Passengers...

[thzero]

So I'm a bit confused by trading vessels and how anyone ever makes money carrying passengers. The books give a cost per person for high/medium/low passage for jump distances of 1-6. This is in addition to jump fuel used, etc. But the 'price per person' that seem to be on the tables that people offer for transit is exactly the same as the cost per person, so you never seem to make any money on the transit itself and in fact lose money from the fuel/maintenance costs.

What am I missing?

Thanks!

 

[tolcreator]

The cost per person is the cost to the passenger, not to the ship! The only cost to the ship is life support, fuel etc that you would be paying anyway.

So for instance, if I am a free trader with 6 passenger staterooms. The cost to me of having them occupied by 6 passengers is the same as the cost of having them empty. Life support (which includes food) costs are the same, etc.
So if I get 6 middle passage passengers on world A and fly them 1 parsec, that's 18 KCr in my pocket.

Now an argument can be made that it might pay better to have 24 extra tons of cargo space instead. But this is only true if: You're never getting high passage paying passengers, you're never going to use those rooms for extra crew, you can always find cargoes to fill that space, etc.

 

[thzero]

The cost per person is the cost to the passenger, not to the ship! The only cost to the ship is life support, fuel etc that you would be paying anyway.

So for instance, if I am a free trader with 6 passenger staterooms. The cost to me of having them occupied by 6 passengers is the same as the cost of having them empty. Life support (which includes food) costs are the same, etc.
So if I get 6 middle passage passengers on world A and fly them 1 parsec, that's 18 KCr in my pocket.

Now an argument can be made that it might pay better to have 24 extra tons of cargo space instead. But this is only true if: You're never getting high passage paying passengers, you're never going to use those rooms for extra crew, you can always find cargoes to fill that space, etc.

So as far as life support goes, there is no difference between high, medium and low?

 

[tolcreator]

Life support is based on Stateroom, be it occupied by crewmember, middle, or high passenger (edit: or unoccupied). Low Berths also incur a life support cost, occupied or not.

I imagine this is basically to streamline it rather than have the players go "Ok, so we had 6 low berths occupied last time out, so we used 20 litres of Instant Cryofluid and 10 packs of tissues afterwards... now staterooms. We only had middle passengers so that amounted to 50 pounds of beans instead of the steak and fresh veg High passengers demand..."

I imagine most of the costs are things like CO2 scrubbers, water purifiers, cost of food is a rounding error whether it's middle or high passage. The main difference between middle and high are:
1) A higher steward skill is required (and presumably, more hands on attention by the steward)
2) A high passenger can "bump" a middle passenger. That is if a trader has its berths full of middle passengers and a high passenger comes along, a middle passenger can be turfed out to give that berth to the high passenger.