do with it: it doesn't buy you anything at all.

[cim]

But you're assuming that the Credit is a currency. If it's a form of scrip - if it can only be used to buy and sell certain types of goods, or fuel, or ship equipment, from certain (above-atmosphere) traders, in certain places - then it doesn't work with the same system of values. I can't pay my mortgage with Nectar points, or buy shoes with air miles: there is no exchange rate between these things and "real money".

True, but it's not quite the same as those. You can freely convert credits into goods, and back again, limited only by the local supply of credits and goods of the people involved in that transaction. That makes it a de facto currency even if there's no direct conversion possible between it and any other currency. That makes it very hard for imbalances in trade to persist, unless all space/surface travel is required to go through Galcop.

Person A, planetside, buys a TC of Potatoes from Galcop for $120. They give the potatoes to Person B, who is spaceside. Person B opens the parcel, and sells the potatoes to the station for 6 credits of scrip. They then use this scrip to buy 150g of gold, which they put in a parcel back to Person A. Person A opens the parcel, and sells the gold to Galcop for $6000. Half of this they use to buy 60 TC of Potatoes, shipped to Person A, who sells them for 360 credits. No-one at any point is exchanging credits for local currency here.

Person A and Person B could be employees of the same company, here. So you then have a situation where Galcop has to clamp down hard on any potential competition, and fully inspect all surface/space transfers of material, because anyone able to transfer tradeable goods outside of their control can use their enforcement of unnatural exchange rates as a money pump. The only way that can work is if the planetside local merchants/traders have so entrenched themselves as "in charge" that competing with them, or privately owning spaceships, is actually illegal. I can certainly imagine some Corporate States and Dictatorships working like that. But in every Democracy, Multi-Government or Anarchy?

(Or if the scrip itself is transferable between people, it doesn't even have to be exchangable with currency at all. I have a (paper) voucher for £5 off any purchase over £50 from the Co-op. It has no use as currency. But I could probably sell it to someone else for a value very close to £5, so there's still an exchange rate of sorts.)

[Disembodied]

Person A, planetside, buys a TC of Potatoes from Galcop for $120. They give the potatoes to Person B, who is spaceside. Person B opens the parcel, and sells the potatoes to the station for 6 credits of scrip. They then use this scrip to buy 150g of gold, which they put in a parcel back to Person A. Person A opens the parcel, and sells the gold to Galcop for $6000. Half of this they use to buy 60 TC of Potatoes, shipped to Person A, who sells them for 360 credits. No-one at any point is exchanging credits for local currency here.

But Galcop - which is represented locally by the merchants and trading companies who support the station - won't pay $6000 for 150g of gold. They can get the same amount of gold much more cheaply on their station, in return for potatoes, which they can buy on the planet for $120 per TC. They're not interested in Person A's gold. So what you've got is this:

Person A, planetside, buys a TC of Potatoes from Galcop for $120. They give the potatoes to Person B, who is spaceside. They have to get the potatoes into orbit somehow, which has an unknown cost. If they do it publicly and legally it's a lot cheaper than doing it via a smuggler; but if it's public and legal then everyone knows what's going on, and it's unlikely that the station will allow the potatoes to be reimported if it's going to screw up their market. However they're doing it, though, Person A is taking a hit to the wallet: they're down $120 + $X in launch costs.

Person B opens the parcel, and sells the potatoes on the station for 6 credits of scrip. They then use this scrip to buy 150g of gold, which they put in a parcel back to Person A. Person A opens the parcel, and now has something worth $6000 on the planet, assuming that gold isn't much cheaper planetside too, due to the quantities available in orbit. Person A might be in profit, depending on launch costs. Here and now the cheapest estimated cost to get something into low earth orbit is around $2,200 per kilo ($12,970 per kilo for geostationary orbit). These costs can be assumed to be dramatically lower in Oolite, but will they be low enough? The Co-operative merchants can afford to sling potatoes into space, as they're the ones running the station and the shuttles (and paying the costs to maintain them, too), but if you're not a member, how much would it cost for a private citizen to get something into orbit?

Anyway, Person B is still Cr6 down on the deal. Depending on launch costs, Person A might be able to buy another few TCs of potatoes and send them to Person B, but how much will they cost to get into orbit, without the local Co-operative merchants spotting what's going on - not too hard, given the low volumes of traffic - and revoking their license to trade?

Even at the other end of the scale, with, say, 1TC of Computers priced at Cr101, there's no guarantee of equivalent trade: the rates on the station will indicate the demand on the station, not on the planet: maybe most of the Computers are being used to keep the station, and the Vipers, going: they might be vastly more valuable in orbit than they are on the ground.

[cim]

but how much will they cost to get into orbit, without the local Co-operative merchants spotting what's going on - not too hard, given the low volumes of traffic - and revoking their license to trade?

But now we're going around in circles. With the productivity as an annual figure, you can get a trade contribution to GDP not too far off the ones you get for a modern country. But with the productivity as an annual figure, you get an odd situation where a credit is apparently worth a huge amount of money. So we're theorising ways in which currency controls and tight control of ship/surface transport could make it difficult to make that exchange without paying huge taxes or fees (which mostly go to fund the anti-smuggling infrastructure) ... but that will make legitimate trade far less profitable for producers and consumers (though Galcop as the gatekeeper could get rich), so it's hard to see how it then makes up such a large share of GDP in the first place.

With the productivity as a daily figure, the trade contribution to GDP is more like your earlier "colony" example - which arguably makes a lot more sense when dealing with planetary economies (the interplanetary trade proportion of global GDP on Earth also being negligible), and the profit to be made from a life of trading might make you extremely rich - though more likely extremely dead, which is why hardly anyone tries - but the 100 credits you start with will not: they can plausibly be your entire life savings after buying your ship.

[Disembodied]

With the productivity as a daily figure, the trade contribution to GDP is more like your earlier "colony" example - which arguably makes a lot more sense when dealing with planetary economies (the interplanetary trade proportion of global GDP on Earth also being negligible), and the profit to be made from a life of trading might make you extremely rich - though more likely extremely dead, which is why hardly anyone tries - but the 100 credits you start with will not: they can plausibly be your entire life savings after buying your ship.

Hmm ... you're probably right, there! The best solution of all might be "not to think about it too much" ...

[Tricky]

I threw together a quick script to investigate this and made the simple discovery that if productivity was multiplied by 1,000 then things seem to be more realistic. Here are 2 examples.

Code: Select all

Galaxy #1, Planet #7

        Lave

Position from the galactic core (-50339.36 LY, -21196.29 LY, -4175.26 LY) (1)
Economy: Rich Agricultural
Government: Dictatorship
Tech Level: 5
Radius: 6378.47 km (2)
Inhabitants: Human Colonials
Population: 2.50 Billion
GDP: ₢7000.00 Billion (₢7 Trillion)
GDP per capita: ₢7000.00 (3)

Code: Select all

Galaxy #1, Planet #151

        Ceesxe

Position from the galactic core (9016.11 LY, 52397.46 LY, 3979.03 LY) (1)
Economy: Rich Industrial
Government: Corporate State
Tech Level: 15
Radius: 6317.51 km (2)
Inhabitants: Fierce Bony Birds
Population: 6.40 Billion
GDP: ₢56320.00 Billion (₢56.32 Trillion)
GDP per capita: ₢22000.00 (3)

Notes:

1. I've mapped the systems to positions within a galaxy of 120,000 LY wide by 10,000 LY deep. Roughly the same dimensions as our own galaxy.
2. The radius of a planet is calculated based on the position within the galaxy using X, Y and Z coordinates.
3. This is based on the assumption that 40% of the population is working. Roughly the same as the 2010 figure for our world.

[DaddyHoggy]

I love this thread - it started as a Galcop/GalCops thing and turned into a political/trade/political control thing - awesome.

The pseudo-random realness that Elite/Oolite induces in our minds always just makes me smile.

[Walbrigg]

I think scaling up the productivity is the sanest solution: it does makes sense for interstellar trade to be comparatively rare given how dangerous and profitable it is. There's a bit of fiction about traders struggling to make ends meet for year after year, but actual gameplay suggests you can turn 100 credits into 10000 in a year purely by relatively cautious trading, while the risk of thargoid ambushes alone make it into a vary dangerous career, never mind pirates.

If planets were really importing/exporting 10-20% of gross global product, they would have to make trade much cheaper and safer. However, that would make the game rather boring.

[Selezen]

Wasn't there something in canon/lore somewhere stating that spacers never go dirtside?

Jason Ryder knew well enough the frustration of only being allowed to observe a rich and fabled world like Lave from orbit. He had been planetside once, an unforgettable experience . . . But the rules and regulations of the Galactic Co-operative of Worlds were strict and sensible. Lave, like any other planet, was not a holiday resort, not a curiosity. It was a living, evolving world, and there were folk down below to whom that world was everything that Old Earth had once been to the Human race. Protection. Mother. Home.

Regarding the Coriolis "network": I've always worked on the assumption that each world of GalCop has multiple stations in orbit, perhaps reflecting the amount of trade and activity in that system as well as the relative wealth of the planet and the tech level. For example, a Rich Industrial TL12 world could have as many as 12 stations in orbit where a Poor Agricultural TL5 world may only have two or three. Government type could also be a factor - maybe Anarchy worlds where the troubles spill into space could have significant risk of stations being the target of terrorist attacks and thus limit the number of stations.

Some stations could be dedicated to a certain task. In a system with 8 stations, say, I imagine the following:

4 stations (around the planetary equator) dedicated to small trade (these are the ones that us pilots get to dock at)

2 stations devoted to large-scale trade (where Long Range Cruisers or Lynx Bulk Carriers can berth and send their little shuttles to ferry cargo for hours at a time)

2 stations for industry and residential (staff for the other stations)

[Disembodied]

[...] maybe Anarchy worlds where the troubles spill into space [...]

I think this is maybe a misconception about the term "Anarchy". This is an external designation, and all it really means is "no overall central authority". We might assume that Earth, now, would be regarded as a Multi-Government world - but what about Earth 100 years ago? No United Nations, no League of Nations - nothing which could even pretend to represent the various peoples of the planet. Maybe Earth c. 1914 would be, in the eyes of the Co-operative's catalogue, an "Anarchy". Obviously, Earth in 1914 had its problems - but it wasn't a world in seething chaos, by any means. Even during the First World War, most people on the planet weren't fighting anyone. So even on a planet filled with aggressive primates, an "Anarchy" label might not mean a constant state of turmoil - just the absence of any one body which can represent the planet in the Co-operative.

It's conceivable that problems of global terrorism might increase under other, more centralised forms of planetary government. A Corporate State might be able to spend more money to police the spacelanes, making life in the system above the atmosphere a lot more stable and pleasant for space-based merchants - but it might also have to spend huge amounts of resources oppressing a vast underclass of wage-slaves (or even actual slaves) and consumers upon whom that particular Corporate structure depends. A resistance movement fighting against Corporate tyranny might be a lot more likely to try to attack the stations than a bunch of petty states scattered across a so-called "Anarchy".

[Switeck]

Regarding the Coriolis "network": I've always worked on the assumption that each world of GalCop has multiple stations in orbit, perhaps reflecting the amount of trade and activity in that system as well as the relative wealth of the planet and the tech level. For example, a Rich Industrial TL12 world could have as many as 12 stations in orbit where a Poor Agricultural TL5 world may only have two or three. Government type could also be a factor - maybe Anarchy worlds where the troubles spill into space could have significant risk of stations being the target of terrorist attacks and thus limit the number of stations.

Some stations could be dedicated to a certain task. In a system with 8 stations, say, I imagine the following:

4 stations (around the planetary equator) dedicated to small trade (these are the ones that us pilots get to dock at)

2 stations devoted to large-scale trade (where Long Range Cruisers or Lynx Bulk Carriers can berth and send their little shuttles to ferry cargo for hours at a time)

2 stations for industry and residential (staff for the other stations)

This is where I'd prefer more diversity. All systems should have 1 GalCop station, however many systems should have additional secondary stations near the main planet reflective of their status.
If the planet has an advanced GalCop station (Iso and Dodec types), they might still retain the older Coriolis Station as well.
Rock Hermit type asteroids could be used as storage facilities.
3rd party OXP stations may be reasonably common, though seldom more than 1 or 2 per system at least near the main planet. These can be anything from Sothis, Tori, Superhub, Globe, Nuit, Transhab, Biosphere, Hoopy Casino, etc.

Sadly, only Superhub is suitable for very large ships.

Game balance gets strained if the player can load an Anaconda up just by going between all the nearby stations near 1 planet, so this puts an absolute upper limit on the number of stations that should be allowed in 1 system.

More stations would only be built by a system if they had a pressing need and/or had money-to-burn and wanted to show off.
"If you build it, they will come."
The amount of ship traffic needed to both justify extra stations and make it "interesting" to watch could be harder on low-end computers running the game. So system populator probably also should add extra traffic based on how many stations are in-system.

[GGShinobi]

[...] maybe Anarchy worlds where the troubles spill into space [...]

I think this is maybe a misconception about the term "Anarchy". This is an external designation, and all it really means is "no overall central authority". We might assume that Earth, now, would be regarded as a Multi-Government world - but what about Earth 100 years ago? No United Nations, no League of Nations - nothing which could even pretend to represent the various peoples of the planet. Maybe Earth c. 1914 would be, in the eyes of the Co-operative's catalogue, an "Anarchy". Obviously, Earth in 1914 had its problems - but it wasn't a world in seething chaos, by any means. Even during the First World War, most people on the planet weren't fighting anyone. So even on a planet filled with aggressive primates, an "Anarchy" label might not mean a constant state of turmoil - just the absence of any one body which can represent the planet in the Co-operative.

It's conceivable that problems of global terrorism might increase under other, more centralised forms of planetary government. A Corporate State might be able to spend more money to police the spacelanes, making life in the system above the atmosphere a lot more stable and pleasant for space-based merchants - but it might also have to spend huge amounts of resources oppressing a vast underclass of wage-slaves (or even actual slaves) and consumers upon whom that particular Corporate structure depends. A resistance movement fighting against Corporate tyranny might be a lot more likely to try to attack the stations than a bunch of petty states scattered across a so-called "Anarchy".

You took the words out of my mouth! (But I couldn't have said it so well!) Anarchy doesn't necessarily mean Chaos, and Terrorism might be more likely to rise in more restrictive systems, where people feel more repressed, than in anarchies.

[Selezen]

I think this is maybe a misconception about the term "Anarchy". This is an external designation, and all it really means is "no overall central authority".

That's only half right - the dictionary definition of anarchy is "A state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority". Having no central authority is not anarchy but is often the precursor to anarchy. The recent fall of some regimes has caused a measure of anarchy in those countries until a central government has been reinstated or created, but not all the time. The state of anarchy can come dependent on what the populace decides to do when the controlling authority is no longer present.

Terrorism and anarchy can quickly replace ANY form of government if it falls or is pulled down.

This is where I'd prefer more diversity. All systems should have 1 GalCop station, however many systems should have additional secondary stations near the main planet reflective of their status.
If the planet has an advanced GalCop station (Iso and Dodec types), they might still retain the older Coriolis Station as well.
Rock Hermit type asteroids could be used as storage facilities.

I completely agree, and my post was intended as an outline of only one possible configuration for GALCOP stations - there could be any number of private, corporate or planetary owned stations alongside the GalCop ones.

Game balance gets strained if the player can load an Anaconda up just by going between all the nearby stations near 1 planet, so this puts an absolute upper limit on the number of stations that should be allowed in 1 system.

In a multi-station network, the trade system lists what's available at all trading stations, not just the one you're docked at. Off-screen, if you purchase cargo that is not located on the same station as you, a ship is dispatched to bring it to your station for loading onto your ship. So it's not possible to go to each station and get more cargo to fill up an anaconda.

[JazHaz]

Game balance gets strained if the player can load an Anaconda up just by going between all the nearby stations near 1 planet, so this puts an absolute upper limit on the number of stations that should be allowed in 1 system.

In a multi-station network, the trade system lists what's available at all trading stations, not just the one you're docked at. It's not possible to go to each station and get more cargo to fill up an anaconda.

Of course you can, I do this all the time.

[cim]

That's only half right - the dictionary definition of anarchy is "A state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority".

Well, a definition of. OED gives:
"Absence of government; a state of lawlessness due to the absence or inefficiency of the supreme power; political disorder." but also "A theoretical social state in which there is no governing person or body of persons, but each individual has absolute liberty (without implication of disorder).".

With almost 300 systems classified as Anarchy across the 8 charts, there's probably room for plenty of both sorts.