Ship cost reduction as TL increases?

Mongoose Traveller doesn't always line up with T5, to base a "core" MgT supplement on a different game system with different tech assumptions and different rules was always going to lead to issues.

Unless the next edition of MgT and MgT HG moves closer to T5 then SOM remains a bit of an oddity.
Oh, I'm well aware of the minor and major differences between T5 and Mongoose 2e. However, there are things that a referee may want to cross-over from T5 to his/her Mongoose universe. The tech efficiencies, IMHO, make sense and do not radically change the function of the game as opposed to something like the task resolution system. I think T5s handling of the tech level efficiencies and issues is better than what we got in MHG2.

But also I think dismissing SOG as "an oddity" is too pat of an answer since it's published under Mongoose's copyright and Matt's name is right there on the credits. It's a Mongoose product. Now, if they somehow missed that in editing and didn't mean for it to become how fuel refinement works, then they should correct the error. It's not the first new tech or rule to get added outside the core books--the deep space maneuvering system from DNR is a fine example.
 
We are not talking about a Cr5 consumable we are talking about a multi-mega credit starship. The cost of transport is not a small proportion of the overall cost of the burger. We were also not talking about fluctuations in the market we were talking about the base price being lowered when bought from higher TL starports.

No normal person is going to travel to America to buy one burger*. Brits did however cross the channel to buy wine and beer in bulk from France.

*I have no doubt that some overpaid celebrity may have actually done that.

Lets look at it another way.

A 1 ton TL8 power plant is MCr0.5.
A 1 ton TL12 power plant is MCr1.

If we assume the default saving from fabs.

If a TL14 fab makes a TL8 plant it costs it MCr0.25 in feedstock and if you sell it at list price you make MCr0.25.
If the same TL14 fab makes the TL12 plant, it costs MCr0.5 in feedstock and if you sell it at list price you make MCr0.5.

The cost to run the fab itself probably needs to be deducted, but it is the same for both Plants, and it takes the same amount of time. If you are able to build TL12 plants, why would you bother to make TL8 plants, let alone let them go for a discount.
Last time I was in the UK transport was significant, since their beef had mad cow.

A ten to twenty percent discount on OLD mod-capable components, which provides no benefit in function, is not game breaking. The rules allow game masters and players to make their own mod lists. It provides an incentive to do the opposite of min-max while not penalizing the players.

As to going to a different planet, when rolling broker for weapons, supplies, parts or commodities, they have chosen to go without until they could get a better deal. Rich celebrity syndrome.
 
PrintMus_038.jpg


Not particularly efficient, but presumably, still productive.
 
Last time I was in the UK transport was significant, since their beef had mad cow.
Yes, it was devastating for our cattle industry. 4.4 Million animals were destroyed. Many farmers lost their livelihoods and some took their own lives. Some countries cynically used it as an economic lever against the UK by banning imports long after the rest of the world had agreed the issue had been dealt with. Rather like Covid the response of the UK government could have been better, but that is the price of democracy.
A ten to twenty percent discount on OLD mod-capable components, which provides no benefit in function, is not game breaking. The rules allow game masters and players to make their own mod lists. It provides an incentive to do the opposite of min-max while not penalizing the players.
Yep and a mod is fine. You are getting reduced or increased capability for a price consideration. None of the listed mods provide a cost break without trading something for it. You already get a cheaper price by buying the low TL version with a different spec. If you are willing to accept an unusually bulky TL8 power plant your can get it cheaper than the bog standard TL 8 Power Plant. You can even buy a used ship and take the quirks.

My comments were about getting a reduction in the base price just because you were buying lower TL stuff in a high TL starport.
As to going to a different planet, when rolling broker for weapons, supplies, parts or commodities, they have chosen to go without until they could get a better deal. Rich celebrity syndrome.
Cheap deals for making Broker rolls are also entirely fine. But that is not a blanket deduction in basic price just because you bought your low TL spaceship from a high TL starport.
 
Last edited:
Say you want a j1/m1 ship with civilian sensors. You don't need any high tech gear and are really leery of high mortgages. Do you buy the best that a TL 12 shipyard can put out because you can, or if you could, would you leverage the TL to get that TL9 ship at a discount, knowing that you can get TL12 parts for it at almost any port along your way?

It sort of has been brought up before. The example of an old radio. We aren't building an old radio, we are building an underperforming radio (by current standards) in the same form factor as an old one for less money.
Most likely you'd buy a used ship in that case, that's older, cheaper and fulfills all your needs. It would be very unlikely to go to a higher TL world and ask them to build down.

Think of it this way, you want a replica clipper ship (circa 1850s). It's got no machinery on it at all (OG design). You go to a shipyard and ask them to build it and they'd be like "umm, we don't work in lumber". Sourcing materials, finding labor who knows how to do it, etc, etc, would be impossible for commercial production. It COULD be done, but at great cost and time.

Same as the example of Liberty ships. Those were actual downgrades for their time, engine wise at least, in order to ensure the engine orders did not tie up more critically needed ones for warships. Building a modern Liberty ship today would get you the hull, but modern diesel, modern everything else.

Traveller game mechanics don't hold up well if you peer under the hood too much. The DC-3 is a fine workhorse of a plane and there are ones still flying today. But nobody has BUILT one in about 70 years. They fulfill a niche due to their simplicity and ruggedness - yet nobody builds them. Changes have been made to accommodate repairs for things you can't get today, but because of their simplicity they don't have glass cockpits either during retrofitting - though I'm sure some have modern GPS bolted somewhere in the cockpit as well as transponders tucked away somewhere to meet modern regulations.

In Traveller terms that'd be your TL12 ship built at TL15 shipyard. As a game, sure, we can do it. But if we want it to be a reflection on how things work in reality - yeah... no bueno there. Anytime you get into a complex piece of machinery, building things using the machinery and workforce experience of the current system that is available to you is the norm and everything else is a luxury/custom job.

I don't have my old Walkman anymore, but it was a radio / cassette player. Today I have a smartphone that's a computer/radio and can locally store thousands of songs - and the foot print is smaller. To build a Walkman today would be a custom job of a very experienced machinist since all the work would be done by hand and not on a production line using pre-manufactured components. Unless they could find all the parts sitting dusty on a shelf. Technology advances and everything else around it tends to do it as well.

I recall reading somewhere about an English car that became un-economical to produce in the UK, so they sold the car and the production machinery to India. Now people who still drive the cars import their parts from India. Can't recall if the car itself is still made or just the parts. That may be a better analogy for debate.
 
Last edited:
The DC-3 is a fine workhorse of a plane and there are ones still flying today. But nobody has BUILT one in about 70 years. They fulfill a niche due to their simplicity and ruggedness - yet nobody builds them. Changes have been made to accommodate repairs for things you can't get today, but because of their simplicity they don't have glass cockpits either during retrofitting - though I'm sure some have modern GPS bolted somewhere in the cockpit as well as transponders tucked away somewhere to meet modern regulations.

There are a couple of firms that update the venerable -3 with turboprops and glass cockpits (or substantially glassed). So, imagine the old Free Trader rolling into a yard and getting a refit with upgraded powerplant (smaller because it's more efficient). The current rules allow some limited options for installing the same drive with a number of advantages, but I don't think it works as well as it should.

Another example are _any_ of our current USN combatants or military aircraft--we pull those in for upgrades and sometimes major changes to systems on a routine basis. Part of what Traveller doesn't capture is how important software updates are now. It's still very hardware focused.
 
Yes, it was devastating for our cattle industry. 4.4 Million animals were destroyed. Many farmers lost their livelihoods and some took their own lives. Some countries cynically used it as an economic lever against the UK by banning imports long after the rest of the world had agreed the issue had been dealt with. Rather like Covid the response of the UK government could have been better, but that is the price of democracy.
Agreed on the first part. As I was deployed over there as it was coming out I couldn't donate blood for over a decade.
The unnamed bioweapon, however, had very little to do with Democracy in most places.
Yep and a mod is fine. You are getting reduced or increased capability for a price consideration. None of the listed mods provide a cost break without trading something for it. You already get a cheaper price by buying the low TL version with a different spec. If you are willing to accept an unusually bulky TL8 power plant your can get it cheaper than the bog standard TL 8 Power Plant. You can even buy a used ship and take the quirks.
Listed Mods. The book specifically allows for non-listed mods. The implementation I presented neither breaks the bank nor penalizes the players, beyond limiting their ability to buy repair parts, as compared to the original ship's ability to obtain parts from any star-faring capable planet.

My comments were about getting a reduction in the base price just because you were buying lower TL stuff in a high TL starport.

Cheap deals for making Broker rolls are also entirely fine. But that is not a blanket deduction in basic price just because you bought your low TL spaceship from a high TL starport.
My argument is about a starport making deals to increase their profits. You can easily role play that the discount ship is going to also experience delays, while priority is given to better contracts. In fact that should be written into the discount contract. On the other hand, if a dock is currently under-utilized, a discount ship keeps everyone employed, pays the maintenance and still brings in a profit.
Much like taking freight when there isn't enough good spec cargo suitable for the next planet. Some money beats no money.
It is largely a matter of your universe's ship-building capabilities. I assume the capacity for large scale war-time footings, so during peace time, the sales reps are eager to make a sale - and keep the planet's people employed.

Disclaimer - My players have so far never used those discount mods. But I will continue to defend their existence.
 
I recall reading somewhere about an English car that became un-economical to produce in the UK, so they sold the car and the production machinery to India. Now people who still drive the cars import their parts from India. Can't recall if the car itself is still made or just the parts. That may be a better analogy for debate.
Yeah that was in this thread. Morris minor parts are being made in Sri Lanka, complete vehicles based on the Morris Oxford's of 1957 Series 3 called the Ambassador were manufactured until 2016 Hindustan using sold BMC designs and tooling. They also made parts for obsolete Bedford trucks. An improved Ambassador was to be reintroduced in 2022 with extra bells and whistles.

I used to work in the team that build modifications to Spitfires that fly in the Battle Of Britain Memorial Flight. They have to conform to modern flight regulations but the systems have to be built in a way that is sympathetic to the period they flew in. One of the mods was a transponder that had to fit into the map case pocket. Working on a 1940's design and actual late war aircraft that don't have complete service histories is evidently a bit of a challenge.
 
Last edited:
Safety standards would be those acceptable and/or mandated to an Imperium run starport.

Those outside the Imperium may have others, or none.

If I had to speculate, the default ten tonne jump drive is likely widely commoditized.
 
I need to get my ships from "Crazy" Arkathan. You not only knock off 10% for a "standard" design you knock off another 10% for "retrotech" that has no adverse impact. And provide free sandcaster ammunition and the first 50 days maintenance and life Support :)

That said they have no common space, a cramped bridge and shared staterooms. Mutiny sounds like more of an issue than cash flow :)
 
You get what you pay for, the ton of sand isn't included and that was just for illustrative purposes. No discount of common areas, so I skipped them. Skipped a med bay too. Was too cheat to spring for a 5000CR entertainment system.
 
You get what you pay for, the ton of sand isn't included and that was just for illustrative purposes. No discount of common areas, so I skipped them. Skipped a med bay too. Was too cheat to spring for a 5000CR entertainment system.
Come on! A cheap (relatively speaking) entertainment system is well worth the bang for the buck in selling to a customer on the fence!
 
Something in regards to the discussion that hasn't (I think) been touched on is that as the TL increases, efficiency increases, but so do other things. Take, for example, the Model-T engine that drive the Model-T. It's rather small, and inefficient as compared to a modern engine, as is the car itself. Compare it to a Ford Taurus and the Taurus is superior in pretty much every way - longer range, more comfort, and heating/cooling. However it's also bigger, more expensive and basically does the same thing as the Model-T. It gets its passengers from Point A to Point B.

As we've added tech we have also added complexity and costs along with capability. The reason nobody but a custom enthusiast builds replica Model-T's today is that nobody wants one. Same reason there is no market for a builder to make a modernized Model-T - there is no market for it.
Isn't this almost exactly what a go-cart is? Similar in capabilities to a model T, but built with modern materials and methods?
 
What Killed Electric Cars Over 100 Years Ago - Forgotten Tech

Now this is something that I have had on my mind for a while, the fact that ev's really did exist over 100 years ago is crazy to me!
I felt like it was well worth a dive/explore into Detroit Electric Motor Car.


 
Isn't this almost exactly what a go-cart is? Similar in capabilities to a model T, but built with modern materials and methods?
The model T initially cost $780 in 1910 (equivalent to $25,506 in 2023) and mass production reduced the cost to $290 in 1924 ($5,156 in 2023 dollars).
 
Chances the future are electrical scooters, for most types of surfaces and passengers.

National regulations and standards will likely block potential performance.
 
Back
Top