Ship quality and quirks

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I began writing an aging table for ships of different quality levels. Excellent ships last far longer then poor ships, they may be cheap but they age fast, pay them off and flip them to some other loser before they fall apart. I didn't like having the aging just being a numbered column so I decided to name the age classes like a used starship salesman might.

So here is the list in order from 1 to 10 : “Like New”, “Broken In”, “Mature Design”, “Proven Model”, “A Classic”, “A Real Classic”, “Well Preserved”, “Vintage”, “Antique”, “They don’t make them like this anymore”

10 for an average quality ship is anywhere past 150 years. For a ship built prototype technologies anything over 34. By the time they get to 10 people will be saying "I didn't think any of these were still flying" and "I am NOT travelling on that death trap".

 

[Condottiere]

Lemons are usually manufactured in batches.

We tolerate quirks, which increase operating expenses, in whatever form, because it's balanced off by the cost of acquiring the object.

 

[swordtart]

I'd like to see the Quirks table revised. Whilst I don't object to ships becoming better than the default over time, I don't like that an older ship might not only be cheaper but might also have positive quirks.

Quality could be entirely component based (and we have that already in the customising ships section). I feel that any knowledgeable vendor will know the value of those deltas (either positive and negative) if the buyer also knows then the price differentials apply. The price will then be a matter of negotiation in game rather than just an automatic result on a table. If the buyer or seller is unaware however someone might get a bargain.

All you need then is to add some quirk traits to those modification tables. You can still roll for quirks on a ship (and some might be positive) but the price will go up or down depending on the value of those traits rather than it being an entirely independent mechanism.

Price breaks should be proportional to ongoing costs. If you double the maintenance costs you have added 4% onto the through life cost of a ship over the normal 40 year life. The discount should reflect that. It should also reflect the 4% interest rate on ship mortgages (a bird in the hand...)

If maintenance is likely to take longer then the duty cycle should be considered. A -1 on a repair check taking a few hours is unlikely to affect the revenue generation capability of a ship significantly. If the maintenance takes a few days extra each month however that will soon add up and it would prevent about 3-4 weeks commerce each year. That is 1-2 jump cycles where the ship makes no money but still needs to make all it's payments. That might be worth a few percent off the cost of the ship. It is also something that the buyer might well not know until after he is saddled with that hangar queen.

If these thing just break even then they are not attractive to buyers. You might double or quadruple the price differential as captains might be looking to offset those extra costs over the course of a decade rather than the full 40-year life (and remembering that the ship's value will drop after 5 years as well.

If quirks can be repaired, it will need to cost more than the savings made on the original purchase (or the vendor would do it before sale). It should be inconvenient as well. The point of quirks is to make things interesting, if you can just buy them off once you start making money then it is too easy and just an exploit.

I look forward to seeing how this turns out.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

I'd like to see the Quirks table revised. Whilst I don't object to ships becoming better than the default over time, I don't like that an older ship might not only be cheaper but might also have positive quirks.

Most of the existing "good" quirks are upgrades made by prior owners and should increase the base value before calculating the current values. Others might not be an "upgrade" such as the J-Drive was replaced 4 years ago and is therefore much newer than the rest of the ship even though it's the same model of drive, it also would change the selling price upwards.

Now some ships might have "positive" quirks unknown to the seller such as hidden compartments and others might be unrecognized because they never flew the ship (such as a J-Drive that uses less fuel) in a ship that was built customized. The same of course applies to hidden negative quirks such as the storage area with the hatch on backwards so it locks from the inside not the outside so you should never lock it.

Now your "Honest Horace" the used spaceship dealer will emphasize known good quirks while ignoring/downplaying the negative ones. So prices should often tend to be higher than otherwise.