Tarkin said:
On my desk to get through now - you will likely see Tools for Frontier Living first, though. We'll see how it goes, but expect either or both before Gen Con.
2300AD is Back!
- Thread starter MongooseMatt
- Start date
On my desk to get through now - you will likely see Tools for Frontier Living first, though. We'll see how it goes, but expect either or both before Gen Con.
kustenjaeger
Mongoose
Greetings
Is there an intention to create an errata sheet? Currently in my read through I've mainly come across editing irritations (many of which are mentioned in the errata thread).
Regards
Is there an intention to create an errata sheet? Currently in my read through I've mainly come across editing irritations (many of which are mentioned in the errata thread).
Regards
mechascorpio
Mongoose
kustenjaeger said:
If I can add to this question, had there been a second printing of the 2300 core book (or PDF) that has been updated, since initial release, based on the errata?
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Finally made the time for a complete read through.
Outstanding job.
I have a vague memory of this having be mentioned some where before but cannot find it. I have been taking a close look at ship designs and trade and the like.
Crewing levels seem a bit, erm, over staffed for the small smaller ships. 10 or so crew for a 100Dton scout or 200Dton trader. I am presuming that for your smaller player type ships and anything on the frontiers you need those positions filled rather than the chairs filled.
So a Pilot who can navigate covers two roles, a navigator who can do sensors and comms can cover those roles and you can shrink the bridge crew down to half the number.
An odd question and I suspect it comes from the first rules but why is it so much more expensive to haul cargo than passengers.
The entry for transporting says in the column labelled Cost per Light Year Lv100 for middle passengers, Lv500 for high passengers and for cargo it says 750/Dton.
For a standard stateroom doing a maximum run that’s One high passenger Lv3850, two shared middle passengers at Lv770 each or Lv1540 for a double occupied stateroom. So since a cabin is 4Dtons that is a high passenger bringing in almost Lv1000 per Dton, middle passengers bringing in les than Lv400 per Dton but cargo for the same run brining in 5775 per Dton.
If the cargo cost is per trip regardless of distance then high passage and cargo are just about the same when you factor in the cost of life support and stewards etc. If that is per Ly then cargo is grossly expensive compared to people which is very odd considering the Life support costs and size requirements of carrying people.
The same odd costs can be seen on the Interface costs chart. Traveller is based around Dtons not mass tons. It doesn’t matter that four dtons of cargo is hundreds of times heavier than a single high passenger. They both take up the same volume on a ship.
So we have an odd situation where it seems to be vastly cheaper to ship people than cargo despite the fact that they take up the same space in a volume based design system.
Outstanding job.
I have a vague memory of this having be mentioned some where before but cannot find it. I have been taking a close look at ship designs and trade and the like.
Crewing levels seem a bit, erm, over staffed for the small smaller ships. 10 or so crew for a 100Dton scout or 200Dton trader. I am presuming that for your smaller player type ships and anything on the frontiers you need those positions filled rather than the chairs filled.
So a Pilot who can navigate covers two roles, a navigator who can do sensors and comms can cover those roles and you can shrink the bridge crew down to half the number.
An odd question and I suspect it comes from the first rules but why is it so much more expensive to haul cargo than passengers.
The entry for transporting says in the column labelled Cost per Light Year Lv100 for middle passengers, Lv500 for high passengers and for cargo it says 750/Dton.
For a standard stateroom doing a maximum run that’s One high passenger Lv3850, two shared middle passengers at Lv770 each or Lv1540 for a double occupied stateroom. So since a cabin is 4Dtons that is a high passenger bringing in almost Lv1000 per Dton, middle passengers bringing in les than Lv400 per Dton but cargo for the same run brining in 5775 per Dton.
If the cargo cost is per trip regardless of distance then high passage and cargo are just about the same when you factor in the cost of life support and stewards etc. If that is per Ly then cargo is grossly expensive compared to people which is very odd considering the Life support costs and size requirements of carrying people.
The same odd costs can be seen on the Interface costs chart. Traveller is based around Dtons not mass tons. It doesn’t matter that four dtons of cargo is hundreds of times heavier than a single high passenger. They both take up the same volume on a ship.
So we have an odd situation where it seems to be vastly cheaper to ship people than cargo despite the fact that they take up the same space in a volume based design system.
Captain Jonah said:
Keep in mind that the staffing levels for bridge crew are for multiple shifts (page 205). I imagine it's "regulation" to have the extra crew. The Thorez class courier has a full crew of 12 bridge crew, but there are only 5 bridge stations on the deck plan. I'd say it's not inconceivable that you could run the ship with only 2 crew (pilot / navigator and sensors / comms / engineer), although if things get busy (such as landing or docking) I'd say there should be a negative DM for multitasking. I'm sure it would be breaking some regulation if there's something analogous to the FAA at the local starport.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Strithe said:
Which is sort of my point. A non comercial ship (so a traveller ship or one that stays in the frontier to avoid all those annoying rules) needs a main shift bridge crew of 7, two other bridge shifts of 2 each, three engineers for the power plant (page 206), a Steward for up to 10 passengers (though it doesn't say you need a steward so one can cover the crew and a few passengers). The Thorez doesn't have turrets but would need another one or two gunners as well if it were armed. So that is a 200Dton ship, roughly a Far trader but needing 15+ crew.
A 100Dton scout would have the same crew requirements, a 1000Dton ship would have the same crew requirements. Heck the Anjou 2000Dton cargo hauler has a crew of 21 of which 4 are cargo handlers so the ships crew is 17.
I see the situation where Core world ships have these huge crews but as soon as you enter the “Arms” and the frontiers it’s a case of sod the rules and have just as many crew as you need to handle to systems.
Captain Jonah said:
I forgot about the engineering crew required for the MHD turbine (oops). I'd look at it like this: use the non-commercial numbers for a safe minimum crew. In the Throez's case that's a bridge crew of 7, plus 2 engineers. Barring comments from Colin, I'd say then divide the non-commercial crew requirements by two, rounding down to figure the bare minimum to operate the ship (say the "night shift" while the rest of the crew sleeps). That comes out to 1 pilot & navigator on the bridge (most likely splitting the other duties) and 1 engineer. Regs aside you'd probably want all 6 stations crewed when you're landing etc., just to avoid task overload. Plus if you're away for weeks
And actually, I thought that the crew requirements in standard Traveller were on the low side. I think that it's more for RPG balance than realism. An 100 ton scout/courier, intended for interstellar travel & capable of operating for 3 and half months, has the same minimum crew as a 95 ton shuttle that's in-system only & has 1/14 the operating time. The US Space Shuttle program carried 5-7 crew on most missions.
AndrewW said:
On Earth, I think it would actually be Orbital Quarantine Control. There's a reference in the old Challenge magazine articles about the original edition about traffic control being merged with Orbital Quarantine Control on Earth.
In other systems with heavy traffic (Beta Canum, or the big industrial outpost at Bessieres), they'd need to have a system in place to deal with it. I'd imagine the the really-heavily trafficked ones might levy fines if you're understaffed or miss a radio call: at a minimum I'd think you'd want to have a dedicated person for Pilot, Sensors, and Communications where there's heavy traffic.
As far as names go it'd probably some variation of {system, colony or planet} traffic control. The most tightly regulated areas would be orbital space around the planet or outpost and some standardized pathways leading to & from it.
Come to think of it, 2300ad could really use a Starship Operations Manual type supplement....
Colin
Mongoose
Listed crew requirements are regulation crew. In theory, one sufficiently skilled person could cover all positions on a Thorez, but it would likely be a bad idea. Commercial ships are supposed to run with a full watch at all times, and bridge crew requirements are largely irrelevant of ship sizes.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Colin said:
I think phrases such as “should”, “supposed to” and “regulation” will be out the airlock as soon as you leave the core. The arms and the frontier, where I expect to find players running ships, will be very much as many or as few as we absolutely need which will probably end up being about 4 or 5.
The pilot obviously, an engineer, someone to crew comms and sensors, a navigator if the pilot cannot do that and an engineer in the engine room. This would be at high risk times such as landing or taking off. Most of the flight its going to be someone watch standing who has been trained to recognise problems and shout for the rest of the bridge crew.
I can also see regulations going out the window on the smaller military ships. Those armed 100Dton scouts with a crew requirement of 16 simply don’t have the space for 32Dtons of crew space.
Anyway as you are here Colin what about the other part of my question? Cargo?
As I read the rules cargo is Lv750 per LY per Dton making it vastly more expensive to haul than people are but there seems to be no reason why.
A ship pays life support costs and needs stewards for passengers. Each high passenger takes 4.1Dtons of space, needs a fraction of a Steward and costs Lv2000 a month in life support in return for Lv500 per light year two or three trips a month.
Cargo requires no life support, probably requires a cargo handler fro every 400Dtons or so and requires no life support costs.
An example. A player controlled Thorez picks up 50Dtons of cargo, 2 high passengers and 6 middle passengers on a colony world for transport to a world 7 LY away. The ship will pick up and deliver to down ports as neither world has orbital interfaces.
It’s a 7LY run so the charge for the passengers is Lv3500 each for the two high passengers, Lv700 each for the middle passengers and Lv5250 per Dton for the cargo.
On top of this the book says To Orbit is Lv5000 per passenger and Lv20,000 per Dton for cargo plus Lv500 and Lv2,000 for the From Orbit at the other end since the Thorez is acting as a space plane as well.
So each Dton of cargo will cost the shipper Lv27,250, the whole 50Dton load will cost Lv1,362,500. The passengers who occupy 5 staterooms between them (20Dtons) will cost Lv55,200. Kick out those extra staterooms and haul more cargo
Where does this money go? The overheads for the ship are tiny in comparison to the cargo income alone. Fuel Lv50,000 a run. Crew costs for a player type crew with a few NPCs Lv50,000 a month, life support Lv32,000 a month. The mortgage is tiny since the Thorez costs MLv14, that’s Lv60,000 a month.
The entire operating costs for the ship for a month run to about a quarter million. They clear 1.4 million in this one run and that wasn’t even full. Shorter runs bring in less but you can make three of them or maybe four of them in a month. If it can make even a single run full or two runs half full in a month the Thorez can clear its own mortgage and be a free ship in less than a year and a half.
I may well have missed something since I haven’t yet run the rules for a game and am just playing with ships and shipping to see how it works.
But passengers are literally a waste of space on a ship and cargo is a ridiculously good money maker where shipping costs are not supported by overheads to the hauler.
It gets worse as you scale up. Something like the Anjou is within player range with 6 or 8 NPCs. Buy the thing on a mortgage and you are looking at total monthly costs of Mortgage Lv500,000, wages Lv100,000, Life support 100,000 and maintenance 10,000. Lv710,000 a month. The ship can comfortably make two runs a month. To break even just shipping from interface point to interface point without any to orbit or from orbit costs it must carry 135Dtons a month. If over the entire month it carries its full load of 1,712Dtons split between its runs it will make a mere 8.2 million profit paying for the ships mortgage in little more than a year. If it manages to make both runs at half or better full it can easily make 10 to 12 million clear.
Am I missing some massive costs here somewhere, is there a tax on this income. Because if not then I would start a group of players, form a crew, use shares to get an Anjou, run it for a year to buy it and then another two months to clear enough money for a Thorez or another 6 months and buy an old warship then go adventuring on the frontier in style and this doesn’t begin to cover what a decent Broker skill can do when you have a working fund of 8+ million a month.
I know 2300 is traditionaly about ground adventures but having ported it into Traveller with the expectation that Traveller games involve ships players are going to be looking at running ships. Characters get ship shares to buy those old civilian frieghters and liners and will most likey be doing just that.
Even for Traveller the shipping charges and overheads are a little off balance. :wink:
Unless the French and German bureaucracies change considerablyCaptain Jonah said:
until 2300, their colonial administrations will ensure that all regula-
tions are adhered to, with very high fines for anyone who believes
that regulations can be ignored just because the capital is far away
and that colonial bureaucrats are lazy or powerless ... :wink:
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
rust said:
Cough Bribe Cough
IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
rust said:
Before I post anything about racial stereotypes about the British, French and German races, I'm posting this question to ask: do I either 1) go ahead and post anyway or 2) be discrete and not mention anything?
Sorry if I'm being a little slow on the uptake but could you expand on that?
Ship's maintenance cost: multiplied by how many months it takes to get to your destination and back if there's no cargo or passengers to pick up
Crew Salaries: Direct debit I assume but given you're heading outsystem and communication doesn't cope for this I assume its paid into a suitable account for them perhaps a smaller amount so the majority if direct debited at their preferred bank.
Rental Charges: Cost for employing labourers to unload and load cargo if you don't want to cope with the bill of crewmembers fulfilling these roles.
Landing/Refuelling Costs: Whereever you dock you will be charged, refuelling is something you can't avoid and then there's the auxiliary costs after all in 2300ad you need somewhere to shunt your stutter drives and I can see that being preyed upon by an avaricious local authority.
Mortgage Cost: Direct debited from the owner's account so any cargo or passenger payments would have to go through their account so they don't default on this during their trip to and from their destination.
Have I missed anything?
Sorry but your post got me thinking (never a good sign in my case!) and this is my way of trying to understand (and clearly I don't) in the Traveller game I ran last year I decided that the lab ship one of the player character's owned was modified so it could refine fuel to help with the repayments which would cover alot of the costs as I could discern.
With Traveller 2300 I doubt this will be anything as easy (and that wasn't) and figure this was something I really need to understand.
Ship's maintenance cost: multiplied by how many months it takes to get to your destination and back if there's no cargo or passengers to pick up
Crew Salaries: Direct debit I assume but given you're heading outsystem and communication doesn't cope for this I assume its paid into a suitable account for them perhaps a smaller amount so the majority if direct debited at their preferred bank.
Rental Charges: Cost for employing labourers to unload and load cargo if you don't want to cope with the bill of crewmembers fulfilling these roles.
Landing/Refuelling Costs: Whereever you dock you will be charged, refuelling is something you can't avoid and then there's the auxiliary costs after all in 2300ad you need somewhere to shunt your stutter drives and I can see that being preyed upon by an avaricious local authority.
Mortgage Cost: Direct debited from the owner's account so any cargo or passenger payments would have to go through their account so they don't default on this during their trip to and from their destination.
Have I missed anything?
Sorry but your post got me thinking (never a good sign in my case!) and this is my way of trying to understand (and clearly I don't) in the Traveller game I ran last year I decided that the lab ship one of the player character's owned was modified so it could refine fuel to help with the repayments which would cover alot of the costs as I could discern.
With Traveller 2300 I doubt this will be anything as easy (and that wasn't) and figure this was something I really need to understand.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
IanBruntlett said:
As long as it is humorous and not insulting or racist.
As far as Bribes go. Clearly Sir you have no understanding of the darker side of life where street wise is the skill to have.
Those bureaucrats and administrators don't see any of that fine, it goes to the colony or to the home nation. A local colony administrator is going to be on Lv5,000 a month or less since he is hardly going to be pulling in a higher wage that a high skill pilot. So swing past that colony once a month, ensure prompt and speedy service and a minimum of paperwork and delay with an “Administrative Surcharge” of say two thousand for the supervisor who deals with your ship and a thousand each for his people. Ten or fifteen thousand tops which is nothing much compared to the income level of the commercial cargo haulers or larger passenger ships.
A dozen or more ships “Doing Business” the same way at that colony and those bureaucrats and administrators are tucking away more than their salary each month in “Extras”. You would quickly reach the point where the Admin teams would have their own ships and visiting ships would comm for their good friends on the staff.
A very popular deal and with kick backs going up the line to the managers lots of blind eyes would be turned. The colony itself even benefits because ships are more willing to go to worlds where they are treated well.
Or you could have a by the book data pusher who everyone including his own work mates hates.
The sort of jobs worth who upsets everyone, levies fines for the slightest infraction and is generally a huge pain. So less ships are willing to go there or they start charging more to run loads there, the colony sees a drop in traffic or starts having to pay more for its goods since some bureaucrat is hitting every ship that visits with a few hundred thousand Lv in fines which are promptly passed onto the colony in higher charges.
Less ships visiting, no supplementary payments being made because the jobs worth by the book type may catch you and hit the visiting ship with a huge fine for offering bribes and his own collages with the sack for taking bribes so all the other administrators are losing money since they are stuck with just the basic salary.
Unless the entire colony staff is that uptight any lone stickler for the rules is going to get promoted back to the core worlds or to a desk job in an office somewhere well out of the way.
Besides which it depends on the nationality of the colony and visitor. Some nations are more than a little hostile to other nations in 2300 and this could very easily extend to the ships and crews.
British/US/Canadian/Australian ships visiting each others colonies would probably get on well with a minimum of fuss and a handshake over the palm full of cash vouchers.
On the other hand French or German ships visiting worlds strongly aligned with the other home nation are in for a much rougher visit. :shock:
IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
Captain Jonah said:
OK.
British - a nation of shopkeepers (maybe that stereotype is no longer true) that tackle challenges in a Heath Robinson manner (in particular see the American meaning at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_Robinson
French. Laid back. Cultured. Believe that government/EU regulations apply to everyone except themselves.
German. Rules oriented. Writers of interesting C++ books - http://www.josuttis.com/libbook/
