Coin Cap at 30k?

[SevenMass]

Sorry if this sounds like a stopid question, I didn't bother to check if this has been mentioned before.

 

It seems there is a coin cap at 30k. Are my observations correct?

 

When I realised I couldn't get more than 30k, I bought some training before selling more stuff.

 

Why is this coin cap?

[Croikle]

Ok, let's think about it. A US penny is 2.5g ( source ), and that's a fairly small coin. 30000 of those would therefore be 75kg, or 165 pounds. Do you really think your adventurers want to carry around more than that? It should at least have encumbering effects, if you allow unlimited amounts of currency. (ok, higher value coins would mitigate this some, but perhaps that's factored in already)

 

Still, what do you need more than 30000 coins for? Nothing costs that much, and training is a great way to use coins. You're not going to use the money anywhere else, really.

[Pyro]

Lets just say that a law passed in avernum, to protect travelers from bandits and such, makes it so that its illegal to carry more then 30000 in coins....make sense eh...

[Lilith]

If you want the real reason, it's because of the way that numbers are stored in computers. Your current coin total is stored as a signed two-byte integer, which can only go up to 32767 before it wraps around and becomes negative. To prevent wraparound bugs, a cap is imposed at 30000.

[Croikle]

Well, I think I remember lower caps, like 9000 and 15000, in previous Averna. Using 32768 is a handy explanation here, but it may not be the only reason for coinage caps. It wouldn't be too hard to store money as a long, though I guess it's less bother to simply use int. Hmm, maybe the 30000 cap is just because of that. The earlier caps, though, weren't set for this reason.

[Lilith]

At least part of the reason for lower caps in earlier games is that a few things sold for an awful lot of money. With a cap of 30,000, selling anything with a sale price of more than 2767 coins would cause a wraparound (this happened sometimes in BoE, and was pretty annoying). In A4, where nothing really sells for very much, this isn't as much of a problem.

[Alorael at Large]

That still doesn't explain why a few more bits don't get allocated to gold. By the end of the game it's possible to run into the cap, although it's less of a problem than in previous Avernums.

 

—Alorael, who always found something to spend his cash on before hitting the cap and never resorted to the First Bank of Character Editor. It's a good thing, too, because it went under after A3.

[Lilith]

Quote:

Originally written by My Spleen:
That still doesn't explain why a few more bits don't get allocated to gold.

Well, that can be readily explained by the fact that, frankly, Jeff isn't much of a programmer.

[SevenMass]

Quote:

Originally written by My Spleen:
—Alorael, who always found something to spend his cash on before hitting the cap and never resorted to the First Bank of Character Editor. It's a good thing, too, because it went under after A3.

Well, I did plan on buying trainings, but I didn't figure out yet what traing I should buy first, and I was happely questing along in the Great cave.
I thought I wasn't forced into buying it before I was ready for it myself. I thought wrong.

As for the weight, you know: gameplay > reality!
And the amount of coins a character can have is one of those things where I think this is the case.

I could of course drop some cash near the portal, just like I drop other stuff there. But I think that would be more annoying than the "fun" this bit of "reality" provides.

Ah, maybe we are just given a reason to buy Avernum5 when it arrives.

[Red_Sage]

Quote:

Originally written by Thuryl:
If you want the real reason, it's because of the way that numbers are stored in computers. Your current coin total is stored as a signed two-byte integer, which can only go up to 32767 before it wraps around and becomes negative. To prevent wraparound bugs, a cap is imposed at 30000.

That seems strange, I dont think thats why. Why not simply use a 32 or 64 bit integer then? And your XP can go much higher than that. Which even in memory is at least 16 bits (likely 32 bits) in width. On disk your eXp = val_at_offset_5fc3 * 256 + val_at_offset_5fc2

[Randomizer]

The cap is a holder over from the earlier games. Jeff doesn't change anything that he can avoid doing. That's why some sections of the instruction manual still have old text that no longer applies. Slith's don't get the Exile intelligence bonus, etc.

[Darkdread]

There should be banks in Avernum, the poor citizens have to be always trusting their chests and boxes, which are so appealing to certain adventurers... no fair, besides they don't give any interest.

 

It would be nice to have a bank. Even ATMs would be ok.

[VCH]

Or perhaps VISA. At the least as loyal adventurers working for the crown you could receive some royal equivalent of traveler's checks.

[Dolphin]

I don’t think that would do you much good in the abyss, as well as with the shop keepers that would rather not make a trip to the castle to get paid.

[Darkdread]

Visa sounds great, and an International Roaming visa even better, just in case you find youself in Vanhatai lands.

 

Many townfolks mention "turists" from the surface, don't they bring traveler's cheques?

 

Also I guess you could have some kind of unemployment fund or insurance. (Just in case the job boards run out of petitions).

[Reve]

I think at least a text warning that you didn't collect pick up any more money each time you do hit the limit is vital. Otherwise, you have to keep an eye on it, and if you miss spotting that you are at the limit, you suddenly permanently are losing all that money with no warning

[Dunbar42]

Quote:

Originally written by Reve:
I think at least a text warning that you didn't collect pick up any more money each time you do hit the limit is vital. Otherwise, you have to keep an eye on it, and if you miss spotting that you are at the limit, you suddenly permanently are losing all that money with no warning

Gotta agree here. I didn't realize there was a cap until I read this thread...and then I went back into my game and realized I was at the cap. I didn't pay any attention to my total cash as I wasn't buying anything...and now I have no idea how long I was at the cap, and I don't have any earlier saves that aren't a LONG time ago.