Chracter Creation

[madcyric]

Okay, we started yesterday. The whole evening was spend to create characters - we only spend 3-4 hours per wednesday evening for playing and after using the rules for the first time I think there could have been some more examples and better descriptions. Anyhow - after doing this one time I think next time will be much faster.

At the end of the character creation we had one player with some small starship and the rest of the players with some shares for a rtader ship. So instead of letting them have 2 ships I let them use the small ship to buy shares of the trafding ship - so in the end they had 49% shares in their ship.
Was this played out by the rules?

And even though they now own 49% they still have to pay ~ 90k creds per month for mortgage and maintanence. Is there a realistic way to earn this much (and more to pay for life) each month?

greetz
cy

 

[Shiloh]

"One player with some small starship" probably means a scout with a scoutship. "As written", you can't really trade in the scoutship, because it's just on loan to the character, who, as a Scout, is eligible for recall to service (along with his ship) at any time.

But, for the needs of the game, you can do as you think fit.

If they've *only* got a 50% mortgage on their merchie, they should be able to manage fine.

 

[chrisr]

You can receive a ships boat as a mustering out benefit. One of my players received one and I allowed him to sell it for MCr4. He then put MCr3 of that towards a second hand Far Trader and MCr1 towards running costs.
Why he didn't take the option of 2 ship shares I don't know. Perhaps a million creds spending money is more useful than avoiding paying an extra 6 mill plus interest over 40 years!

The ship the players brought is called the "Astute Enterprise"
Type A2 Far Trader. 20 years old (10% reduction)
1. -1 DM to all repairs.
2. Famous, with a good reputation as a respected trader.

Fitted with 2 double turrets. 2xbeam lasers and sandcaster/ missile launcher.
1 ton of luxuries (a wild west style saloon with a casino)
10 escape pods, 1 per stateroom.

Cargo reduced to 58 tons.
Maintenance Cr. 4707 per month.
Cost. Cr. 50,836,950

 

[madcyric]

Yeah, that`s what happened with my group, too. One rolle a "ships boat" on mustering out - something that suprised me as a game master, too. Didn`t notice before that something like this could happen.

@chrisr: So you allowed your players to buy weapons and other bonus equipment for their ship, too?
What about the first fright? Was this paid with available creds or did this mount up to the mortgage of the ship?

Right now my players are totally scared because of what they have to pay each month. But seeing you calculations... they should be quite happy...?!

 

[Myrm]

@chrisr: So you allowed your players to buy weapons and other bonus equipment for their ship, too?
What about the first fright? Was this paid with available creds or did this mount up to the mortgage of the ship?

I'd let them customise the ship and bang it on the mortgage, but the players would have to choose to do that either 1) after ship shares are removed from the mortgage so they don't count towards extras or 2) decide that the level of customisation would count as the ship not being a standard vessel of type N and they'd have to use their alternate value - eg the 5 shares in Free Trader or 2 shares in anything would have to choose.

Yes that does make those people with N shares in anything be able to customise more easily by choosing option 2), but they have more freely interchangeable value anyway.

 

[opensent]

You can receive a ships boat as a mustering out benefit. One of my players received one and I allowed him to sell it for MCr4. He then put MCr3 of that towards a second hand Far Trader and MCr1 towards running costs.
Why he didn't take the option of 2 ship shares I don't know. Perhaps a million creds spending money is more useful than avoiding paying an extra 6 mill plus interest over 40 years!

Any smart player should always take some working capital for speculative trading. You have to have money to make money...

 

[chrisr]

@chrisr: So you allowed your players to buy weapons and other bonus equipment for their ship, too?
What about the first fright? Was this paid with available creds or did this mount up to the mortgage of the ship?

Right now my players are totally scared because of what they have to pay each month. But seeing you calculations... they should be quite happy...?!

The weapons I included in the ship. As I said, it was second hand.
I made up 4 second hand ships available for them to look over. They picked the "Astute Enterprise". The costs of those add ons, MCr 5.1, are inluded in the price though. It works out around the same price as a brand new ship without the add ons.

The mortgage is just over Cr.195,000 per month.
With maintenance and lifesupport we're upto Cr 220,000+ per month and that doesn't include fuel, berthing or crew costs.

The crew consists of the 2 PC's (pilot/ engineer & steward), an expert astrogation-1 program (jump tape) and 2 gunners.

BTW, I've been selling the astronav tapes as one use only, short timeframe programs for Cr1000 a go. Is this too cheap?

 

[chrisr]

You can receive a ships boat as a mustering out benefit. One of my players received one and I allowed him to sell it for MCr4. He then put MCr3 of that towards a second hand Far Trader and MCr1 towards running costs.
Why he didn't take the option of 2 ship shares I don't know. Perhaps a million creds spending money is more useful than avoiding paying an extra 6 mill plus interest over 40 years!

Any smart player should always take some working capital for speculative trading. You have to have money to make money...

Thinking about it, 2 ship shares on a Far Trader is only worth about MCr 1. anyway, not the MCr 10 I had in my head! You're quite right about the working capital too. It allows more freedom for the players and the campaign too.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

JumpTapes should be 1 use only. They should also have a time window of use since planets have this nasty habit of MOVING when to aren't watching them (and even when you are watching them...).

CR1000 seems reasonable to me. I might adjust it up or down depending on how common the trade is between the two planets. If they are on a trade route, the cost will probably be lower.

 

[Paladin]

The weapons I included in the ship. As I said, it was second hand.
I made up 4 second hand ships available for them to look over. They picked the "Astute Enterprise". The costs of those add ons, MCr 5.1, are inluded in the price though. It works out around the same price as a brand new ship without the add ons.

The mortgage is just over Cr.195,000 per month.
With maintenance and lifesupport we're upto Cr 220,000+ per month and that doesn't include fuel, berthing or crew costs.

The mortgage math doesn't sound right. what was the base price?
220,000 for maintenance/lifesupport before fuel?!? :shock: Is it a MASSIVE passenger liner? Might want to double check the math again.

 

[GothiousRex]

Traveller has the monthly mortgage being 1/240th of the remaining amount owing

so a Free Trader with 10 ship shares would leave about 32MCr owing

32,000,000/240 = 133,333 Cr/month mortgage

plus maintenance
plus life support

that is pretty steep

but...

you should be able to pull off two shipments a month
freight shipped J1 is 1KCr/ton
so if you're full of cargo thats 88KCr per trip
or 176KCr in a month

and you may be able to make some money on passengers too

so it is possible just difficult

 

[chrisr]

The weapons I included in the ship. As I said, it was second hand.
I made up 4 second hand ships available for them to look over. They picked the "Astute Enterprise". The costs of those add ons, MCr 5.1, are inluded in the price though. It works out around the same price as a brand new ship without the add ons.

The mortgage is just over Cr.195,000 per month.
With maintenance and lifesupport we're upto Cr 220,000+ per month and that doesn't include fuel, berthing or crew costs.

The mortgage math doesn't sound right.
220,000 for maintenance/lifesupport before fuel?!? :shock: Is it a MASSIVE passenger liner? Might want to double check the math again.

That Cr 220,000+ includes the mortgage.

Mortgage: Cr 197,202 per month.
Maintenance: Cr 4707 per month.
Life Support: Cr 20,600 per month. There's your KCr 220+

Fuel(unrefined) (84 tons giving 2xJ-2 plus 2 weeks operation): Cr 8400 per month.
2 hired crew (gunners): Cr 4000.
2 nav tapes: Cr 2000.

Total: Cr 236,909 per month.

My apologies for any confusion caused.

 

[Paladin]

Ah. that makes more sense. Thanks.