PsiTraveller said:
Does anyone here allow negative quirks to be repaired and removed from a ship? Older ships can gain several quirks that make the ship dangerous to run and expensive to maintain.
I do.
Players have this romantic vision of spaceships, so it always helps to reframe the conversation in terms that are easier to understand. That ship with a load of quirks is like some 1995 Ford Crown Victoria that has been ridden into the ground. Yeah, players can pay to replace the engine because some of the cylinders have hairline cracks, overhaul the suspension to get rid of the metal fatigue, oh and passenger door doesn't open all the way because the body is a bit warped over there. Can all these "quirks" can be repaired? Of course. Is the mechanic who's looking at the car just going to look at you and ask, "Why don't you just buy a new or used car in better condition?" Yes.
The cost of actually removing the quirks of a ship should exceed the value of the ship in the condition the players got it. Yes, exceptions can be made, but they'd have to be reasonable exceptions (for instance, if your players land on an airless moon and find some old Scout Ship that's been sitting there for 50 years because the pilot was killed in a rockfall not too many kilometers from the ship, yes, maybe the quirks on that could be repaired for cheaper than the value of the ship - the ship was in great condition when it landed, its only unflyable because of the neglect of sitting on an airless moon for 50 years so if you replace some systems the rest isn't worn at all).
The reality away from the romance of this stuff is that people drive around quirky old vehicles because they can't afford to replace it and the bother of the quirks doesn't outweigh the use the vehicle still has. It's cheap for a reason - the former owners likely parted with it because it wasn't worth the cost of repairing the problems. Yes, poorer ship owners can be stuck in the "beater trap" where they're stuck being nickeled-and-dimed to death by continually making small maintenance repairs on a beater car and it's hard for them to save up enough to buy a better vehicle because of the constant maintenance payments.
People who have money to restore old vehicles to "like new" condition exist - but that's because they're quite willing to pay far more than the vehicle's actual worth it because to them the sentimental / historical value is worth the price. For example, you'll see videos of people salvaging a StuGIII some Russian road workers found in a creek (or some old car they find out in the woods behind some Iowa farmer's barn for that matter). They take it to a shop and spend years restoring it. Think about this. That StuGIII's worth when it was pulled out of a swamp or something was likely its weight in scrap metal. All the restorations made to it are many times the value of that hunk of metal. Similarly, there's many cars you'll see driving around the road that look pretty rough - if you talk to the owners, it's likely they're driving it because they either want a cheap car to drive around with that's such a beater nobody's even going to bother stealing it and if it gets some problem that'd cost $1500 to fix it, they're just going to junk it and walk away from it. Or they're simply lacking the money to buy a new car and are stuck in that "beater trap." None of them dream of taking their older model Toyota Corolla, Ford Focus, or whatever and "fixing it up like new" (or maybe they do but soon enough some adult in their life talks them out of it).
That said, the players could do a lot of roleplaying, perhaps currying favors with shipyard operators, specialist work crews/engineers, and then of course hunting down expensive components to get them at a real low price (possibly by ripping them out of another ship, getting a great price as a favor from someone they did something else for, etc.). But ultimately, I think unless the players have some sort of circumstance (eg; they're wanted criminals, have really poor social standing, have an extreme sentimental attachment to the ship, etc.) they should be aware that in exchange for getting the repairs for cheap, they likely spent so much time working out deals for the repairs, they probably could have made a lot more money just working during that period and put the down payment for a new, working ship or a used ship with fewer quirks.
Reynard said:
I don't think people get the concept of a cheap but old vehicle. Han and Chewy spent decades repairing and modifying the Falcon and STILL had to deal with its foibles. Role playing. You get what you pay for.
I always had the impression that the Falcon was unreliable not just because it was old but because Han (and Lando) spent a lot of time making modifications in the hopes of increasing the performance of the Falcon. I also had the impression that Han and Chewy weren't really all that skilled at making these modifications - like a handyman doing home improvements vs. hiring an actual contractor (plumber, electrician, carpenter) with a good reputation. Their own modifications to the ship in the name of "performance" are increasing their maintenance burden as they the "performance" systems were putting an undue strain on other systems that weren't designed for that kind of load (and were below spec because of age to start with). Because Han and Chewy were always short on money, they were always just patching things up barely enough to make it work and dreaming of the 'big haul' that'd let them pay off their debts and maybe buy a better ship / pay for that big overhaul that'd get rid of so many problems.
