Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
You should either bump ACS to 3,000 or drop BCS to a minimum of 2,500 to close the gap.
Adventure-Class Ships
- Thread starter Terry Mixon
- Start date
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
I actually drop BCS to 2,500. I just rounded it for the post.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It comes down to costs, capital and operating.
Tied to the capability to easily maintain the spacecraft.
If it's just meant to move the player party to the next one horse planet, then a two hundred tonne starship is the optimal size.
So for that niche, more than a kilotonne would be too large.
Tied to the capability to easily maintain the spacecraft.
If it's just meant to move the player party to the next one horse planet, then a two hundred tonne starship is the optimal size.
So for that niche, more than a kilotonne would be too large.
Personally I don't have player ships exceeding the tonnage of ship they can muster out with. Beyond 400 DTons you don't need to make the compromises that prevent it becoming a money making machine and making adventure unnecessary.
Running a 100 Dton ship for trade is hard work so it is mostly a vehicle to travel to paid adventure that can subsidise some of the running costs.
Running a 200 DTon trader can be credibly profitable and you can take adventures that interest you and just run trade while recuperating.
Running a 400 Dton ship can make so much money in trade that adventures become an overall cost unless the rewards for adventure are out of vastly proportion to normal wages. That means you are no longer running small side jobs and are starting to conduct campaign changing activity.
Once you can afford a ship over 400 DTons you have "won". Your ship is worth upward of MCr100. Even if you don't own it outright your have still been able to convince someone to loan you that amount of money and your prestige will be commensurate. Your other equipment will be at system governor's resource level. You have the money to afford most equipment (like battledress) and the sort of clout to get permission to buy it at will (or you will just shop elsewhere). Your ship could be generating KCr50-100 per month above operating costs at even freight rates, if you have a broker you could be bringing in double that by investing in speculative cargos*. That is a new set of battledress every month. It becomes harder for larger trade ships to clear the overheads under the player trade rules as the cargos and passengers become too scarce to fill the larger revenue generating capacities required.
If instead you optimise a larger than 400 DTon ship for combat you become peer level with system defence vessels and the smaller naval military vessels or privateers. More than 4 hard points starts to mean your firepower can be significant in system level actions. You also probably wont make the mistake of under armouring your ship and will likely be more effective than your tonnage suggests.
This assumes CRB/HG style ships. We have had discussions elsewhere that the military vessels are not optimised. Traders are also not necessarily targeted at the highest profit point. Things like liners and merc cruisers are out of scope for player groups as they will require large NPC crews (and unless you go droid heavy that is a lot of work for the referee).
It will of course depend on the campaign, but once you are able to sustain yourself above the 400 DTon level the majority of published "adventures" cease being a challenge. Some of the published adventures offer a rags to riches arc where by the end of it half a dozen sessions you command or own a 1000 DTon plus ship. I find it hard to see where a referee can go after that as the next adventure will need to be at the sector influencing level. My feeling is that beyond this point the return on the referee investment diminishes. Either the power or the number of adversaries needs to increase to retain the challenge and that is more work for the referee and rolling 100 skill checks in combat is no more diverting than rolling 20. The sad alternative is to take it away somehow but that just becomes dispiriting for players. Most would prefer a gradual improvement rather than boom and bust.
A small skirmish action between half a dozen characters and an equivalent number of peer level opponents is far more immersive than an assault against dozens of mooks leading to a confrontation with the "end of level boss". It all becomes a bit digital, it is hard to get a marginal victory or defeat, it is also far more work for the referee. It also makes little sense to pay a small group of mercs KCr100's per month (which is what they are giving up by working instead of trading). If you are fighting a similar peer level small group of adversaries again why would they bother risking their life when they could just run trade. That means the pay out needs to be moving in the direction of MCr per month. Those are company to regiment level pay bills.
*If you have KCr1 per month of disposable income there are few cargos you can actually afford to invest in. The return on the investment from those low value cargos once you take off the lost revenue from shipping freight is slight. Speculative trade is a useful bonus, but also a bit of a gamble. Once you can buy cargo that costs KCr10's per ton the profit margin increases significantly even with the same percentage on the base price as you are still only losing 1 DTon of freight revenue.
You can afford to have a more expensive cargo sitting in your hold for a few jumps in order to get a good price. You can also wait and only buy when goods are very cheap as freight alone is clearing your costs. That moves your margins from Cr10s per Dton to KCrs per DTon and makes getting a profit far more likely in general. Once you can guarantee a profit of even 10% on an overall transaction, speculation in KCr10 per DTon cargos becomes a default decision. Once you can afford the occasional cheap DTon of pharmaceuticals it becomes a magic money tree as you can hold that cargo for years waiting for the right market before it becomes a loss maker. At this point your opportunity costs are the profits from other speculation rather than freight and you will be turning over MCr per month.
Running a 100 Dton ship for trade is hard work so it is mostly a vehicle to travel to paid adventure that can subsidise some of the running costs.
Running a 200 DTon trader can be credibly profitable and you can take adventures that interest you and just run trade while recuperating.
Running a 400 Dton ship can make so much money in trade that adventures become an overall cost unless the rewards for adventure are out of vastly proportion to normal wages. That means you are no longer running small side jobs and are starting to conduct campaign changing activity.
Once you can afford a ship over 400 DTons you have "won". Your ship is worth upward of MCr100. Even if you don't own it outright your have still been able to convince someone to loan you that amount of money and your prestige will be commensurate. Your other equipment will be at system governor's resource level. You have the money to afford most equipment (like battledress) and the sort of clout to get permission to buy it at will (or you will just shop elsewhere). Your ship could be generating KCr50-100 per month above operating costs at even freight rates, if you have a broker you could be bringing in double that by investing in speculative cargos*. That is a new set of battledress every month. It becomes harder for larger trade ships to clear the overheads under the player trade rules as the cargos and passengers become too scarce to fill the larger revenue generating capacities required.
If instead you optimise a larger than 400 DTon ship for combat you become peer level with system defence vessels and the smaller naval military vessels or privateers. More than 4 hard points starts to mean your firepower can be significant in system level actions. You also probably wont make the mistake of under armouring your ship and will likely be more effective than your tonnage suggests.
This assumes CRB/HG style ships. We have had discussions elsewhere that the military vessels are not optimised. Traders are also not necessarily targeted at the highest profit point. Things like liners and merc cruisers are out of scope for player groups as they will require large NPC crews (and unless you go droid heavy that is a lot of work for the referee).
It will of course depend on the campaign, but once you are able to sustain yourself above the 400 DTon level the majority of published "adventures" cease being a challenge. Some of the published adventures offer a rags to riches arc where by the end of it half a dozen sessions you command or own a 1000 DTon plus ship. I find it hard to see where a referee can go after that as the next adventure will need to be at the sector influencing level. My feeling is that beyond this point the return on the referee investment diminishes. Either the power or the number of adversaries needs to increase to retain the challenge and that is more work for the referee and rolling 100 skill checks in combat is no more diverting than rolling 20. The sad alternative is to take it away somehow but that just becomes dispiriting for players. Most would prefer a gradual improvement rather than boom and bust.
A small skirmish action between half a dozen characters and an equivalent number of peer level opponents is far more immersive than an assault against dozens of mooks leading to a confrontation with the "end of level boss". It all becomes a bit digital, it is hard to get a marginal victory or defeat, it is also far more work for the referee. It also makes little sense to pay a small group of mercs KCr100's per month (which is what they are giving up by working instead of trading). If you are fighting a similar peer level small group of adversaries again why would they bother risking their life when they could just run trade. That means the pay out needs to be moving in the direction of MCr per month. Those are company to regiment level pay bills.
*If you have KCr1 per month of disposable income there are few cargos you can actually afford to invest in. The return on the investment from those low value cargos once you take off the lost revenue from shipping freight is slight. Speculative trade is a useful bonus, but also a bit of a gamble. Once you can buy cargo that costs KCr10's per ton the profit margin increases significantly even with the same percentage on the base price as you are still only losing 1 DTon of freight revenue.
You can afford to have a more expensive cargo sitting in your hold for a few jumps in order to get a good price. You can also wait and only buy when goods are very cheap as freight alone is clearing your costs. That moves your margins from Cr10s per Dton to KCrs per DTon and makes getting a profit far more likely in general. Once you can guarantee a profit of even 10% on an overall transaction, speculation in KCr10 per DTon cargos becomes a default decision. Once you can afford the occasional cheap DTon of pharmaceuticals it becomes a magic money tree as you can hold that cargo for years waiting for the right market before it becomes a loss maker. At this point your opportunity costs are the profits from other speculation rather than freight and you will be turning over MCr per month.
mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
All of that is true. See my Ships of the Core Rulebook in the link in my description.
If you're playing the trading game you can make good credits even with a 100 ton ship, if the design is right. A Type J with a jump net added is a better trader than a Type A and makes good money even with just freight, assuming you can fill the net. But that's sort of the key, if trade is taking over your game, then you need to find ways to redirect the players or their assets if they aren't adventuring, at least if that's what you want to do. You don't need to take their toys away, but special assessments, taxes and tariffs, bans on goods or traders from certain areas or just officials that need a little help before they'll sign the paperwork allowing the players' ship to leave.
I think the classification of ACS as up to 2400 dTons is fine, that's the level where it's getting hard to just run a Traveller crew and have time or need to adventure.
And if a group wants to become movers and shakers in their area of space and the GM can, and wants to, do it, go for it.
But I also see no problem with limiting ships to 400 tons. That's a good size and you're right, that's the limit of ships available from character creation. But even at 400 tons, a canny scientist that wants to earn some credits is better off selling the lab ship and picking up an A2 or even a Type J with a cargo net and saving a huge amount of monthly cost because even a 25% paid off lab ship is going to pay back the loan and have enough to pay off 25% or more of a smaller trading vessel. But then I hate the CRB lab ship. It's a terrible design. The HG design is at least useful.
I see it as a wiggly gray line - so long as the adventuring and such makes sense, use whatever ship size you want. Although when you are getting up there in ship ownership questions, at some point individual ship ownership starts to default to corporate-owned ships simply due to how capital and big business works.
The CT adventure Leviathan has a nice-sized ship for trade adventures on the fringes, and one could easily up/down size such a ship to fit the needs of the players.
As others have pointed out, if the PC's are wanting to be in the nitty-gritty aspect of everything, that becomes much less likely as the size of the ship increases. Adventurers typically just need a ship sized and capable for the gaming session - some place to hang their hats and store their ill-gotten gains.
The CT adventure Leviathan has a nice-sized ship for trade adventures on the fringes, and one could easily up/down size such a ship to fit the needs of the players.
As others have pointed out, if the PC's are wanting to be in the nitty-gritty aspect of everything, that becomes much less likely as the size of the ship increases. Adventurers typically just need a ship sized and capable for the gaming session - some place to hang their hats and store their ill-gotten gains.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Also, how large do they want their sandbox to be?
If it's just a subsector, jump factor/two is sufficient.
If it's just a subsector, jump factor/two is sufficient.
wintertraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Yes - all that
Your entire message is a system mastery thesis. Well done and thank you!
wintertraveller
Cosmic Mongoose
I agree the jump net feature is amazing and perhaps an over-powered component
It doesn't need to be codified any more exact than the term "tramp freighter". While historically those tended to be ships on the smaller size as large ships were operated as liners, it's a term defined by activity, not size. If your ship isn't operating to a schedule, it's a Tramp.
Wikipedia (Tramp trade):
"Today, the tramp trade includes all types of vessels, from bulk carriers to tankers. Each can be used for a specific market, or ships can be combined, such as oil or bulk carriers, to accommodate many different markets, depending where the ship is located and the supply and demand of the area. Tramp ships often carry their own gear, such as booms, cranes and derricks, in case the ports they use lack suitable equipment for loading or discharging cargo."
Wikipedia (Tramp trade):
"Today, the tramp trade includes all types of vessels, from bulk carriers to tankers. Each can be used for a specific market, or ships can be combined, such as oil or bulk carriers, to accommodate many different markets, depending where the ship is located and the supply and demand of the area. Tramp ships often carry their own gear, such as booms, cranes and derricks, in case the ports they use lack suitable equipment for loading or discharging cargo."
