Ships cost an Insane Amount

[rust]

Character creation, they took focused on ship shares.

This is why I replaced all ship shares with colony shares for this setting,
no chance to escape into space this time ... :twisted:

 

[Captain Jonah]

There is plenty of scope for planet based adventures. Stuck waiting 6 days for the cargo to arrive, starport controllers on stike for the weekend etc. From my point of view you may be on the planet and have time to do an adventure but you have the choice to do it or not because you can leave once the delay is gone. Planetary adventures are part and parcel of Traveller. Its the being forced into them with no options all the time bit I hate.

kristof65 I agree with you 110%. I role play to do things that I cannot do in real life. Flying between the stars, seeking adventure on new worlds. All good enjoyable entertainment. What I don't want in my Role Playing is hard up, money in short supply, transport broken down, client canceled order, mortgage due, no choices. I have real life for that stuff, RPGs should be fun.

Rust. Compulsory colony shares. Are your players convicts by any chance, world called new australia :twisted:

 

[rust]

Rust. Compulsory colony shares. Are your players convicts by any chance, world called new australia :twisted:

No, the planet is called Pandora, which could be understood as a warning
that there might be some nasty surprises beneath the water world's calm
ocean surface ... 8)

Which leads to this setting's replacement for starships: Submarines. Con-
sidering the comparatively low speed of a sub, a water world is a very
big place, and the "aquatic space" has to offer at least as many challen-
ges as "outer space" - underwater volcanoes, seaquakes, nasty native
creatures, and so on.

 

[Subzero001]

Where in the books does it give a build / rebuild of ships in time?

Thx

 

[rust]

Where in the books does it give a build / rebuild of ships in time?

The Classic Traveller adventure Trillion Credit Squadron had detailed rules
for this, and they could easily be adapted to Mongoose Traveller. If you
need such data, I would recommend to get the Trillion Credit Squadron
PDF, with a price of only 3 USD it is currently quite inexpensive.

 

[BP]

Where in the books does it give a build / rebuild of ships in time?

Thx

Hello, Subzero001. From the Main book (Core), page 105, in the inset at the bottom right, gives construction times an average of 1 day per 1 MCr. But, it also states this varies widely.

Page 143, under Repairs, has 1-6 weeks (1d6) per point of damage for repair of structural damage.

Quality of the Starport can be used to adjust the times. Using dice to determine time frames is one easy out.

If you want to add detail - consider that testing and paperwork ('flight' certifications) can affect time.

 

[Captain Jonah]

May want to house rule this one a bit.

Roughly 1day per Mcr1 gives 36 days for a mass built Free Trader, doable with proper tech and it being a stock design. Maybe double that for non stock ships.

For repairs, 1-6 weeks per point of structure is what the rules say. This means you can build a Free Trader in 5 weeks and take longer than that to repair one point of structure. If its modular for a fast build it should be the same for repairs, pull apart the sections replace the beams and braces that are damaged and glue it back together.

I would sugest 1-6 days rather than weeks and use rules for reducing work time with extra skill/cost. Double the cost to reduce to half time, make higher engineer skill roll etc.

For a scary though. An Imperial Battleship goes into combat and gets heavily damaged (1000 structure smashed), the ship is still intact so it flys to a repair dock which then takes 1000 structure times 1-6 weeks (ave 3.5) equals 67 years of repair time. Even if you repair each section seperately its still 13 years. :shock:

Wow those Imperial Labour unions are on a go slow.

 

[BP]

Yep, I wouldn't use the rules myself (and in fact, don't)...

The structure time isn't unreasonable for common damage to most craft in the main book (which only goes upto 2000 tons/40 points), but it doesn't scale well at all. Unfortunately, I don't recall any additional rules in High Guard.

This sort of thing I handle as referee judgment, myself. But, for those who need rules, the MGT ones are fast and easy. Personally, I'd base construction time on hull size, drive ratings and TL.

 

[Ector]

The adventurers shouldn't start the game rich, should they?

In one of my settings the characters got a nice ship entirely for free, but
it was the only supply ship for a few distant frontier colonies - if the ship
did not arrive in time to deliver provisions, pharmaceuticals, vital life sup-
port system spare parts and thelike, many people would die.

If they really had to deliver the supplies, and couldn't refuse, then it actually wasn't their ship You could give them a subsidized ship with the same results.

the rule you are citing is for PCs to get part time temp work. NOT a rule on a full time job with a company.

I've checked the rules - there is nothing about "part-time". Looks like it's supposed to be the normal monthly salary. It's absolutely ridiculous, though.

most of the Imperium citizens don't live on worlds with an oppressive dictatorship that has total control of the economy and stifles enterprise. Most people in the 3I come from high tech worlds that are "Rich" by the definition of someone coming from a low tech dictatorship...

OK, looks like my comparison with cars wasn't vivid enough. Let's take another one: can everyone afford an ocean ship in your country? I guess not, and that's normal. Could everyone afford a ship in XVII century? Certainly not.

I'm trying to say that starship should be extremely expensive, and the mortgage was issued on purpose. The game is balanced so that a good trader could make a profit exceeding all the costs (mortgage, maintenance, berthing costs etc.), but a bad trader cannot. If the players don't want (or cannot) trade, they can earn money by recruiting as mercenaries or taking some dangerous missions, but they have to earn the money some way - or lose the ship. That's realistic and makes a wonderful stage for any adventure.
If you give them the ship without mortgage (by increasing their shares or any other way), they will be free to do the most craziest things they can imagine, and, ultimately, they shouldn't agree to do the dangerous missions if they really roleplay their characters. Yes you can turn the Galaxy against them, but you cannot do this regularly.

 

[Ector]

Why not? I see it as being totally up to the players and GM. Unless the whole objective of the players is to become rich - then game over. For some people it's not about the money it's about the adventure.

A modern yacht owner is probably the worst possible candidate for serious adventuring risking death: while he may volunteer just for a change, his spirit is easily broken in harsh situations.
Look, it's Traveller, not D&D, and the only thing the adventurers get from their adventures is money and reputation, not "experience". And if they are already rich, the game turns into farce.

Yes ships are expensive if you look at them from a person in the street scale. From the point of view of Free Traders who deal in millions a year they are not so expensive.

Absolutely true. Remember, the rules were tested with the mortgage in mind.

Ship shares, a share in a ship. Most people switch these to a fixed value, I use Mcr1 myself. As a % of value they make no sense. 5 ship shares as 5% of a Free Trader is Cr1,783,350. The same shares in a Fat trader are Cr4,859,100. Settle on a fixed value.

Converting ship shares into cash is forbidden by the rules (Core Rulebook, p.36):

Ship shares represent contacts, credit rating, savings and favours owed that a character can put towards ownership of a space vessel. Characters can pool their ship shares towards the use of a vessel, but cannot trade ship shares for cash. It’s very unlikely that the characters will be able to own anything other than the smallest starship outright at the start of the game, so most Traveller crews end up working to support the mortgage on their spacecraft.

Converting shares of one ship through cash into shares of another ship is violating the rules twice, since PCs are getting either 5 shares of the "professional" ship or TWO shares of any other vessel.

If you're following the rules, your PC are NOT going to get 90% ownership of Far Trader. And that's normal.

 

[DFW]

I've checked the rules - there is nothing about "part-time". Looks like it's supposed to be the normal monthly salary. It's absolutely ridiculous, though.

It's a subtlety of the language. Due to context, it denoting a "salary" would be impossible.

OK, looks like my comparison with cars wasn't vivid enough. Let's take another one: can everyone afford an ocean ship in your country? I guess not, and that's normal. Could everyone afford a ship in XVII century? Certainly not.

I'm sorry but you don't understand what I mean by "too expensive" within the context of a market based economy. It has ZERO to do with an average person buying a starship...

 

[rust]

Characters can pool their ship shares towards the use of a vessel, but cannot trade ship shares for cash.

There is a way to do it with "general" ship shares by using the Commer-
cial Entity rules from Merchant Prince, by investing the ship shares in a
company - each ship share gives a value of about 125,000 Credits this
way - and then withdrawing that money from the company later on, al-
though at a severe loss.

 

[DFW]

Look, it's Traveller, not D&D, and the only thing the adventurers get from their adventures is money and reputation, not "experience". And if they are already rich, the game turns into farce.

I'm friends with at least 10 millionaires. 2 that I'm closest to LOVE to adventure in Africa. Always coming back beat up, often with a broken bone or two. They lose money and gain to NO public recognition. For them it is the challenge, pure and simple. Another friend who is worth over $100 million loves to off road MX across the worlds largest deserts in search of ancient trinkets, in the SUMMER months. Again, just for the adventure.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Ship shares, a share in a ship. Most people switch these to a fixed value, I use Mcr1 myself. As a % of value they make no sense. 5 ship shares as 5% of a Free Trader is Cr1,783,350. The same shares in a Fat trader are Cr4,859,100. Settle on a fixed value.

Converting ship shares into cash is forbidden by the rules (Core Rulebook, p.36):

Converting shares of one ship through cash into shares of another ship is violating the rules twice, since PCs are getting either 5 shares of the "professional" ship or TWO shares of any other vessel.

If you're following the rules, your PC are NOT going to get 90% ownership of Far Trader. And that's normal.

Not sure where your confusion is coming from here. At no point have I talked about selling ship shares and in fact I don't allow that. What I am talking about and what others who support this idea are talking about is giving a ship share a fixed value of Mcr1 or a bit more. This FIXED value is used against the purchase price of a ship not used as a sale value. No one has ever talked about selling shares for cash, we are talking about giving them a fixed value when used to buy ships. Also many refs use some flexibility here with regard to the ships that can be bought under named "ship shares", most of us seem happy to use the "Free Trader" 5 ship shares for either a Free Trader, a Far Trader or a Fat Trader.

No one starts owning 90% of a ship unless the ref wants them to and if the ref wants his players to own a ship outright then that is what happens. The group mentioned a long time ago here that worked out 48 ship shares performed an incredible feat :shock:
They should be rewarded not picked on.

As regards the questions about income for the average Imperial citizen. Who or what is the average citizen. Cr500 per month is mentioned but what is this, could it be the Imperialy mandated minimum wage, is it perhaps the level of benifits paid to those without work or any prospect of ever having work. Hi tech rich worlds and hi Ind worlds are going to have a limited number of unskilled jobs as the bots will be doing them far more cheaply. A Waiter on a starship pulls in Cr2000 a month for room service and being polite to the grumpy nobles.
The lowest pension that can be had for someone who has worked and retired is Cr833 / month so someone on Cr500 a month isn't on a pension or even in much of a job.
The bulk of the Imperial population is on those high Pop hive worlds, how many people on those worlds have actual jobs, how many are on the Imperial welfare payment of minimum monthly income. I suspect a awful lot of the people on these worlds and therefore a significant % of the Imperial population is on this low income because they have no jobs not because this is what the average Imperial job pays.

 

[DFW]

A Waiter on a starship pulls in Cr2000 a month for room service and being polite to the grumpy nobles.

In addition to the Cr2000/month they are getting the equivalent value of double occupant passage for the entire month + medical. So, it works out to even more...

 

[justacaveman]

The rules don't allow this.


Traveller doesn't have RULES.

Travelller has GM suggestions.

Campaigns have RULES (The suggestions that the GM accepts.).

All of the above has been the prime tenet of RPGs since the 1970's. There are no hard and fast rules, just a bunch of suggestions that are organized into various game systems. The GM has always decided which elements of the game system that they will include in their particular game. There were even conversions of D&D into Traveller etc..

Nothing is forbidden, it's YOUR game.

When I discuss errors in the rules, I'm usually talking about internal inconsistancies such as rules to design real world equipment that can't come up with realistic designs etc., or someone misunderstanding what the standard rules actually say.

Just my .02 credits.

 

[justacaveman]

The Steward on a starship is more than a waiter. A steward does everything for the passengers. The smaller the ship, the more that the Steward is responsible for. Except on passenger liners, the Steward is usually cook, maid, entertainment director, a fourth for bridge etc., even a medic sometimes. A steward has to be capable of dealing with passengers from all walks of life, and helping them with anything that they need during weeks of travel.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Oh look someone left 0.2 creds lying here (picks up)

Yes a steward does a lot of things but a skill 0 steward has a level of training picked up over a few months and pulls in Cr2000 a month. Higher skill levels may get paid more if you houserule that sort of thing but basicly a few months training gets you four times the average income, I think not

My point was and is that the few salaries we have examples of seem reasonable when compared to living costs and Cr500 a month seems more like a minimum existance level benifit or such like.

Please contribute more ideas to the tread but please put your 0.2 creds on the shelf, saves me bending down :twisted:

 

[far-trader]

...My point was and is that the few salaries we have examples of seem reasonable when compared to living costs and Cr500 a month seems more like a minimum existance level benifit or such like.

I can't accept the core book living costs at face value. They seem calculated on restaurant meals and hotel accommodations. Most people I know buy food at a grocery store and cook it themselves in their own apartment or home. All of which costs considerably less than restaurants and hotels.

Even if you take those costs as the rule and not the exception, the Starship crew salaries are still high to rich considering room and board are covered. Seems a bit silly to me but ymmv.

 

[rust]

The Central Supply Catalogue has a table of living costs on page 182.
According to this, a very poor standard of living requires 120 Credits
per month, the average standard of living requires 400 Credits per
month.
The 5,000 Credits earned by a navigator according to the core rules
would be the equivalent of a rich standard of living, suitable for a cha-
racter of Social Status 12 (!).