Ships - player owned... or not

[zace66]

A quick question. How are the payments sorted?
We know there is not FTL communications, so how are payments sourced for the mortgage payments?
A player pointed out that their months mortgage payments for 102,112.075 Cr and that as they were some 9 jumps away from their home system that the payments would take ages to arrive, so does a bank/finance company put out a call for the ship to be impounded immediately ? No, of course not, say they put out a seeker after the 2nd payment is missed, ok, call in the skiphunters when the 3rd payment is missed, so the players now have had 12 weeks at least to get away with their ship....

Hmmmm.

 

[aspqrz]

A quick question. How are the payments sorted?
We know there is not FTL communications, so how are payments sourced for the mortgage payments?
A player pointed out that their months mortgage payments for 102,112.075 Cr and that as they were some 9 jumps away from their home system that the payments would take ages to arrive, so does a bank/finance company put out a call for the ship to be impounded immediately ? No, of course not, say they put out a seeker after the 2nd payment is missed, ok, call in the skiphunters when the 3rd payment is missed, so the players now have had 12 weeks at least to get away with their ship....

Hmmmm.

The problem, as usual, is in the obvious - the Imperium is static, hemmed in on all sides, and is 1100 years old ... there's really nowhere you can run to except on the Imperial borders and, well, that cuts both ways ... as much as their neighbours might or might not like the Imperium, they have, potentially, the same problem ... so there would be agreements for handling such things.

All arguments about pirate havens and suchlike dens of iniquity within the Imperium simply don't make sense under the above described circumstances (i.e. hemmed in effectively on all sides and 1100 years old).

There's, almost quite literally, nowhere to run - and even if you do, there's nowhere to hide, either ... not in the medium or long term.

The best you could do, I suspect, is find the interstellar equivalent of a Chop Shop and sell the ship for cents on the credit as parts. And even that isn't likelyn to be very safe ... aerospace parts have to be certified and registered, which means there are searchable databases of part numbers and BOLOs can easily be sent out for such parts from "missing" ships.

Phil

 

[zace66]

Indeed that is the case hence why my campaign is nowhere near the Imperium.

My best take on it is that the payments are taken out of your central bank fund on the planet you were discharged on, and received the ship, or homeworld (or wherever). Once THAT runs out of credit THEN the ship tracers are let loose.

So any transactions you make etc need to be sent to your bank or subsidiary and data takes a while - but should be enough to get back to your bank ready for the next payment.

 

[Zaron]

Perhaps, your ship's credit and mortage is part of your docking procedure and is protected by a -6 DM modifier to hacking. No port rated C or above will allow you to dock without seeing your nearly hack-proof data wafer.

Of course, if after a few weeks, the accountants find that the records from planet X and planet Y don't sync, you could be on the imperial's most wanted list.

 

[Charakan]

Within the Imperium and areas controlled by other major interstellar governments it is likely that the kind of financial institutions that can finance multi-million credit starship loans are more likely to be organisations that have multiworld interests rather than a local bank.

There should be some leeway on ships mortgages that allows a few months grace between the due date of payment and the receipt of funds. Such corporations (an example might be a subsidiary of the financial mega-corporation Hortalez et Cie) are likely to use extensive courier networks to keep there financial data up to date.

Skipping out on a loan is a possibility but if you ever re-enter civilised space you probably flagged as a major fraudster and the Imperial Ministry of Justice probably uses the X-Boat network which can easily outrun the speed of the PCs ship, this data is then passed on to licensed skip tracers who attempt to recover the ship for a percentage.

Of course theres always the option of heading out into the wilds or other chaotic areas (a damn sight easier in milieu 0, the chaos of the rebellion, the new era or the fourth empire of 1248).

Just my 0.2 cr on the subject.

 

[EDG]

I think it would be very easy to get around the system. First, space is really damn big, and there's going to be somewhere that's under the radar regardless of how 'hemmed in' or 'old' the Imperium is. Seriously, does anyone think that the authorities would take a second glance at (what is actually) an unremarkable (but hollowed out, with "den of iniquity" inside) asteroid in a belt about 50 AU from the dead white dwarf star that's way off the beaten track? You think people have time to search vast areas of space looking for such needles in haystacks?

You could fake the ship's destruction, go to one of these out of the way places, get the ship repainted, hack the registry files, maybe even get some cosmetic surgery and fake ID too, and nobody would ever know. Of course it'd be done for a price and you'd probably get in with the wrong crowd...

 

[zace66]

Hmmmm - so HOW many ships are 'missing' ?

This 1000cr per ton of freight payment easily makes up the payment, usually a couple of runs makes the monthly payment, abnd thats without speculative trading, just the dull humdrum jump from a to b and back again
until the whole delivery is made.

However, then sooner or later, they will want more and do their own brokering, and THEN they will maybe even want more - ie the ship payment and then the whole matter of getting the ship made over/disguised/etc

So if we have a few too many ships going missing, would we have ship tracers, bounty hunters, etc all over?

Hmmmmm. As I said my campaign is well off standard travelled areas, although a player has founf VERY old Judges Guild modules in the are - no i WONT be converting them.

 

[EDG]

So if we have a few too many ships going missing, would we have ship tracers, bounty hunters, etc all over?

Maybe, but how would they find their targets? All a ship has to do is get a few jumps away and any info about them, their status, or their whereabouts will be a month or two out of date. Then they drop off the radar, trade at the type Ds and Es for a while, then aren't seen for a few weeks, and then nobody notices this other ship with (apparently) a different crew rejoining the circuit again.

 

[Charakan]

So if we have a few too many ships going missing, would we have ship tracers, bounty hunters, etc all over?

Maybe, but how would they find their targets? All a ship has to do is get a few jumps away and any info about them, their status, or their whereabouts will be a month or two out of date. Then they drop off the radar, trade at the type Ds and Es for a while, then aren't seen for a few weeks, and then nobody notices this other ship with (apparently) a different crew rejoining the circuit again.

I suppose the amount of missing ships depends on the number of criminally minded people in a given society.

Even in todays era of high crime the vast majority of people don't commit much more than getting a speeding ticket, stealing a pen from work or a petty drug offence.

EDG's pirate chop shops will have their place but the fact is that if they exist their are other ways to find them hunting round asteroids looking for the ones with a big hole in the middle.

Good old fahioned under cover detective work by gaining the trust of a criminal syndicate involved in such activities would allow you learn the location of such a facility.

Organised criminals don't normally advertise their services on the Starports bulletin board and gaining access to such an organistion should be a lot more difficult than making a streetwise roll to buy an illegal auto pistol.

I'm not to up on psychology but I'm sure a good investigator would use a psychological profile to help him trace the habits of an offender who has altered his appearance.

And even if you can alter your DNA a psionic investigator could still identify an individual, though this is probably out in a 3I setting taking place after the psionic suppressions.

 

[EDG]

EDG's pirate chop shops will have their place but the fact is that if they exist their are other ways to find them hunting round asteroids looking for the ones with a big hole in the middle.

Your other points aside, do you realise that this is next to impossible to do? For starters, they wouldn't make it that obvious. And if you wanted to go into every belt, scanning every asteroid over a few hundred metres across looking for a hollow one, then you'd probably be there for a few thousand years! Not to mention the fact that the hollowed asteroid could actually change its orbit as well, or even be orbiting totally out of the ecliptic plane which would make it even harder to find.

 

[Charakan]

EDG's pirate chop shops will have their place but the fact is that if they exist their are other ways to find them hunting round asteroids looking for the ones with a big hole in the middle.

Your other points aside, do you realise that this is next to impossible to do? For starters, they wouldn't make it that obvious. And if you wanted to go into every belt, scanning every asteroid over a few hundred metres across looking for a hollow one, then you'd probably be there for a few thousand years! Not to mention the fact that the hollowed asteroid could actually change its orbit as well, or even be orbiting totally out of the ecliptic plane which would make it even harder to find.

Yeah, I did realise that, perhaps I didn't express it very well, I've been awake for thirty six hours so things are a little frayed around the edges, if it came across as slightly offensive I apologise (or maybe I'm being a little hyper sensitive!).

Thats why I suggested undercover work as a valid way of locating a station.

And your bad crowd suggestion gives the GM a nice lever of the players as well.

 

[EDG]

if it came across as slightly offensive I apologise (or maybe I'm being a little hyper sensitive!).

It didn't at all . I was just pointing out how hard this part was. Your other points were good ones though.

 

[Charakan]

if it came across as slightly offensive I apologise (or maybe I'm being a little hyper sensitive!).

It didn't at all . I was just pointing out how hard this part was. Your other points were good ones though.

I thought the hole in the middle comment may have come across as a little sarcastic. It wasn't meant to be that way, but as you've already said you didn't take it that way.

I have a lot of respect for your scientific skills EDG, you've answered some questions for me and others on these boards and your knowledge has proved enlightening and constructive. I like a good dose of realistic science in my SF.

 

[EDG]

I thought the hole in the middle comment may have come across as a little sarcastic. It wasn't meant to be that way, but as you've already said you didn't take it that way.

No worries, it didn't even come across that way at all (and thanks for the kind words!)

 

[aspqrz]

I think it would be very easy to get around the system. First, space is really damn big, and there's going to be somewhere that's under the radar regardless of how 'hemmed in' or 'old' the Imperium is. Seriously, does anyone think that the authorities would take a second glance at (what is actually) an unremarkable (but hollowed out, with "den of iniquity" inside) asteroid in a belt about 50 AU from the dead white dwarf star that's way off the beaten track? You think people have time to search vast areas of space looking for such needles in haystacks?

You could fake the ship's destruction, go to one of these out of the way places, get the ship repainted, hack the registry files, maybe even get some cosmetic surgery and fake ID too, and nobody would ever know. Of course it'd be done for a price and you'd probably get in with the wrong crowd...

Seriously, dude, it's the future ... and not a 1950's version of it, either. It's 5000 AD or thereabouts - and, despite the ridiculously slow rate of technological advance posited, there has been some, and that includes Computers and their usage.

Crime on the sort of scale and sophistication that you propose leaves tracks in the data - and, of course, while space is vast in real life, the flat/2D universe of Traveller is NOT all that vast, it is distressingly finite and circumscribed.

In short, the massive computing power available will mean that such hidey holes as you suggest would not be secret for long, and the cost of creating them couldn't possibly be recovered in time for anyone to make a profit ... and, given that said haven has to be well enough known for the PCs to gain knowledge of it to attempt a skip, well, if you expect to have anyone believe that it won't be trackable with reasonably extrapolatable future (and near future, if not presently available) computer tech, then might I suggest you pull the other one, it plays "Jingle Bells"! :shock:

The Imperium, as described over the years, is simply to big, to highly organised and too old for there to be anything that is a real solution. Nope, better to play in a different sandbox, as has been suggested,.

Phil

 

[aspqrz]

EDG's pirate chop shops will have their place but the fact is that if they exist their are other ways to find them hunting round asteroids looking for the ones with a big hole in the middle.

Your other points aside, do you realise that this is next to impossible to do? For starters, they wouldn't make it that obvious. And if you wanted to go into every belt, scanning every asteroid over a few hundred metres across looking for a hollow one, then you'd probably be there for a few thousand years! Not to mention the fact that the hollowed asteroid could actually change its orbit as well, or even be orbiting totally out of the ecliptic plane which would make it even harder to find.

It is "next to impossible" only if no-one ever built it in the first place (and therefore there are no records of its construction and no construction crew to be security risks) and if no-one ever goes there or leaves there to leave a trail.

Since, in order to fulfill the above requirements, the facility has to not actually exist and/or not actually do anything, that makes it trackable.

To make money they have to sell the products of crime - and that makes their activities trackable.

At the very least, they'll probably come to the notice of the Imperial or Local taxation authorities for discrepancies in their legitimate side's record keeping, given the sort of ubiquitous computer presence and power that will inevitably exist in the 3I.

No, it will be next to impossible to hide your facility's existence for long enough for it to make enough money to pay for its construction in the first place. :wink:

Phil

 

[The Chef]

I think it would be very easy to get around the system. First, space is really damn big, and there's going to be somewhere that's under the radar regardless of how 'hemmed in' or 'old' the Imperium is. Seriously, does anyone think that the authorities would take a second glance at (what is actually) an unremarkable (but hollowed out, with "den of iniquity" inside) asteroid in a belt about 50 AU from the dead white dwarf star that's way off the beaten track? You think people have time to search vast areas of space looking for such needles in haystacks?

You could fake the ship's destruction, go to one of these out of the way places, get the ship repainted, hack the registry files, maybe even get some cosmetic surgery and fake ID too, and nobody would ever know. Of course it'd be done for a price and you'd probably get in with the wrong crowd...

Seriously, dude, it's the future ... and not a 1950's version of it, either. It's 5000 AD or thereabouts - and, despite the ridiculously slow rate of technological advance posited, there has been some, and that includes Computers and their usage.

Crime on the sort of scale and sophistication that you propose leaves tracks in the data - and, of course, while space is vast in real life, the flat/2D universe of Traveller is NOT all that vast, it is distressingly finite and circumscribed.

In short, the massive computing power available will mean that such hidey holes as you suggest would not be secret for long, and the cost of creating them couldn't possibly be recovered in time for anyone to make a profit ... and, given that said haven has to be well enough known for the PCs to gain knowledge of it to attempt a skip, well, if you expect to have anyone believe that it won't be trackable with reasonably extrapolatable future (and near future, if not presently available) computer tech, then might I suggest you pull the other one, it plays "Jingle Bells"! :shock:

The Imperium, as described over the years, is simply to big, to highly organised and too old for there to be anything that is a real solution. Nope, better to play in a different sandbox, as has been suggested,.

Phil

I feel this is a little naive, yes technology will improve, but so will the criminal elements technology. Look at what we have now, we have satelite survalance 24/7 accross the globe but yet insurgents can still strike with impunity. we have chip and pin credit cards, but the chips have been cracked so others can access your bank details, low tech solutions like little motor boats hijacking oil tankers etc etc.

yes the impirium is huge, and organised and have a weight of technology, but as EDG says, space is huge; not every moon planet and asteroid has been fully mapped, and crime is a multi billion dollar/pound/credit industry. they would find away, from hidden bases, to bribing officials to maybe keeping a sector duke or 2 in the pocket. where there is money there is power, and there will always be those people who either do not want to earn an honest wage, or those who do not have the opotunity to earn a honest wage.

The Impirium no doubt would suffer the same as any other large organisation:

where there is big beaurocracy there is corruption, where it is old it is complacent.

Chef

 

[rust]

I agree with aspqrz: Unless the installation is completely isolated and
completely self-sufficient, there will be a money trail and a supply trail
that leads to the installation.

To give a real world example: When India's intelligence services wanted
to locate some terrorist groups hiding in remote mountain regions, they
sent their agents to the region's markets to look for people who bought
more food supplies than an average local family would need. It took the
agents less than two weeks to identify their "targets" among the markets'
customers, arrest and interrogate them, learn the location of the terro-
rists' hideout - and send in the special forces to kill the entire group.

 

[BP]

...
It took the agents less than two weeks to identify their "targets" among the markets' customers, arrest and interrogate them, learn the location of the terrorists' hideout - and send in the special forces to kill the entire group.

Or that's what they'd have you believe . (Obviously, they'd failed to pay off the right officials!) If it generally worked that way - we'd have no terrorists or organized crime or spam...

Besides - its the ones that do it well that we don't hear about.

By its very nature, every activity that interacts with the RW generates a trail. How obscure, convoluted and misleading the trail is another matter... (not to mention how incompetent, corruptible, gulible, uncommitted the organization looking).

 

[EDG]

It is "next to impossible" only if no-one ever built it in the first place (and therefore there are no records of its construction and no construction crew to be security risks) and if no-one ever goes there or leaves there to leave a trail.

What trail? Criminal elements don't need to leave a trail. Do you honestly believe that everyone or everything in the Imperium is trackable? Especially given the number of low tech worlds around? Who's to say that the asteroids aren't hollowed out by slaves picked up from low tech worlds that nobody cares about? Who's to say that they wouldn't grow their own food supplies in there, using seeds that they just farmed themselves from some uninhabited world nearby?

To make money they have to sell the products of crime - and that makes their activities trackable.

Only if criminals use Imperial banks. Maybe they have their own parallel banking system?

At the very least, they'll probably come to the notice of the Imperial or Local taxation authorities for discrepancies in their legitimate side's record keeping, given the sort of ubiquitous computer presence and power that will inevitably exist in the 3I.

What taxes? Who said that they had to have a "legitimate side"?

No, it will be next to impossible to hide your facility's existence for long enough for it to make enough money to pay for its construction in the first place. :wink:

Given that I'm not even convinced that financial transactions even work in the Imperium in the first place (due to extreme time lag etc) I think you're being overly pessimistic.