I can finally explain EXACTLY what "Ship Shares" are to my players!

[Yenaldlooshi]

Ship Shares... what the heck are they and why do they exist?

Yes, I know the rules as written. I know those backwards and forwards. Please don't post rules clarifications unless you see I have made a mistake because I am pretty sure I know what the rules are.

But what ARE ship shares? Not in terms of game mechanics, but in terms the game world.

This is my take; they are benefits, financial devices, negotiated by commercial brokers with various companies and military branches to help provide monetary pension benefits and starship purchase incentives. They are basically a starship purchase incentive program, like we have on earth now for home owner first time owner assistance, that when it isn't activated for a purchase, it just provides a yearly pension.

GMS, I highly recommend you take my advice:

1) NEVER let players "cash in" Ship Shares for Credits directly. You will be tempted to give them too much and they will be OP out of the gate. They can take the yearly pension of Cr1000, or they can buy a ship, that's it. If you are feeling charitable, say your game started on day 001 and they just got their first dividend (the Cr1K per share).

2) House Rule: Ship Share's must be paid back in cash when a ship is sold that was purchased with them. This is to stave of "Share Laundering" and profiteering. (This is also how real life home incentives work too in the first 3 years of ownership, btw.) Fail to do this, and I will take my 5 shares, buy a launch and then resell it back. I don't care if I do get -3 on my broker roll because I don't have that skill. I will still be rolling in Cr and you will see me in Battledress the very next day unless the GM does the usual "umm... you can't find it for sale... law levels... etc."

 

[mavikfelna]

I like your rule for share laundering. I would apply it ships after a fashion as well, as I have had a half paid off labship benefit that I didn't want and the GM allowed me sale it at the standard old ship purchase price + broker roll and pay off the remaining 20 years of mortgage and it easily left me with enough to buy the customized exploration ship we really wanted with only a few additional shares needed to be thrown in. Having no economic pressure as a crew was nice, but it could have easily been an excuse to not adventure from lack of need.

As for what shares are, they are described differently in different places and versions of the game but are essentially what you said, a combination of investments, pensions, loan guarantees and incentives for purchasing and outfitting ships and for providing pension benefits. They also represent personal capital in relationships with others willing to invest in your ventures.
I allow them to be sold off for 1% of their value because some of that share's represented value is indeed cash or other investment but it is probably penalized for early withdrawal or being used for something it wasn't intended for and 10KCr is usually easily enough to extract from the player's wallet.
There is a JTAS article, can't remember which one off hand, that has an article on portfolios for rich characters and I remember something in there about treating ship shares as a portfolio investment so I think that's where most of my idea about what a ship share actually is came from.