Why caps? A fallout dilemma

[stikku]

There is one thing (ok more than one thing) that i dont understand about the fallout universe.
Why does humanity use caps as a currency? Ok probably most paper money would have been lost but why caps? Isnt it more probable that humanity just starts using bartering (i.e. no currency). And who was the first guy who said "OH caps, i can use these instead of dollars"?

and in a post apocalyptic would what do you think would be the currency we would use?

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Stim packs are the real hard trade good in the Fallout world. Things like bottle caps are for the suckers.

 

[Communist partisan]

beacose the peapole of the fallout world don't know how to make new ones and it exist so many and it isn't heavy or big so it pretty useful as currency in a world like fallout.

 

[silver wolf009]

They use caps for 2 reasons on the west coast, they dont explain why they use caps in the Capital Wasteland but I assume its for the same reasons.

1: They cannot be counterfitted.
2: They could be flattened to be carried by enmas.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

I don't know why caps were used in Fallout, but they had been phased out by Fallout 2. In fact one of the quests in Fallout 2

Spoiler: I don't really need a spoiler for this, do I?

has you helping out an elderly ghoul in exchange for the location of his hidden treasure. When you eventually get a hold of this 'treasure' it's described as 'a bag of worthless old bottlecaps' and when confronting the ghoul about it he says that caps were used as currency back in his day.

For whatever reason Bethesda's Fallout 3 brought back the bottlecaps - probably one or more of the dev team was a Fallout fanboy and wanted to pay 'homage' to the original. Obsidian are trying to phase them back out again in New Vegas, so I doubt it'll be an issue for much longer. Chances are there'll be a full explanation on the Fallout Wiki, but that'll come with the usual reliability issues.

 

[psivamp]

They use caps for 2 reasons on the west coast, they dont explain why they use caps in the Capital Wasteland but I assume its for the same reasons.

1: They cannot be counterfitted.
2: They could be flattened to be carried by enmas.

Except for the counterfeiting operation in New Vegas.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Before I answer your question, you answer mine:

Why not use caps?

 

[teh_gunslinger]

They use caps for 2 reasons on the west coast, they dont explain why they use caps in the Capital Wasteland but I assume its for the same reasons.

1: They cannot be counterfitted.
2: They could be flattened to be carried by enmas.

Except for the counterfeiting operation in New Vegas.

I assume that by west coast psivamp was referring to the original games. As was also mentioned by RAK, in the second game they have mangaged to mint new coins. I makes no sense to use caps then.
And I also suspect that Bethsoft just shoved the caps in there to make it seem like a Fallout game with no regard to whether it actually made sense. F3 is set a lot later than F2 so why would they still be using caps?
I can't speak for NV as I'm only playing through it as we speak. But they at least include NCR currency.

 

[John the Gamer]

beacose the peapole of the fallout world don't know how to make new ones and it exist so many and it isn't heavy or big so it pretty useful as currency in a world like fallout.

False. in Fallout New Vegas you can do a quest in wich you have to destroy a bottlecap-machine in a soda factory to maintain the overall value of caps. They also explain how new caps are still being made to replace any damaged or destroyed ones, but that it has to be done carefully to prevent the economy from collapsing.

Here's the overview of said quest from the fallout wikia:

Spoiler

Pressing Matters is a quest in Fallout: New Vegas. You are instructed by Alice McLafferty from the Crimson Caravan Company to go to the Sunset Sarsaparilla Headquarters and disable the Bottle Cap Press in order to prevent the creation of counterfeit caps which cause inflation in the NCR economy.

 

[Communist partisan]

beacose the peapole of the fallout world don't know how to make new ones and it exist so many and it isn't heavy or big so it pretty useful as currency in a world like fallout.

False. in Fallout New Vegas you can do a quest in wich you have to destroy a bottlecap-machine in a soda factory to maintain the overall value of caps. They also explain how new caps are still being made to replace any damaged or destroyed ones, but that it has to be done carefully to prevent the economy from collapsing.

Here's the overview of said quest from the fallout wikia:

Spoiler

Pressing Matters is a quest in Fallout: New Vegas. You are instructed by Alice McLafferty from the Crimson Caravan Company to go to the Sunset Sarsaparilla Headquarters and disable the Bottle Cap Press in order to prevent the creation of counterfeit caps which cause inflation in the NCR economy.

yeah... whatever, I haven't played much of NV and I don't spend much time on fallout wiki so shit the same... I was atleast right before FO NV^^

(Really don't like being wrong.)

 

[silver wolf009]

They use caps for 2 reasons on the west coast, they dont explain why they use caps in the Capital Wasteland but I assume its for the same reasons.

1: They cannot be counterfitted.
2: They could be flattened to be carried by enmas.

Except for the counterfeiting operation in New Vegas.

Well I haven't played New Vegas, but like I said, West Coast.

 

[Lukeman1884]

They use caps for 2 reasons on the west coast, they dont explain why they use caps in the Capital Wasteland but I assume its for the same reasons.

1: They cannot be counterfitted.
2: They could be flattened to be carried by enmas.

Except for the counterfeiting operation in New Vegas.

I love how you referred to what he said about conterfeiting, but didn't mention that he talks about sticking caps up your ass. At least, I assume he misspelt enemas. Unless you WERE in fact referring to an engineering complany based in Chennai, India. Yeah, I googled it.

Back on topic, caps were still in use in F3 because the NCR didn't have much, if any, influence there. It's incredibly difficult to supplant any currency that's already in circulation, especially in the wastes where some people wouldn't know about the switch. It's used in NV because Obsidian wanted to ride the wave that was F3, and so wanted it to be kept as similar as possible.