Gold
Gold is a cargo item that can be traded, carried between ships and planets, salvaged from destroyed ships, or produced by a colony. Unlike cash, gold occupies cargo space and remains an item until it is sold or converted during a planetary update.
Value and weight
In the distributed classic GE and ge-next settings, each unit of gold has a base price of 1,000 credits and weighs half a ton (ITMWT13 specifies 50 tons per 100 units). Sysops can change the base price and weight. A ship's total cargo weight and available space determine how much it can carry; the fractional weight does not make gold weightless.
Gold aboard ships
A commander can buy gold at Zygor, sell it there for cash, or transfer it to and from an eligible planet while in orbit. In ge-next, SELL ALL GOLD and TRA D ALL GOLD are convenient ways to dispose of or deposit a full onboard stock; classic requires numeric amounts. Gold transferred to a planet remains in its inventory until a later planetary update converts it, unless it is transferred back beforehand. See Buy command, Sell command, and Transfer command for the relevant commands and restrictions.
In classic GE, spoils from a destroyed ship include only a random fraction of its gold: the game divides the gold stock by a separately chosen number from 1 through 5, then skips it if the resulting amount does not fit in the victor's cargo space. ge-next instead handles gold first, without a random divisor. The victor receives the full gold stock if it fits, or as much as the remaining cargo space permits; excess gold is left behind. Other eligible items still use random fractions. NPCs can also carry gold, so defeating one may provide a source besides trade or mining.
Gold on planets
An owned colony can assign labor to gold production, competing with its other production assignments. During each planetary update, gold already in the planet's inventory is converted into planetary cash at the configured gold base price, then removed from the inventory. Gold produced in that same update is therefore normally available for conversion on the next update. This funds the planet, not the owner's personal cash account or tax balance.
Keeping the planetary bank positive enables a 1.5× multiplier to production and to the maximum stock of produced items. Depositing gold or assigning colonists to mine it can help sustain that bonus, but the benefit depends on the bank still having cash when production is calculated; the physical gold stock itself is not the bonus. Trade can also fund the bank. See Planetary production and Colonizing planets for the fuller account of work allocation, cash consumption, and stock limits.
ge-arena
In ge-arena's Hoard mode, onboard gold is the match score rather than colony funding. Ships start with gold and can collect more from generated planets, Cybertrons, other players' ships, and announced drops. Other arena modes do not use gold as their scoring objective. See ge-arena for the arena modes and match rules.
See also
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