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emo samurai
It's 88,000 nuyen.gif a unit, and all that does is decrease the karma cost for bonding a focus by 1 karma. That, or it decreases the target number for enchanting. Power foci cost barely over a 100,000 nuyen.gif per force point, and most foci are much less expensive per force point than one unit of orichalcum. That seems quite wrong.
mfb
yes, except that each unit of orichalcum produces that effect, with no upper limit on the number of units you can use. if orichalcum were cheap, foci would be much, much easier to acquire, and mages would be much, much more powerful
emo samurai
So... it's only useful if you have a shitload of cash?
nezumi
Yes, it's over priced, because you can make it for a third of the cost in a month with negligible money invested in the necessary mode of production.
mfb
QUOTE (emo samurai)
So... it's only useful if you have a shitload of cash?

yep.
Dawnshadow
Orichalcum: How to not screw mages and adepts TOO badly in high cash/low karma game. IE, foci become 10x as expensive.. but easy to bond.
John Campbell
It's overpriced. The only people to whom it's useful for anything beyond its decorative value are people who can make it themselves. While the convenience of not having to spend a month tending the process is certainly worth something, and a mage's time is more valuable than most other people's, the setting doesn't seem to support the idea that it's at the "name your own price" levels that the orichalcum prices imply. If it were, focus prices (and wards, and anything else you can hire a mage to do) would be a lot higher, too, and I doubt there'd be very many Awakened running the shadows.
mfb
the insane part of the orichalcum rules isn't the price, it's the ease with which you can collect the raw materials. 20 days (base) and two tests against TN 4, and you end up with over 160 troy ounces of gold. a single troy ounce is worth over $600. and this isn't just gold, it's special gold that can be used to create magical items. does anyone see the problem here?

SL James
Talismongers have an inside track to where all the good, untainted veins of gold lie?
mfb
seriously. to hell with making orichalcum, i'm gonna spend a year gathering gold telesma and then retire on it.
SL James
Just think... If diamonds were telesma, Stella might have even more to play with than she does now.
mfb
oh shits! they are! they count as precious gems. hilariously, you can buy--OH HOLY CHRIST! I'LL BE RICH! you can get five freaking kilograms of diamond every 20 days!
SL James
Heh. DeBeers doesn't have shit on a determined talismonger. [edit]*looks up the conversion of carats to kg. Google gives... 1 carat = 0.0002 kilogram/ 1 kilogram = 5,000 carats. Holy goddamn!! That... That's $37.5million per month on average given today's prices.[/edit]

It's a shame Sam probably paid you guys in blood diamonds, which means they're no good to sell to talismongers, but it figures. She's like half a hair from becoming Twisted.
... *blinks* Wow. Shudder, puny mortals, at the thought of a Twisted Social Adept.
mfb
gathering telesma has officially replaced stealing cars as the "why should i bother shadowrunning" job.
emo samurai
Which is why people should pay a shitload for shadowrunners; the shit they steal is worth millions, on average.
SL James
You know, even if this is for raw uncut diamonds and not the finished cut diamonds (also not accounting for how the price increases if a gem is more than 1 carat), that's still pretty damn good. It could be 1% of that value and it's still the new standard compared to running.
tisoz
It's overpriced and gives GMs problems with players who decide they want to make it instead of shadow runs.

Anyone up for detailing how long it would take to make enough orichalcum (from talismongering the raw materials to final product) to completely minimize the TNs and bonding cost of a F10 weapon focus? Assume the enchanter uses 3 radical materials and has 6's in all relevant skills/Attributes.
emo samurai
What's the bonding cost for an F10 weapon focus? How about a power focus? I don't have MITS, but I'll definitely get Street Magic when it comes out.
BookWyrm
Yes, but it's effing hard to come by, thus making it rare (despite what you have in your own game(s)) and thus expensive.
Adam Selene
Compared with the prices of other foci, I'd have to say no.
Lindt
Holy poo flinging monkeys....

Telsma gathering for the win?
Grinder
QUOTE (mfb)
gathering telesma has officially replaced stealing cars as the "why should i bother shadowrunning" job.

You need a mage to gather telesma - but you don't for stealing cars.
noname_hero
QUOTE (Grinder)
You need a mage to gather telesma - but you don't for stealing cars.

You don't, because talismongering is a knowledge skill even a mundane can learn. Let me quote from Magic in the Shadows:

A character need not be Awakened in order to perform talismongering - all it requires is knowledge of plant lore, a little mineralogy and the centuries-old formulas used to make charms, powders, incense, lucky pieces and similar items.
Grinder
Damn! Wasn't 100% sure abot it, thanks for quoting MitS.
SL James
So much for stealing cars.
Grinder
At leat it makes the streets a little safer.
emo samurai
Just not the world's child-soldier-defended gold mines.
Grinder
Nothing comes without a drawback.
Pendaric
The price for orricalcum is set due to the number of people that can make it (less than one percent of the population) taking a month of highly skilled labour with at least one component costing 44000 nuyen.gif. Cash flow being realistically handled and time being something some one wants to live not be chained to a alchemy set means its set at what the market will bare, 88,000 per unit. Gold also being rare and exspensive.

Talsimongering though possibly a money maker would be a knightmare in reality with the permits and restrictions to the land availble to search.
So yes defended goldmines and diamond mines for example. spin.gif
SL James
Yes... Permits. Our shadowrunners obsess daily and fret nightly over permits.
emo samurai
How the hell would a talismonger harvest that much gold? Does he have the help of elementals or something?
Ancient History
Y'know, the price dropped a bit after the Orichalcum Rush.
mfb
QUOTE (emo samurai)
How the hell would a talismonger harvest that much gold? Does he have the help of elementals or something?

he'd do it by following the rules in MitS. we'll see if that gets fixed in Street Magic or not.
tisoz
The only restriction on where materials can be collected is by the GM. So invading a gold or diamond mine is not a neccessity. A rat shaman might convince a GM that scrounging the local landfill makes sense. Or there is always the story about the guy who travelled half way around the world searching for diamonds when he had them in his own back yard.
Adam Selene
QUOTE (Ancient History @ Jul 31 2006, 11:59 AM)
Y'know, the price dropped a bit after the Orichalcum Rush.

With less than a year to conduct mining operations, followed by all the unharvested ore reverting back to worthless rock I'm sure that those supplies have all dried up and the price has returned to equilibrium. They were also inferior compared to artificially synthesized orichalcum.
Mr. Unpronounceable
Did they ever add a limitation to how much orichalcum you can get from a batch of radicals, or can you still get more points out than you put in?
Findar
QUOTE (Grinder)
QUOTE (mfb @ Jul 31 2006, 01:58 AM)
gathering telesma has officially replaced stealing cars as the "why should i bother shadowrunning" job.

You need a mage to gather telesma - but you don't for stealing cars.

Actually anyone can use the Talsmongering skill to gather raw materials. You can make more with Talismongering than you can Enchanting unless your GM is generous and figures Street Index in to the selling price for foci you create. And if you really want to up your income from Talismongering get Sustaining focus for Increase Intelligence. That will drive up the number of units you can process at one time.
Adam Selene
Wouldn't you need to be able to astrally perceive or at least use aura reading in order to distinguish worthless crap from magically active goodies? It doesn't make sense that you can naturally tell which goodies are magic and which ones are just worthless mundane crap without a skill that utilizes the astral plane.
Findar
QUOTE (Mr. Unpronounceable)
Did they ever add a limitation to how much orichalcum you can get from a batch of radicals, or can you still get more points out than you put in?

No they haven't changed the rules. But I seriously doubt you can get more mass of orichalcum out of the process than the mass of the input radicals. The TN for enchanting orichalcum is 10 - enchanter's Magic Rating if memory serves. Back when my character was a level 2 intiate his target number was a 2. He had Enchanting 6 plus 12 Centering dice(at 2 for 1 that's 6 more dice) plus 12 dice form complimentary skills in Inorganic Chemistry and Metallurgy(that's another 6 dice at 2 for 1) for a total of 6+6+6=18 effectve dice. At a TN of 2 he succeeds 5/6 times giving 15 successes. That's 150 grams of orichalcum. I know the input radcals weigh a lot more than that. 15 units x 88,000 nuyen.gif /unit = 1,320,000 nuyen.gif in 28 days or 47143 nuyen.gif /day. Not as good as refining 12 units of gold in 2.5 days(10 days base time divided by 4 successes). That yields 12 x (40,000-20,000)/2.5 = 96,000 nuyen.gif /day
Frag-o Delux
QUOTE (Adam Selene @ Jul 31 2006, 09:00 PM)
Wouldn't you need to be able to astrally perceive or at least use aura reading in order to distinguish worthless crap from magically active goodies?  It doesn't make sense that you can naturally tell which goodies are magic and which ones are just worthless mundane crap without a skill that utilizes the astral plane.

The materials themselves arent magical.

The materials the talimonger is collecting is the least messed with. Meaning not collected by diesel powered shovels or refined in modern steel founderies.

The talismonger if he wanted a special wood for his charm he might walk miles deep into Redwood Forrest and manually carve that piece of wood from the tree. Or some crap like that. At least thats the way its been since the early days. I believe there is a chart in the MitSs about talismongering and in that chart the more pure and virgin the material is, the better it is for making talisma out of. Then it slowly creeps up to using things like Polyester and other highly processed materials.
Tiralee
I know people are going to cry "Munchkin" but...
QUOTE
No they haven't changed the rules. But I seriously doubt you can get more mass of orichalcum out of the process than the mass of the input radicals. The TN for enchanting orichalcum is 10 - enchanter's Magic Rating if memory serves.


So my Level, (what, 8? now, crap, I should read this Character sheet more often) Initiate with Enchanting 8 could create...

8 dice for enchanting (I'm going to ignore centering, etc. That's simply too much)
TN of 2... Crap, even If I roll only a single success, I'll still be ~40K in the black.
(Raw materials for Orichalum, rad copper, gold, silver and mercury...thats ~ 48k worth?)

Sad thing is - my character never has enough time to spare with enchanting, with friends and companions walking in front of high-velocity metal, rogue spirits to subdue...

-Tir

And I still have to summon that companion spirit - Veratech fighter...


Findar
QUOTE (Tiralee)
I know people are going to cry "Munchkin" but...
QUOTE
No they haven't changed the rules. But I seriously doubt you can get more mass of orichalcum out of the process than the mass of the input radicals. The TN for enchanting orichalcum is 10 - enchanter's Magic Rating if memory serves.


So my Level, (what, 8? now, crap, I should read this Character sheet more often) Initiate with Enchanting 8 could create...

8 dice for enchanting (I'm going to ignore centering, etc. That's simply too much)
TN of 2... Crap, even If I roll only a single success, I'll still be ~40K in the black.
(Raw materials for Orichalum, rad copper, gold, silver and mercury...thats ~ 48k worth?)

Sad thing is - my character never has enough time to spare with enchanting, with friends and companions walking in front of high-velocity metal, rogue spirits to subdue...

-Tir

And I still have to summon that companion spirit - Veratech fighter...

Not the level of your Enchanting skill your Magic Attribute. Yes its gets gross real quick for Intiates but you can still make more money per day refining gold. Successes to your refining test reduce the time to refine so you might try refining gold between adventures. It will just take a few days if you have a good Talismongering skill and maybe a complimentary skill.
Samaels Ghost
Would that reduce the value of gold if magicians the world over are making it? Or am misunderstanding "rifining"?
Eyeless Blond
Yes, market forces would eventually drop the price down to a more managable level.

And saying that "only" 1% of the population can do it, and it uses expensive components is silly. How many people are out there that can make computer chips? Less than 1%; hell, probably less than .001%. Computer chips are made from refined gold and copper too (as well as certain catalysts which are even *more* expensive). Why, computer chips must be insanely expensive!

biggrin.gif
Demonseed Elite
Market forces aren't the only process that would be determining the price of orichalcum, though. It's very likely that like gold and oil, orichalcum is kept in national and corporate reserves in order to strengthen currencies. In order to manipulate the market value of orichalcum, these nations and corporations need only release some of their reserves onto the market (driving the price down) or pull more orichalcum from the market into their reserves (driving it up by lessening available supply).
Samaels Ghost
So by hording it, the material becomes more valuable? That seems like a win-win. Not only do you HAVE more, it is also WORTH more.
Demonseed Elite
Hoarding too much of it, however, reduces its market liquidity. If there isn't much orichalcum trading hands, any attempt to sell or buy it will dramatically shift its value. Dramatic swings aren't so great if you're using orichalcum to try to stabilize currencies.

Looking at the official gold reserves, central banks and similar organizations held 19% of the world's above-ground gold in reserves in 2004. That's enough to manipulate the price but still leaves plenty on the open market for liquidity. Though the reserves used to hold much more gold back when it was used as an official gold standard (when you could trade dollars for gold before 1971).
emo samurai
But the thing is, you can refine orichalcum at a much lower rate than you can gold, if you ignore the talismonger gold-gathering rules. And I know that corporations can get their orichalcum really cheap if they use wagemages, but still, what mage would work for a corp if they could refine orichalcum? Safety isn't an issue if you have that much money and can keep you operations secret, and all that takes if you have a ward and a mana lodge. And, you know, walls. For the money you make off of orichalcum for a month, you could pay to refine it on an Ares aircraft carrier for a year. Protection just isn't an issue when you could buy your own private army.
hyzmarca
There is also such a thing as a market crash, which really kills speculators and is ironicly caused by speculators.

During the 80s plenty of people tried to get rich by investing in silver. They bought as much silver as they could and hoarded it. Eventually, the price of silver droped dramatically and it has never recovered.

During the 90s people tred to get rich by hoarding comic books. They bought every signed foil cover special edition and this lead the companies to release even more of these. The end result was that the comic book market crashed and all titles suffered.

Recently, people tried to get rich by investing in Pokémon cards. It should be obvious how that worked out. No, you aren't going to get the $1,500 you paid for that Japanese Charizard back.


Eyeless Blond, the two aren't really comparible. The actual matrial costs of a microchip are nearly null. Labor costs are equally low because chips can be mass produced. The real costs are in design and initial equipment.

The chip is selling for over $100 because people are willing oto pay over $100. If the price were based on the actual value of parts and labor per unit then you could buy them at ay 99 cent store.

In fact, these realities have spured a free hardware movement. Should it catch on hardware prices will plumet because properitary design costs will be removed from the equation.

Orihalcum, on the other hand, has no properietary design costs. Anyone can learn how to make it. Instead, its costs come from the material compenents (which are unreasonably expensive due to develpoer fiat) and the the fact that it cannot be mass produced by traditional means. While you need a factory and a guy who knows how to scan blueprints into the computer to make thousands of silicon chips per day, you need a dedicated magician to make a few units orihalcum per month.
mfb
QUOTE (hyzmarca)
Orihalcum, on the other hand, has no properietary design costs. Anyone can learn how to make it.

not quite true, in two ways. first, only Awakened characters can take the Enchanting skill, which is used to make orichalcum. second, according to the rules, learning Enchanting is just as difficult as learning Microchip B/R.

i agree with your conclusion, though. orichalcum is much more labor- intensive and materials-intensive than are microchips.
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