Core rule book : Ship Shares p36

[GypsyComet]

And while I agree that having a mortgage on a ship is part of the basic concept of play (for OTU, anyway), I wouldn't subject my players to a monthly payment of over 150,000 Credits, especially as I haven't seen anything in the RAW that would allow them to actually make that kind of money on a consistent monthly basis. I do not want to play Traveller: The Accounting, and I'm not going to run that for my players, nor do I want to play or run 'Hide from the creditors again'.

I think a good compromise is 2.5% to 5% per share. The odds of getting 20 shares are not all that good, and in most cases, if the players want a newer ship, they'll still have some debts to goad adventuring.

Consider that 5 awards was enough under CT and MT to own the (now older) ship outright, but that the monthly due was based on the original purchase price, not the remaining balance.

By comparison, Ship Shares are a) coming from all group members potentially, and b) reducing the per-month cost instead of the duration of the loan.

Subsidy mortgages and inactive Scout loaners are ways to get PCs into a ship that may not be optimized for mercantile profits. So are old and used hulls, though I am not enamored of the MGT approach to this, since I *like* the idea of "that which should not be flying" being used as Poker stakes.

In our MGT launch game, I was able to scrape up 12 Free Trader shares with a five term merchant, so it is doable.

 

[TrippyHippy]

As I recall, in all of those, I saw one character survive more than four terms, either due to failed survival rolls or advancement rolls that dropped them out (more the former, than the latter, of course). One. 3%. Close enough to 'nearly impossible' for my books, thanks.

This 'failed Survival roll' argument is totally bogus. If you fail a survival roll, you miss out on benefits for that term only. You can still muster out with benefits from the other accumulated terms and promotions from that career. You can still choose to carry on with another career after. Even if you fail the Qualifications roll you can still get drafted or become a Drifter. I've rarely encountered any player forced to quit generating a character after four terms only.

Given a standard character will have about six terms of experience on average (without Referee stipulated limits), it's also reasonable to state that a typical character will accumulate about one benefit per term on average. Some characters will have Mishaps, and forfeit benefits rolls, but this is averaged out comfortably by the extra benefit rolls you can accumulate through advancement too. That means they will typically have about six benefits to roll come mustering out. They can spend up to three rolls on cash benefits (which in my experience they usually take), giving them three rolls on average, on the Other Benefits table.

Now, the Other Benefits table vary for differing careers. If you choose Marine or Army characters, you won't get any opportunity for ship shares. For other characters, like the Navy, Citizens, Nobles, Rogues, Scholars and Scouts, you get multiple entrees. The other Careers get at least one entree, out of a table range of 1-6 (or 7 with a +1 benefit). Given the propensity for characters to mix careers, I'd say that every character has a decent chance of rolling ship shares as benefits. Usually, these benefits are for 2 or sometimes even 5 ship shares at once in a single entree. One (or even more) chance out of six, for any benefit roll to have ship shares, is a pretty decent chance to get some.

That means, for a crew of five PCs, with an average of fifteen Benefit rolls between them, the chances of getting as low as five shares between them is statistically unusual. I'd say, for a crew this size, accumulating ten ship shares between them is about average. This is backed up by my experience and is hardly 'impossible' at all.

Of course, if the crew have all specialised in taking army or marine characters exclusively, then this is going to impinge upon their chances somewhat. But conversely, if they choose to take Navy, Noble and Scout careers then the reverse is true also.

Either way, having an average chance of getting ten ship shares, valued in 10% increments is likely to disprupt many games. The chances of 2.5% is obviously less, but frankly the rules of the game are what they are.

If you want to change them to what you want then cool, but y'know dismissing the game as 'Traveller: The Accounting' is really just dismissing the process in which character advancement in the game works. The default game is about playing a group under financial pressure to pay off their mortgage at the start of the campaign - with opportunities to increase wealth, month by month, through adventuring.

 

[Stormraven]

Statistically unusual to get fewer than 10 shares, maybe. But it hsa happened, I've seen it. I will grant, one of the groups was primarily Army and Marine. But the others weren't.

The point I was trying to make wasn't that four terms was the end, just that - as I've stated - getting beyond four terms in one career has, in my experience, had about a 3% chance of occurring.

I'm also well aware that you can keep going as long as the GM allows it. I never said you couldn't.

Okay, I suppose I need to split this, because one part of my statement was - and is - based entirely on what I've seen, and I acknowledge that, for whatever reason, what I've seen is likely anomalous statistically. That doesn't make it any less valid - my whole point there, was that anyone whose play experience had been like mine would view 10% as entirely viable, and wouldn't think that it would screw up the game.

The second part, however, is about the economics. And yes, as I pointed out, I know that the default game is about financial pressures. But I submit that there's a vast gulf between financial pressures and a sixteen ton weight hanging over your head that will drop, no matter what you do - all you can do is delay it.

Unless you manage to get a group with massive pensions who are fortunate enough to constantly score high-value cargo or trips to ancient sites, a mortgage of (to be charitable) 177,000 credits per month isn't a goad, it's a weight that will fall on them sooner or later.

I said - and I stand behind that statement - that I have yet to see any way a party could consistently make enough money to keep an average ship mortgage paid. I do not doubt that you can pull it off occasionally, I just don't see any way to do it consistently, month after month after month. For that reason, no statistics, no 'can we roll this or that', just for simple economics, I personally, would change the values.

Edit: I crunched some numbers, and for a Free Trader, your monthly costs are around 150,000 Cr for an old ship and 170,000 Cr for a new ship. That includes maintenance and fuel.

With a few assumptions as to how many passengers (7, leaving room for the crew to double up), you need to fill all cabins and all low berths twice each month, and make at least 250 Cr per ton of cargo, with a full cargo hold, twice each month, to break even.

Is this possible? Sure. It's even possible to pay several months' worth of mortgage and maintenance off one good run, if you can manage 10,000 Cr / ton profit. Is it likely? That's a tough question. A lot depends on the GM, but I'd have to say it's not. The general trade tables would make it difficult to fill your cargo bay every single trip, and averaging even 250 Cr profit per ton isn't going to be easy.

So, again, we're down to Traveller: The accounting, as players have to have their characters hustle to find cargo and passengers, or find a patron who's willing to cover 150-170 kCr every month while they're working for him. In other words, the focus becomes the mortgage, and not the adventure - to me, anyway. (By the way, I assumed every member of the 5 person crew had 7 terms, and a total of 25 shares towards a Free Trader for those costs.)

On the other hand, given the economics of the Traveller universe, I can see where even a 2.5% share value would make things wonky. By that valuation, you could carry only passengers and - if you could stay full - you'd make on the order of 70 kCr per month profit. What you could make with cargo potentially doesn't bear thinking about.

I don't have any answers. I'm not even sure of the question anymore. I just know that, for me, the game should be more about exploration and the like than ferrying passengers and cargo to pay your mortgage on time.

 

[katadder]

well do as someone else suggested, if you are the ref give your players a ship, or have them find one or something.
example is the B5T in this months S&P where the patron loans them a ship which they can use for other stuff.

 

[TrippyHippy]

The point I was trying to make wasn't that four terms was the end, just that - as I've stated - getting beyond four terms in one career has, in my experience, had about a 3% chance of occurring.

But this point is irrelevant to the question of benefits and ship shares. You can continue getting benefits from other careers.

Edit: [/b] I crunched some numbers, and for a Free Trader, your monthly costs are around 150,000 Cr for an old ship and 170,000 Cr for a new ship. That includes maintenance and fuel.

That's divided amongst 5 characters - so it's 30,000 Cr or 34,000 Cr per month each. A cargo can be worth anything from 10,000 to 1,000,000Cr depending upon what you're shipping, and you can make more than one shipment per month. Check out the Trade chapter for the value of goods.

If you want to reduce the costs further, increase the numbers of stakeholders. As I have pointed out before to people on this forum, Traveller is a perfect game for 'troupe-style' play. That is, you're players can each roll up multiple characters to crew the ship, then select individual characters from the pool for each particular scenario. If your five players each have two, or three characters each, then the overall cost comes right down. The whole pool of characters can be turned into a soap opera chronicle, of sorts,werein they are all ultimately tied as shareholders in the ship as an ongoing series. You can choose differing levels of experience and career types in the characters, on a case by case arrangement, based upon challenge level and type of scenario. You could have different tiers of authority in the starship, to be organised and run like a business. You could also have characters doing different things at the same time as each other.

 

[Woas]

A question for those people who go the route of "giving the players a ship."
If the players ended up getting Ship Shares as benefits while mustering out, but receive a "free" ship anyway, what is the purpose of those ships shares? Do you reimburse them for it?

I understand you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth... so as a player I don't think I'd really complain or outright refuse getting a free multi-million Credit starship. But if I 'wasted' a bunch of benefit rolls that I could have used instead of Cash or could have gotten other goodies... it definitely would be something at the back of my mind.

 

[GypsyComet]

There is "free", and then there is "free".

A recent game resulted in a larger than normal ship, but at the cost of all the Ship Shares we had in addition to a significant amount of "for services rendered".

The game I ran prior to that was a "no ship" game for the first several months. The PCs were working passage, but it wasn't their ship. Then they got stranded, and eventually rebuilt a "shouldn't be flying" old Scout/Seeker. Was there ever a mortgage? No. Did the ship have monetary and maintenance concerns? Oh yes. The shoestring drydock they kept going back to had a "Dead Men Flying" betting pool going...

Just think of a ship as the easiest way for the Ref to influence the PCs, and a possible mortgage becomes just one tool...