Okay, say your group wants to sell their starship...

[Condottiere]

Empire Mortgage Securitization Union.


Emmie Sue

 

[swordtart]

Indeed, did I say otherwise? There is such thing as context and my example had context.

I took your starting the statement Yes, but... to indicate that you thought I had missed something. You then reiterated the rules for benefits. Since I had explicitly mentioned that the quirk table being used for benefits was not relevant within the context of of buying cheap ships I was led to assume that the only reason you mentioned it was to clarify that Quirks had to be used for Benefits.

To be honest I wasn't clear on the point you were trying to make as I hadn't refuted that aspect of quirks and benefits. I was clarifying that the benefits context was irrelevant to the discussion of non-benefit ships in my opinion.

So I agree context is important.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

The ISS has a planned 30 year life. Voyager was launched in 1977 and is still operating almost 50 years later. I don't think either has received significant physical maintenance due to the limitations of getting supplies up there.

The ISS needs and receives CONSTANT maintenance and metal fatigue and other issues are making its end of life mandatory. They have added new solar panels due to the degraded functioning of the old ones for one recent example.

Voyager has fewer and fewer of its systems operating due to the nuclear batteries losing power (half life of the isotopes) and is currently having to have more cut out, it will only have 1 or 2 working after the current downgrade. Much more and communications will be lost due to not enough power. It will still be functioning to some degree but with no communications we won't know when it stops. At that it is a triumph of engineering well past its planned life span.

 

[swordtart]

The ISS needs and receives CONSTANT maintenance and metal fatigue and other issues are making its end of life mandatory. They have added new solar panels due to the degraded functioning of the old ones for one recent example.

Voyager has fewer and fewer of its systems operating due to the nuclear batteries losing power (half life of the isotopes) and is currently having to have more cut out, it will only have 1 or 2 working after the current downgrade. Much more and communications will be lost due to not enough power. It will still be functioning to some degree but with no communications we won't know when it stops. At that it is a triumph of engineering well past its planned life span.

OK, I wasn't sure about the ISS, but I was meaning in terms of major refits like terrestrial vessels but I can believe it is held together with baler twine and chewing gum by now. Solar panel refitting is well beyond the scope of what I thought was likely so I concede it may not be the exemplar I anticipated.

I thought voyager was mostly degrading due to power and I think it moves out of the network range in 2026 (after which it simply becomes an ambassador). As such it is still a good example that even fragile space based technology can last and last (assuming you don't crash it like a Mars lander).

 

[agentwigggles]

Space is a very caustic environment.

 

[Vormaerin]

There's a difference between ' This one thing lasted' and "things of that type in general lasted'. IIRC, the oldest documented human lived 122 years? But I wouldn't treat that as the lifespan of a human. Likewise, there are some ancient ships in Charted Space, but most of them don't stay in service that long.

 

[Limpin Legin]

I was clarifying that the benefits context was irrelevant to the discussion of non-benefit ships in my opinion.

Okay, nothing RAW CRB say disagrees with that statement, but you did actually go on to discuss gaining a ship as a benefit in post #14, here:

It used to be that gaining a ship as a benefit was just a way to get a ship, you still had the full monthly mortgage cost to meet. If you got it more than once it reduced the repayment period left by 10 years each time. You needed to get it twice to get 10 years off and 5 times for the mortgage to be fully paid off.

so, possibly you are contradicting your own contribution to this discussion ?

 

[AndrewW]

I thought voyager was mostly degrading due to power and I think it moves out of the network range in 2026 (after which it simply becomes an ambassador). As such it is still a good example that even fragile space based technology can last and last (assuming you don't crash it like a Mars lander).

V'ger will return.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

If all older ships had to have quirks then there would be a ruling that introducing them as ships age in play. There is not so I am assuming that the quirks is an option to allow a cheaper ship to be bought, not as as an option to cause ships to develop defects and depreciate as they age.

There is no option of older ships without quirks:

Many ships serve for decades or even centuries before being scrapped. Travellers and free traders are often forced by necessity to purchase outdated and damaged vessels instead of new and pristine ships. Travellers purchasing an outdated ship may do so by rolling on the Outdated Ships table. Older ships will have a number of ‘quirks’ that may affect their operation, rolled for on the Spacecraft Quirks table.

You can buy new and quirk-free, or old and quirky, the choice is yours.

Maybe that article, but there are others that indicate the average for commercial ships of all types was 25-30 years.

So the oldest are something like 40-50 years, barring a few outliers?

You can pick your data point, The General Aviation Fleet or 150,000+ aircraft average age is more than 50 years old.

Sure, but how many are in regular daily traffic? How many are old Cessnas?
Major airlines don't seem to fly many 40 year old aircraft.

Aircraft Type: The design and build quality of an aircraft significantly impact its lifespan. For instance, wide-body aircraft like the Boeing 747 can last up to 25 years, while narrow-body planes like the Boeing 737 generally have a 20-year lifespan. These variations arise from differences in design, materials, and intended usage.

https://www.aviationfile.com/how-long-does-a-commercial-aircraft-last/

https://www.faasafety.gov/files/events/EA/EA68/2023/EA68121005/EA68121005F.pdf

Ah, OK didn't realise you were quoting LBBs. Of course with them the first ship benefit was with a 40 year mortgage so different assumption set altogether .

Yes, I used the 1977 edition to quote from to emphasise that the mortgage system has remained unchanged in Traveller:

After a down payment of 20% of the cash price of the starship is made, the shipyard will begin construction of a specific vessel. Upon completion, the vessel is delivered to the buyer, with the bank paying off the purchase price to the shipyard. Because the bank now holds title to the ship, the price must be paid off in a series of monthly payments to it. Standard terms involve the payment of 1/240^th of the cash price each month for 480 months.

Massively changed to:

MgT2 has changed that. CRB p149.
"The monthly repayments on a ship mortgage are easy to calculate. Start with the total purchase price of the ship being bought, then divide this amount by 240. This is the amount that must be repaid every Maintenance Period for the next 40 years."

The only change is that any potential down payment is undefined... MgT2 does not tell you how to buy a new ship, just how to pay for the ships you received as benefits.
MgT1 was still clearly based on a 20% down payment, even if it was not specifically detailed.

I am considering the economics of the small traders (which are well defined). The mortgage is the biggest single pay out per month and many ships as designed cannot carry enough passengers and cargo to realistically meet those costs in addition to their overheads. If the ship is worthless at the end of the mortgage then those payments are dead money and small trading is a slow route to bankruptcy. If the ship is worth something at the end of the 40 years however, then half of each mortgage payment is actually an investment in that final sum. After 40 years of such investments you own a ship worth multi-megacredits.

Are you seriously suggesting a company should trade at a loss for 40 years?

Well-designed ships can easily make a profit with a mortgage under the current (& previous) rules. As far as I understand, common player ships are deliberately crippled, in order to make profitable side-adventures necessary.

True, but double 0.1% is still going to save more than the extra mortgage cost.

Sure, it will take a few doublings to be noticeable, but it does say that ships' maintenance costs go up with time.

Of course you can also get a 50% reduction on maintenance costs on that Quirks table so it is not the ideal indicator of the effects of aging.

Halving maintenance costs happens 2/36, doubling happens 5/36, so more than twice as often.

I don't disagree with that and put forward how I was going to address it. The Quirks table isn't really good enough as they are too limited and are a benefit as often as a disbenefit. We were not talking centuries old relics either, rather a 25 year old ship.

Would you expect a 25 year old car, ship, or aircraft to have developed a few quirks? I would.

I agree a perfect system isn't attainable, but that isn't the topic of this discussion?

It would be looking for a mechanism to introduce quirks (based on critical hits on an ongoing basis).

The system just isn't that detailed. New ships don't have quirks, old ships have quirks, how that happens isn't described.

Yes 230 years old is definitely an outlier.

On the other hand Nimitz class carriers were designed to have a 50 year service life and are still on operations, so 50 years is not unthinkable even today.

So, 40-50 years (with how many refits?) is more likely than a hundred years?

Just the mid-life refit of the Nimitz took about three years (1998-2001). Commercial ships generally don't do that kind of refits, just buy a new ship instead.

 

[Vormaerin]

The starship economic system for tramp traders rolls a whole slew of business and regulatory expense into the mortgage for ease of play. No one has to register their ship, pay taxes, maintain crew certs, carry insurance, or any of the innumerable things that actually cost significant money IRL. That's not particularly fun.

We have adventures about NPCs having to deal with that, like the one where the PCs are hired to investigate a crashed ship and its flimsy official investigation and much of the motive is around not voiding the insurance because the ship was smuggling.

But all that is swept into the mortgage for players.

 

[swordtart]

Okay, nothing RAW CRB say disagrees with that statement, but you did actually go on to discuss gaining a ship as a benefit in post #14, here:

so, possibly you are contradicting your own contribution to this discussion ?

This is becoming ad hominem so I'll leave it here.

 

[Condottiere]

I would have thought that the hull would be under considerable stress, especially used for atmospheric reentry, even with a manoeuvre drive, and being exposed to the jump bubble.

 

[swordtart]

There is no option of older ships without quirks:

You can buy new and quirk-free, or old and quirky, the choice is yours.

Except if you buy a new ship and run it for 40 years. Then it is a 40 year old ship with no quirks.

Yes, I used the 1977 edition to quote from to emphasise that the mortgage system has remained unchanged in Traveller:

The quote you posted mentioned a down payment being made to the shipyard, it then spoke of the bank making the balance of the payment on completion and owning the whole of the ship,. It then mortgaged that ship to the operator at the 1/240 rate. I don't even read that as saying the operator paid the down payment, but to be honest I am not playing LBB Traveller so I am not really concerned what the old rules were.

Massively changed to:

The only change is that any potential down payment is undefined... MgT2 does not tell you how to buy a new ship, just how to pay for the ships you received as benefits.

Nope it quite clearly says you pay 1/240th of the purchase price per month. I would say the removal of a 20% down payment is a massive change, and I can't see me changing my mind about that.

MgT1 was still clearly based on a 20% down payment, even if it was not specifically detailed.

MgT1 did a lot of things differently - ship shares for one.

Are you seriously suggesting a company should trade at a loss for 40 years?

Nope they just won't make much profit as most of the money is reinvested in the ship. You are free to think otherwise.

Well-designed ships can easily make a profit with a mortgage under the current (& previous) rules. As far as I understand, common player ships are deliberately crippled, in order to make profitable side-adventures necessary.

My understanding is different. Diversity in all things.

Sure, it will take a few doublings to be noticeable, but it does say that ships' maintenance costs go up with time.

No it says at the point you buy a ship it may have quirks (if it is old). No matter how long you keep the ship it will not gain any more.

Halving maintenance costs happens 2/36, doubling happens 5/36, so more than twice as often.

How often it happens is irrelevant. The fact that older ships can cost less to maintain flies in the face of your own assertion of how things should be. I say it is silly. You also seem to say that elsewhere.

Would you expect a 25 year old car, ship, or aircraft to have developed a few quirks? I would.

Not a well maintained one, not of the type seen on the quirk table and certainly not randomly. If my car develops brake trouble I replace the brakes. I have friends who's cars are pristine as they clean it every weekend. Mine is a dad's taxi and is scuffed to bits and tatty. I do not clean it and I drive off-road in it. Its condition of a function of the use to which it is put and the level of maintenance and care it recives, not some arbitary time event.

I agree a perfect system isn't attainable, but that isn't the topic of this discussion?

Good we agree on something, let's stop commenting on each other's posts here.

The system just isn't that detailed. New ships don't have quirks, old ships have quirks, how that happens isn't described.

New ships don't develop quirks as they age and therefore not all old ships have them. If you want to find a bargain you can go and and look over on Honest Ed's used star ship lot and pick up a dinged one for a song. Or you can buy a quality used one that is as good as new for the same price as a new one, but you can take it away to day, no need to wait months for it to be built.

So, 40-50 years (with how many refits?) is more likely than a hundred years?

I don't understand this statement. More likely than what?

Just the mid-life refit of the Nimitz took about three years (1998-2001). Commercial ships generally don't do that kind of refits, just buy a new ship instead.

Whether it took 3 years or 3 days doesn't alter the fact that it was considered economically viable. How much of that refit was bringing the capability up to the standard of the rest of the modern fleet rather than just keeping the old girl going. In Traveller we are talking about ships that have exactly the same spec as ship built decades or hundreds of years earlier, not ships with more modern systems.

 

[swordtart]

I would have thought that the hull would be under considerable stress, especially used for atmospheric reentry, even with a manoeuvre drive, and being exposed to the jump bubble.

According to the rules atmospheric re-entry can cause specific damage that can be repaired (or in many cases avoided by player action). I don't recall any circumstances where exposure to jump phenomena can damage the ship. I would expect wear and tear on the jump drive to be covered under maintenance, ditto any minor Hull damage from re-entry that did not specifically strip Hull points (and those would be covered by repairs)

If there is to be an added aging rule however, I would agree that these are times when the ship is stressed and might be the appropriate time to check to see if an "aging effect" starts to manifest. These would give an opportunity to correct after landing in system before the next time the system was stressed allowing agency for players to either fix it or take a risk.

Maybe we could have each jump cycle adding a stress point to the component. The number of stress points is the percentage chance of the ship developing a fault during the next jump cycle (when the component is next stressed). Every maintenance cycle removes 1 stress point, The annual major overhaul removes 2d6 stress points. If you have any residual stress points left after this you can conduct additional maintenance (which costs extra). Replacing the component clears any quirks and resets the stress points. Emergency repairs using spares can clear the quirk but leave the stress points so it is just putting off the inevitable.

You could either keep a separate tally of stress points per component or perhaps a stress point pool would be easier and you only determine the system that develops the fault once the fault occurs. This means replacing a single component resets the clock overall, but in replacing that component you probably need to remove other things for access and experience tells me that this often corrects potential issues before they occur.

On average using the above you will accumulate 2 stress points per month but will remove one of them via maintenance. This will give a small but still significant percentage chance of stress related faults developing (these will not be quirks from the quirk table but a new table that is more closely aligned to age related issues, some of which might be permanent), By the time the annual service comes round you will expect to have 12 stress points remaining and with luck most of these will be cleared by routine overhaul, but they will gradually accumulate increasing the chance of a quirk developing. Captains have the option of spending extra time and money to resolve this or they may be forced to accept an overall weakening of their ships systems.

If you run your ship more frequently than 2 jump cycles per maintenance period then you will generate stress points more quickly. If you lavish love and care on your ship by conducting additional maintenance you reduce the stress points and reduce the risk of faults.

Just carrying stress points can give rise to soft issues such as the power plant developing an annoying hum, the jump drive causing the light to dim momentarily etc. These are useful signs that trouble is brewing, but not yet an actual issue.

Example faults might be (in roughly increasing order of severity):
The system fault alarm activates as redundancies have kicked in. Add d6 stress points.
The time taken to initiate a system increases to the next time scale.
The overall maintenance costs increase by 20% until the component is replaced.
The system becomes awkward to operate and imposes a DM-1 on any check involving it.
The system becomes a complete pig to operate and imposes a DM-2 on any check involving it.
The system requires an Average <Appropriate Skill> check on power up just to get it to work in addition to any normal checks.
The system develops one of the faults above but even after repairs but will keep recurring every 1D jump cycles until replaced.
The system develops one of the faults above but it cannot be fixed and requires component replacement.
The system develops one of the faults above but the cause cannot be isolated to a specific system. Replacing any of the stressed components has a 20% chance of resolving the fault.
The system fails badly, and suffers a critical failure as if damaged in combat.
The system has a cascade fault and suffers D6 random critical failures as if damaged in combat.
The system has one of the critical failures as above but the critical(s) cannot be repaired, the component(s) must be replaced.

The stress level could be used as a modifier, but my experience is that sometimes when fitting a new component to a old system, it will be the new component that fails first (the Waddington effect). Some of these faults may not be cost effective to repair in the medium term and will have the quality of an equivalent Quirk in the Quirks table. None of them will however result in your computer being mystically upgraded

 

[Condottiere]

A lot of spacecraft hulls are paper thin.

Well, sufficient width to allow self sealing.

 

[MasterGwydion]

According to the rules atmospheric re-entry can cause specific damage that can be repaired (or in many cases avoided by player action). I don't recall any circumstances where exposure to jump phenomena can damage the ship. I would expect wear and tear on the jump drive to be covered under maintenance, ditto any minor Hull damage from re-entry that did not specifically strip Hull points (and those would be covered by repairs)

If there is to be an added aging rule however, I would agree that these are times when the ship is stressed and might be the appropriate time to check to see if an "aging effect" starts to manifest. These would give an opportunity to correct after landing in system before the next time the system was stressed allowing agency for players to either fix it or take a risk.

Maybe we could have each jump cycle adding a stress point to the component. The number of stress points is the percentage chance of the ship developing a fault during the next jump cycle (when the component is next stressed). Every maintenance cycle removes 1 stress point, The annual major overhaul removes 2d6 stress points. If you have any residual stress points left after this you can conduct additional maintenance (which costs extra). Replacing the component clears any quirks and resets the stress points. Emergency repairs using spares can clear the quirk but leave the stress points so it is just putting off the inevitable.

You could either keep a separate tally of stress points per component or perhaps a stress point pool would be easier and you only determine the system that develops the fault once the fault occurs. This means replacing a single component resets the clock overall, but in replacing that component you probably need to remove other things for access and experience tells me that this often corrects potential issues before they occur.

On average using the above you will accumulate 2 stress points per month but will remove one of them via maintenance. This will give a small but still significant percentage chance of stress related faults developing (these will not be quirks from the quirk table but a new table that is more closely aligned to age related issues, some of which might be permanent), By the time the annual service comes round you will expect to have 12 stress points remaining and with luck most of these will be cleared by routine overhaul, but they will gradually accumulate increasing the chance of a quirk developing. Captains have the option of spending extra time and money to resolve this or they may be forced to accept an overall weakening of their ships systems.

If you run your ship more frequently than 2 jump cycles per maintenance period then you will generate stress points more quickly. If you lavish love and care on your ship by conducting additional maintenance you reduce the stress points and reduce the risk of faults.

Just carrying stress points can give rise to soft issues such as the power plant developing an annoying hum, the jump drive causing the light to dim momentarily etc. These are useful signs that trouble is brewing, but not yet an actual issue.

Example faults might be (in roughly increasing order of severity):
The system fault alarm activates as redundancies have kicked in. Add d6 stress points.
The time taken to initiate a system increases to the next time scale.
The overall maintenance costs increase by 20% until the component is replaced.
The system becomes awkward to operate and imposes a DM-1 on any check involving it.
The system becomes a complete pig to operate and imposes a DM-2 on any check involving it.
The system requires an Average <Appropriate Skill> check on power up just to get it to work in addition to any normal checks.
The system develops one of the faults above but even after repairs but will keep recurring every 1D jump cycles until replaced.
The system develops one of the faults above but it cannot be fixed and requires component replacement.
The system develops one of the faults above but the cause cannot be isolated to a specific system. Replacing any of the stressed components has a 20% chance of resolving the fault.
The system fails badly, and suffers a critical failure as if damaged in combat.
The system has a cascade fault and suffers D6 random critical failures as if damaged in combat.
The system has one of the critical failures as above but the critical(s) cannot be repaired, the component(s) must be replaced.

The stress level could be used as a modifier, but my experience is that sometimes when fitting a new component to a old system, it will be the new component that fails first (the Waddington effect). Some of these faults may not be cost effective to repair in the medium term and will have the quality of an equivalent Quirk in the Quirks table. None of them will however result in your computer being mystically upgraded

I love this, but would love to see what the polished, finished version would look like. It may be too complicated or too onerous to use. Not sure.

 

[Anstett]

Space is a very caustic environment.

Citation needed

 

[MasterGwydion]

Citation needed

Space is a caustic environment​

Space is a caustic environment for materials and spacecraft. The low-Earth orbit (LEO) environment is particularly harsh for non-metallic materials due to the presence of single-oxygen atoms (atomic oxygen)2. Metals from re-entering spacecraft may also pollute the upper atmosphere, affecting our planet's energy balance4. Researchers study the microbial and chemical environment of space habitats5.
Learn more:




1
The Space Environment - Federal Aviation Admini…

faa.gov
2
A Researcher's Guide to Space Environmental Ef…

nasa.gov
3
A Researcher’s Guide to: Space Environmental Ef…

nasa.gov

 

[CordwainerFish]

Citation needed

sci.space.*?

 

[Condottiere]

Acceleration not covered by inertial compensation.

Basically, when you turn on the rockets.

That would, of course, include the innards.