DarkDawning
Banded Mongoose
PsiTraveller said:
coin operated jump drives. please insert 5000 credits for the next two jumps
(quarter credit tokens only)
How Do You (Logically) Prevent Players from Skipping Payments?
- Thread starter wordboydave
- Start date
coin operated jump drives. please insert 5000 credits for the next two jumps
(quarter credit tokens only)
ShawnDriscoll
Cosmic Mongoose
wordboydave said:
The same way your prevent players from killing NPCs.
TrippyHippy
Emperor Mongoose
If Credits and the monetary system are controlled by the Imperium, then theoretically, it will always be possible to track down anybody skipping on payments. Every time they pay for anything else it can be potentially flagged. It might take a while for skipped payments to be registered and certainly to track down the debtors, given the vast size of the Imperium, but that is what bounty hunters are for, I guess....
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The Empire introduces chain codes - Star Wars: The Bad Batch - Season 1 Episode 2
Have fun with this Clip from Season 1 The Bad Batchhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOIHLWJUXKo
Reynard
Cosmic Mongoose
WARNING - THIS IS SCIENCE FICTION THIS IS ROLE PLAYING IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE LOGICAL IT MAKES JUST ENOUGH SENSE TO BE FUN AND EXCITING
SEE MOST MOVIES AND TV SHOWS INCLUDING ONES YOU ACTUALLY LIKE
YOU ARE NOT REENACTING A DOCUMENTARY
REFEREE IS GOD REPEAT REFEREE IS GOD
END REPORT.
SEE MOST MOVIES AND TV SHOWS INCLUDING ONES YOU ACTUALLY LIKE
YOU ARE NOT REENACTING A DOCUMENTARY
REFEREE IS GOD REPEAT REFEREE IS GOD
END REPORT.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Gods require worshippers, or they are forgotten and cease to exist.
Mind you, any answer given is always "In My Traveller Universe"...
Pilots and/or ship captains have to file a flight plan in order to leave ports that have any level of flight control. On worlds that do not have this, then people can visit such worlds without fear that their flight plans are not going to be recorded and sent elsewhere. On the flip side however, are these Class A and B starports, possibly even C starports that can and do record your flight plan.
So what goes into the flight plan? What forms/papers are required to be filled for such flights? Passenger and crew manifest? Check. Cargo manifest? Check. Destination? Check
So, who gets this information in the end? In My Traveller Universe (IMTU), the Office of Naval Intelligence gets it. The Ministry of Commerce also gets this information. Each ship gets a transponder with a valid transponder code wired into it. Yes, it is something that can be spoofed, but the point is - data anomalies get detected by sophisticated software and bumped up for review by people, who in turn determine whether or not the anomaly gets further investigated. Said information on ships that are in default, get assigned to Skip tracers within a sector or subsector where the ship was last reported in. Said information is also sold to skip tracers or perhaps the organization is given a portion of the "fee" for recovering a skipped ship.
Now for the real bad news:
The Imperium is involved in the regions between worlds. The Banks and other financial institutions are based on WORLDS. The laws pertaining to the skipped ship will depend upon the laws of the financial institution as based upon the contract that was drawn up when the ship was first funded and sold to the owners in question. Some worlds may be very lenient, some worlds may specify that after a ship has been delinquent in payments for more than a year, the Felons (and I largely suspect the value at which they will have committed a felony will have been met) are now wanted individuals regardless of whether they are found with the ship or not.
Can a crew be treated as felons? Probably not. Can the captain be held accountable for commanding a ship that is in arrears? I'd suggest the answer is yes. The moment a ship is declared to be in arrears, the captain's papers are placed on the "suspended list" for a year, and revoked after that time is up. Given the nature of slow communications - I would venture to guess that only extenuating circumstances (requiring a review board to rule on it) can revise a revoked license. If the captain can be determined to have aided and abetted known felons in committing a crime (and failure to turn yourself in will be a crime) - then the Captain also becomes a Felon...
In short? Just sic the law on the skipping ships and eventually, they will be caught. Refueling is done by companies who follow the world's laws. It would make only TOO much sense for ships that have liens against the, show they have a clean, up to date payment profile or their ship can't be serviced. Same with the maintenance schedule. Same with the replacement parts shipment and ordering process.
Yes, you can engage in wilderness refueling either with a gas giant, or on worlds that permit it, from oceans. IMTU - Worlds with a Hydrographic value of 4 or less totally BAN wilderness refueling from the surface of their world. Other worlds? Remember, the law rating on those worlds are there for a reason. It is the odds that a given party of Traveller characters will be hassled by law enforcement.
As GM, if I rolled that the Law Enforcement is after the player characters, I'd set the scene with "Hi, we'd like to request a full examination of your logs for the last 12 Imperial Months. No, we have no reason to suspect anything. What? You have something to hide? Well, we have 30 ships a year that pull in here, of which 26 are well known to us due to their trade routes and habits. Four of you fit the profile for multiple skipped payment ships. We're just looking more closely at your papers is all. Are you actually guilty of non-payment of your loans? Tsk tsk tsk, now we REALLY want to look more closely at your papers in light of your not very convincing denial."
Rule #1 when heightening tension for your players - NEVER directly accuse of them of a crime unless it is blatently obvious they're guilty of it.
Rule #2 - let them get away with it ONCE so as to scare the heck out of them. If they run, the chase is on. If they don't, heighten the suspense by showing the hunt is on even if they're not directly the target of the Hunt.
Rule #3 - always wait for the weakest link in the crew to mess up.
Rule #4 - always make the first initial attempt to capture them be VERY weak. This way, if they're caught, the story progresses reasonably from that point. If they escape however, add further charges of resisting arrest, and if they engage in destruction of propery, well, that's on them.
Rule #5 - always give them enough rope to hang themselves.
Now, after you've caught them and are carting them off to prison or what have you - surprise them with an unexpected rescue. Are their rescuers pirates? Are your rescuers NOI operatives trying to infiltrate the Pirates? Are you being used as a Trojan Horse so that every contact with the Underworld you make, the Navy is able to gather that intelligence for later "clean up" further down the road? The adventure is only beginning...
Pilots and/or ship captains have to file a flight plan in order to leave ports that have any level of flight control. On worlds that do not have this, then people can visit such worlds without fear that their flight plans are not going to be recorded and sent elsewhere. On the flip side however, are these Class A and B starports, possibly even C starports that can and do record your flight plan.
So what goes into the flight plan? What forms/papers are required to be filled for such flights? Passenger and crew manifest? Check. Cargo manifest? Check. Destination? Check
So, who gets this information in the end? In My Traveller Universe (IMTU), the Office of Naval Intelligence gets it. The Ministry of Commerce also gets this information. Each ship gets a transponder with a valid transponder code wired into it. Yes, it is something that can be spoofed, but the point is - data anomalies get detected by sophisticated software and bumped up for review by people, who in turn determine whether or not the anomaly gets further investigated. Said information on ships that are in default, get assigned to Skip tracers within a sector or subsector where the ship was last reported in. Said information is also sold to skip tracers or perhaps the organization is given a portion of the "fee" for recovering a skipped ship.
Now for the real bad news:
The Imperium is involved in the regions between worlds. The Banks and other financial institutions are based on WORLDS. The laws pertaining to the skipped ship will depend upon the laws of the financial institution as based upon the contract that was drawn up when the ship was first funded and sold to the owners in question. Some worlds may be very lenient, some worlds may specify that after a ship has been delinquent in payments for more than a year, the Felons (and I largely suspect the value at which they will have committed a felony will have been met) are now wanted individuals regardless of whether they are found with the ship or not.
Can a crew be treated as felons? Probably not. Can the captain be held accountable for commanding a ship that is in arrears? I'd suggest the answer is yes. The moment a ship is declared to be in arrears, the captain's papers are placed on the "suspended list" for a year, and revoked after that time is up. Given the nature of slow communications - I would venture to guess that only extenuating circumstances (requiring a review board to rule on it) can revise a revoked license. If the captain can be determined to have aided and abetted known felons in committing a crime (and failure to turn yourself in will be a crime) - then the Captain also becomes a Felon...
In short? Just sic the law on the skipping ships and eventually, they will be caught. Refueling is done by companies who follow the world's laws. It would make only TOO much sense for ships that have liens against the, show they have a clean, up to date payment profile or their ship can't be serviced. Same with the maintenance schedule. Same with the replacement parts shipment and ordering process.
Yes, you can engage in wilderness refueling either with a gas giant, or on worlds that permit it, from oceans. IMTU - Worlds with a Hydrographic value of 4 or less totally BAN wilderness refueling from the surface of their world. Other worlds? Remember, the law rating on those worlds are there for a reason. It is the odds that a given party of Traveller characters will be hassled by law enforcement.
As GM, if I rolled that the Law Enforcement is after the player characters, I'd set the scene with "Hi, we'd like to request a full examination of your logs for the last 12 Imperial Months. No, we have no reason to suspect anything. What? You have something to hide? Well, we have 30 ships a year that pull in here, of which 26 are well known to us due to their trade routes and habits. Four of you fit the profile for multiple skipped payment ships. We're just looking more closely at your papers is all. Are you actually guilty of non-payment of your loans? Tsk tsk tsk, now we REALLY want to look more closely at your papers in light of your not very convincing denial."
Rule #1 when heightening tension for your players - NEVER directly accuse of them of a crime unless it is blatently obvious they're guilty of it.
Rule #2 - let them get away with it ONCE so as to scare the heck out of them. If they run, the chase is on. If they don't, heighten the suspense by showing the hunt is on even if they're not directly the target of the Hunt.
Rule #3 - always wait for the weakest link in the crew to mess up.
Rule #4 - always make the first initial attempt to capture them be VERY weak. This way, if they're caught, the story progresses reasonably from that point. If they escape however, add further charges of resisting arrest, and if they engage in destruction of propery, well, that's on them.
Rule #5 - always give them enough rope to hang themselves.
Now, after you've caught them and are carting them off to prison or what have you - surprise them with an unexpected rescue. Are their rescuers pirates? Are your rescuers NOI operatives trying to infiltrate the Pirates? Are you being used as a Trojan Horse so that every contact with the Underworld you make, the Navy is able to gather that intelligence for later "clean up" further down the road? The adventure is only beginning...
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Like shareholders in a corporation, limited partners have limited liability. This means that the limited partners have no management authority, and (unless they obligate themselves by a separate contract such as a guarantee) are not liable for the debts of the partnership. The limited partnership provides the limited partners a return on their investment (similar to a dividend), the nature and extent of which is usually defined in the partnership agreement. General Partners thus bear more economic risk than do limited partners, and in cases of financial loss, the GPs will be the ones which are personally liable.
Epicenter said:
I always took ship shares to represent exactly these things you're saying players don't have. It's why they can't be turned into cash at a 1 for 1 ratio, it's an abstraction of a bunch of other things.
The problem sometimes can be on the player end. "Ship share" is pretty abstract, and a new player might not have a sense of everything he's taking a match to when he burns it. But if we take character creation seriously, a starting 5 term Traveller character has more commitments and obligations than a starting 1st level D&D character. It's just a matter of playing them like it.
tolcreator said:
That's good stuff, I hope to get to use it.
Arkathan
Emperor Mongoose
Traveller Companion Ch 28 has info on mortgages and how the transponder relays info on payment availability to let patrol ships know the ship is not in default.
Chapter 22 deals with law and the spread of bounties/extradition warrants.
Due to the dispersed nature and the speed limit of interstellar communication, it takes a long time for the bank to decide to do something, and the initial response is just an alert - in case the payments are available, but the ship has not passed into a system that can handle the automated transactions.
Chapter 22 deals with law and the spread of bounties/extradition warrants.
Due to the dispersed nature and the speed limit of interstellar communication, it takes a long time for the bank to decide to do something, and the initial response is just an alert - in case the payments are available, but the ship has not passed into a system that can handle the automated transactions.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It's probably more convenient if you let the bank know where the starship is likely to be a year in advance, and if payment isn't deducted from a local account but on the hoof, they can arranged for a corresponding bank in that system to hold in escrow a code that tells the transponder that the mortgage installment has been paid.
Per the Companion, ship transponders already integrate an escrow account for mortgage payments; you pay into that and it forwards the payment(s) the next time you arrive at a suitable starport. It'll also indicate that the payments have been made and are waiting if a naval ship (or similar) pings it, so they know you haven't skipped.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Hacking is likely to be categorized as a capital crime, in the future.
cunningrat
Banded Mongoose
MonkeyX said:
Consider the "bank" that would make a loan to a group of pirates to buy a Corsair in the first place. Consider what a profoundly BAD idea it would be to default on a loan from such a "bank". A regular bank would just take your money or repo your starship -- these guys would break your legs in addition, at a minimum.
DarkDawning
Banded Mongoose
[/quote]
Consider the "bank" that would make a loan to a group of pirates to buy a Corsair in the first place. Consider what a profoundly BAD idea it would be to default on a loan from such a "bank". A regular bank would just take your money or repo your starship -- these guys would break your legs in addition, at a minimum.
[/quote]
Personal banking at its finest ! Its the (Rough) Hands on approach that gains my interest
Consider the "bank" that would make a loan to a group of pirates to buy a Corsair in the first place. Consider what a profoundly BAD idea it would be to default on a loan from such a "bank". A regular bank would just take your money or repo your starship -- these guys would break your legs in addition, at a minimum.
[/quote]
Personal banking at its finest ! Its the (Rough) Hands on approach that gains my interest
I would suggest tying the mortgage to the players’ Allies, if they have any, to act as sureties. Running from a loan to an abstract financial institution is one thing, but if it means turning a potentially powerful Ally into an Enemy because you suddenly left them holding the bag on a 60 MCr loan, that might be another thing entirely. (And it can also add a bit of realism by explaining how the characters landed the loan in the first place.)
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
For corsairs, just skip the middle man and hijump the next freighter.
