Converting gold pieces to credits

[AlgaeNymph]

Suppose I'm from a primitive world and I interplanetary teleport my way somewhere advanced. What's the exchange rate of gold to credits? My initial intuition is that it'd be 1 gold for 10 credits, but is there any better information to go with?

[Vidmaster7]

The conversion for gold to U.S. Dollars is something like 33 dollars per gold coin. If that helps any.

[The Cyber Mage]

AlgaeNymph wrote:

Suppose I'm from a primitive world and I interplanetary teleport my way somewhere advanced. What's the exchange rate of gold to credits? My initial intuition is that it'd be 1 gold for 10 credits, but is there any better information to go with?

I did some math across each level comparing WBL guidelines to come up with my calculations. Across all 20 levels it averages out to about 2 credits per gold. Alternatively, you could look at a single level snapshot of when this occurs and come up with the exchange rate for that level. This even could make sense if the character only ditches some now and saves the rest for later as exchange rates can fluctuate.

Full spreadsheet here: Google Sheets

[UlrichVonLichtenstein]

The Cyber Mage wrote:

Full spreadsheet here: Google Sheets

So, a single Gold translates to 6.67 Credits?

[Metaphysician]

Bare in mind that, in Starfinder, most of the demand for gold is for industry or decoration, since nobody uses it for currency. That is going to greatly limit the value of gold by the kilogram, especially with access to inner system and asteroid mining for additional supplies ( compared to medieval mining tech on a habitable world ). Gold might be worth more than one credit per coins-worth, but only until you saturate the local demand, which would probably happen pretty quick ( if the demand were not close to being met, industry would be shipping in more gold as is ). Then your price at the local pawn shop is going to plummet.

This is for bulk gold, mind. Actual gold coins or jewelry may be worth quite a bit more than its "face value", on the collectors' market. This goes especially for coins from Lost Golarion, I imagine, which are perhaps not priceless, but still worth a heck of a lot. Even the coins made of common metals.

[The Ragi]

Weird necro.

And aren't credits = copper pieces?

[Xinder the Great]

Or you could look at the core classes and average their starting gold. This results in an average of 114 gp, 5 sp, & 5 cp (114.5455 gp). Comparing this to the starting 1k credits in Starfinder, nets a conversion rate of 8.73 credits per gold coin OR 27.28 credits per ounce of gold.

The Ragi wrote:

Weird necro.

And aren't credits = copper pieces?

Closer to silver pieces. This makes sense as well. There was never a "gold standard" in pre-industrial societies. It was usually the "silver standard". Think of the Pound Sterling, or one Imperial pound of silver. Plus the common folk rarely saw gold coins in reality.

[Goth Guru]

I always felt gold pieces were like Krugerrands, so they were worth about 20 dollars. Since a dollar is sort of like a credit, 20 credits for your average gold piece. That's how I would do it. An odd number would make it difficult for the less mathematically inclined.

[Ravingdork]

There's no real way to make an accurate conversion. There are too many unknowns, too many variables.

In my games, gold in itself would be practically worthless. You'd have to sell it based on its practical uses or, if jewelry or similar art objects, to collectors.

[Goth Guru]

I never got any traction with my idea of selling art and magic items at auction. You take the base price and various characters bid till it reaches an amount that only one character can afford. In Spacefinder there can be virtual websites for this kind of thing.

Part of the pact is probably about assigning a value to their various mediums of exchange.