Zero's new Chthonian Stars ship

[zero]

This is the statblock for my orbit-only spaceship for Cstars. It is generally around TL 9, with a few things under and over (for example, Cstars ships have average price and tonnage for P-ps, making them at least TL 11, also Basic Military sensors -TL 10- appear on some ships).

Cstars doesnt seem to use the discount rule for TLs (as each world is TL 8, with certain tech reaching 9+) after looking through other statblocks.

The following ship is built for trade on the inner system worlds, docking at highports and taking business from these. Travel to dirtside is done via Highport shuttles. In the future I may stat up a new type of shuttle to fly in. Keep eyes peeled

Zero-class Orbital

Hull (standard) - 100 tons. Hull 2, Structure 2 - 2,000,000 credits
Armour - Titanium Steel - Protection 2. 5 tons. 100,000 credits
Self-sealing armour - 1,000,000 credits
Manouevring Drive - Reaction A, Thrust 2. 2 tons. 4,000,000 credits
Manouevring Fuel - 2G Thrust Hours. 5 tons.
Power Plant - Fusion A. 4 tons. 8,000,000 credits
Power Plant Fuel - 1 week of operation. 1 ton.
Transit Drive - 12 tons. 5,000,000 credits
Bridge (Holographic Controls) - 10 tons. 625,000 credits
Computer - Model-2 (Hardened Systems) Rating 10. 240,000 credits
Electronics - Basic Military - 0 DM. 2 tons. 1,000,000 credits
Weapon - Hardpoint #1 - Railgun Barbette. 5 tons. 4,000,000 credits
Cargo - 38 tons
Staterooms - One stateroom. 4 tons. 500,000 credits
16 x Long-Term Grav-Couches. 8 tons. 56,000 credits
Extras
Ship's Locker
Briefing Room. 4 tons. 500,000 credits
Software
Manoeuvre/0
Transit Control/1 - 100,000 credits
Evade/1 - 1,000,000 credits
Fire Control/1 - 2,000,000 credits
Library

Total Tonnage = 100
Total Cost = 30,121,000 credits

Maintenance Cost (rounded up to nearest credit) = 2,511 credits per month

Life Support costs are up to the GM, I totalled it as if there would be a crew of two and added grav-gel costs to the Life Support, so I'm not listing it here due to crew size differences for the game it might be used in.

I am currently working on deckplanning this work and I am incredibly proud of it See how this ship copes against trade costs for Cstars in my free-trade topic for Cstars here;

http://cthulhutech.10.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=2988

[zero]

After playing some games with Trading in Cstars, I think it is possible to push Trade past the Inner System and visit the Outer System, at least to Saturn (Uranus and Neptune truly are pioneering venues).

To this end, I'm going to be reducing some costs of my Orbital (such as getting rid of some things I deem not needed) finally getting rid of the 'orbital' element of it by hoping to give it a streamlined Hull with Heat Shielding for planetary landings. Then with the changed cost and an expansion on sleeper passenger journeys (more grav-couches and a slightly reduced cargo hold) due to increased first month profits before spec trade comes in, I hope to have a ship able to reach as far as Saturn profitably from an initial trip.

An added bonus is fuel will be free when arriving at Jupiter and Saturn!

[zero]

I am removing Self-sealing armour, it seems a waste of a whole MCr that could be placed into other more useful things.

Also the planned ability for the ship to be able to enter an atmosphere will have be knocked on the head, Heat Shielding for the ship at 100dtons costs 10 MCr, which is alot of cash to spend, combined with the +200k creds for a Streamlined Hull.

--

Instead, looking to the amount of money needed to be paid, rounded up the mortgage is 125,505 credits each month.
Maintenance is 30,121 credits per year, rounded up thats 2,511 credits each month.
Life Support is about 3k for the stateroom (the ship is built for a crew of two - yah, for a small game) + 1.6k for the grav-couches.

Grand-total without fuels equals 132,616 credits to be paid per month. That also doesn't count grav-gel usage, two gels are used on each trip per crew member and one per passenger (this ship only takes sleepers), which for a month's trip equals 700 creds per crew and 350 per sleeper - up to 16 people are on a ship at one time. That equals 1,400 for the crew and 4,900 for passengers.

138,916 creds, not counting fuels and also berthing charges. This ship takes 6 tons of fuel, which equals 600 creds when unrefined. If we add that to a maximum 6000 berth charge, thats 145,516 credits.

The ship here initially makes money from freight, 38,000 credits per trip (this ship was initially built to take two trips in a month, so 76,000 credits were gained that way. 69,516 /2 = 34,758 credits were needed to be raised from passengers, this went with being able to charge 2,500 credits for a passenger (35,000 credits overall).

A monthly profit of (at least) 242 credits isn't alot, but it flies and that's enough.

--

The main difference with the Saturn Project ship will be it only does one trip a month and that'll mean a big change in the amenities aboard and the amount of cargo and passengers the ship will be carting about to the Outer System.

Passengers who are sleepers cost 250 credits per week, which amounts to about (at least) a 4.3 AU trip from Jupiter to Saturn, which will take about 3 and a half weeks. It's considerably less than what you would get for an inner system journey (1k compared to 2.5k). Having a waker would be more money (3k each) but then its all about Life Support expenditure (6k after 3k Life Support is still 3k, -700 = 1,600 in 4 dtons) compared to getting 4,200k in sleepers compared to that amount for the same amount of dtons.

Its still 2000 - 200 - 700 = 1,050 credits for a dton of passengers compared to a dton of cargo. Its touch and go whether to even have the risk of taking passengers compared to cargo, but a mix is still beneficial.

After a strip down and adding more cargo space and grav-couches, I might be able to do this Project Saturn ship and turn a profit...

[zero]

Well, after some time away at the draft's board, its becoming a wonder if the Saturn Project ship can become a reality.
The 100dton design is becoming very basic in it's design with many of the inner system trade vessel's features stripped or just fully replaced to be able to turn profitable results in the outer system. It may even turn to be impossible to make a single monthly trip profitable with this small trade vessel with the rising prices of grav-couch travel for the trader of today.

In the meantime, inner trade continues well with the Zero class orbit vessel becoming a profitable venture for those who wish to free trade in those planets closer to home (excluding Mars of course, but any real free trader knows Mars' economy is failing fast and leave the poor planet to itself).

More news soon.

[zero]

After many different returns to the drawing board, I have decided it is nigh impossible to make a trip as stated before to make a steady profit on it's own merit.

Instead, I shall be producing some varients on the original Zero class here to show different models of the above ship for inner system free trade, leaving the outer system for the MegaCorps and the Kuiper Belt prospectors.

The Zero class has a few MCr in it's design that can be placed elsewhere for different results and purposes for this nice small ship.

Such models include an escape pod for the single stateroom as standard along options, that include;

-increased armour to the hull
-increased Thrust capacity (up to Thrust 4)
-change in computer and software (including Intellect).
-metal hydride storage
-a grappling arm
-library instead of briefing room (for those to who love to learn than fight)

Place an order for a customised Zero-One Orbital today!

[Vargrz]

...and still sadly no POD for Chthonian Stars!