You are reading too much into that. It gives you a cost basis, per person, for what you are looking for. And, depending on what you are doing, you'd know that a Soc 13 person would have much more expensive tastes on average, thus the cost to stock their yacht for the upper deck folks might be 10x what the crew gets.
But it's a data point you can use or discard at your preference. Personally I prefer to have the data from which I might build the adventure, or participate in it. If I'm trying to get something on to a noblemans yacht then I'd know the catering would go for high-dollar booze or foods. So maybe the players have to role play a catering company trying to convince the guard "these Artellian Prawns are very delicate and his lordship would be angry if they suffered in the starport heat/cold. And the Cr1,000 is not coming out of MY pay!" But it may be low-grade frozen dinners for the tramp freighter, so the methods are different.
Don't forget if you are playing a con you would need capital to act like a rich person, hence knowing how much their food and things costs sets the stage for making PC's come up with the initial bank roll. Even that might be an adventure in itself.
DickTurpin said:
No. Just, no. For the main reason see the post above Phavoc's. Tracking life support cost, even when standardized, are a hassle. (I track ship income and expenses in a spreadsheet and it is still a hassle). Requiring the GM generate a SOC for each possible passenger and then negotiating a suitable passage price for each is a complete non-starter.
If you insist that a Duke requires a special high priced diet while travelling then just assume that he is charged more than the standard rate for that food but the extra payment is entirely consumed by buying the added luxuries leaving the standard cost and expense amounts listed in the book.
By the way, the 2nd edition costs are an improvement over 1st edition. It used to be a flat Cr. 2,000/month for a stateroom, occupied of not. The current Cr. 1,000 overhead + Cr. 1,000/passenger is more accurately reflecting the fact that an empty room requires less food and water than an occupied one.
On a liner everybody gets roughly the same food, so costs would be standardized among class. Why would you ever roll individual SOC for each passenger?? That's crazy! Cost of high = X Cr * number of passengers = per week food cost. Swap out crew for the next calc and you are done. It's quite simple if you don't overthink it.
MGT CRG v2 throws a curve into the mix because it mixes costs, especially with combined cabins. For example, p145 CRB - Life support costs Cr1000 per stateroom, Cr 3000 for double occupancy (in the table). Below this it reads, "Each stateroom on a ship costs Cr 1000 per month...... Each person on board a ship who is not in a low berth will cost an additional Cr1000 in life support costs. Skip to 148, Basic Passage - Up to 4 people per stateroom. Skip to pg 207 and passage costs table. J1 passage rates are High - 8500, Mid - 6200 and basic - 2200.
Now let's do the numbers. First section says Life support costs are Cr1k per month, period. Occupied or otherwise. Then you pay Cr1000 PER person (no duration given, but let's go with the same period, 1 month). A scoutship with 4 staterooms will incur a basic charge of Cr4000 for a month. Assume 4 personnel, each with their own cabin, and you get another Cr4000, for a total of Cr8000 per month. Pretty basic. Now let's complicate it. By the rules this costs TRIPLES when you DOUBLE occupancy. Umm, why? Based on the explanation there is no logic to that statement since the cost of a stateroom "covers supplies for the life support system as well as food and water, although meals at this level will be rather spartan". Certainly a need for meal costs for passengers there, but let's move on.
Basic scout ship with 8 PCs. Life support costs are Cr3000 per stateroom (Cr12,000), life support costs are a further Cr8,000, so in a month your ship's double occupancy is now at Cr20,000 with spartan meals. Spread across all people it's Cr2,500/month
Let's say your peeps picked up some extra dudes for a mission. The ship can hold a theoretical maximum of 16 (using basic passage rules). 4 cabins MORE than double occupied still only do a list price of Cr3,000. Life support costs are Cr16,000 for the month. Cr12k + Cr 16k = Cr28k for crowded, spartan conditions. Or Cr1,750 applied across all crew. Whee! It's Cr250/month cheaper to cram it to the walls!
4 crew - Cr2,000/month per person
8 crew - Cr2,500/month per person
16 crew - Cr1,750/month per person
If we look at it another way, base cost is Cr1000 for one, Cr 3000 for two, so a 50% increase per person. Extrapolating that, it should be Cr 4500 for three, and Cr6000 for four. That certainly throws our above numbers into the toilet.
But wait, it's more fun! Now we go back to steerage costs. Packing 4 dudes into one room nets you Cr8800 per jump 1, or per week. Assuming perfect 7 day jumps, 4 * 8800 = Cr35,200. Now to costs. Cr6k for life support, and 4k for food and spartan water. That's a profit of Cr25,200 on 4 dtons (Cr35,200 - Cr10,000). If the poor bastards are only crew, you spent Cr10,000 for their one cabin.
Now does any of that make sense? Not to me. Please check my math for errors, as I did all this on the fly.
