Other than on my first run through, something i've always done is ignore any sort of currency, instead opting to trade items, even if i ultimately make a loss on what I'm purchasing.


The only caps my character ever carries are star caps and even then, i never really go out my way to find them.

I don't go looking for them, but I if I find them then I definitely take them. I always buy the AMR so I make sure that I have a decent amount of caps on any character I play.

Oh, I do care about the amount of caps my character has. About 82,000 of them should be sufficient. I always spend time in trading to get a profit. I would never accept the deal unless I get a profit, or if I really want what I am buying, I'll accept the deal if its a 4 cap or 4000 cap loss.

Caps really should not be part of the game at this point. They were used in one region during the first Fallout, but as time passed the population switched over to a more legitimate currency. Fallout 2 actually makes fun of bottle caps. It even had a quest that makes it perfectly clear that they are utterly worthless.

In the original game, barter was the method of choice, and bottle caps were an optional equalizer to square any deals where one's item(s) seemed a bit more valuable than another's.
(You did not need them to trade; and did not accumulate them from trades ~unless you chose to trade for bottle caps)

That Fallout 3 would use bottle caps instead of minted US coinage, always seemed ridiculous to me. There had to be banks with coins in them; coins that were a lot harder to fake than bottle caps; (and if scarcity was the deciding factor, then they could have used coins from an exchange; used British Pounds or Gold Krugerrands).

At least in New Vegas it is explained. Well, come to think of it, I remember this being told to us before it was released but I don't think I've heard it said in-game. I'm pretty sure the west uses caps again because of the Brotherhood destroying gold mines so NCR currency was devalued. In Fallout 3, there is no apparent reason for the use of caps beyond fan-service (and poor fan-service at that).

Its invented ~as glue (because FO3 had them). Was there a Water Merchant Faction in New Vegas?

Agreed; sort of. IMO, it was surely a "See, we use Bottle caps too" sort of thing.

They were used throughout California in the original game the population switched over to NCR dollars because the new government had something to back it up. But after the BoS destroyed the NCR's gold supply the NCR had to switch over to backing there money with water instead of gold. Thus the NCR lost its economic power and using a more solid currency like bottlecaps became popular again.

All forms of currency are ridiculous when you think about it, they only have value because an economic authority decided they do. In the post nuclear war world bottlecaps make exellent coins, there would be millions of them as the world is based in 1950's science fiction which means the world never switched over to cans as the standard for soda.
There difficult and time consuming to counterfiet


It hasn't changed, plenty of merchants had a good stockpile of caps in FO1 additrionally the instantly restocked when you exited conversation. Bottlecaps were simply "optional" because it was a &*)&)*&)*$@$ pain in the butt to use them due to how the counter system worked.


Then what should they use as currency? Humans enjoy the simplicty of currency over pure barter. Unless a magical bomb erased knowledge of the existance of currency from the human mind. We'd find a replacement. And as I stated bottlecaps make a handy replacement representive for money.


There are the Crimson Caravans, the Van Graff's and The Gunrunners three powerful trading organizations easily capable of enforcing a value on caps.

See above...

Not so... Objects can have trade value independent of a government ~people used to trade [Sea] shells, and they are even now trading in Bitcoins :laugh:

Not with the machinery to make them ~that you don't find in a desert; but you do find in a city [ruins].

Sure they did. It was a trade equalizer; They had them for the same reason you open a shop with a few hundred in change in the register.

Not in a survival situation ~you can't eat bottle caps. Its good to have something that most people might trade for, but its better to have something that everyone needs ~like ammo, or canned goods. If you had the choice at a chance meeting, would you accept bottle caps in exchange for an item, or shells for your gun?

This is true... small towns can create scrips of some kind, or vouchers for goods.

Just because you think it was invented as glue doesn't mean it was. How do you know bottlecaps weren't going to be currency again during Van Buren(had it been made).

What are you talking about? I don't understand yoru response
You said then is said nothing has changed except its easier to count out a couple hundred caps.


Then by that logic legion coins and NCR dollars are also useless. So your really purposing to eliminate currency all together and to return to an imaginary game that didn't exist. If there was a merchant to accepted botlecaps as currency or shells as currency sure I might sell my gun. Assuming I had a gun to spare.


Counterfieting the paint and age is more difficult additionally the Crimson Caravan's and others are quick to dismantle the surving presses.

the only use i have for caps is to enter the strip and medical bills. i dont buy anything but i do sell alot of ammo that i loot to give me enough funds to be comfortable for my needs, which are alomost always provided by the wasteland [bar doctors]

Unfortunately the VB demo does not list item values of any kind; but the fact that Fallout 2 had abandoned tin caps for coins is enough for me; and the fact that a "fortune" in bottle caps was worth nothing, is equally enough for me. :shrug:

Real life shops don't usually open for business without a full cash resigister ~to provide change to customers.

Actually, I found them pretty useless in NV... because they only seemed good for selling for other currency.

What are you talking about? I don't understand your response.

In Fallout, you could buy a gun with rope and stimpacks :shrug: ~with no bottle-caps involved; also not everyone had any bottlecaps, but they might still trade for other items.

I don't believe that, its not so difficult to put a few pounds of fake bottle caps in a rock tumbler and make them look aged; (and with incentive, people would make a press to crimp caps ~in fact, you'd likely see it as a jig for a reloading bench :laugh: )
.....that gives me an idea for a mod. :chaos:

I don't tend to pay much attention the amount of money I'm making or losing. Since I'm a hoarder I tend to keep stuff rather than sell it, so I'm never "rich" - but I can easily make what I need for what I need, when I need/want it, through barter.

After the first playthru, I haven't bothered with pre-war/legion/ncr money (don't gamble), it just gets shoved into the wall safe. There's usually so much item-stuff to barter/trade with that I never need it.

My current character has almost 400,000 caps.

Nice, that's a real true definition of "barter"