Survey time!

[Mattizme]

Looking at some of the stuff I've been doing in economics, I'm interested to see how the economy of tractor works. I'd like to see how this group of people works econ-wise - Let's take a look at demand:

What I'd like you to do, is just answer a short questionnaire about how you buy stuff.

This week/till I can be bothered to change it: FUEL!

Let's say the price of fuel on an island is 1s. Let's also say your tank is totally empty and you're stuck outside a fuel stop with 50s. two jobs, 20s each.

1. How much fuel would you buy at this price?

2. How much fuel do you buy if the price is:
a) 25p Cheaper?
b) 50p Cheaper?

2. How much would you buy if the price is:
a) 25p More Expensive?
b) 50p More Expensive?

Hopefully I can get a nice demand curve and see if the crap they've been talking at me is any good :]

[zaroba]

hmm...not enough info
do i have any jobs? if so, how much do they pay? if not, whats unemployment? how close is it to pay day and hopw long is a month on the island?
do i own any buildings (not includeing houses)? if so, do they have any investment in them? or are they operating and have the ability to make me money in a short time (i.e. selling oil from a drill to a ref)? or do any of them have employees that i need to pay? if one of the buildings is a fuel ref, the amount of fuel that can be bought is only limited by money devided by (the cost of buying the fuel - the cost of selling a fuel) sheckles
whats the fuel usage like for the vehicle i'm in? is it fast (so that driving around for an hour would drain the tank)? or slow (so that driving around for a day or two would drain the tank)?
are thier any buildings on the island with transfering possibilities?



if i have no source of income, and unemployment is far away, and thiers no other ways to transfer items for money, i'd probably use only 10s for fuel, no matter how much it cost, also would use the V1 to walk around and only use the tractor when i found a place to transfer for money. that way i'd still have 40s to spend on whatever transfering possibilities came up.
now, if this was long ago before we had a fuelless v1, i'd probably spend 40s

if i had jobs, i might be more tempted to spend the whole 50s on fuel (no matter the cost) since i could just sit back and chat or watch a movie waiting for payday to come.

if i had buildings with investment, i'd uninvest some money, and use more then 50s to fill my whole tank.

[Mattizme]

Set. postchange-age!

[Rueges]

i dont even quite understand what u all said lol

[VDZ]

Exactly. What is p?

[zaroba]

Let's say the price of fuel on an island is 1s. Let's also say your tank is totally empty and you're stuck outside a fuel stop with 50s. two jobs, 20s each.

oo, the question includes a nice job now.

making 40s a game month, i'd spend all 50s on gas no matter the cost.
can just go watch a movie or chat waiting for payday to come to give me the money back

[Mattizme]

could you give me details of how much you'd buy at each of the prices? And how much would you buy if you only earned 20s?

[zaroba]

if i only made 20s a month, still the same.
woulden't matter the fuel cost, i'd spend the whole 50s.

i learned to play being poor and living paycheck to paycheck, so waiting around a few hours or days doing nothing weaiting for money to come in is no big deal for me. after all, its only a game

[VDZ]

I'd walk with my v1 to the nearest other fuel station, if it's close enough.
If not, i buy enough fuel to get there.

[Knoxjoey]

fsck the tank V1 is allz j00 needz

if v1 used fuel i would buy maby. 3 or 5 depending on how muched it used too go home then make a shat load of money off jobs ;D

[Mattizme]

Screw this post - I've realised how little Tractor is like compared ot a normal econ :]

[Mit]

oh it is in many (quite scary) ways . I think if you pose the same question to someone in the real world they'd be equally vague on their answers.

[Mattizme]

Very true, but tell that to my economics teacher. "Yes, these can be found in all economies." "My arse."

[zaroba]

lol, this is a game. its not that much like real life.
if you die here you can get a reset (depending on the world)
if you run out of money, no biggie, just wait till pay day or sell stuff
etc etc

in real life you'd probably get alot of different answers though.
because in real life people have to look at food, drinks, bills, stuff liek that.

then again, people are so different in thier spending habits from person to person that the whole supply and demand theory is probably crap when it comes to people buying stuff.

[Mit]

supply and demand as a modifier of profit is pretty much consistent in either world id reckon... If a lot of ppl want a lot of a product when theres not much of it available, then the person making/selling that product would almost certainly take the opportunity to charge a bit more for it. Its mostly a matter of need and greed, both of which are factors in the game and rl, tho in the game the needs are inherently a bit less serious.
The scariest thing to me in tractor economies, is like in RL, 95% of the wealth ends up being held by 1% of the population.

[hedgehog]

mornin

[Mattizme]

However, Mit, I can inform you that it's very hard to draw a demand curve for "Yeah, I'd just buy all I'd need" or "I'd just walk to the cheapest fuel station I know of and buy it there".

[Mit]

nah its easy.. just do what all economists do.. draw the graph how you expect it to be then manipulate the answers so that they match. Then charge your client a shitload of cash for telling em something they knew already.

[Mattizme]

...Screw games, economics here I come!

[Tom]

Well, i was doing all this survey stuff in my media class (for 'research') and found, that yes, everyone manipulates peoples answers in one way or another.

So, Whats the economy like? Well... whatever you want it to be