Insurance for ship and cargo and rules for salvage

[mavikfelna]

This is my second post about happenings in last night's game.

My fellow players and I were under the impression that insurance is part of a ship's mortgage and for freight, part of the fee for carrying it also included insurance. Additionally, the loan we took out for our spec cargo would also logically include an insurance rider. But of course I can't find any support for that sort of view in the game rules. So what is everyone's opinion on insurance? We're currently debating this with our GM, since he doesn't agree with that.

Also, we captured a pirate free trader, after doing some significant damage to it, but there are no rules that I can find on valuing the salvage. Are there rules for this?

 

[Vormaerin]

Traveller does not mention insurance at all. Or income taxes, registration fees, business licenses, crew certifications, or anything else that would be part of a business sim rather than a space opera.

Obviously, IRL, there would probably be insurance. It does exist in the setting, as there are adventures about helping or hindering insurance investigations into ship crashes and the like.

So this is something that has to be resolved on a table by table basis. I'm assuming the players want insurance to pay for the damages to their ship from the fight? To be perfectly honest with you, that's definitely not the intention of the rules as written. The revenue from speculative trade is ludicrously high precisely because players are expected to spend the money on repairs and upgrades of their ship, which are silly expensive.

You can certainly have an insurance system in place. It absolutely makes sense. But if you add it in without adjusting either expenses or revenues, the players will be awash in megacredits it short order if you are letting them trade pretty freely with the rules as written. Which may or may not be a problem at your table, depending on the nature of the campaign and the focus of activities.

 

[mavikfelna]

Traveller does not mention insurance at all. Or income taxes, registration fees, business licenses, crew certifications, or anything else that would be part of a business sim rather than a space opera.

Obviously, IRL, there would probably be insurance. It does exist in the setting, as there are adventures about helping or hindering insurance investigations into ship crashes and the like.

So this is something that has to be resolved on a table by table basis. I'm assuming the players want insurance to pay for the damages to their ship from the fight? To be perfectly honest with you, that's definitely not the intention of the rules as written. The revenue from speculative trade is ludicrously high precisely because players are expected to spend the money on repairs and upgrades of their ship, which are silly expensive.

You can certainly have an insurance system in place. It absolutely makes sense. But if you add it in without adjusting either expenses or revenues, the players will be awash in megacredits it short order if you are letting them trade pretty freely with the rules as written. Which may or may not be a problem at your table, depending on the nature of the campaign and the focus of activities.

Honestly, we want the insurance because we took out a .5MCr loan for the cargo that was destroyed.

We're already under contract with the Scout service to report on every system we enter in return for free fuel and regular maintenance any time we're in a system with a scout base. It's a great deal right now because about every 2nd or 3rd system we're hitting has a scout base of some kind so we're saving a couple of kilo credits every other stop or so.

The GM is letting us salvage the pirate but that's probably just going to pay for the repair we need. So we're stuck with several weeks of down time where we're not getting paid and we have a loan and a mortgage to pay and not enough cushion to absorb it. And I'm down to less than 1.5MCr left on the ship's mortgage, so it's doubly appalling if we lose it all now. Insurance on the lost cargo would at least mean the loan is covered. It's bad enough we're going to lose the .5 to 1MCr profit we were virtually guaranteed to make because of hot dice and a perfect combo of source and destination matching perfectly for maximum profit.

 

[Arkathan]

I thought there used to be a rule on ship salvage of something like 1% of the value, proportionally reduced for damage... but I cannot find it.
I remember there being a line about an expanding debris field NOT being salvage.

 

[Terry Mixon]

From the core rulebook.

 

[Vormaerin]

As I said, Traveller is designed for Tramp Trader bottom of the barrel scraping 70s Space Opera. So what the game designers expect is that the players take on some stupidly risky adventure to recover their lost half million credits in some other way. Tons of Traveller adventures start with basically this exact hook.

That said, there's no reason why cargo insurance wouldn't be available, but it definitely isn't included in the cost of the goods. That stuff is stupid expensive IRL for ships doing the kinds of trips PCs take (ie going to places where you are likely to run into pirates or flying on antique small traders with ragtag crews).

There's a salvage table in the CRB, but it's quite ungenerous. I can't find any MgT2e reference to salvage value of pirate ships. The naval campaign rules don't appear to support prize money, the piracy rules just say "you can't sell stolen ships because", and there's nothing I find in a quick search through the other rulebooks.

IRL, hot salvage (ie salvage at the risk of life to the salvagers) is actually pretty valuable. But, again, we are looking at what your campaign's designed around. Anywhere from 1% to 10% of the damaged ship's value would be reasonable (depending on how likely the previous owner is to contest the claim, probably pretty low with a pirated ship but you never know), though it would typically take a while for such a sale to actually turn into cash for the PCs. More likely they'd sell the rights for a fraction of that to someone who can wait on the full money. But that also assumes they can get the pirate ship to port rather than having to sell its location to a salvage company.

All I can recommend is that you guys work out at your table what is best for how you want to play the game. Traveller's basic rules are designed with "everything's a disaster causing you to go on adventures" rather than "I'm a sensible businessman doing sensible things".

 

[mavikfelna]

From the core rulebook.

View attachment 5233View attachment 5234

Right, but it doesn't say anything about the value of salvage. We got a reasonably intact ship. Is it worth 10% of new value? 5%? 50%?

 

[Terry Mixon]

Right, but it doesn't say anything about the value of salvage. We got a reasonably intact ship. Is it worth 10% of new value? 5%? 50%?

Smells repairable to me. There has to be rules for used ships. *goes to look*

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

So we're stuck with several weeks of down time where we're not getting paid and we have a loan and a mortgage to pay and not enough cushion to absorb it. And I'm down to less than 1.5MCr left on the ship's mortgage, so it's doubly appalling if we lose it all now.

Time for one of those risky side adventures to cover things long enough to get flying again. Maybe the mortgage/loan company has some type of "issue" that adventurers could "deal with" for them. Or renegotiate the mortgage/loan, which again you might require "special duties" to get them to do.

 

[rinku]

Right, but it doesn't say anything about the value of salvage. We got a reasonably intact ship. Is it worth 10% of new value? 5%? 50%?

How old is it? p.188 shows prices based on that, and the quirks imposed. But that table is for something like what a dealer will *charge* the buyer. What they *pay* to the people bringing in a used ship will be considerably less, as with any previously loved vehicle. Especially if it needs work.

If you can line up a direct private sale, that's a matter for negotiation.

It also might be possible you'll get a better deal from the insurance people than the used ship yard.

 

[mavikfelna]

As I said, Traveller is designed for Tramp Trader bottom of the barrel scraping 70s Space Opera. So what the game designers expect is that the players take on some stupidly risky adventure to recover their lost half million credits in some other way. Tons of Traveller adventures start with basically this exact hook.

That said, there's no reason why cargo insurance wouldn't be available, but it definitely isn't included in the cost of the goods. That stuff is stupid expensive IRL for ships doing the kinds of trips PCs take (ie going to places where you are likely to run into pirates or flying on antique small traders with ragtag crews).

There's a salvage table in the CRB, but it's quite ungenerous. I can't find any MgT2e reference to salvage value of pirate ships. The naval campaign rules don't appear to support prize money, the piracy rules just say "you can't sell stolen ships because", and there's nothing I find in a quick search through the other rulebooks.

IRL, hot salvage (ie salvage at the risk of life to the salvagers) is actually pretty valuable. But, again, we are looking at what your campaign's designed around. Anywhere from 1% to 10% of the damaged ship's value would be reasonable (depending on how likely the previous owner is to contest the claim, probably pretty low with a pirated ship but you never know), though it would typically take a while for such a sale to actually turn into cash for the PCs. More likely they'd sell the rights for a fraction of that to someone who can wait on the full money. But that also assumes they can get the pirate ship to port rather than having to sell its location to a salvage company.

All I can recommend is that you guys work out at your table what is best for how you want to play the game. Traveller's basic rules are designed with "everything's a disaster causing you to go on adventures" rather than "I'm a sensible businessman doing sensible things".

To give a little more context, we were IN Lunion while the Duchess of Mora was visiting with a huge amount of the Lunion and Mora sector navy docked or stationed around the naval base. We were heading to the scout base on the edge of the system when we got a distress signal that, of course, we were the only ones near enough to respond to it. When we got there and started to maneuver to dock, they attacked and did poorly which allowed us to respond and over 3 rounds of combat, they did moderate damage to us, with a final hail mary that destroyed ALL our cargo in one dual beam laser hit. (No, I'm not bitter, why do you ask. ) In the mean time, we destroyed their computer, destroyed their power plant and blew up their turret, reducing their hull to 20 out of 80 hull points. Only killed one of the bastards but captured the survivors.
We were on our way to Derchon with a load of high tech goods we had paid 50% of value for and had a line on a buyer in Derchon for 150% of value. That's why we took the loan in the first place. So we were in safe space, moving to safe space, in a ship in excellent shape, it was overhauled and refitted about a year ago and was around 11 years old.
The Navy recognized our claim for salvage but towed the ship back to the naval base for evidence, apparently, and took the pirates into custody. We've now discovered that the pirates apparently have high level noble support, with the quality of the lawyers trying to get them off and their ship back.
So anyway, as you can see, we were not a risky ship or situation to insure I would have though the loan would have included an indemnity clause and taken the insurance premium out of our payment. But, we never explicitly insured it, so the GM is well within his rights to deny us insurance. All of the players, all 3 of us, assumed it was insured, so that's on us.

 

[Condottiere]

Find an insurance broker, first.

Then, ask about the rates.

Sometimes, the preference is for the collateral.

 

[boggo2300]

Picked a VERY weird place for Pirates, since Lunion has an Imperial Navy base, is Subsector capital, so is also headquarters of the Subsector Navy as well as the System Navy (ie the SDB's) and If the Duchess of Mora was there with some of Mora's subsector fleet, that's a LOT of warships patrolling

 

[rinku]

Well, if they're sponsored by a noble, there's likely Plot happening...

Yeah, I'd likely write it off if expensive lawyers are now involved. At least it should count for something with the Navy. They may well be sympathetic of your financial situation, be grateful for taking out the pirates, and perhaps willing to help out with a mission.

 

[mavikfelna]

Well, if they're sponsored by a noble, there's likely Plot happening...

Yeah, I'd likely write it off if expensive lawyers are now involved. At least it should count for something with the Navy. They may well be sympathetic of your financial situation, be grateful for taking out the pirates, and perhaps willing to help out with a mission.

:: sigh:: I suspect that you are right. And we just did a job for NavInt, though it was paid for by them by getting us the deal that lead to the cargo that is at the center of all this. Bloody hell this is getting circular.

 

[mavikfelna]

Picked a VERY weird place for Pirates, since Lunion has an Imperial Navy base, is Subsector capital, so is also headquarters of the Subsector Navy as well as the System Navy (ie the SDB's) and If the Duchess of Mora was there with some of Mora's subsector fleet, that's a LOT of warships patrolling

Yes Exactly! Like Rinku says, it looks like Plot is happening. :: sigh:: Sometimes I really hate plot.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Yes Exactly! Like Rinku says, it looks like Plot is happening. :: sigh:: Sometimes I really hate plot.

Badly executed plot, yeah. Everyone hates that.

Edit - Badly executed plot and a Referee who doesn't know the rules. Even worse.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Badly executed plot, yeah. Everyone hates that.

Edit - Badly executed plot and a Referee who doesn't know the rules. Even worse.

And one who is unwilling to admit error and redo things to follow the rules. That’s the worst kind of railroading.

 

[Vormaerin]

And one who is unwilling to admit error and redo things to follow the rules. That’s the worst kind of railroading.

what rule is the referee not following and refusing to redo?

Edit: Oh, I see, in the other thread. I don't think that's particularly a problem. People are going to screw the rules up, especially when new to the game. You fix it going forward. It's not like you killed a character or something problematic. You just generated an interesting situation and character motivation. Play the situation and have fun.