Ships - player owned... or not

[aspqrz]

The Imperial military is centrally organised, there are centrally organised civilian and military intelligence organisations, the Imperial economy is centrally regulated ... all hinted at or stated quite specifically in canon sources ...

I couldn't care less what canon says about it - I care a lot more about how it would actually have to work in practice, not about what some guy who obviously hasn't thought much about the consequences of his setup has declared in the books he's written and declared to be "canon".

I think we can agree that MM and GDW - and their licensed successors - never really put any thought into creating a coherent background, as such. A lot of canon simply makes no sense when looked at logically.

That's one of the (numerous) reasons why I was involved in the design of Space Opera ... however, given the parameters that exist, and even given how they "must" work, regardless of the idiocies of "canon", you are quite wrong about how it would "actually work in practise" simply because you seem either unaware of basic economic realities or are unable to grasp how economics actually works in the real world.

That's no big deal, as I said, since I'll never be playing in your campaign. It's probably no big deal in most campaigns - but my experience over the last almost 40 years of role playing is that, regardless of the system, you simply cannot wish away the effects of reality, which is what you are doing in ignoring economic realities.

Sure, you might get away with it for a time, but Players being what they are - devious, shifty, cunning, rules and/or reality lawyers when push comes to shove - you'll come a crupper eventuallly. And sooner than you expect.

Which is why you'd not like having either me or the group of gamers I've been playing with regularly for that almost 40 years in your campaign. Maybe we're atypical, but I seriously doubt it ...

Size, and communications delay, doesn't make centrally directed government impossible, or even particularly difficult.

Nations couldn't even manage holding onto colonies on Earth during the Age of Sail because of that, what on earth makes you think that an interstellar society could manage it? Especially one where it can literally takes years to communicate from one side to the other at the fastest rate possible.

Um, what "Age of Sail" are you referring to? It must be a different one to the one that the rest of the world experienced.

According to wikipedia it lasted from the 16th to mid 19th century ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Sail

... and I do believe that the UK did a reasonably good job of holding onto and increasing the size of her empire during the period ... and held on to the biggest chunks of it right past the end of the period and into the modern age.

"The Sun Never Sets" was a geographical truism.

Commo problems and all.

So your historical knowledge is as flawed as your economic.

Phil

 

[EDG]

So your historical knowledge is as flawed as your economic.

Last I looked, the US became an independent state during the Age of Sail era. :roll:

Whatever, I don't claim to be a historian. I just find your assumptions questionable.

 

[aspqrz]

So your historical knowledge is as flawed as your economic.

Last I looked, the US became an independent state during the Age of Sail era. :roll:

And so what? Pick a meaningless example, which, while it might look good in isolation, doesn't bear scrutiny in terms of the Empire as a whole :wink:

The British Empire still went from strength to strength. And the loss of the Colonies was not due to communications delay ... but, shock! :shock: horror! :twisted: ... economic mishandling as much as anything else :wink:

And after mishandling the American Colonials, they managed thereafter to keep the other white colonials in the Dominions so happy they're still part of the Commonwealth and still have the same Head of State (Canada, New Zealand and Australia, anyway)

So happy that we automatically fought on their side in WW1 and WW2 (yes, you could quibble about Canada's DoW, but it would be a technical quibble at best ... there was never any doubt that she'd DoW in 1939, she just wanted to make a point).

Since real world history and real world economics are the only experimental material we can refer to to see how the 3I might (or might not) work, a good working knowledge of both is at least as important as a working knowledge of the physical sciences for the scientific background.

Granted, as we have agreed elsewhere, Traveller's designers have made a real pig's breakfast of the whole 3I background, but that doesn't mean that ignoring historical similarities and economic reality is any better.

Like I said, maybe my gaming acquaintances are different from yours, but the lack of knowledge of history and economics that you have displayed would go over like a lead balloon if you were GMing them.

Maybe your gaming group is not as well read ... of course, granted, I've been RPGing since original White Box DnD and most of my friends have been doing it for almost as long, and, in those far-off times, there was a much bigger crossover between board wargamers (Panzerblitz, 1970!) and RPGers than there seems to be today, so a good working knowledge of history and economics was de rigeur.

I've noticed that younger RPGers (and this is merely a relative term to compare them to us old grognards 8) ) can often be ... politely ... ill informed about those things ... so you'd probably get away with your beliefs in many gaming groups, but not with us old fogeys :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Whatever, I don't claim to be a historian. I just find your assumptions questionable.

And I find your lack of historical knowledge and of basic economic theory ... astounding :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Phil

 

[GamerDude]

So your historical knowledge is as flawed as your economic.

Last I looked, the US became an independent state during the Age of Sail era. :roll:

Look what he said... REASONABLY not TOTALLY SUCCESSFUL (or whatever term you demand be there).

... and I do believe that the UK did a reasonably good job of holding onto and increasing the size of her empire during the period ... and held on to the biggest chunks of it right past the end of the period and into the modern age.

Whatever, I don't claim to be a historian. I just find your assumptions questionable.

yes you do yes you do.

 

[EDG]

And I find your lack of historical knowledge and of basic economic theory ... astounding :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I could say the same for your apparent lack of scientific knowledge - but I don't, because I'm not rude. Either way, I'm done participating in this thread. I have better things to do than be patronised.

 

[silburnl]

Leaving aside the matter of the physical/organisational practicality of secret pirate bases and returning to the OP; if it was easy to get away with skipping on a ship's mortgage then such mortgages wouldn't be profitable and if they weren't profitable then financial houses wouldn't offer them. Since mortgages are available they must be profitable, so it follows that it is hard to get away with skipping out on your mortgage.

The precise nature of 'how' it is difficult is best left to the GM although personally I would favour a combination of:

i) The finance houses who underwrite ship mortgages being multi-system entities with the sorts of fraud prevention and behavioural analysis capabilities that such organisations will bring to bear when they are laying out tens (or hundreds) of megacredits on each contract.
ii) 'Laundering' ships being hard to do without cover from corrupt govt agencies or other rather specialised circumstances.
iii) Most ships sticking to fairly regular routes and these being extremely local compared to typical traveller games - IMTU most ships hardly ever stray more than 2-3 jumps from their home port.
iv) Where ships do roam more widely, then mortgagors imposing additional conditions eg. the mortagees having to maintain several payments worth of cash on deposit at their home port or provide liens on other, less portable, property that come due if the ship skips.
v) When (i) to (iv) fail, then skip-tracing and reposession are sufficiently effective that the mortgagors can expect to get their hands on the ship securing the mortgage in a reasonable timeframe - say within 2-3 years of the contract going into default.

Of course PCs are special and will be anomalous for at least one and probably several of these risk mitigation strategies. Coming up with answers as to why such rascals are able to secure multimillions of commercial credit can be a fun part of the game.

Regards
Luke

 

[BP]

Gentlefolk -

The best place to hide a pirate base - out in the open!

Just grease the palms of the proper local officals (and throw in some good old fashioned blackmail) and it disappears!

 

[hdan]

Over the weekend, I watched a program on Yankee Whalers, which I found to be Traveller-inspirational and which gave me some ideas that relate at least tangentally to this "ship shares" topic.

This might be old hat to readers here, but you might be mildly amused or even inspired by some of these ideas on ways to run ships that don't use the mortgage-payment model of standard Traveller.

The whaler ship ownership model was essentially this: some financier company owns the actual ship, and hires a crew (including a captain) to run her. (One could of course borrow money to set up your own financier corporation and crew your own ship as per standard Traveller practice - this is just a different approach to giving the players access to a ship they don't really own.)

This departs from the "buying a house" model in that the actual ship owners are quite concerned about her use and crew, and at the simplest level, players could hire on to crew a ship they have no ownership of at all. (Ship shares become like "stock options" in the company - they'll entitle you to a cut of the company's profits. But I'm getting ahead of myself.)

The ship is expected to return to a given port after a span of time, at which time the ship's profits (after refit expenses and the mortgage payments for that timeframe) would be calculated. The owners would take half, and the crew would split the other half according to previously agreed upon percentages.

[Note: deducting refit costs and "mortgage payments" before profits in this case represents the minimum acceptable "investment" cost to the financiers - until they at least recuperate these costs, there is no profit made. And unprofitable crews tend not to be re-hired.]

The ship might be sent on a trading expedition down the Spinward Main, or through some arm thereof, and return in a year's time for maintenance, refitting, and accounting. If the ship is late, or doesn't send back periodic messages about its whereabouts, the holding company will become anxious, and could even put out a bounty for information and/or the crew members themselves. I don't think they would immediately assume foul play on the part of the crew unless there were good reason to be suspicious.

However, if the ship's accounts are not in order at the end of the expedition, criminal proceedings will be initiated.

Players could (at the ref's discretion) attempt to buy more shares with their own money. A fair price would be the "usual" 1% of the ship's value, possibly modified by its potential for profit. This should probably be a "gamed through" transaction, and attempts to influence the ship's price through bad crew performance might be viewed dimly.

The ship is expected to make its own way, paying its own expenses (life support, etc.) out of the ship's per-jump profits. It's likely that the expedition would start off with a certain level of seed money, possibly depending on the reputation of the crew. The crew on a whaler was expected to pay for their own supplies out of their salaries. I like this idea for Traveller too - you get your pay, but you get docked for life support and miscellany (like ammo or vacc suit repairs). Whatever's left (if there is anything) can be spent on shore leave.

If a crew man wants to speculate "off the books" (so the profits don't have to be shared with the owners), he can buy/sell cargoes with his personal money and then pay the ship's account to transport them. If the cargo hold isn't full and the captain isn't a real stickler, you might even be able to sneak a few tons in "off the books", but considering that you would be taking the standard shipping rate's worth of profit away from all the other crew, you might need to get some group buy-in first, and the owners might spot the discrepancies on an audit. (Which is why some of those unused nooks and crannies can hide the darnedest things...)

 

[GamerDude]

back under 3rd ed GURPS I ran a Traveller campaign that another GM had abandoned. 9 players and lots of "oh I don't want to read a book so whatever you want" stuff. Hell I even bought all his books from him.

They were on their second ship owned by one of the players... he had the hots for her 14 yo daughter (ug) so he gave mom whatever. no overhead, no maintenance, and the entire 40 year loan paid off by the in-game boyfriend who sold them the ship.'

I went through the books (as I said, had just gotten them all) did the numbers, looked at the crew, and gave them the news.... this much per month for standard maintenance, this much for annual maintenance, they had 20 years left on the mortgage.

It was great. Now they didn't have to feel like I was screwing them, or pushing them into a certain direction, they new what their expenses were and which cargos would get the bills paid.

So if you can work it out, why not let them have a ship, play merchant, mercenary, whatever.

 

[FreeTrav]

Over the weekend, I watched a program on Yankee Whalers, which I found to be Traveller-inspirational and which gave me some ideas that relate at least tangentally to this "ship shares" topic. ...

Hdan, would you be willing to write this up just a touch more formally, including specific rules where appropriate, and send it to editor@freelancetraveller.com or submissions@freelancetraveller.com for inclusion in an issue of Freelance Traveller?

 

[aspqrz]

And I find your lack of historical knowledge and of basic economic theory ... astounding :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I could say the same for your apparent lack of scientific knowledge - but I don't, because I'm not rude. Either way, I'm done participating in this thread. I have better things to do than be patronised.

If I'd wanted to patronise you, there wouldn't have been any smileys, but your lack of knowledge of basic economic theory and history is astounding in the context I gave of the gamers I am experienced with.

In this specific argument, science is irrelevant, so my lack (or otherwise) of scientific knowledge is irrelevant ...

Like so much of your position on what I have actually said.

It is to be regretted that you find this patronising, but probably to be expected :roll:

Phil

 

[BP]

And I find your lack of historical knowledge and of basic economic theory ... astounding :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I could say the same for your apparent lack of scientific knowledge - but I don't, because I'm not rude. Either way, I'm done participating in this thread. I have better things to do than be patronised.

If I'd wanted to patronise you, there wouldn't have been any smileys,...

Actually, that made it appear even more insulting - and the tone was quite rude...

Sharing knowledge, debating specific topics and providing 'corrections' is quite different and more productive than merely stating 'ignorance' on the part of another.


As to history and economics - the British Empires came about and were torn apart largely through wars (the Commonwealth is not an Empire). Wars were won and lost not just based on economics - by that rationale, the U.S. would not have won.

Technology played a key role in any case - the British Empire between the end of the Napoleonic war and outbreak of WWI - arguably the peak of British Emperialism - was supported, in part, by the logistical advantages of the telegraph and the steamship. Without these technologies the economic and foriegn polices that kept the empire together might not have succeeded. Economics is but one inter-related factor in creating and maintaining empires. Technology (canons versus spears, wood versus metal, radio versus couriers, radar versus scouts), logistics (communication, travel, supplies), tactics and strategy. Speed of movement and communications is critical in many endeavors.

Germany, Britan, France, Spain, Rome, China, India, etc. History shows that science and its implementation in technology played a major role in any empire... and its economics. Separating science and economics leaves a very incomplete picture of either history.

Bringing this around to Traveller - the limitations of Slower Than Light communications, sensors and movement - will certianly play a major role in the cohesiveness of a stellar empire - and the amount and ease of 'illegal' activity in a star system.

Space in a solar system is phenomenally huge. Even if the technology is assumed to be able to keep tabs everywhere - the historical and RW analogy that can be applied is spy satellites...

Optically, using conservative estimates, since the late 1970's a spy satellite could be used to track something as small as a woman's stolen purse. The reality is that just because the technology exists and is in use doesn't mean it is available for civil or commercial use.

Despite the power and money banks and issurance companies possess - they don't have access to this technology - to say - track that bag of money from a bank robber. Likewise, while mortgage skipping and economic theft might be a big deal to banks in your TU, that doesn't mean its a great big deal to the government.

As for pirating - a recent historical reference to somali pirates might be in order

 

[rust]

As for pirating - a recent historical reference to somali pirates might be in order

I see this more as a problem of willingness to act and to pay the price
for the actions, not as a problem of economy or technology. During the
Victorian Age a squadron of ships of the line or dreadnoughts would ha-
ve bombarded each and every coastal settlement that supported pirates,
and I have no doubt that this would have ended the piracy pretty quick-
ly - there are several historical examples.
However, today such crude methods are no longer a part of foreign po-
licies, and it seems we have not yet been able to replace them with so-
mething that suits our ideas of international relations - and works.

As for economy and technology, I wholeheartedly agree. The trick is not
only to have a good economy and earn a lot of money, but to spend the
money for something more useful in the long run than luxury goods -
and this is almost always improved technology, a technological edge over
the competitors.
Good historical ecamples would include Portugal and the Netherlands,
small states with comparatively weak economies, which managed to de-
velop new technologies that gave them an advantage and enabled them
to experience a Golden Age, including small empires - and to expand
their economies.

 

[AndrewW]

I see this more as a problem of willingness to act and to pay the price
for the actions, not as a problem of economy or technology. During the
Victorian Age a squadron of ships of the line or dreadnoughts would ha-
ve bombarded each and every coastal settlement that supported pirates,
and I have no doubt that this would have ended the piracy pretty quick-
ly - there are several historical examples.
However, today such crude methods are no longer a part of foreign po-
licies, and it seems we have not yet been able to replace them with so-
mething that suits our ideas of international relations - and works.

Though not always empires such as the British have paid off pirates rather then taking military action.

 

[rust]

Though not always empires such as the British have paid off pirates rather then taking military action.

True, of course - sometimes because military action seemed more
costly than paying "tribute", sometimes because the pirates did
more harm to Britain's enemies than to Britain ...

 

[BP]

As for pirating - a recent historical reference to somali pirates might be in order

I see this more as a problem of willingness to act and to pay the price
for the actions, not as a problem of economy or technology. ...

Exactly!

Even assuming that the technology and resources available in a Traveller setting (such as the 3I) exist, does not mean that those resources will be used to resolve problems of a limited commercial or civilian nature...

Consider that a small group of lightly armed, untrained (ok, maybe they went to pirate camp) pirates can face up to the military might of first world powers and not get blown out of the water and their 'secret' bases elimiated via missles launched thousands of miles away. There are reasons - since their operations don't fall into acts of war or a military threat - thus they can use hostages as 'shields' and threaten high monentary value commercial assets and be somewhat 'succesful'.

The technology and resources exist to locate and completely remove these thugs - it is not imployed because that level of escalation has its own inherent risks.

Despite the financial power of banks and insurance companies, locating and pursuing mortgage doggers and thieves and starship chop shops is unlikely to recieve any military support, excepting in the case of pirates.
And even then, it is going to be a much lower order of priority to military forces than their primary roles of defense or training to and waging war.

Piracy on the high seas has been going on for a long time. Like as not, piracy would happen in a space setting such as Traveller provides. (Heck - I was talking to a police officer last week who lived through an attempted car-jacking on a freeway - essentially piracy on the open road!)

(Sorry - I had a much better post, but somehow it disappeared. Ok, I know you've all heard that one before... but honestly, it happened!)

 

[GamerDude]

One of the things I thought was cool in David Webber's "Honorverse" was the development of communications traveling on gravity waves. They couldn't use it for like, voice and video comm but it allowed sensor buoys to communicate virtually real-time with any RMN ships...

I say virtually because it was speed of light without the enemy (typically the 'peeps' from Haven) being able to detect the signals (and making the buoys harder to detect).

 

[aspqrz]

If I'd wanted to patronise you, there wouldn't have been any smileys,...

Actually, that made it appear even more insulting - and the tone was quite rude...

It is regrettable that you believe that.

Since argument by text is inherently problematic regarding people reading in emotional contexts that may not be there, as a result of the lack of visual cues we rely on to make such determinations in real life, smileys are really the only way of attempting to get across such things.

The context should have been plain ... I made it plain, in some detail, that I was referring to EDG's shortcomings in terms of the players I am used to, and why they may be, perhaps, somewhat unusual.

If he manages to find that patronising, then the problem is, I would submit, not with the message or the messenger, but with the recipient ... being overly sensitive and seeing things that aren't there.

Certainly I feel that his lack of historical and basic economic knowledge is problematic and said so fairly gently ... if his feelings are hurt, that's sad, because that was not the intention. Heat/Kitchen issues, I guess.

Phil

 

[BP]

:roll:

 

[EDG]

In this specific argument, science is irrelevant, so my lack (or otherwise) of scientific knowledge is irrelevant ...

Actually, the science was entirely relevant to the topic. We were talking about the practicalities of hiding pirate bases, of exactly how big a solar system actually was, of lightspeed delays and how sensor networks could operate given that, and so on. Not economics or history.

The only reason history came up was because I asked how the financing of privately owned ships worked in the Age of Sail, if it happened at all (since the AoS is the supposed model of how the OTU is supposed to work). I don't believe anyone actually answered that question either.