But We Don't Have Months

[Bense]

Here's an interesting puzzle.
Starship payments are made on a monthly basis. The mortgages are set up for 480 payments over the next 40 years. All fine and good, except...
...that the Imperial calendar doesn't have months. It has 52 seven-day weeks, with day 001 (Holliday) of each year not being counted as part of any week.

So when are the payments due?
If they're due every 30 days then you'll actually be finished with the mortgage before 40 years are up (by 200 days) becuase there aren't an even number of 30-day periods in a 365-day year.
If they're due every four weeks then you'll be done even earlier (by 3 years) because you'll be making 13 payments per year instead of 12.

Has anyone else puzzled over this before?

 

[far-trader]

Has anyone else puzzled over this before?

Yep

I've figured it's a little bit of a grace period, so the bank won't send the Skip-Jacks after you if you're a little late.

And if you make all your payments on time (every 4 weeks) then you have that free "month" (28 days*) at the end of the year to help offset the 2 weeks of lost revenue while your ship is laid up for annual maintenance.

So I ignore the "months" issue, and make it a requirement of 12 payments annually, preferred every 4 weeks (28 days), but allowed a 4 week (28 days) total of late grace through the year.

It also helps if you happen to go off the beaten path and can't find a branch to make your payment at. In MTU only Class D and better ports are set up to process payments and encode your black-box as paid.

* plus Holiday of course, during which no business is conducted, IMTU

 

[Galadrion]

I use 28-day "months", thirteen of them to the year, on a 520-month (forty-year) schedule. But then, I also use a fixed-rate mortgage calculation to set the monthly payment, with a negotiated interest rate. Tends to make for higher payments, but then, I've always had problems with the "standard" rates. Surely any financial institution out there would try for better than a long-term, low-interest, high-risk investment...

It also tends to make for tramp freighter crews who are usually under the gun to come up with a good score. A useful mechanism for... encouraging players to go for a deal which is triggering their survival instincts... :twisted:

 

[GamerDude]

Very nice analysis. This is one of those little hold over math conundrums from CT, something wasn't completely thought out and the paradigm of how things were at the time RL took over. What do I mean? "oh well loans are monthly payments the Imperial year is 365 days like it is on Earth... yeah 12 monthly payments!"

While I would say "whatever works in YTU" personally (not that it's been brought up) I'd either A: Just say every four weeks/28 days OR B: If the players happen to be savvy let them work with the lender to get a deal using the extra 28 days to their favor as has been described here (little slop but the year's worth better be paid off as of day 365 or big penalties).

I think that would make for some fun role playing. Then again I'm the GM who took over another GM's disaster of a GURPS 3rd Traveller game, got all the numbers squared away, and introduced a new player/npc who spent the entire session negotiating with the ship owner on a contract to oversee getting her the deals and cargo with guarantee she'd make X amount over her monthly operating costs (if not more).

The entire group was doing like 800 times more math than they ever thought of doing under the old GM, and it wasn't a "I'm gonna mess with these bozo's" kind of thing. :?

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

12 month of 4 weeks of 7 days for a 360 day year and a 5 days "Man am I drunk" period at years end. Basically the real world year where little gets done in the last week.

Since credit payments are due "first of month" IMU there is not much "early out" for the credit

Yeah, we do the same, helps simplify the book keeping, and "Imperial Holiday Week" can throw up some alternative adventures

Egil

 

[smiths121]

Whatever works in YTU is the correct answer - as this has been around since the original CT version.

12 month of 4 weeks of 7 days for a 360 day year and a 5 days "Man am I drunk" period at years end. Basically the real world year where little gets done in the last week.

Since credit payments are due "first of month" IMU there is not much "early out" for the credit

Just curious how do you get to 360 days? (12x4x7 is 336 on my calculator - I am missing something).

Couple of options in http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=41762. There is maintenance and life support tied to the monthly cycle in MGT as well. Neither of these were tied to the month originally, so the problem has got worst so to say in MGT.

CT Supplement 13 says months are about 28 days, but does not say how many (surely 12 months would give "about 30 days").

When I was a lad I used to get paid weekly and pay rent monthly, I survived just (has some skint months though).

I've decided to use months we use today but YMMV.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Whatever works in YTU is the correct answer - as this has been around since the original CT version.

12 month of 4 weeks of 7 days for a 360 day year and a 5 days "Man am I drunk" period at years end. Basically the real world year where little gets done in the last week.

Since credit payments are due "first of month" IMU there is not much "early out" for the credit

Just curious how do you get to 360 days? (12x4x7 is 336 on my calculator - I am missing something).

Couple of options in http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=41762. There is maintenance and life support tied to the monthly cycle in MGT as well. Neither of these were tied to the month originally, so the problem has got worst so to say in MGT.

CT Supplement 13 says months are about 28 days, but does not say how many (surely 12 months would give "about 30 days").

When I was a lad I used to get paid weekly and pay rent monthly, I survived just (has some skint months though).

I've decided to use months we use today but YMMV.

Whoops, didn't read Somebody's post properly. We use 12x 30 day months, don't get too bothered about weeks, with a 5 dayh "Imperial Holiday Week".

Egil

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Yeah, what we do, including the use of numbers, for "Imperial Standard" dates. Never got round to thinking of names for the months, sort of assumed that would be local usage (where days, weeks and months and years will be very different in different solar systems), which the Imperium would cut through and simplify to numbers

Egil

 

[Galadrion]

As I said, I use a 28-day cycle, with 13 of them to the year - totals 364 days. Give one day for Holiday, and it matches up very well. Usually, I just have the bank set the payments to specific days in the year (if Holiday is numbered as 001, then 029, 057, 085, etc.) and repeat the cycle from year to year. The due dates on payments don't change, the banks are fairly generous in assuming good intent (as long as missing the payment dates doesn't get to be too consistent), and there's a fairly comprehensive banking information exchange and some reasonably robust correspondent banking arrangements. It hangs together pretty well as long as the people involved intend to be honest. If they have no such intentions... well, some groups just love to generate their own plot hooks.

 

[steelbrok]

I always made it payment every 28 day month except for the annual maintenance month, keeps yout to 12 payments a year ans forty years to pay off thst mortgage!

 

[Bense]

I think that the way I will handle it is to make the payments due every 30 days except at the end of the year, when the players actually get 35 days before the next payment is due.
So the dates would be: 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, 180, 210, 240, 270, 300, 330, 360 each year.

On a similar note, has anyone ever checked if the chronologies showing Terran years alongside Imperial dates take into account that the Terran year is actually 365.25 days long, not 365?

 

[far-trader]

On a similar note, has anyone ever checked if the chronologies showing Terran years alongside Imperial dates take into account that the Terran year is actually 365.25 days long, not 365?

If I recall there is a discrepancy in some of the dates, in that some seem to have been calculated at 365, some at 365.25, and some where no amount of math makes sense.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Page 30 of Alien Module 6 - Solomani establishes the following dates:

111 -2537 = 1 FEB 1986 Random ancient date (probably day module was published

001 0 = 19 JAN 4521 Founding Date of the Imperium

001 1111 = 16 APR 5631 "Curren Date" (effective date of module)

Have at it for discrepencies.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Traveller 4 Millieu 0 (taking place in year 0) has Emperor Cleon I creating "The Warrant of Restoration of the Imperium". Article V-Standards: establishes the Imperial Calendar as 365 consecutive days of 24 hours each

 

[Bense]

Page 30 of Alien Module 6 - Solomani establishes the following dates:

111 -2537 = 1 FEB 1986 Random ancient date (probably day module was published

001 0 = 19 JAN 4521 Founding Date of the Imperium

001 1111 = 16 APR 5631 "Curren Date" (effective date of module)

Have at it for discrepencies.

Some simple math shows that 4521 - 2537 is 1984. And that 5631 - 1111 = 4520.
So yes, they did take leap years into consideration.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I think you mean to say:
5631 - 1111 = 4520
4521 - 0 = 4521
1986 - -2537 = 4523