Bottlecaps?

[Hroesvelgr]

But you know, it seems like there is also a lot of pre-war money lying around, they could use as currency. But I'm sure it's all burned to hell, and lets just face it, caps have always been just cool I actually gave a friend of mine a small bag full of bottle caps and dirt as a gag gift once (he's a FO fan too)

The prewar currency is pretty valuable in the game. For me, I was always carrying so many backup weapons and armor that I was just at maximum weight limits, but I never missed a chance to pick up the prewar money because it has no weight value and can be traded for a decent amount of caps. One thing that I really like is the weight/value balance.

I also like how they screw with your view of what's "junk" and what's not. For example I love the Nuka grenades so now I grab tin cans which I had completely ignored earlier. And other random junk like pre war books, sugar bombs and even scrap metal have people who will make it worth your while to gather a batch and make the trek to sell them.

Right. Pretty much everything is useful in some way, depending on how you want to play the game. The prewar books are an especially good example... I've made over 2000 caps off of them so far.

 

[cratchety ol joe]

essentially Money (any money) can boil down to is it 'worth' it, to use an example;

in FO:tactics (if I recall correctly)the currency du jour was brotherhood scrip, something I imagine being nothing more than a printed 'bill' (perhaps of differing denominations) which the members of BoS take as payment and use to gain supplies from the quartermaster, now, this is all well and good within the BoS, but why would anyone else accept brotherhood scrip?

Simple, The BoS are a large organisation with a good resource backing, so if a trader accepts some Scrip from a passing Brotherhood dude he can then trade directly with the BoS using his newly acquired scrip hoping to gain some otherwise unobtainable resource (be it medicine, food weapons or whatever) of course this piece of printed paper is essentially worth nothing to any other trader.

Just like I cant expect to use my UK pound sterling to buy a nice cool beer in Albania (where the currency is Lek). To sum up, currency is all about worth, sure 1 brotherhood scrip may be worth nothing to you, but I'll trade it from you for 18 caps, or 4 gold coins or five 9mm bullets...

The caps I could get a beer with as i know a bar that takes caps.
The gold I could buy food with, there is an out of town merchant comes by every fortnight that will accept gold.
The bullets I could put in my SMG which is kept on top of the wardrobe in case of raiders.

that's how I see wasteland currency developing.

Edit for spelling.

 

[MisterBibs]

My guess / opinion on the use of bottlecaps was because it hammered home the fact that it's been 200 years since the Great War, and human society is stuck. The cities are still covered in rubble, everything is made from scrap from the old, and those that want to do something positive for everyone (DC's BoS comes to mind) is disliked by their peers.

I don't know if Fallout can actually pull off "growing up" in that respect without it losing what makes Fallout Fallout. But I would love to see it try. Events that mirror what happehned in our 60s, 70s, 80s, but done with a crawling-out-of-apocolypse bent to it. Then, Fallout 6, the world goes Boom again

 

[Phil the Nuka-Cola Dude]

essentially Money (any money) can boil down to is it 'worth' it, to use an example;

in FO:tactics (if I recall correctly)the currency du jour was brotherhood scrip, something I imagine being nothing more than a printed 'bill' (perhaps of differing denominations) which the members of BoS take as payment and use to gain supplies from the quartermaster, now, this is all well and good within the BoS, but why would anyone else accept brotherhood scrip?

Simple, The BoS are a large organisation with a good resource backing, so if a trader accepts some Scrip from a passing Brotherhood dude he can then trade directly with the BoS using his newly acquired scrip hoping to gain some otherwise unobtainable resource (be it medicine, food weapons or whatever) of course this piece of printed paper is essentially worth nothing to any other trader.

Merchants outside of the brotherhood only accepted ring pulls.

 

[cratchety ol joe]

I was attempting to rationalise how a wasteland currency could come about and its likely uses, not lifting from cannon fact. just exploring the idea.

 

[madmaligor]

I also like how they screw with your view of what's "junk" and what's not. For example I love the Nuka grenades so now I grab tin cans which I had completely ignored earlier. And other random junk like pre war books, sugar bombs and even scrap metal have people who will make it worth your while to gather a batch and make the trek to sell them.

I did exactly the same thing! I saved both kinds of Nuke Cola and when I found out about the grenades was like..."Oh holy crap...now I need a shit load of cans!" Fortunately....

[spoiler:8b7cc65441]Vault 106 has tons of them and I had recently tripped on the entrance[/spoiler:8b7cc65441]

Now I am pack-ratting everything...from crutches to lawn mower blades to vacuum cleaner parts!

This is the first time in a Fallout game where I am seriously considering the Strong Back Perk.

 

[Slaughter Manslaught]

I don't know if Fallout can actually pull off "growing up" in that respect without it losing what makes Fallout Fallout. But I would love to see it try.

Yes. Fallout can pull it off. We call it "Fallout 2." It's a awesome game.

 

[Willybean]

Personally a system based on the bullet would be better, or water.

Since its no secret Darwin's World which uses corium pieces as currency, its probably a simliar reason to use something other than pure barter.

They need something that might be considered somewhat uncommon but not truly rare, and something that is found, not made. True if you found a Coka-Cola plant you'd literally create your own currency but how many of those are still intact?

Still the idea of 1 bullet = 1 drink is a bit more fundamental. Think about that. Your thirsty, really thirsty, but do you want to give up 2 bullets out of your 30. Sure, but the other person now has something of true value, which is a value based on its ability to help you survive.