Get your Zeta Bravo today!, FIRE SALE AT DASSAULT! Options

[Sunshine]

IMO the Pricing Logic of SR is broken by default.

If I look at todays business models I see a lot of things "cross-subsidized" to get the sale. So the "low" price for the planes comes from the added contracts for services, wear parts and support. With even Police and Emergency Medical services in the hands of private corporations it seems plausible that handing out the "item" cheap follows up in over-priced service contracts which you need to get the thing off the ground. The average flight to maintenance time with a new generation fighter plane can be about 1:30 or more. And the Politicians can pride themselves in buying cheap equippment, ignoring reocurring costs which I would place arround 6% per year for military planes just for standing in the hanger, double that if it is properly maintained so it can be used when needed. That is without the cost of getting the Hanger, Personell, Training, Security, Weaponry etc. you would want to have arround such a thing.

So by selling a few fighter planes cheap, you have a customer for years to come who doesn't have the option of cutting your revenue stream or loosing all of his investment and a hefty penalty clause in the contract. As Corporations go, they solve 2 problems with one strike: They Invest their Assets in future revenue, which is always better than to keep it lying arround under the cushion, securing profits and creating dependency. With part of the Investments used to get your trusted Senator to buy the planes to go fight over that precious little orichalcum mine/ oil field the same consortium gets to explore later.

It is like getting your smartphone for a buck when agreeing to a minutes plan from your mobile phone provider, binding you for 2+ years and effectivly taking you hostage to the competition for said amount of time.

-sorry for any errors, all numbers are made up or estimates without a credible source and i am not a native speaker, so appologies for any mistakes made.

IMO the Pricing Logic of SR is broken by default.

love,
Sunshine

[Udoshi]

What, isn't an America-class landing ship 884 meters, or 2900 feet, long? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Its more to do with what happens when you convert movement speeds into real world over time distances, since everything is in meeters. People on rollerskates can keep up with cars going the speed limit, easy.

[Toptomcat]

The Shadowrun background includes a plague outbreak that killed one out of four people, *another* plague outbreak that killed one out of *ten* people, major earthquakes in LA and NYC, the near-total destruction of the Internet and its eventual replacement with something that works rather differently, *another* slightly less near-total destruction of the Internet's replacement, a more or less literal zombie-apocalypse virus, an Invasion Of Insect-Creatures Beyond Reality, a nuclear/biological/chemical exchange in the Middle East, fusion power, two major European wars, a devastating civil war and subsequent Balkanization of the world's largest economy and food exporter, wide adoption of several different kinds of transhuman tech, the advent of several different human subspecies with widely varying mental and physical traits, molecular nanotechnology, several different kinds of ancient and smarter-than-human beings manipulating events on national and global scales, corporate extraterritoriality and a subsequent decline in the relative degree of power of nation-states, magic, microwave energy satellites, immersive and faster-than-meatspace VR, both transhuman and roughly human-equivilent AIs, the reemergence of the city-state, a Soviet Union that hung on until the 2030s...

A brilliant, talented and creative economist might be able to incompletely account for the effect of one of these events on a global economy and the prices therein. Perhaps even two. But expecting a world that's been through all that to have an economy with prices that have anything other than the vaguest relation to modern-day goods is fairly silly.

Ultimately, everyone saying that prices at that level are more about game balance than economics are dead-on. If you want an in-universe explanation for it, I like CanRay's explanation the best. No one power in Shadowrun is as economically and militarily dominant over all others as the modern-day United States is over everyone else, so nobody can fund anything near as expensive as modern-day fighter jets.
Also, fighter jets are war-between-great-powers kind of gear. Those DO happen in Shadowrun, but rather less often than smouldering insurgencies and smaller-scale engagements: in all likelihood things like attack helicopters, T-birds and drones are eating up more of everyone's aviation R&D budget than full-scale jet fighters, lowering demand and driving prices down.

[CanRay]

Also, the Nuyen is a completely artificial currency with no more backing than the Corporate Court saying, "It's worth this much BECAUSE WE SAY SO! If you don't like it, kiss your economy good-bye."

But even the Corporate Court isn't superior to anyone else in a military manner (Thor Satellites notwithstanding), and doesn't want to become the economic world ruler at all. They had their chance, they literally did not want it. "We'd have to take out the trash and not get paid for it!" or something to that effect.

So, yeah, effectively you get budget fighter jets that are probably the equal of, or even inferior to, today's systems because of the lack of demand.

[Toptomcat]

Also, the Nuyen is a completely artificial currency with no more backing than the Corporate Court saying, "It's worth this much BECAUSE WE SAY SO! If you don't like it, kiss your economy good-bye."

Like practically every other real-world currency since 1976, yes.

So, yeah, effectively you get budget fighter jets that are probably the equal of, or even inferior to, today's systems because of the lack of demand.

Better avionics and better radar if nothing else. And the pilots being augmented, reflex-boosted riggers would make the exact same aircraft considerably more dangerous. But yes, it certainly doesn't seem like the airframe, powerplant, maneuverability or armament have seen more than minor, evolutionary changes over time: the materials will be better, the performance characteristics better, but nothing really dramatically different from modern configurations, with the possible exception that the cannon might be replaced with a vehicle laser.

That in mind, it's unsurprising that prices for fighter jets have fallen over time: the modern equivalent of what they're doing would be to take an old F-4 Phantom from the sixties and make something that's essentially the same design, but with modern electronics and materials. A lot of Third World countries do more or less exactly that today.

[CanRay]

...with the possible exception that the cannon might be replaced with a vehicle laser.

Frickin' Lasers sold separately. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Sunshine]

The Shadowrun background includes a plague outbreak that killed one out of four people, *another* plague outbreak that killed one out of *ten* people, major earthquakes in LA and NYC, the near-total destruction of the Internet and its eventual replacement with something that works rather differently, *another* slightly less near-total destruction of the Internet's replacement, a more or less literal zombie-apocalypse virus, an Invasion Of Insect-Creatures Beyond Reality, a nuclear/biological/chemical exchange in the Middle East, two major European wars, a devastating civil war and subsequent Balkanization of the world's largest economy and food exporter, wide adoption of several different kinds of transhuman tech, the advent of several different human subspecies with widely varying mental and physical traits, molecular nanotechnology, several different kinds of ancient and smarter-than-human beings manipulating events on national and global scales, corporate extraterritoriality and a subsequent decline in the relative degree of power of nation-states, magic, microwave energy satellites, immersive and faster-than-meatspace VR, both transhuman and roughly human-equivilent AIs, the reemergence of the city-state, a Soviet Union that hung on until the 2030s...

This is the most concise SR background summary I've read lately, I will print this, laminate it and had it out to new players. Thank You, Toptomcat!

I try to imagine a situation where the price of a fighter jet would become relevant in my sr games. I won't say its impossible to have characters have that kind of money (the whole team, maybe over the course of an entire campaign, including resale value of implants and aquired magical or special gear). And even if that would happen I think my group would go for the "permanent lifestyles with new faces and SIN" and retire out of spite. On the other hand envisioning a discussion between the npc hacker and the ork rigger while sneaking through a military facility hanger, discovering one of these and plotting resale potential...

love,
Sunshine

[CanRay]

I try to imagine a situation where the price of a fighter jet would become relevant in my sr games.

love,
Sunshine

Calculating just how much the person you stole it from wants to kill you very, very dead.

[Mantis]

I always wonder how you sell such things. Back alley off a truck doesn't really work, nor would craigslist. "For Sale, 1 slightly used stealth fighter,1 mil OBO. Please, serious offers only. Willing to trade for hamster." And where exactly do you keep it while waiting for the sale to go through? Won't exactly fit in your mom's garage.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I always wonder how you sell such things. Back alley off a truck doesn't really work, nor would craigslist. "For Sale, 1 slightly used stealth fighter,1 mil OBO. Please, serious offers only. Willing to trade for hamster." And where exactly do you keep it while waiting for the sale to go through? Won't exactly fit in your mom's garage.

You get it in the Weapon Black Markets of Lagos, Canton Confederation or Kai Tak

[hermit]

A Weapons fair in the CAS? In a world made of dragons, every man should own a stealth fighter to defend his home aganst monsters from hell.

Or at least a drone that can launch small drones.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

A Weapons fair in the CAS? In a world made of dragons, every man should own a stealth fighter to defend his home aganst monsters from hell.

Or at least a drone that can launch small drones.

Cascade Orks might even have the odd Weapons Black Market. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[hermit]

Yeah, just like in Tomorrow Never Dies!

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yeah, just like in Tomorrow Never Dies!

Indeed... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Angelone]

*Blares "Aces High" while tooling around in a jet*

[CanRay]

*Blares "Aces High" while tooling around in a jet*

You're doing it right!

[White Buffalo]

I think part of the reason they're so cheep is they're comparativly disposable. In a world with magic a spirt or powerbolt can knock these out of the sky with compaitive ease, at least from a cost vs. damage angle. Todays (and certaintly tomarows) drones are quickly matching the usefullness and firepower of combat aircraft. Fighters and bombers are the dinosours of the modern age soon to go extinct to drones and, at least int SR, magic.