I'd like to think an Apocalypse's "Currency" would be what people had to trade, whether it be Gasoline, diamonds, gold coins and bars, oil, water or even food, or old technology..

The metro series had military grade bullets, which could be used to buy armor, filters, ammo, health kits and weapons

The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series had rubles..

What would your ideal apocalyptic currency be?


Sure, bottle caps as a currency might seem convenient, but a single cap is worth just a dollar, you have to accumulate a number of caps before having a lump sum..

Unlike the NCR dollars, which aren't worth as much in New Vegas compared to their value in the New California Republic's territory, and Legion Denarius, which is worth 4 caps..


A $100.00 NCR Bill is worth forty caps when exchanged, that seems a bit unfair...


I would like to think if you ran out of caps, something else could be exchanged, but in the Fallout universe, NPC's have no sense of morality, so if you don't have that exact amount of caps, and you don't have anything of value in your inventory.. (Even after combining it with your misc. items, unused ammo, and chems, armor and weapons..)

Sometimes NPC's won't have more than just $1,000 or so caps, so by buying an item from them without having a high barter skill, the courier gets taken advantage of, I think the player's charisma and speech should affect how much you make also..

NPC's aren't these super smart omnipotent beings who can see my item's condition bar, rather they can only make a guess on what my item is worth..

I think water whould be a great start for socciety but caps are very good because they're hard to copy and can be counted in water bottles.

As said by Alice Mclafferty in the Crimson Caravan, bottlecaps are of limited quantity, can't be counterfeited easily, and can be tested by the quality of metal, paint used, bevels on the edge, and other little things. Dollars and other paper currency have degraded to the point of near-worthlessness. As for trading things for things, you can do that in any Fallout game, provided the stuff you offer is of greater or equal value to what you're trading for, or can make up for the difference in caps.

As for uneven exchange rates between NCR money and caps, that's how the world works. Currencies are not equal due to the different economies of regions or countries. An American dollar is not equal to a Euro or a Ruble.

If I were to institute a currency, it would be in small gold-alloy coins. Gold is hard to falsify, it doesn't erode at all, and is of a relatively high rarity. The NCR actually tried to have a gold standard, but that kinda blew up in their face.

Caps on the West coast were backed by water, each cap represented the amount of water one could exchange them for. On the East coast however it's not backed by anything in Lore. So it's kind of silly there. As it has been said earlier, caps are hard to fake and far easier to manage than paper. But they weren't the only currency used. Tactics had scripts issued by the Brotherhood. And NV used three currencies that were largely useless and poorly implemented. You had to sell NCR dollars and legion coins for caps before they could be used.

The Witcher 3 has a bank exchange system where coin minted in one area could be exchanged for coin minted for another area. Different lands use different coins where King A is recognized on the left but King B is recognized of the right. To make the explanation short.

Something like this would be neat to see. Travel to a different city and all of a sudden those NCR bills are worth more than those caps. Better exchange them at a bank.

@VATROU

Well, since the NCR and Legion money was treated in your inventory as a misc. item (though as opposed to other misc items it always kept its value despite what your Barter skill was)

You could "trade" a 40 dollar NCR bill for a 40 cap item. But still, those currencies were barely imported at all, since NCR traders did not give you NCR bills, and Legion traders didn't give you Legion coins. Everyone paid you in caps. The only way to acquire these currencies was to arbitrarily buy them or exchange for them at a casino, and caps would still be more practical because they aren't treated as a misc. item.

In the fallout world? yes. In the real world? not so much. Imagine you just sold a few suits of armor, a couple of laser rifles, a minigun, and a few mini nukes. You walk away with lets say 5,000 caps (varies from game to game). EVERYONE would know you have a lot of caps. It would rattle horribly. It would be like have 5,000 quarters or nickels or some other form metal currency. They will rattle and jingle and make noise. It would be impossible to be stealthy and people would try to rob you constantly. I always figured it would be on more of a barter system. Your gun and armor for my stimpaks and medical supplies or whatever. Also why is it that the currency on the east coast is the same as the currency on the west coast. Its the end of the world. Communication would terrible. Choosing a form of money would be up to the local dictator. I honestly never really understood that about fallout but its game so i just go with it.

Not really, unless there are actually factories that keep producing these unlimited bottles, plus caps are clunky and sharp in a huge pack.

alonewolf003 wrote:

Not really, unless there are actually factories that keep producing these unlimited bottles, plus caps are clunky and sharp in a huge pack.

There are actually operational bottlecap factories that are kept under strict control. If the NCR or any of its subsidiaries discover an unauthorized one, they either take control of it or dismantle it. There's also the fact that bottlecaps are constantly lost and found in the wasteland in a lot of different ways, keeping the supply of them relatively low.

As for storing them, you could always put them in rolls of 10, 20, 30, etcetera, as you would do with coins.

A suit case full of caps would weigh a bloody tonne though. As someone who collected bottle caps in my younger days, I found that while they didnt weigh a lot, get enough together and they will add up. And considering a suitcase full of them. That would be a lot to carry.

ZombieRedNeck wrote:

A suit case full of caps would weigh a bloody tonne though. As someone who collected bottle caps in my younger days, I found that while they didnt weigh a lot, get enough together and they will add up. And considering a suitcase full of them. That would be a lot to carry.

I wouldn't be surprised if caps in the Fallout universe were of a relatively lesser quality and thickness to our own, given the whole resource war thing that America, China, Russia, and other countries were going through, giving them less weight.

Surprisily enough, someone actually did a video explaining how much caps would value regarding game informations and real ones.

Eetterinakki wrote:

@VATROU

Well, since the NCR and Legion money was treated in your inventory as a misc. item (though as opposed to other misc items it always kept its value despite what your Barter skill was)

You could "trade" a 40 dollar NCR bill for a 40 cap item. But still, those currencies were barely imported at all, since NCR traders did not give you NCR bills, and Legion traders didn't give you Legion coins. Everyone paid you in caps. The only way to acquire these currencies was to arbitrarily buy them or exchange for them at a casino, and caps would still be more practical because they aren't treated as a misc. item.

Which is why it was poorly implemented. I'm guessing they were supposed to be used by the various factions, which is why you might get paid in NCR dollars for certain quests. Like with Chomp Lewis at Sloan. If you had to trade for the local currency before you could purchase local goods. That would be nice to see.

But what if all the bottles ran out and then no more caps??..Surely alot of them were destroyed when the bombs fell

kieryD wrote:

But what if all the bottles ran out and then no more caps??..Surely alot of them were destroyed when the bombs fell

There are soda bottling plants with operational bottlecap presses in some areas, such as the Sunset Sarsaparilla one in Vegas, but most are under NCR control. As long as they have the raw materials, they can continue making bottlecaps as necessary.

Gyrard wrote:

alonewolf003 wrote:

Not really, unless there are actually factories that keep producing these unlimited bottles, plus caps are clunky and sharp in a huge pack.

There are actually operational bottlecap factories that are kept under strict control. If the NCR or any of its subsidiaries discover an unauthorized one, they either take control of it or dismantle it. There's also the fact that bottlecaps are constantly lost and found in the wasteland in a lot of different ways, keeping the supply of them relatively low.

As for storing them, you could always put them in rolls of 10, 20, 30, etcetera, as you would do with coins.

Yes but they take way more space than coins do due to their designs so it isn't really practical.

but think about how easy it is to get caps in 3 and nv in fo1 and 2 the most i every had was 2000 i was usually floating around 300-500 \
in nv i float around 40000 but ive had well over 100000

Honestly, casino chips. They would be hard to fake in an apocalypse, and most casino's have tons of them in reserves. If I were making an apocalyptic currency I would raid all the casino's in my area, and use them as trading hubs.