Selling a Ship's Boat

[Klaus Kipling]

Receiving a Ship's Boat as a mustering out benefit has to be the best thing you can get. It's not a set of ship share's, but the whole 16Mcr shebang.

So even if your character can only get 40% at resale, that's still 6.4 million credits, worth more than 12 ship shares for a Far Trader, or more than 1 for a merc cruiser.

Navy characters would be better just rolling material benefits...

 

[CosmicGamer]

Yes, you can roleplay a situation whereby your character gets a ships boat but I'm not sure how to justify the Navy giving away a perfectly good ships boat to every retiree (1 in 6 chance to get one and odds are any retired naval person will have at least 6 muster rolls).

The table says Ship's Boat or two Ship Shares. Nothing I recall seeing in the rules says if it is the player or the Referee that decides which is obtained...

 

[far-trader]

Well...

...taking the "Ship's Boat or 2 ship shares" and the Ship's Boat (new) equal (what?) 32 shares it seems to me that rolling it only once would get you a pretty crappy Ship's Boat, on it's last legs with maintenance way overdue and worth only 2 ship's shares (about MCr1?) in resale if you get full value for it. If you could find a suck... er, buyer.

Rolling it twice would get you a bit newer and better Boat, so maybe the lifters won't die the first time you reach altitude and the thing won't leak atmo like a sieve.

And so on...

 

[Mithras]

We revert to Classic Traveller on this (and a few other rules). I use the older tables without ship shares or ships boats, air/rafts or armour.

 

[Vile]

I've never liked ships as a mustering out benefit. They are just too big a part of the setting to give away before play like that. The only ship I've ever let PCs have at the outset is a detached duty Type S, and then I would only do so by fiat - never by mustering out roll.

 

[Myrm]

Yes, you can roleplay a situation whereby your character gets a ships boat but I'm not sure how to justify the Navy giving away a perfectly good ships boat to every retiree (1 in 6 chance to get one and odds are any retired naval person will have at least 6 muster rolls).

About 63% of people with 6 flat rolls will get a ships boat. Make them start with it. Make it a 'Reserve Vessel' so they can't sell just it during its reserve period and ensure that the Navy makes sure that the PC is responsible for it. If they don't want to look after it then they have to take the 2 ship shares.

Then the players that want the boat take it, the others take the shares rather than the hassle from the Navy. You as GM have no 'super nobrainer benefit roll'. Also allows some adventure hooks for GM by calling the vessel into service briefly.

 

[grymlocke]

one of my players ended up with a surplus ships boat as a benifit and wanted to sell it so we simply treated it as a commodity (adv. vehicle), hired a broker 6 (15% commission), determined (1d6+3 x10%, give 30%-90%) the starting age/depreciation of it compared to new (16mcr). and worked from there.... just like any other trade item.

he walked away with 4.6Mcr. :roll:

 

[far-trader]

...he walked away with 4.6Mcr. :roll:

Generous of you. So what did the player do? Retire? Go on a spending spree? (a mansion on Pleasure Island with holo suites in each room, a half dozen grav limos, a couple sports grav-cars, etc. etc... ). Or maybe a friendly investor found him and offered him a deal of a lifetime? (get in on the ground floor of the newest thing, practically guaranteed to double your investment in a month).

If I take the roll eyes the right way it's a problem for your game. But you should be able to take control of it, or simply explain that it's a problem and let the player know they should just keep the boat. If they won't play along then you have a different problem.

 

[EDG]

...he walked away with 4.6Mcr. :roll:

Generous of you. So what did the player do? Retire? Go on a spending spree? (a mansion on Pleasure Island with holo suites in each room, a half dozen grav limos, a couple sports grav-cars, etc. etc... ). Or maybe a friendly investor found him and offered him a deal of a lifetime? (get in on the ground floor of the newest thing, practically guaranteed to double your investment in a month).

It's funny that this is being described in a game where the whole point is to make money. So when a guy makes a small fortune selling something, it's viewed as a bad thing?

Or is Traveller supposed to be like Conan, where you can make a ton of money in an adventure, but have to blow it all on the equivalent of 'booze and whores' by the start of the next one (or maybe 'debts and taxes'... hm, this could be the "Cowboy Bebop" approach...)?

 

[hdrider67]

...he walked away with 4.6Mcr. :roll:

Or is Traveller supposed to be like Conan, where you can make a ton of money in an adventure, but have to blow it all on the equivalent of 'booze and whores' by the start of the next one (or maybe 'debts and taxes'... hm, this could be the "Cowboy Bebop" approach...)?

Speaking purely as a Boatswain's Mate, I would like to say that it's a long honored tradition to spend whatever cash you have as quickly as possible of, ahem, Body art, Bar fines and Booze.

 

[far-trader]

Well not everybody plays it as Merchant Prince (and even then the idea is that you roll you fortunes over into expanding your fleet of trade ships).

I'd argue Traveller is not "a game where the whole pont is to make money" for everybody.

So yes, instant wealth is a bad thing if there is no plan in place for what it's to go towards. If a plan is in place then wealth isn't a problem.

 

[Xoph]

Just ask the player if he wants to keep travelling? Otherwise he should roll a new character when this one retires to a pleasure dome.
If he wants to travel he should probably put this paltry 4.6 MCr towards a real ship... even if he goes cheap and gets a Fartrader the players will still have lots of debt. If he goes expensive and gets a Corsair it is only the equivalent of 3 or 4 ship shares. Besides I'd think the easiest place to sell something like that would be a used shipyard and the price would likely be a trade in value.
This brings up the question what do you guys do about selvage? if they roll lucky they could end up with an entire Starship. Personally I think they could just knock out their debt and have a lot of freedom or if they didn't have debt because of some big wins I might give them some rumours about fame and fortune available if someone just had a jump 4... Jump 4 ship would totally eat profit.

 

[Commander Drax]

Travellers are 'travellers' because they want to see the universe and go to places that other people don't generally see. Money is just an inconvienient commodity that they've got to have to do it in style, or in a minimally comfortable way.

Mcr4.6 is not much money in the traveller universe, a decent air/raft can cost Cr250,000 a mid passage ticket Cr8,000. Yes it's a nice nest egg, but any character won't be able to live off it for the rest of his or her life, especially when they start getting medical bills, fines for breakin strange laws, equipment failures, mechanical breakdowns and replacement tools or weaponry. Any equipment would have to be shipped as freight from world to world, costing even more as the volume of stuff goes up.

Any of the above would soon put a dent in the Mcr4.6 within a couple of decent adventures, owning a ship, even a small ship would soon consume this cash in no time.

So yes, sell the air/raft, use it as a deposit for a free trader, that's the navy way.

 

[cbrunish]

Personally I thought that having a Ship's Boat to be a waste. Anything w/o a jump drive for a "traveller" is a waste. My players stated that if they got it they would sell it and use the money towards a ship as if the MCr were shares. Although if someone else had a jump ship then it would be a nice extra to the ship.

Another player of mine thought that the money could also be used to "sup" up an existing ship. Add weapons, computer programs or pull out the lower jump and power plant and buy larger drives. One player actually prefers the Free Trader but with a Jump 2 and Power Plant 2. He stated that he liked the looks of the Free Trader over a Far Trader.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

Another player of mine thought that the money could also be used to "sup" up an existing ship. Add weapons, computer programs or pull out the lower jump and power plant and buy larger drives.

This is a good one, as pc's rarely have the cash to gun up their free trader even if they get the shares.

Right now I'm rolling up characters myself, so there's no ref to tell me that my ship's boat is an old knackered hulk, but I am finding it useful to cash up those rich npcs with naval connections - make useful patrons.

Couple of other scenarios - the pc is actually still working for naval intelligence and the ship's boat is a way to fund the operation.

or - instead of a ship's boat they get some kind of orbit capable grav flyer, somewhere between a speeder and a Gcarrier. A lil' bit sexier and a lot less hassle.