Spartan159
Banded Mongoose
Do/should skill levels (experience) affect salaries?
Salary and skill level
- Thread starter Spartan159
- Start date
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The market decides, though you can use them as certificates or college degrees.
CosmicGamer
Mongoose
Just some things to consider.Spartan159 said:
Does a McDonald's worker get paid more because they are an out of work oil company employee with an advanced degree? (high skill but unrelated)
Does a head chef who worked for 10 years at a family owned restaurant that goes out of business get paid more at McDonalds? (skilled, but this level of skill is unnecessary for the job)
Does a McDonalds employee that has been working and doing a good job get a raise? Maybe there is a promotion though, and they are not doing the same job? (higher skill sometimes = different position.)
I think, just my opinion, typically and for simplicity and when detail is not needed, the job pays what the job pays and there isn't a need to create strict rules to cover salaries in greater detail. You can role play someone with skill 3 being preferred to get the job instead of someone with skill 2, but no reason to pay them more. If they demand it and you don't want to pay it, hire the skill 2 person. Now if in YTU maybe the big ships with lot's of crew there might be a senior pilot position, or junior engineer, or maybe you role role play the hiring of someone on a tramp freighter and pay someone with higher skill a little more to entice them to join a crew, or save a few credits hiring someone with a low skill level, or maybe the character with charisma and deception and good attributes can convince someone they are really good even though they are only level 0, maybe the characters are on a low tech, low pop dirtball and good crew are more expensive or the crew is at a high tech, high pop, rich world with a Navy Base so it's easy to find skilled crew cheap... Personally I like for the players and GM to have the freedom to create variety when it suits them and for the book to provide a very simple, generic guideline for when you want to brush over some aspect of the game.
So Spartan159, for your games, do you think skill levels (experience) should affect salaries?
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Negotiation, charisma, social standing, streetwise, looks, and liaison should help.
Spartan159
Banded Mongoose
All good points and role playing trumps rules, but I'm pretty sure a senior airline captain gets paid more than the junior copilot. I dunno, it just occurred to me while I was looking at the crew salary table and thinking 1,000 credits a month was not all that much, that's only social standing 5 by the living expenses chart.
CosmicGamer
Mongoose
But that is likely raises and a promotion while on the job.Spartan159 said:
If they were both out of work and there was a job opening for a pilot perhaps one might be under qualified for the job or one might be over qualified and passed over. Maybe neither is right for the job because the employer has a specific job and salary in mind. "Pilot" for 6000Cr (not sure where you got the 1000), not "senior pilot" for 8000Cr or "junior pilot" for 4000Cr.
Maybe the navigator at 5000Cr has some piloting skill and could be the backup or co-pilot.
Spartan159 said:
Originally in Starships, page 7:
4. Crew Salaries. Crew members must be paid monthly. Non-player characters
must be paid using the standard crew salary schedule (with suitable modifications
for expertise or seniority, generally +10% for each level of expertise above level 1).
Player-characters may bargain for better pay rates, or they may elect to accept
worse. In addition, player characters may participate with the owner-captain and
accept shares in the proceeds of the ship's activities.
Characters who take working passage are not paid, receiving passage, room and
board in lieu of salary (but continuous working passage for more than three trips
results in automatic hiring and receipt of salary). The starship captain is usually the
pilot or navigator, and serves as owner-aboard, drawing his pay from the profits.
Not all crew positions are required on all ships, and some ships will have more
than one person performing the same function. For example, a large liner would
have more than one steward.
So in general, yes.
Spartan159
Banded Mongoose
My apologies for mixing things up there, Pilot gets 6,000 but a gunner only gets 1,000, Now I understand gunners normally don't get a lot of call for their skill but when they do it's literally life of death. And yeah, I think a pilot 4 deserves more than a pilot 1. You also bring up another point, that being filling 2 positions at once. For instance, the navigator being copilot or back up pilot. The Steward also being a gunner. Heck the gunners being stewards when not on the guns. I grant you that on small "free traders" ships this is the expected. BTW I still think of free traders as in the Andre Norton sense of families, which gets you no pay as such in the first place. But I think her ships were much bigger with far more crew too.
Originally in Starships... what book is that? 10% per level above 1 works for me. Thanks for the passage.
Originally in Starships... what book is that? 10% per level above 1 works for me. Thanks for the passage.
Spartan159
Banded Mongoose
Oh the LBBs! Derp, I should thought of those, as I still have my original ones *grin* Here's an interesting (to me anyway) thought, how do you deal with engineers? Use the highest one? Or add them?
What do you mean add them? Usually, I have multiples, which I think means to add them? Though right now in my campaign, the players are using a bot because they lost the player who was the main engineer.
Service Robot, Work
Characteristics: Str 16 (+3), Dex 8 (+0) Hull 4,
Structure 2, Int 3 (–1)
Skills: Flyer (Grav) 1, Engineer (J-Drive) 1, Mechanic 1, Pilot (any) 0,
Steward 1, Trade (Space Construction) 2
Body: Size 3 tall basic frame + size 1 unit, Size 3
hydraulic arm x2, Size 3 erect legs (human sized, 250kg)
Armour: 3
Input/ Output: Basic optics, audio sensor, basic
vocoder
Gadgets: Blow dryer, breather, fire extinguisher,
GPS - satellite, household cleaner, micro-welder/plasma cutter,
engineer's toolkit, safe
Computer: Parallel CPU, memory stick TL 10 x5,
inhibitor
Software: CA 2
The work robot is the most versatile of the service
robots. It is suited to perform a wide variety of tasks in
the private and industrial sectors. It is physically very
strong but its inhibitors prevent it from fighting under
any circumstances.
13Mann stats, iirc.
Service Robot, Work
Characteristics: Str 16 (+3), Dex 8 (+0) Hull 4,
Structure 2, Int 3 (–1)
Skills: Flyer (Grav) 1, Engineer (J-Drive) 1, Mechanic 1, Pilot (any) 0,
Steward 1, Trade (Space Construction) 2
Body: Size 3 tall basic frame + size 1 unit, Size 3
hydraulic arm x2, Size 3 erect legs (human sized, 250kg)
Armour: 3
Input/ Output: Basic optics, audio sensor, basic
vocoder
Gadgets: Blow dryer, breather, fire extinguisher,
GPS - satellite, household cleaner, micro-welder/plasma cutter,
engineer's toolkit, safe
Computer: Parallel CPU, memory stick TL 10 x5,
inhibitor
Software: CA 2
The work robot is the most versatile of the service
robots. It is suited to perform a wide variety of tasks in
the private and industrial sectors. It is physically very
strong but its inhibitors prevent it from fighting under
any circumstances.
13Mann stats, iirc.
Spartan159
Banded Mongoose
IMSS "Bantam's Pride" transmits regrets on the loss of their crewman. Yah, my brain to typing interface needs some updating. I was thinking of the Engineer J-drive, M-drive, P-plant and Life Support specialties, Not so much the Engineer (Naval) from Book 2 Highguard.
Raider Bull in the Heather eg "The Bull" would accept condolences, but they are in jump now. Engineer is a cascade skill, so at Engineer 1 of anything else, there is at least 0 level in the rest. However, as you mean, I would set salary by highest level of whatever specialty. Also as per it being plus hazard pay, they get more in my game usually. I know what you are saying about the Norton Solar Queen books, and some might very well apprentice, you could have 18 year olds as NPC's (those are great books too). Gunner does seem low, and I might double or triple their pay as they are security and stevedores for the cargo, or even steward. So that way you could stack pay levels.
CosmicGamer
Mongoose
Nice. In Mongoose the only thing I found within the rules was a general comment of "bonuses based on skill levels".dragoner said:
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
If you're an ace neurosurgeon, or hacker, or pilot, which is what, skill level four, you can dictate within reason, your salary.
CosmicGamer
Mongoose
Yes, within reason, such as when looking at the employment picture from the direction of the one being hired, and if there is a market for that level of skill, and there is a limited number of people with your skill, and, and, and... job markets vary from location to location and even at the same location they vary depending on the current situation.Condottiere said:
Looking at the employment picture from the direction of the employer of a generic "pilot" or "engineer" or whatever; the job may only require an average level of skill and the budget may only accommodates such. The elementary school looking for a school nurse and not a neurosurgeon.
Spartan159
Banded Mongoose
So "I'm sorry but you are over qualified" translates to "I would love to have you but you can ask for far too much money" I guess? 
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
The applicant before you had a cuter butt.
While some might be interested in role-playing "salaries and taxes", for the most part I think most players want to make money and blow stuff up (and avoid the same to their own selves). There are HUGE gaps in parts of the game, and in this case I think it's an easily accepted thing. There's no real reason to go into this detail. IF it becomes part of the game issue, then this is where the referee or player would draft something up and if everyone agree's introduce it as a defacto rule/standard and plod forward to the shooting and money making.
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