Commodities are the actual things that are traded between worlds. We could keep things very simple, but part of the purpose of this is to provide background for RPGs, so it's far more interesting for there to be a wide range of commodities for PCs to have available for buying and selling.
Every commodity has a Production Requirement, which defines how many people are required to produce one unit of the commodity per week. This is regardless of whether the commodity is coming from a natural resource, or a factory.
| PR | People | PR | People | PR | People |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 5 | 300 | 10 | 100,000 |
| 1 | 3 | 6 | 1,000 | 11 | 300,000 |
| 2 | 10 | 7 | 3,000 | 12 | 1,000,000 |
| 3 | 30 | 8 | 10,000 | 13 | 3,000,000 |
| 4 | 100 | 9 | 30,000 | 14 | 10,000,000 |
A typical commodity has a PR of 6-8. Common commodities are 4-5, Rare 9-10, etc.
Basic resources are as follows:
We need some extra attributes to a simpler logic for determining what does what to what. Each commodity needs to know what it can be turned into.
In order to try and simplify things, the commodity codes system has been extended to allow for 4 character codes. This is to make it easier for facilities to specify a type of good rather than having to define specific commodity ids (which can change).
Food commodities (those with trade code Fo) have their own set of codes and guidelines. The Consumption Rate is an estimate of how many people 1dt of the commodity will feed for a week.
| CR | Feeds | Food types |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 50000 | High protein meat |
| 5 | 15000 | Typical meat |
| 6 | 5000 | High quality vegetables, low energy meat |
| 7 | 2000 | Typical vegetables |
| 8 | 1000 | Low quality vegetables |
| 9 | 500 | Simple plants |
| 10 | 250 | Poor quality |
| 11 | 150 | Basic living matter |
| 12 | 100 | Basic organic matter |
The Production Rating determines the amount of effort required to obtain the food. Some food is very intensive to farm, other types look after itself.
| PR | Workers | Food types |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | 3000 | Difficult to obtain |
| 8 | 1000 | Hard to obtain |
| 9 | 500 | Intensive crops, e.g. rice |
| 10 | 250 | Typical crops |
| 11 | 150 | Cattle |
Codes class a commodity according to who has need for it. Codes provide a way to add new commodities into the system without having to think too hard about how every facility or world will need to use it.
Many goods are only required at particular tech levels. For example, flint tools are only used by stone age cultures, so there is no use for them at higher tech levels.
| Code | Description | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tn | Neolithic | Y | y | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Tb | Bronze age | y | Y | y | y | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Ti | Iron age | - | y | Y | Y | y | y | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Tm | Middle ages | - | y | y | Y | Y | y | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Tr | Renaisance | - | - | y | y | Y | Y | y | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Tl | Lo tech | - | - | - | y | Y | Y | Y | - | - | - | - | - | - |
| Ts | Steam tech | - | - | - | - | y | Y | Y | y | - | - | - | - | - |
| Commodity | Price | TL | Codes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flint tools | 10 | 0 | Lo |
| Animal skins | 15 | 0 | Lo |