Coinage and coining

[Ardent 21]

I really love the idea of a functioning economy in Minecraft. A functioning economy encourages cooperation and propagates community projects, increasing incentive for players to be online together. Often this is accomplised through a server plugin that adds a itemless credit system - similar to a debit card. The idea of a credit system in TFC, however, seems rather unrealistic - and the realism is what draws me to TFC. What I would love is to see a real system of trade that goes beyond bartering for goods. Something that historically increases in viability as technology progresses and society begins to stabilize. I'm talking about coinage.

(I'm adding more as I develop the idea. The core concept is to give precious metals an additional function and include a way to subdivide ingots to make them easier to trade mundane goods with. A customised coining die could be used to indicate the creator and allow for (competing) national currencies, and coins could be recovered for the metal. Feel free to add your thoughts and we'll see what happens)

http://www.fleur-de-coin.com/articles/ancient-minting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coining_%28mint%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coining_%28metalworking%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum

[Eleazzar 33]

I'd skip the customized dies and competing currencies. "Customized" coins would probably still look the same in the inventory, so seem unnecessarily convoluted.

Most of the value of your idea could be implemented simply like so:

• A coin mold can be made out of clay or whatever.
• 1 ingot's worth of metal melted into the mold would be "minted" into X number of coins. "X" (64, 32, 16?) would be the same for all players, and all metals. Edit: perhaps you should be able to mint less than 1 ingot's worth for a smaller amount of coins.
• Anyone can take coins of the same metal, and melt them back into an ingot, or partial ingot.
• Perhaps only "precious" metals may be turned into coins, to prevent 20-some different types of coins from being circulated, which would be a pain to keep straight. On the other hand people would tend to simply refuse coins of "junk" metal they have no need for, but in an earlier stage of the game, that junk, might be valuable.

[SunsetSpecter 18]

Oh no, no no no, coins were not poured in ingot form. Hell the term 'minting' literally refers to the strike of the press as is smashes the blank coin with the impression of the authority backing the value.

Basically this is me once again wanting more physical structures in the world, and a coin mint would be fantastic. I -love- the idea of an economy in the minecraft server-verse, and have actively run a few that specifically cater to that. Coins in TFC, made from all the metals would be fantastic. Note I said 'all' the metals.

Reason being, the flow of the server might be different that the norm. Maybe on one server for whatever reason silver is abundant but something as simple as copper is hard to find, making copper the most valuable metal, thusly the most valuable coin. So on so on, variation is needed deepening on resouces found, or how the 'town' sets up its money.

I do fully support this idea though.

[Ardent 21]

I would prefer coins to be struck from all of the available metals. Historically it might not make sense, but the utility is much higher in minecraft than in the real world. Because the damage values of ingots are determined, but the values for ores are variable, coins should represent a determined value relative to fractions of an ingot, so that they might be remelted to ingots at a more reliable rate. It might not be a feasable thing to introduce, but maybe coins of slightly reduced values can be produced through debasement and clipping, which might invoke the technology of milled edges.

Personally, I'd recommend 5 coins per ingot, to keep things from getting out of hand. Varying denominations can be represented by the different metal types.

The customization of coin dies could likely be accomplished with a "blank die" and a chisel for simplicity, and include a GUI similar to the knapping interface. Right-clicking with the coin in your hand might display the design, which would be rather cool for RP-purposes.

Before coins were created from planchets; which are blanks punched out of metal sheets, they were made with flans; blanks made through the use of casts. A specialized clay cast might be in order. It might also be necessary to heat the coins before striking them.

Also, coins were cast, albeit to a much, much lesser scale.

http://en.wikipedia....coin_debasement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planchet

http://coins.about.c...anchet_coin.htm

http://coins.about.c...g/coin_flan.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cast_coinage

[Eleazzar 33]

I proposed molds because I wanted something that would plausibly create a bunch of coins at once. I think the desirability would go down if they had to be made individually.

Besides, the fundimental quality of a "coin" (using the term loosely), is that it be a uniform quantity of metal. The practical purpose of the engraving is to make it easy to confirm (without need of a scale) that the coin is of the standard quantity of metal. Un-minted, un-engraved bits of metal were widely used as currency first.

[Omicron 62]

The problem with implementing an economy is that you automatically implement some of the things that make RL economy so complex. Inflation and deflation, supply vs. demand, banking, interest and money trading, and the distinction between representative currency and fiat currency are still among the easiest of those subjects.

For example, let's say that this idea goes ahead and gets implemented, and you can mint four different coin types: copper, silver, gold and platinum. This is the standard setup in many fantasy or pseudo-historical settings, and may have some resemblance to what really happened in our world (gold was certainly more valuable than silver). But it would fall flat on its face in TFC.

The reason being the order of importance of the metals is inverted. Copper is potentially the most useful, as it not only can be worked itself, but is used in all but one alloy. Silver and gold follow well behind as something that is useless for 99% of the game and only suddenly gains value to someone dabbling in red and blue steel at the very high end. Platinum, in turn, is all useless, all the time.

So in an ingame economy, platinum coins would be fiat currency: money without intrinsic value, just a number printed on the coin that some authority decreed it to be. It would be exactly the same as using gems, which you can already do right now. It's just that nobody does it, because gems have no intrinsic value. You'd need an actual ingame government that decrees gems as currency, while at the same time keeping players from using sluices (which would act as "money printers"). Only then it would work.

And the rest of the coin types would be representative currency, meaning they carry intrinsic value; the metal is useful. Thus by default they don't work together with platinum or gems. Also, the intrinsic value will be highly variable. And for most of the game, copper coins will be far more desirable than gold and silver, even if copper is much more common and easy to find... simply because you can't do anything sensible with your gold and silver until you have also found both iron and nickel. Nickel coins, in particular, would be by far the most valuable currency, easily taking over the position platinum traditionally holds. This is because of nickel's sheer rarity; even gold and silver are common and easy to find in comparison. Most players will generally trust themselves to "somehow procure gold/silver" once they have found nickel. But everyone knows that progress along the metal tiers lives and dies with a gabbro layer. If you don't have one, you're going to want those nickel coins so hard.

And then there's iron. Iron has a middle ground between incredible usefulness and moderate difficulty in finding it. While its actual value would depend on supply and demand in any given game, I'd instinctively rate it higher than copper.

So instead of copper -> silver -> gold -> platinum, for TFC a system of silver/gold -> copper -> iron -> nickel would make more sense, as unrealistic as it may seem from an RL point of view. And this of course only with the stipulation that you can't just make coins out of anything (and why wouldn't you?). In that case, red and blue steel coins would obviously be top dogs.

So this is one possible system - leaving minting open to all kinds of metals. It's the most believable. But then, why aren't you simply trading ingots directly? All that coins would give you in this case would be smaller increments - cents to your dollar, if you will. Absolutely nothing keeps you from implementing an economy based on metal ingots even today.

On the other hand, you could artificially limit coinage to certain universally valuable metals. Such as copper. It has intrinsic value across all stages of the game, it is reasonably common, and it's a classic staple. What's not to like? Well, maybe the fact that there's no logical explanation why you should be able to make copper coins but no other ones, and because making coins out of tool metal ultimately ends with 99% of the coins being smelted back down. Again, why not just trade copper ingots?

And the third option would be to fully embrace fiat currency. Let coins be minted out of otherwise useless things: lead and platinum (maybe zinc to some extent, since it is useless beyond tier 0, but that's still not the same). True, this gives a function to those metals that previously had none, and there's a certain advantage over gems in that they can't be mass-produced with stupid ease by anyone and their dog. But still, there would be no intrinsic value to those coins; the only intrinsic value of these metals would be the fact that they can be coins in the first place, and once they fulfil this potential by actually becoming coins, it is used up. The only reason anyone would wantt hese coins would be because he expects to be able to spend them at a later date for something of equal value.

This is potentially the most promising approach, but it is not without pitfalls. First and foremost logic, again: why should you only be able to make coins out of lead and platinum, but not gold or copper or nickel or red steel? Second being that neither galena nor magnetite is particularly reliable to procure, so you might not be able to make coins in your game because you simply aren't lucky enough. And one also needs to keep in mind that because fiat currency has no intrinsic value, it is completely at the mercy of inflation and deflation mechanics.

Everytime someone finds a magnetite vein, the value of platinum coins goes down, because there now is platinum available to make extra coins to spend on the same amount of stuff. Everytime someone finds anything other than a magnetite vein, or material goods are created or improved upon in some other way (fruit trees go in season, an animal is born, wood is cut or wheat harvested, an ingot is turned into a perfect tool on the anvil), the value of platinum coins goes up, because there is more, or better, stuff to buy with the same number of coins.

So as you can see, the exact implementation of ingame coins needs far more consideration than just whether they should be cast or minted, which honestly is the least important aspect so long as it is believable and gives the player something new to build and/or do.

[Eleazzar 33]

....

But then, why aren't you simply trading ingots directly? All that coins would give you in this case would be smaller increments - cents to your dollar, if you will. Absolutely nothing keeps you from implementing an economy based on metal ingots even today.

The practical purpose is so you can purchase things worth less than one ingot. I.E. it adds convenience.

So as you can see, the exact implementation of ingame coins needs far more consideration than just whether they should be cast or minted, which honestly is the least important aspect so long as it is believable and gives the player something new to build and/or do.

The complications you bring up are mostly ones for players and servers to solve as they wish. I don't think it would work to try to force players to value an arbitrary something. Game developers can only attempt to make some things useful, rare, and/or desirable. Players will choose for themselves what they want to try to acquire, and the relative value of different items, weather we call it "money" or not. Some people just like pumpkins.

[Emris 156]

As long as everyone can make coins as they like, this type of economy can never work, imho.

But if there is a restriction on how many coins can be produced, that would make the economy more stable.

Maybe this makes little sense, but here are my "raw" thoughts.

Coins can be made out of any metal and they each have a value in, lets say, gold.

That means, if you have 3 piles of gold ingots, you can make only so much coins.

That way the coin values stay stable because there is a restricted quantity of them.

For controlling how many coins can be produced, i would make a new structure (Bank) that has a storage place for the gold ingots ( that would look awesome with the new b76 ingot pile system ), this structure also has a coin printing part that belongs to that structure.

Only the person that has permission to make coins, can use the coin printing part. And he can only print the value of the stored ingots.

Taking any ingots out of storage would cause deflation and no more coins can be made.

All the prices of any goods would then be created by the player community.

And what i would like to see is a trading UI. ( I just don't like throwing things at each other )

I know that a RL economy is much more complicated, but making a really, really simple version of it for game and fun purposes would be more then enough. And i'm not saying that my thoughts are even close to RL economy. I am just playing with thoughts that could work good in game.

[Caveman Spazz 15]

I'm liking TT's TFC Server for the coin based economy idea. Not sure what the mod for it is, iConomy maybe? You sell items for coins and they added a bank for coin storage so they don't take up room in your chests. Also the trade booth mod he added allows sale and purchase with the coins.

Not sure if you can "mint" your own coins though the server page does list recipes for the coins, I haven't tried. It's much better in my opinion to use the in place system to get coins through the sale of gems you get from mining and sluicing operations. No more tossed away gems.

[Omicron 62]

@Emris: I don't think that suggestion fits with the style and theme, and the already implemented game systems, of TFC. That's, of course, only a subjective opinion of mine.

@Eleazzar: The point is not about forcing anything on anyone, or interfering with player self-regulation; the point is providing a sensible game system that won't have players scratching their heads or leave half of it unused down the line because the design intent does not match the situations that actually crop up during gameplay. And implementing a currency system is something where this can happen very very easily, because few people bother to discuss the actual emergent player behavior that can evolve around different implementation models since doing so will invariably involve at least basic economic theory. And that's a rather dry subject, to put it lightly.

[Eleazzar 33]

As long as everyone can make coins as they like, this type of economy can never work, imho.

History prior to the use of centrally controlled mints would beg to differ. And since people can't make coins unless they find metal, and finding metal (at least valuable metal) is hard, the number of coins being created is strictly constrained.

But if there is a restriction on how many coins can be produced, that would make the economy more stable.

That's only a concern with fiat money.

Metal money would have a natural sink -- i.e. people are going to be melting down a portion to make tools, etc. There may be inflation or deflation, according to how the supply of metal matches the demand for metal stuff, but it will not skyrocket, like fiat currency can (and often does).

@Eleazzar: The point is not about forcing anything on anyone, or interfering with player self-regulation; the point is providing a sensible game system that won't have players scratching their heads or leave half of it unused down the line because the design intent does not match the situations that actually crop up during gameplay. And implementing a currency system is something where this can happen very very easily, because few people bother to discuss the actual emergent player behavior that can evolve around different implementation models since doing so will invariably involve at least basic economic theory. And that's a rather dry subject, to put it lightly.

On the contrary, i think basic economics is a fascinating subject. And it's fine to speculate one how players might use coins. But Minecraft and TFC are sandboxes. I think the best approach is to give players basic "tools", and allow them to build an economy as they see fit. To incorporate the possibility of a centrally-controlled economy, and to roughly incorporate a bit more of economic history, i present the following:

1:

• Any full metal ingot can be easily split into "quarter ingots" (which stack to 64). Since they are smaller units, they are easier to trade with, and are easily mentally converted back to their "ingot value". Naturally they could be melted back into ingots.
• This loosely represents the historical stage were metal was traded by weight, not minted, and any smith might turn metal into convenient-sized pieces.

2:

• A new block the "mint" is added. It would be somewhat expensive/difficult to build, and not available at lower tiers. It can turn a liquid ingot into coins- perhaps 8, or 16 per ingot. Since the coins are more divisible-- if made of valuable metal-- they could be more desirable for trade.
• If servers want some sort of controlled economy, they can prevent the building of additional mints, if they want to go full laissez faire, they would not restrict who could build a mint. Mint owner(s) would of course determine which metals to make into coins.

The potential problem i see with the above is stacking. If stacks are limited to 64, then the player will be able to carry more metal in the form of ingots or quarter ingots than in coins, which would deal the convenience of coins a hit, unless the stack limit can exceed 64.

[Peffern 94]

[*]A new block the "mint" is added. It would be somewhat expensive/difficult to build, and not available at lower tiers. It can turn a liquid ingot into coins- perhaps 8, or 16 per ingot.

Beware the trap of adding new crafting blocks with only one use. It is baaaaaad. (Cough cough IC2 cough cough) seriously. Do not add a mint for the sole purpose of making coins. No!

[Eleazzar 33]

Beware the trap of adding new crafting blocks with only one use. It is baaaaaad. (Cough cough IC2 cough cough) seriously. Do not add a mint for the sole purpose of making coins. No!

I would tend to side with you in that, certainly some mods take it way too far. But that doesn't seem to be TFC1's philosphy.

Anyway, i think there's much more value per developer hour in #1 above. If they want to call them "coins" instead of "quarter ingots", and stop there, i won't complain.

[Ardent 21]

Having legitimate concerns are certainly healthy, but I don't think they should be roadblocks. The concept of an economy is inherently complex, but I don't think it's necessary to adjust how things work or add arbitrary limits or blocks for coinage to be functional and balanced. To regulate the fluctuations of an economy and inflation/deflation in a god-handed way would have about as many unforseen negative effects as allowing them to exist (likely many more) and such nuances of society should be embraced, not discouraged. The economic landscape of a society is pretty plain and thrill-less if it stays the same throughout time, and players will inevitably find ways to exploit systems that are counter-intuitive and overly complex.

To be honest, I loathe "arbitrary game balance". If it can't be explained in real terms, it appears kitchy and frustrates players.

If by "mint" you mean coin press or coining anvil, then sure. There's a seperate block for preparing meals, smelting ores, and making plans, why not one for making coins? Just remember that unshaped ingots add up to 100. You need to be able to divide that ingot equally somehow, so 1/5 or 1/20 would work, but 1/8 would not.

I'd really recommend reading the links I have posted in my earlier posts, or doing some research of your own. If you are informed, you can contribute much to the conversation.

[-TK- 49]

The only problem is that new players might not want to play on an old server if it has an established economy because what if they want to barter?

And also there is the point to make that adding simple non customisable dies would suck. What if a city wants to have their own mint? Someone could be sitting in their underground cavern making copies all day long because all the coins look the same, this would work as badly as using leaves as money.

A customisable die would mean that coins cannot be easily forged, it would add a while town based criminal system, if you could restrain people you could have real criminals, for a roleplaying server this would be the best roleplaying you could ever have.

Also yes, iconomy needs to die in a hole full of death and never be seen again.

From my experience of knowing things, im very experienced in knowing things because i know things on a day to day basis. Anyway, jokes aside. There are a few ways that I know of, that coins could be made. One of the ways is to take the metal, melt it and pour a small amount of it into a mould of some sorts and then press down onto that mould with the other half of the mould to make sure that the metal fills all the gaps. Usually since the thermal capacity of such a small amount of metal is so small and the thermal capacity of the mould would be large, the coin could be retrieved seconds later.

This is a very simple method that doesn't need pristine blanks or whatever the hell you want to use. Any idiot could do this in their back garden, Now there are advantages and disadvantages to this. The advantage is that the process required for making such coins is quite simple, take an ingot, melt it, pour it, press down, done. As opposed to, take an ingot, heat it, press it down, flatten it, roll it, heat it, roll it, heat it, roll it cool it, cut it, press it. Which is the second method. But now for the disadvantages, the coins come out looking pretty shitty if you pardon my Cantonese (why pick on the French?) and if the coins don't always come out looking the same then there needs to be leeway in checking them, therefore it makes them easier to forge.

Another method is like I said before, use a sheet of metal, punch out blanks, and then hammer the blanks. Now this is what le governments use today most the time. Apparently. And if you do it well, you get some swell looking coins. But this requires a rolling machine and hand operating one of those would take at least 100 gears so that you can actually use your hands to do it instead of some horse. This would be a slow process but a lot of coins could be made from such a sheet of metal, and also this sheet of metal could be used for many other things, like putting gold leaf on your cows to make them into golden cow statues, or wiping your hind quarters with gold leaf, or you can do something useful with the gold leaf like donate it to the Vatican (hehehe, Vatican jokes - Please don't get too offended).

Now another way of doing this is to use machinery which is powered by something, like I don't know, baked beans or something. You take this machinery and basically make a production line. And then you can mass produce stuff.

Anyway, I feel like dying at this moment so I'm going to have to go now and acquire some sort of magic to heal me, and then finish my coursework for tomorrow.

[Peffern 94]

Also yes, iconomy needs to die in a hole full od death and never be seen again.

Agreed.

[VictorianPunk 7]

Seeing as how TK and others said everything I was planing on saying (and more) I will just smile and point.

[Eleazzar 33]

What if a city wants to have their own mint? Someone could be sitting in their underground cavern making copies all day long because all the coins look the same, this would work as badly as using leaves as money.

No, because metal is still rare, and useful. The value of the "money" is based on the value of the metal.

If they don't want other mints they can simply remove the mint recipe.

[-TK- 49]

No, because metal is still rare, and useful. The value of the "money" is based on the value of the metal.

If they don't want other mints they can simply remove the mint recipe.

This is not about an admin controlled mint system, this is an idea for a server with no rules. Its completely silly to spawn in money, its much more interesting to have role-play, metal isn't rare, being able to make 500 coins from one ingot is not rare. Implementing simple coins that cant be customised is just like not adding anything at all, its like using ingots to buy/sell.

By having customisable coins, cities can establish their own mint without admin interference, and can establish their own law system without admin interference. And that's really what this mod should be going for.

If you want simple non customisable coins then just play with iconomy or some other mod.

[Bob 31]

So from a modder standpoint, how does this work?

Each mint is different and unique to the server (damage value metadata?) And makes coins with the same metadata?

If you use every ingot for quarters and coins and want unique currency, you need 22x3=66 items per unique mint.

Can you layer graphics dependent on metadata? I.e. one set if base coin images, with a layered graphic designatior tied to the mint?

Would coins from mint 1 stack with mint 2? Could coins from different mints be melted back into ingots together?

Sorry for the disjointed post, its just precoffee musings.

Bob

[CynicalCatalyst 0]

The problem with implementing an economy is that you automatically implement some of the things that make RL economy so complex. Inflation and deflation, supply vs. demand, banking, interest and money trading, and the distinction between representative currency and fiat currency are still among the easiest of those subjects.

For example, let's say that this idea goes ahead and gets implemented, and you can mint four different coin types: copper, silver, gold and platinum. This is the standard setup in many fantasy or pseudo-historical settings, and may have some resemblance to what really happened in our world (gold was certainly more valuable than silver). But it would fall flat on its face in TFC.

The reason being the order of importance of the metals is inverted. Copper is potentially the most useful, as it not only can be worked itself, but is used in all but one alloy. Silver and gold follow well behind as something that is useless for 99% of the game and only suddenly gains value to someone dabbling in red and blue steel at the very high end. Platinum, in turn, is all useless, all the time.

So in an ingame economy, platinum coins would be fiat currency: money without intrinsic value, just a number printed on the coin that some authority decreed it to be. It would be exactly the same as using gems, which you can already do right now. It's just that nobody does it, because gems have no intrinsic value. You'd need an actual ingame government that decrees gems as currency, while at the same time keeping players from using sluices (which would act as "money printers"). Only then it would work.

And the rest of the coin types would be representative currency, meaning they carry intrinsic value; the metal is useful. Thus by default they don't work together with platinum or gems. Also, the intrinsic value will be highly variable. And for most of the game, copper coins will be far more desirable than gold and silver, even if copper is much more common and easy to find... simply because you can't do anything sensible with your gold and silver until you have also found both iron and nickel. Nickel coins, in particular, would be by far the most valuable currency, easily taking over the position platinum traditionally holds. This is because of nickel's sheer rarity; even gold and silver are common and easy to find in comparison. Most players will generally trust themselves to "somehow procure gold/silver" once they have found nickel. But everyone knows that progress along the metal tiers lives and dies with a gabbro layer. If you don't have one, you're going to want those nickel coins so hard.

And then there's iron. Iron has a middle ground between incredible usefulness and moderate difficulty in finding it. While its actual value would depend on supply and demand in any given game, I'd instinctively rate it higher than copper.

So instead of copper -> silver -> gold -> platinum, for TFC a system of silver/gold -> copper -> iron -> nickel would make more sense, as unrealistic as it may seem from an RL point of view. And this of course only with the stipulation that you can't just make coins out of anything (and why wouldn't you?). In that case, red and blue steel coins would obviously be top dogs.

So this is one possible system - leaving minting open to all kinds of metals. It's the most believable. But then, why aren't you simply trading ingots directly? All that coins would give you in this case would be smaller increments - cents to your dollar, if you will. Absolutely nothing keeps you from implementing an economy based on metal ingots even today.

On the other hand, you could artificially limit coinage to certain universally valuable metals. Such as copper. It has intrinsic value across all stages of the game, it is reasonably common, and it's a classic staple. What's not to like? Well, maybe the fact that there's no logical explanation why you should be able to make copper coins but no other ones, and because making coins out of tool metal ultimately ends with 99% of the coins being smelted back down. Again, why not just trade copper ingots?

And the third option would be to fully embrace fiat currency. Let coins be minted out of otherwise useless things: lead and platinum (maybe zinc to some extent, since it is useless beyond tier 0, but that's still not the same). True, this gives a function to those metals that previously had none, and there's a certain advantage over gems in that they can't be mass-produced with stupid ease by anyone and their dog. But still, there would be no intrinsic value to those coins; the only intrinsic value of these metals would be the fact that they can be coins in the first place, and once they fulfil this potential by actually becoming coins, it is used up. The only reason anyone would wantt hese coins would be because he expects to be able to spend them at a later date for something of equal value.

This is potentially the most promising approach, but it is not without pitfalls. First and foremost logic, again: why should you only be able to make coins out of lead and platinum, but not gold or copper or nickel or red steel? Second being that neither galena nor magnetite is particularly reliable to procure, so you might not be able to make coins in your game because you simply aren't lucky enough. And one also needs to keep in mind that because fiat currency has no intrinsic value, it is completely at the mercy of inflation and deflation mechanics.

Everytime someone finds a magnetite vein, the value of platinum coins goes down, because there now is platinum available to make extra coins to spend on the same amount of stuff. Everytime someone finds anything other than a magnetite vein, or material goods are created or improved upon in some other way (fruit trees go in season, an animal is born, wood is cut or wheat harvested, an ingot is turned into a perfect tool on the anvil), the value of platinum coins goes up, because there is more, or better, stuff to buy with the same number of coins.

So as you can see, the exact implementation of ingame coins needs far more consideration than just whether they should be cast or minted, which honestly is the least important aspect so long as it is believable and gives the player something new to build and/or do.

So I read your whole post, and I can relate all of this to real life. Essentially since gold was a shiny, difficult metal to come buy people used it as currency because they were sick of bartering. Somebody could trade blueberries to a pie maker and the pie maker could give the blueberry grower pies in return, but who said he wanted pie? Hence the trading of metal, such as gold, came into play. Eventually down the road came struggles: soem people had a lot of gold and nowhere to really store it, and some people had no gold and were suffering, so banking came into play. That gave the people with a lot of gold somewhere to store it and those who had none a chance to "loan" it. Eventually, though, the banks would go bankrupt since their gold was loaned out, and so when the person who stored the gold wanted to pull some money out they handed out a paper note, essentially stating "I owe you this much gold", and so paper dollars were born.

My point is that in real life gold and paper are somewhat useless and have intrinsic value to it, yet we still use it for trade. Hell one could even go as far as saying that it has taken over our lives, and while there is always an issue with anything economic, in game or in reality, it is still plausible to implement. Also, in real life we could melt down pennies, or even those collectible coins that are ".99999 Pure gold", into ingots and trade those, yet we don't. We could melt down the frames of our cars and make steel coins out of it and trade that, but we don't. And why For gold? Why not platinum? Why not cobalt? Why not uranium? Silicone? Carbon? Wood? Liquid nitrogen? Logically, who says it has to be metal? Instead, in real life, we trade discs of metal and pieces of paper made by banks that are supposed to be valued for a set amount of gold, which is essentially determined by people with a lot of power and know how. I understand your point, but rather than causing me to question whether this can be implemented or not it only makes me question why we do it in reality.

All of this just makes me question reality, and why we are still metaphorically swinging in trees, scratching our asses and smelling our fingers afterwards, and eating lice off of one another.

[Ardent 21]

So from a modder standpoint, how does this work?

I'd rather avoid a "mint" block, because I've never heard of such a thing in real life at all. Mints are entire buildings and probably should be left up to the player to design. Historically, people used a coining anvil - a block of wood with one die imbedded into it and another die to be struck with a hammer.

I imagined that a coining anvil be created like a stone anvil or food preparation surface - by clicking on a placed log with a completed die set. The die set would be made beforehand via anvil and a chisel would be used to carve out a pattern, in a similar fashion to the knapping interface, to finish the die. The metadata from the dies would be transferred to the coins as they are fashioned from the blanks, and consuming hammer and die durability in the process. If the chisel-carving GUI allows enough complexity, the design should be difficult to reproduce by others, although not impossible.

If the design on the coin is identical, the metadata should therefore be the same and they should stack just fine. Different designs wouldn't stack, but metadata shouldn't stop the coins from melting like regular ingots. Whatever your division, it should always add up to 1 full ingot, however, and clay ingot molds range from 0 to 100. The amount should always add up evenly to 100, so 1/2, 1/4, 1/5, 1/10, etc...

Because there are no "nations" or "governments" defined in the TFC mod, the metadata of coins will only contain the design, and that will be the only way you can determine who made them. If someone did a good enough of a job forging coins, shouldn't they get away with it?

[Zerren 75]

So from a modder standpoint, how does this work?

Each mint is different and unique to the server (damage value metadata?) And makes coins with the same metadata?

If you use every ingot for quarters and coins and want unique currency, you need 22x3=66 items per unique mint.

Can you layer graphics dependent on metadata? I.e. one set if base coin images, with a layered graphic designatior tied to the mint?

Would coins from mint 1 stack with mint 2? Could coins from different mints be melted back into ingots together?

Sorry for the disjointed post, its just precoffee musings.

Bob

I'll answer the 'modder' standpoint questions, to the best of my knowledge:

Yes you can layer graphics. You can even do a colorizer for layering (example: spawn eggs have only 2 grayscale textures, each one is colorized via code, and then layered on top of one another)

A coin could do the background layer, colored to the specific metal color, and then have a symbol, dot, or other texture of a different color on top, to differentiate same coins.

All of them can share the same item ID, different metas.

Created mints could either use the world seed for a pseudorandom 'mint ID' or the person creating the mint via NBT data.

There's more than one way to skin a cat, but again, I agree with everything Omicron has said. It's just too much in my opinion. I'd rather just trade with ingots in a barter system, even if said ingots are useless (platinum).

[Omicron 62]

I understand your point, but rather than causing me to question whether this can be implemented or not it only makes me question why we do it in reality.

Then you are probably best served reading up on the history and philosophy of money. That topic is far too big to address it on an internet forum in a satisfactory manner.

[bart74 2]

I think it was already planned,here what I found in mod's texture files :

(if you don't believe me,go in the mod .zip and then in bioxx/terrasprites2)