Hyperinflation.

[Zig]

We all know that the value of the credit throughout Sirius here on Disco has dropped absurdly low, far beyond the average value seen throughout single-player. Pirates demand two million - two MILLION! - credits from trade convoys as a matter of course, law enforcement levies similar and occasionally even higher fines, the (theoretical) LPI weekly paycheck is a million big 'uns. Traders rake in mountains of credits, millions upon millions, simply for freighting cargo between points A and B. What, exactly, is the lone credit worth these days?

Back in single-player, Trent described the million-credit deal he pulled off with Lonnigan as being "the deal of a lifetime", right? I wonder what Trent would think now, seeing that multiples of his jackpot deal's payout are being coughed up for such (in the abstract sense) trivial tasks as shooting down Liberty Rogues or mining up some Silver. Another example: among the rumors to be found on Pacifica Base in Bering, there's one that describes the income Republican Shipping maintained prior to the Eighty Years War. That rumor places that sum at a supposedly unimaginable several million credits a day and describes such a balance as being astounding and hitherto unequalled - yet all a pirate needs to do is halt and extort a single Republican Shipping transport, one transport!, to top the entire company's daily income in its glory days?

Honestly, the financial condition in Sirius is reminding me of the Yugoslawian dinar or the Ed Meeses in Snow Crash. Something needs to be done to restore equilibrium to the noble credit; it can't even be used as toilet paper, because credits are digital money. Besides, toilet paper holds its value better anyway. My proposal is as follows: restore the credit to something approaching its pre-Disco value by dividing all incomes and paychecks made by players by a certain (flat?) percentage. Cargo hauls are too large? Drop the value of the cargo. With 4.85 in effect, we already have a solid trade system that ought to simplify any financial reforms. Missions don't scale well enough to be economically viable? Cut back their payouts by a figure based on the level of the mission in question. Naturally, prices for ships and equipment would also have to be reduced to conform to newly lowered credit and income rates.

-Zig, amateur financial wizard. Thoughts?

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Luls:

Role-play is not the be all and end all.