how much do you think the ordinary middle-class citizen earns per year (in credits)? i think the lore somewhere mentions that 1cr = $50, and also that the average middle-class family can afford a sidewinder. but if we take the current us average of $56,310 and convert it to credits we get 1126.2. that would mean that it would take an adult over 3 decades to save enough for a sidewinder, therefore the average salary must be much higher in the 34th century.. anyone have an idea?
How much do you think the average salary of the average citizen is?
Tree fiddy
About.
There's been considerable discussion on the subject in past threads on the forum.
The "1 credit = $50" equation comes from the RPG handbook, which, though licensed and recognized by Frontier, is not necessarily canon lore.
Attempting to work out a credits-to-dollars conversion rate by comparing prices of commodities is tricky, because the comparisons depend entirely on which commodities you use. If you use gold, then a credit is ridiculously cheap - that's because, in the ED universe, gold itself is ridiculously cheap, because it's ridiculously common. For example, it's estimated that the entire human race, over the entire course of history up to the 21st century, has mined and refined about 200,000 tonnes of gold. A single player who likes going mining could mine that much in just a few weeks, just by going to a mineral-rich system and shooting lasers at rocks. Or, to look at it another way, right now in the Duamta system, the four mining stations have between them about 200,000 tonnes of gold for sale - the entire 21st-century gold stockpile of Earth, and you can buy it and take it away if you had a big enough ship.
The things we in the 21st century call "food", on the other hand - real meat, real fruit and vegetables, real fish, real beer - are expensive, labour-intensive luxuries in the ED universe. Most people, most of the time, eat cheap-but-nutritious 3D-printed pseudo-food generated by autochefs using Food Cartridges.
But the general consensus from past discussions is that we spacefarers are the upper crust of society, incredibly wealthy just by virtue of owning a spaceship. The average Joe, one of only 6.6 trillion people in the galaxy, might dream of travelling into space on a holiday one day or even emigrating to another planet, but actually owning a spaceship will be beyond them; for the most part, they're stuck on whatever planet they were born on.
The "average salary" in the ED universe is lower than it is today. This is manifested in the form of so-called "wage slavery" in the Federation and other liberal democracies, and actual slavery in the Empire and Independent spheres. In a sense that's OK, as many of the things which we need money for today - food, clothing, personal consumables, etc - are cheaper and more readily available in the ED universe, thanks to galaxy-wide economy of scale and technological advances (such as the autochefs mentioned earlier). Very few people in the ED universe are actually poor, by 34th century standards. But it does make it virtually impossible for people to "save up enough money" to buy a starship.
The "1 credit = $50" equation comes from the RPG handbook, which, though licensed and recognized by Frontier, is not necessarily canon lore.
Attempting to work out a credits-to-dollars conversion rate by comparing prices of commodities is tricky, because the comparisons depend entirely on which commodities you use. If you use gold, then a credit is ridiculously cheap - that's because, in the ED universe, gold itself is ridiculously cheap, because it's ridiculously common. For example, it's estimated that the entire human race, over the entire course of history up to the 21st century, has mined and refined about 200,000 tonnes of gold. A single player who likes going mining could mine that much in just a few weeks, just by going to a mineral-rich system and shooting lasers at rocks. Or, to look at it another way, right now in the Duamta system, the four mining stations have between them about 200,000 tonnes of gold for sale - the entire 21st-century gold stockpile of Earth, and you can buy it and take it away if you had a big enough ship.
The things we in the 21st century call "food", on the other hand - real meat, real fruit and vegetables, real fish, real beer - are expensive, labour-intensive luxuries in the ED universe. Most people, most of the time, eat cheap-but-nutritious 3D-printed pseudo-food generated by autochefs using Food Cartridges.
But the general consensus from past discussions is that we spacefarers are the upper crust of society, incredibly wealthy just by virtue of owning a spaceship. The average Joe, one of only 6.6 trillion people in the galaxy, might dream of travelling into space on a holiday one day or even emigrating to another planet, but actually owning a spaceship will be beyond them; for the most part, they're stuck on whatever planet they were born on.
The "average salary" in the ED universe is lower than it is today. This is manifested in the form of so-called "wage slavery" in the Federation and other liberal democracies, and actual slavery in the Empire and Independent spheres. In a sense that's OK, as many of the things which we need money for today - food, clothing, personal consumables, etc - are cheaper and more readily available in the ED universe, thanks to galaxy-wide economy of scale and technological advances (such as the autochefs mentioned earlier). Very few people in the ED universe are actually poor, by 34th century standards. But it does make it virtually impossible for people to "save up enough money" to buy a starship.
That's why I like the Elite universe so much. There is a lot of room to tell stories and have wildly different gameplay settings. The majority of people in the universe live in pretty dystopic conditions. We're a long, long way off from cities or city planets, but I hope we see that some day, and that it can run on whatever quantum computing liquid cooler PC I have.
But you forget to calculate in inflation over time. If you add 1000 years of inflation and adjusting monetary value, you could consider saying 1cr is 1$, so earning around 56k a year allows you to buy a brand new car. Which is not far from the truth. Minus taxes of course.
Plus, this is the cost of a brand new sidewinder. Unlike the everyday joe, we don't get the luxury of buying a 2nd hand sidey. Unless you count the loaner we get to start with, which could be considered a 2nd hand one.
Well, even today, you could just live of "pseudo food" (aka noodle cups) to sustain yourself. We both know it's not super healthy, but it's cheap and gets you through the day.
See above for my addition in regards to inflation and adjusting the credits.
You don't even have to consider space faring an elite slice of people in regards to emigration. Look at today's society. Most people stay where they are born, they work, fall in love and marry, might move to the village next door but in general stay within the area. Moving to a different country/planet is not something many people do. I've done it, wouldn't do it again though, moved countries twice and continents once.
I reckon, saving up money is not so much of a big deal. Looking at us pilots, we are given a 1000Cr and a loaner ship, which we have to return. So based on that, I don't see any reason why the average joe who saved up 1000Cr can't get the same loaner ship and go out to space and earn a buck.
Say you just turned 18, you still live at home, start a little job at the local FrontierBurger joint and get paid 300Cr a week. Absolutely nothing fancy. You contribute a 100Cr for food and board to your parents, say you live a bit frugal and in 5 weeks time, you got your 1000Cr together.
The local LoanShark and RipOff company is happy to loan you a sidewinder. Off you go to ship some goods and become a spacefaring billionaire.
General travel seems to be quite simple and commonplace, even if it’s not with your own ship. Even if the average “salary” is low, all those stations out there seem to be paying quite well (compared to the presumed average salary) for even simple tasks like being a data courier or fetching an item.
What’s to stop an even modestly ambitious commoner from doing a few of those jobs and getting their first sidewinder that way?
The phrasing of the lawyer and benefactor letters (see game manual, page 28) implies that 1000 credits is more money than the player has ever seen in their life before. Yet still considerably lower than the fees that the very expensive Martian lawyers, tasked with giving you the ship and Sidewinder, would charge you if you attempted to contact them (5000 credits per call, and 1200 credits per hour).
The ED universe doesn't work like that. First, all of those "minimum-wage jobs" like flipping burgers, are done by machines (in Fed/All space) and/or slaves (in Imp/Indie space). Nobody on the industrialized, crowded core worlds can expect to just jump into a well-paying job like that. That 18 year old kid will probably need to be in college for the next decade, just to get qualifications for an entry-level job. And that opening salary would be more like a couple of credits per day - which is enough to survive, but not really live.
Out on the frontier planets, where it's all hands on deck just to keep the air flowing, the power running and the bugblatter beasts on the outside of the perimeter fence, it's a different story. But the city-slicker kids have got to get out there first.
The letter indicates that the player has paid their own way into applying for membership of, and passed the exam for, the Pilots Federation; we aren't told how long that process took, or how expensive it was. But it implies that getting a starship license isn't as easy as handing over the cash for a starship.
First, they aren't just paying for data transport. They're paying for the security (and timeliness) of a Pilots Federation member having their own starship. Routine interstellar data shipments probably are handled in-house by the companies and factions of the ED galaxy, in the way specified here. Pilots Federation couriers also provide a neutral third party for business dealings done between rival factions.
Second, those are Pilots Federation jobs boards we're picking missions off. The commoners can't see them and don't know about them.
I won’t argue about the exclusive missions, but I just can’t imagine that humans have been going off to the stars for over a thousand years and technology has not made its way down to the regular joe by now. Every technology in humanity’s entire history contradicts this notion. Things like starships would never remain so exclusive for that long. If anything, all major manufacturers would see to them becoming commonplace just so they could simply have more customers.
Given how easily authorities kill anyone I cant imagine lives are worth much thus wealth accrued by average individuals is probably tending to nil. I imagine vat-grown hive ppl earning their food cartridge and entertainment vouchers and that's about it.
The Apex fees for an A->B->A trip, plus the cost of buying some sort of environment suit if Remlok hadn't given you a free one, would be quite substantial even for a basic courier mission.
I mean, the answer is clearly "because the prices in Elite Dangerous don't actually make sense" - paying a million credits for a couple of hundred tonnes of generic cargo with a face value of maybe 10,000 credits? price differences of tens of thousands of credits per tonne over a ten minute distance? ships that pay for themselves in an hour's use? If you take the view that the prices we see in game are at all reflective of what's actually happening in-universe, then the economy doesn't resemble the 21st century one at all.
(The easiest semi-explanation would be that credits are only used by members of the Pilots Federation and people who deal directly with them, as a way of allowing them to operate on an interstellar basis. Everyone else, even if wealthy on a planetary basis, can't obtain credits and therefore can't buy a Sidewinder, because the Pilots Federation refuses to convert the currencies except for its members.)
But I suspect the answer is also about temperament rather than opportunity. The majority of pilots in the Elite universe are one of two things:
- mass killers on a scale not seen except in wartime, and rarely even then on an individual basis
- dead
Killing hundreds of people to stay alive, even in self-defence never mind anything more morally ambiguous, probably doesn't appeal to very many even if it pays well.
there's a logical explanation - the situation with the ordinary joe owning a spaceship in the 34th century is probably the same as with civil aviation today; air travel is very accessible today, and buying your own plane and getting a private license isn't such an unrealistic thing for the average middle-class citizen in the eu/us if they really wanted to - there's plenty of second or third hand Cessnas going for just over $100k, but why would the average joe need one for if everything is within driving distance?
the same can probably be said about private ship possession in the ED universe - considering that the vast majority of the 6.6 trillion people live on earth-likes in cities and towns, I find it very unlikely that a joe lives on one planet, then they hop into a ship and fly to another system to work, then they return and take the aul' doll for a spin to look at glaciers at another world, maybe an occasional trip to colonia.. no, everything is close and they very rarely leave their local area (the same as today) and travel with whatever planetary transport people have in 3307. space travel is treated as travelling abroad today, most families do so but on cruise ships and shuttles which are way cheaper.
space, like the skies today, is dominated by liners carrying tourists and holidaymakers and cargo transport, with very little private ship owners.
Someone with Odyssey could test it.
Find a system where they have no reputation, and taking on foot missions how long would it take you to get a sidewinder?
Find a system where they have no reputation, and taking on foot missions how long would it take you to get a sidewinder?
That's kind of like looking at the average salary in 1822 (around $1,100, apparently) and then using that as a basis for suggesting that it'll take 3 decades to buy a car in 2022.
In reality, the average salary has gone up from $1,100 to $56,000 in 200 years.
If we extraplolate that data, it's plausible that the average salary is likely to be over $1.1 million in the 34th century... which, at an exchange rate of $50 per credit, equates to a salary of around Cr22,400.
With a Sidey costing Cr32,000, it seems like FDev got their math's about right.
Course, with a single mail-delivery mission paying Cr100,000 or more, I guess the average person in the 34th century must be pretty darned lazy if they only earn Cr22,400 per year.
Just like there are people today who are happy to just sit at home and wait for the dole to roll in.
The average joe can't afford a $100k personal conveyance.
I am decidedly above the mean for the wealthy first-world nation I reside in and being a full fledged pilot who operates his own aircraft is largely a pipedream for someone of my means.
Not in purchasing power and the oft citied figures for credit to dollar conversion are assuming contemporary purchasing powers (e.g. year 2020 international dollars).
A year 1800 international dollar is worth about twenty year 2000 international dollars and real wages among the middle-classes of the western world roughly tripled from ~1800 to ~1970, but nearly stalled in the last fifty.
You make the comparison senseless by applying inflation where it's inapplicable.
It's also not a sure thing that real wages will grow, especially in a setting like the real world, or one almost as much of a dystopia like Elite...where inequality grows faster and all increases in production are absconded by the wealthy.
Only if you think the average person is capable of securing and fulfilling an interstellar delivery contract.
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it's also not helped by the opacity of cargo volumes. Iirc, 1t of " Imperial slaves" is not a literal 1t of people, rather one person, with the pod setup to transport them weighing 1t.