Technical writers aren't needed. PROOFREADERS, however, are worth their weight in gold.
I'm not going to bother to jump between editions since each edition is supposed to stand on it's own. Not everyone collects all the previous editions, so using them to justify anything in the current edition is rather pointless. Or at a minimum from the jumps between publishers and the personalized spin each one places on the game and it's mechanics.
From MGT 1st edition, costs of food (water and air costs are negligible since they are the byproducts of fuel processing and/or can be freely collected at any gas giant or ice ring):
Standard of Living Cost / month Cost / week Cost / day Soc Standing
Very poor Cr 400 Cr 100 Cr 13 2
Poor Cr 800 Cr 200 Cr 27 4
Low Cr 1,000 Cr 250 Cr 33 5
Average Cr 1,200 Cr 300 Cr 40 6
Good Cr 1,500 Cr 375 Cr 50 7
High Cr 2,000 Cr 500 Cr 67 8
Very High Cr 2,500 Cr 625 Cr 83 10
Rich Cr 5,000 Cr 1,500 Cr 167 12
Very Rich Cr 12,000 Cr 3,000 Cr 400 14
Ludicrously Rich Cr 20,000 Cr 5,000 Cr 667 15
Living expenses assume housing, food, and clothing at basic levels (well, the table looks better in my view... not so much in preview, but you can suss out the info yourself p87 of CRB. I split it out in per week/per day costs).
That's all from the book. Assuming food costs are no more than 25-30% of your budget, you can see the justification in the rule is either extremely weak, or they posit a massive markup on things. I tend to think it's the former because the life support rules have been so silly since day one. The rules are quite contradictory and I cannot fathom why they weren't fixed in the 2nd edition. Which means by layering on the biosphere rules, you are trying to build upon a faulty foundation. Which leads to confusion and people doing hand-waves or coming up with their own rules. HG switches the costs up anyways, so why NOT add in verbiage that makes it clear? That's not an unreasonable ask.
For those who continually defend Mongoose's errors I would ask - why? Mongoose is a purportedly professional publisher and they earn their living through publication and creation. As a customer you have every right to expect them to create error-free products, and when an error is found, to correct it. Why people continue to provide excuses is something I don't understand. I can go back to the original AD&D books that were put together before computers. They are loaded with information and have few errors. Traveller, many versions any way, have been riddled with errors that each publisher seems to continue in some very odd tradition I suppose.
I've said this before, and it's one of the primary reasons I've stuck with MGT, is that when they screw up royally, they do stand behind their products. When v1 was published and we had the debacle called Mercenary, they stepped up and not only replaced it with a corrected book, but added in other stock as a way of saying sorry. That's a lot for a publisher to do and it means a lot.
However, with that being said, it's still not a reason to NOT point out these things. There were plenty of people in the review process (many on this board) who pointed out issues - some of which has made it to the light of day. Mongoose made decisions and they have to stand by those decisions. Being taken to task for poor proofreading is part of doing business - thin skinned publishers really shouldn't get into the business.
