Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: CitizenJoe on <03-22-12/2320:49>
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Has anyone come up with a price for fuel? Gas, Diesel, Methane, Jet, etc.
I looked at the Rigger3 optempo rules but those seem to vary the price by orders of magnitude. From ¥400/l for jet fuel in a Banshee to ¥0.016/l for regular gas in a Ford Americar.
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I'd personally just hand-wave it, unless the person has a really low Lifestyle for the vehicle they're driving.
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Handwave it with the Lifestyle and don't make it a Hartwurst
with a friendly Dance
Medicineman
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A 30 Kiloliter tanker truck is not something I feel comfortable handwaving.
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A 30 Kiloliter tanker truck is not something I feel comfortable handwaving.
Oooooooooh.... you're trying to do it as a commodity, not just fueling personal vehicles. That's the kind of thing you need to mention up front, man. Not only are the prices different when you get up to "by the tanker" sales, but your examples indicated you were looking for "at the pump" rates.
Still, either way, I'd just ball-park it to a nice round number, since I seriously doubt this is happening through legal channels. Makes adding and subtracting for Negotiation hits easier, too. Figure about 150,000¥, retail, for automotive gas, 200,000¥ for "premium" auto-gas or normal aviation gas, and 250,000¥ for "premium/jet fuel" av-gas.
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That's like ¥20 per gallon
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That's like ¥20 per gallon
given how current gas prices are going, sounds about right :(
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IRL, Nitromethane fuel for dragsters costs $900 for a 55 gallon drum... That's still less than $17/gallon. I'm having trouble figuring out how anyone could operate a gas powered vehicle at those rates.
Anyway, right now, looking at my local gas station, if dollars got converted to nuyen, it's about ¥1/liter. Compressed Natural Gas (Methane) is about 60% of that. Diesel is running about 10% more expensive. Biodiesel (where I can find it) is running about the same price as gas right now. I don't think biodiesel is going to skyrocket since it is locally produced.
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Petrochem (referred to in 2050-era novels) probably isn't "Pure" refined crude oil by Shadowrun era, but a Petrol/Diesel derivative with a lot of additional chemicals to fill in the rest.
Honestly, modify your vehicle with a Multifuel Modification. You can run it on anything that burns at that point. Vegetable oil that you stole from the back of a Stuffer Shack and cleaned through coffee filters would be pretty damned cheap. And easy to do for Shadowrunners.
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IRL, Nitromethane fuel for dragsters costs $900 for a 55 gallon drum... That's still less than $17/gallon. I'm having trouble figuring out how anyone could operate a gas powered vehicle at those rates.
Anyway, right now, looking at my local gas station, if dollars got converted to nuyen, it's about ¥1/liter. Compressed Natural Gas (Methane) is about 60% of that. Diesel is running about 10% more expensive. Biodiesel (where I can find it) is running about the same price as gas right now. I don't think biodiesel is going to skyrocket since it is locally produced.
You lucky bastards :)
Over here (in Europe) it comes down now to about 1.6€/liter, which is about $2/liter with the current dollar/euro conversion. So in 2070 with the oil reserves down a price of $20/liter wouldn't be that odd I guess. More for special fuels (like the nitromethane you mentioned). On the other hand in the big sprawls cars would be running on electricity from the grid guide net (it's an option on vehicle from Arsenal, to get electricity from the net) powered by cheap fusion plants. So in cities you would probably not need oil products, at least not if you're trying to blend in and do like all the other wage slaves.
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Plastics are made from oil.
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Plastics are made from oil.
Currently, yea. I'd hope by 2070 we'll find an alternative
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The same could then be said for gas.
There are a couple ways to go with this, but let me preface this with SR4 skillfully sidesteps all of this by not mentioning fuel economy or even fuel type in vehicles.
1) Populations crashed to the point that the demand for fuel and plastics were below the supply capacity. Evidence: VITAS plagues arbitrarily drop population levels to the point that only by the 2060's to 2070's have they finally caught back up to the levels around the turn of the century.
2) Alternatives are developed to reduce the demand on fossil fuels. Evidence: Fusion power switches people to electric cars. Petrochem still goes into plastics, but plastics become much more recyclable. This leads to squatters at landfills sorting through the junk for enough recyclables to by lunch.
3) Mass switch from fossil fuel to biomass. Evidence: food shortages caused by farms being dedicated to fuel crop production. Soy products become cheap because the oil gets extracted first (for fuel) and then the husks get turned into food.
4) New sources of fossil fuels are found. Evidence: United Oil is still a major company. Athabaskan Oil is a big company. MCT pretty much raped Tsimshian of its resources and left.
I suspect it is some sort of combination of all of that, but that doesn't answer the question of how much does gas cost in Shadowrun?
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I suspect it is some sort of combination of all of that, but that doesn't answer the question of how much does gas cost in Shadowrun?
Seriously, just go with modern-day prices and convert to nuyen. That's what they give as the rule of thumb for anything not explicitly listed, anyway.
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I suspect it is some sort of combination of all of that, but that doesn't answer the question of how much does gas cost in Shadowrun?
Seriously, just go with modern-day prices and convert to nuyen. That's what they give as the rule of thumb for anything not explicitly listed, anyway.
How about modern prices doubled to account for the inevitable further increase in price gouging on it?
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I suspect it is some sort of combination of all of that, but that doesn't answer the question of how much does gas cost in Shadowrun?
Seriously, just go with modern-day prices and convert to nuyen. That's what they give as the rule of thumb for anything not explicitly listed, anyway.
How about modern prices doubled to account for the inevitable further increase in price gouging on it?
Same could be said for inflation/gouging in any market. Plus we're converting from $ to ¥ and, from what I've seen in the book vs real-world prices, the Nuyen is generally quite a bit stronger than Dollar.
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I suspect it is some sort of combination of all of that, but that doesn't answer the question of how much does gas cost in Shadowrun?
Seriously, just go with modern-day prices and convert to nuyen. That's what they give as the rule of thumb for anything not explicitly listed, anyway.
How about modern prices doubled to account for the inevitable further increase in price gouging on it?
Same could be said for inflation/gouging in any market. Plus we're converting from $ to ¥ and, from what I've seen in the book vs real-world prices, the Nuyen is generally quite a bit stronger than Dollar.
Good point. It would kind of have to be to be an almost universal currency like it is. Heck, do any other currencies even still exist in the SR setting?
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Good point. It would kind of have to be to be an almost universal currency like it is. Heck, do any other currencies even still exist in the SR setting?
From what I understand... yes, but they're only good locally, while the Nuyen is good around the world. Rather like the Dollar was, back in its heyday.
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Seriously, just go with modern-day prices and convert to nuyen. That's what they give as the rule of thumb for anything not explicitly listed, anyway.
I've seen this before online, and even mentioned it myself, but I've never been able to find it in print. Do you know where this is stated?
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There is still a UCAS Dollar, a CAS Dollar, all kinds of CorpScrip, etc.
The lack of fuel economy or range for vehicles somewhat bothered me, as a GM. I see the modification for additional fuel tanks in Arsenal, granting an additional six hours of operation each, but I'm not sure how long the standard of operation is to start with, nor how far that will take me. I generally just eyeball it, myself, and have some houserule Lifestyle elements to account for fuel costs (either a new category for Gear Maintenance, or a Quality for Aircraft, etc)
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There is an effective cap to petro-fuel prices.
It's whatever the prices of alternative fuels cost.
It it get to the point where, say, hydrogen fuel cells are overall cheaper to run than gasoline, then you'll see development in that area.
I mean, just a few years ago coal-derived gasoline was prohibitively expensive to produce. Now, it hasn't really gotten less expensive, the price of regular gasoline is just high enough that many companies and nations are pouring serious research money into coal-gas development.
-k
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There is still a UCAS Dollar, a CAS Dollar, all kinds of CorpScrip, etc.
The lack of fuel economy or range for vehicles somewhat bothered me, as a GM. I see the modification for additional fuel tanks in Arsenal, granting an additional six hours of operation each, but I'm not sure how long the standard of operation is to start with, nor how far that will take me. I generally just eyeball it, myself, and have some houserule Lifestyle elements to account for fuel costs (either a new category for Gear Maintenance, or a Quality for Aircraft, etc)
Twice I've bitten my tongue about talking about SR4's vehicles. Earlier editions had all that info. Fuel economy, tank size, etc. SR4 just has a vague general description of the vehicle and if you're lucky, you know whether it is gas or electric. I wouldn't have even noticed except a lot of the bounce back from here was very vague. Anyway, I'm of the opinion that fuel should be at least as important as the ammunition for your gun. Still, I don't recall ever seeing a mention of fuel prices in any printed material.
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There is still a UCAS Dollar, a CAS Dollar, all kinds of CorpScrip, etc.
The lack of fuel economy or range for vehicles somewhat bothered me, as a GM. I see the modification for additional fuel tanks in Arsenal, granting an additional six hours of operation each, but I'm not sure how long the standard of operation is to start with, nor how far that will take me. I generally just eyeball it, myself, and have some houserule Lifestyle elements to account for fuel costs (either a new category for Gear Maintenance, or a Quality for Aircraft, etc)
Twice I've bitten my tongue about talking about SR4's vehicles. Earlier editions had all that info. Fuel economy, tank size, etc. SR4 just has a vague general description of the vehicle and if you're lucky, you know whether it is gas or electric. I wouldn't have even noticed except a lot of the bounce back from here was very vague. Anyway, I'm of the opinion that fuel should be at least as important as the ammunition for your gun. Still, I don't recall ever seeing a mention of fuel prices in any printed material.
I disagree with this idea of the upkeep tracking of fuel and vehicle maintenance being all that important. I think that all it does is bog down the game and siphon away even more money that could go toward character advancement (advancement for mundanes anyway), and the best thing to do with fuel for your vehicles is for it to be "handwaved". As to the additional fuel tank mod, well, I consider that to be a 'flavor' modification (which I think is the best place for it).
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I believe the 'default' is that, whatever method of fueling your vehicle you use, unless you have gridlink or suncells you get about 6 hours for most vehicles, but things like ships or other long range vehicles might have longer running times. In the end, it is up to the DM, as determined by what makes the best story.
OPERATION TIME
A vehicle’s operation time determines how long it can operate
within its normal capacities before it needs to be refueled. As a rule
of thumb, each vehicle has an operation time of 6 hours, but the
gamemaster should feel free to adjust this as he feels appropriate.
A vehicle that is simply idling in a stationary position should have
its operation time doubled at least, whereas a jet that throws on its
aft erburners will drastically reduce its operation time. Likewise,
many ships have an operation time of weeks, if not months.
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IRL, I have found that many (personal) vehicles have their fuel tanks sized inversely with their fuel economy. Which ends up putting their range at about 250 miles. So that jives pretty well with the 6 hour limit. I think that is intentional for a few reasons, not the least of which is forcing drivers to take breaks before they get dangerously tired. So I'm perfectly fine writing off day to day commutes to lifestyle, but what about that trip across the state? What if you're living squatter lifestyle and living out of your car or RV?
Maybe do something like 1 'free' refill per week with appropriate lifestyle, extra refills cost:
(Acc+Speed) x (Body + Armor/2) x FuelFactor
So a bulldog step van would be 1900 x FF
A Mercury Comet would be 1625 x FF
A Westwind 3K would be 3380 x FF
I'd like a fill up to run about ¥50 on the sedan so that makes the gas FF = 0.0308
Fill ups for the van would be about ¥58, the sedan about ¥50, and the sportscar ¥104
Now a T-Bird would be VERY expensive in fuel ¥938 assuming jet fuel runs the same fuel factor.
A Cesna would run ¥222.
Those numbers look about right I think...
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I usually assume a vehicle has (Body) hours of fuel unless otherwise noted. It gives most drones a 1 mission fuel supply while giving naval vessels and my favorite, the Zugsmachine, realisticly long ranges.
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So a bulldog step van would be 1900 x FF
A Mercury Comet would be 1625 x FF
A Westwind 3K would be 3380 x FF
Most sports cars are surprisingly fuel efficient when driven normally. Your numbers imply you drive the Westwind like crazy and the costs includes the speeding tickets as well.
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The Westwind would have gone twice as far in that amount of time and thus the ¥/km cost would be pretty close to the same. The assumption being that the Westwind has a significantly larger fuel tank.
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Imo, it's far too much micromanagement for it to be something a GM or his players should be concerned about, unless in very specific circumstances. Like, for example, if a GM sends you through the xxx desert on a drive that will take at least 48 hours and chances are you won't come into contact with anything closely resembling civilization. This is when good fuel economy and a bunch of jerrycans might come in handy. Otherwise, just not worth the hassle.
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Xyz is right. Unless you're doing a Smokey and the Bandit style run, this is way more complicated than you need to make it.
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Thirded. Xxyzl... Xzvyl... Mr X is right on. The entire 4th edition was streamlined for just this reason. Best when rules don't interrupt the flow of the game for micromanagement.
(by the by, Xzylvador, I do think your name is awesome. It's just delightfully complex to an exhausted brain. ;))
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I came up with for my MUD Deity character while stoned and exhausted after programming for a couple of days... that might have something to do with it. Somehow at the time I imagined that in some way it could almost be pronounced like "Silver" with the right accent... so yeah. Not my brightest moment, but the name kind of stuck ;)
Coolest thing about the rules being so unclear in this case is that no matter what the GM chooses to do, it's "by the rules". So a GM can safely ignore all about it when it doesn't matter (urban setting) and then when it suddenly does matter (eg. wilderniss) he can make some on-the-spot rules for that specific situation without having to worry that from then on it'll have to be micromanaged in all future sessions.