So many ATVs in high tech places, when they're just bad air/rafts?

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Reynard said:
It makes me wonder what the median income is in grav based societies. A 'modern' TL 8 stripped down 4 seat ground family car in the HG2e Vehicle Handbook costs Cr.6500 which is cheap depending on how the currency would translate to 21st century Real Earth. A TL 10 2 seater G/Runner city car costs Cr.49,500 or eight times the cost. That's a big chunk of change. A world could have the tech level for commercial grav vehicles but lousy Resource Unit value making four wheels much more affordable for Joe and Jane Average. Hard to say if grav mass transport would pay for itself either. Might also explain low tech ATVs instead of very expensive air/rafts.
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Hard to work out. Today I think most people don't buy new cars and this messes up the calculation.

Prevalance of ground vehicles can depend on whether they have a well developed road network. Older cities will, but what about new ones? This and the price of grav vehicles are heavily linked - some fiction guidelines would be needed.

I've said this before but if the prices came from Mongoose First Edition, and their writers were European, that car price might have been 1:1 Cr/€ for the publishing year for the small European cars they don't sell in the USA. If anyone has 1st, the ground car price would be appreciated.

"Simple" machines like a ground car are probably way cheaper in a high tech society. These days you can scrounge enough parts to build a 1970s-type car (no computer, basic features, etc, maybe 1980s) from a junkyard but you need Mechanic-2 and a lot of time. A brand new design would be difficult because of the current complexity.
 
Moppy said:
I've said this before but if the prices came from Mongoose First Edition, and their writers were European, that car price might have been 1:1 Cr/€ for the publishing year for the small European cars they don't sell in the USA. If anyone has 1st, the ground car price would be appreciated.
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6,000Cr
 
One of the tenets of Traveller would have to be that city planning will vary planet to planet.

For high population high technology worlds, you could have a mix of hives and arcologies.
 
Moppy said:
"Simple" machines like a ground car are probably way cheaper in a high tech society.
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Not many manufacturers would keep obsolete lines running so the ground cars in high tech area would be for collectors and those that travel to lower tech areas.
 
baithammer said:
Moppy said:
"Simple" machines like a ground car are probably way cheaper in a high tech society.
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Not many manufacturers would keep obsolete lines running so the ground cars in high tech area would be for collectors and those that travel to lower tech areas.
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I'm assuming that by that time the designs are probably simple enough that a home "fabber" or workshop could do them.

If you were good with tools today you could do TL 4-6 in a home workshop at a great expense of time.

However, with increasing automation, the newest tools, outside the price range of hobbyists, can automate it. Won't be long before the mainstream start to hear about high quality 5-axis CNCs in the home.

edit: Everyone in TL 15 land has a robot in their house? I remember Traveller hates robots but I don't know if that's just "full AI" ones.
 
I picture I, Robot when I hear automation in every home. If you can't, by law, have human slaves in your home then why not do it with obviously purpose styled humanoid robots. Where are people getting money to buy these robots if robots do all the jobs? Quite possibly when a world's population suffers from massive unemployment they remember the Shudusham Concords and get fed up.
 
If your robot slaves are able to think like people then they're probably people, and you can't by law enslave them.

Robots that can't think like people need to be carefully and exactly programmed to do specific tasks and will fail hilariously at tasks they aren't programmed for.

For manufacturing I was envisaging some library of designs which you could feed into a generic fabricator/cutter and robot arm assembler. It would be fine for older items, but the capabilities required for current high-tech should require a specialised factory.

If you wanted to change the design you'd have to spend time designing the new parts, and testing. There will probably be a community of engineering hobbyists that do that in their spare time, or companies might release their designs for whatever reason.

Traveller defines that jobs and money exist in the Imperium at TL 15, so we don't have to address that issue either.
 
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The price differential explains why ground vehicles would be common transport even in high tech worlds, but it doesn’t explain why you would want a ground vehicle over a grav vehicle when exploring the wild frontier. The cost differential is minor when considered as part of the cost of the ship that you need to get there.
 
The more you buy up front the larger your monthly payments will be. A million here, three million there might start to strain a budget.
 
If you had to equip a spaceship,whereas the character generation system seems to hand one over to you, probably minus ordnance.
 
Except for the scout, you're not 'handed' starships. They come with monthly price tags. If you swap out ATVs for grav equivalents, the overall price of your ship increases and subsequently the monthly payments. That's also true for ships with no turrets or weapons and the players NEED them at the beginning of the game.

I have no problem with players and refs up or downgrading benefit ships. I think part of the fun is working and earning to get better things or to pay for the new toys as part of any benefit upgrade. Make me look for better tickets at higher compensation.
 
Hundred thousand schmuckers worth of equipment requires only a fortnight in the garage and a hundred buck maintenance charge.

Forty year mortgage at five percent is what, fifty eight hundred per annum?
 
Safari ship and corsair are not part of mustering benefits. All others except the scout have mortgages with them. The string attached to the scout is you and the ship can be called back to active duty.
 
Safari ships and corsairs are mustering out benefits in the OTU... Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium; and I forgot about the Noble's yacht benefit, and the belter's seeker... :)

In CT it was only the free trader that came with a mortgage.
 
Ah, 1e. Had upgraded to 2e and didn't remember they were as mustering benefits in 1e. So many editions....
 
Anything that's part of the spaceship manifesto, only requires forty years to pay it off.

Plus interest.

Not accounting for the Wand of Wonder, the Locker of Ships.
 
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