Staterooms and Passage

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Okay, here's the typed-up version. I'm not sure how pretty the tables will come through though.

Staterooms

Type Cost/jump Notes Cost (CR) Disp – Deckplan
Frozen CR 1,500 Corpsicle! 50,000ea 2 berths per 1 DT
Low / 3rd CR 3,000 No Steward 375,000 3 DT / 2 DT
Mid / Crew / 2nd CR 5,000 1 Steward / 20 cabins 500,000 4 DT / 3 DT
High / 1st CR 8,000 1 Steward / 10 cabins 625,000 5 DT / 4 DT
Luxury / Gold CR 11,000 1 Steward / 5 cabins 750,000 6 DT / 5 DT
Super Lux/ Iridium CR 15,000 1 Steward / 2 cabins 1,000,000 8 DT / 6 DT

Life support & supplies
CR 2,000 per month per occupied stateroom / CR 3,000 per month for double occupied. This covers life support, average food.
Life support costs – CR 1,500 /month or CR 375 /week. Only charged for occupied cabins during a voyage (opposite rule in book)

Food costs per week, per person
Low to Mid/Crew – CR 100 per week per person
High – CR 200 per week per person
Gold – CR 400 per week per person
Iridium – CR 800 per week per person

Notes on Ship Passage
Small ships that are not pure passenger liners may not carry passengers higher than middle except under special circumstances (such as a private yacht/liner/courier). The reason for this is that they do not have the necessary amenities that higher passengers require and demand.

Ships that cater to higher class passengers must also have sufficient space and facilities to cater to wealthier passengers (not to mention they need to separate them from their money). Additional facilities include theatres, bars, casinos, and restaurants. Smaller ships may carry smaller versions, or in some cases, the facilities may be multiple use (restaurant during they day, casino at night after a quick changeout).

Liners earn their money through passenger fares, special cargo and mail. They may also earn additional revenue through alcohol , gambling, shops with luxury goods, etc.

Stateroom Descriptions
Low / 3rd class – Found on small craft, intra-system liners, and low passage staterooms on starships. They provide adequate but cramped space for 2 people in an over/under bunk, and include a small desk with a computer terminal. Storage space is adequate for 2 passengers and their clothing and small goods (every centimeter of the room is used for something). The rooms do not have their own fresher. There is typically 1 fresher and shower (ea 1.5m x 1.5m) per 6 to 8 rooms. Older, lower TL (as well as military and para-military) ships typically use the 1 fresher/8 rooms. Starships carrying passengers usually adopt the 1 fresher per 6 rooms. These stateroom are meant for people travelling on a budget, but who have no desire to be frozen for the trip.

Middle / Crew / 2nd Class – Considered the standard sized stateroom for starships for both passengers and crew. They are adequate for people to occupy for the typical journey (they are also sometimes used on intra-system liners for passengers wiling to upgrade). Each stateroom has a small desk with a computer terminal, storage lockers and a small fresher (1.5 x 1.5). Most Imperial military ships consider this to be a crew cabin for two individuals.

High / 1st Class – Passengers travelling in a high passage cabin enjoy a comfortable journey from planet to planet. These rooms are well-appointed, often with synthetic textures and coverings for the walls as well as a plush carpet (lower class cabins have basic carpeting). There is a comfortable queen-sized bed that may be split into two singles if necessary, a small table with two chairs that also doubles as a computer terminal, and a comfortably sized fresher with both shower and toilet. The room is generally appointed with superior furnishings, trim, linens and such. This would be considered an officer’s cabin on most military ships (lower-ranking officers would typically double-up)

Luxury / Gold – Sumptuously appointed cabins that reek of luxury! They usually are divided into three sections – a sitting area, a sleeping area and a fresher. The sitting area has a couch that can sit three, a small table, and a built-wet bar (stocked with complimentary alcohol). The sleeping area has a large king-sized bed with a small table and two chairs. A computer workstation is also present (primarily activated using voice commands). The fresher area is divided with a toilet and sink in one area and a tub/shower in the 2nd area. The walls have many holographic frames that can be customized to display whatever the occupants wish to see. There is a 2m x 2m wall-mounted holographic display as well to watch movies and such on. The linens and towels are the finest available. On military ships these cabins would be reserved for VIP’s and officers of at least Captain rank or above.

Super Luxurious / Iridium – A suite fit for a king (or queen)! Each cabin offers passengers a luxurious oasis as they travel between the stars. The cabin is large and roomy, the bedroom has a large king-sized bed, a couch, sitting chair and table. There is a small toilet off the living area, and the main bathroom is accessible only through the bedroom, which includes both a roomy shower and a large tub (which offer both sonic and water-based options). The living room has a large comfortable sectional couch that easily sits 4 people, 2 chairs, 2 tables and a small wet bar.

General Stateroom Concepts
Any cabin may be sealed in an emergency to provide an air-tight compartment. Each 1 DT of space may support 1 person for 2hrs. Additional life support equipment may be added to offer survival-level atmosphere and water recycling at the cost of CR 10,000 for the first 24hrs and every additional 24hrs costs CR 1,000. Up to one week of emergency life support may be added to any cabin without additional displacement costs (the filtration and additional supply equipment takes up some of the available storage space and is also mounted in the floors/walls/ceilings).

All cabins have one emergency space suit for each occupant (typically 2 per any cabin, and additional ones will be added by ship’s stewards for small children, additional adults, etc. Rescue balls are provided for pets of a reasonable size). An emergency space suit consists of a touch plastic shell, and head/helmet area. The gloves are separate. The suit zips from the front. When the gloves are in place the suit can be pressurized, causing the front zipper to fuse, the wrist connections for the gloves also fuse. The helmet area is clear plastic and also hardens when pressurized. Life support is contained in an attached back-mounted unit. Suits are meant to be universal (will fit anyone 1m to 2.5m). The suits are naturally baggy and ill-fitting, but they are adequate to provide an air-tight suit for evacuation and emergencies. The suits offer 18hrs of life support, but no water, heating or toilet facilities. They are one-time use only, and cost CR 300. Rescue balls for small pets or children cost CR 200, and also include drugs designed to put the occupant in a very deep sleep for 24hrs (it includes the antidote inside). Suits for non-humans are also available.


Living Expenses
Standard of Living Cost / month Cost / day Soc Standing
Very poor CR 120 CR 4 2
Poor CR 200 CR 6.5 4
Low CR 300 CR 10 5
Average CR 400 CR 13 6
Good CR 600 CR 20 7
High CR 800 CR 26.5 8
Very High CR 1,000 CR 33 10
Rich CR 5,000 CR 167 12
Very Rich CR 10,000 CR 333 14
Ludicrously Rich CR 20,000 CR 667 15
Living expenses assume housing, food, clothing at basic levels

Example Hotel Costs
Cheap – CR 10/day
Good – CR 50/day
Luxury – CR 100/day (or more)

I could see some ships providing "dormitory" accomodation, perhaps usually pretty basic, though is an egalitarian society (Darrian?) then this might be quite pleasant.

Egil

 

[Captain Jonah]

Interesting, not seen the Amtrak before.

The sleeping compartment is 10 feet wide, 16 tall and 85 long or roughly 2 squares wide, two decks high allowing for cable runs and such and 16 squares long. That gives the entire section 32Dtons or the same size as 8 staterooms in total.

Allowing for a stateroom to take half its space in sleeping areas this should be the sleeping area for 16 staterooms.

Upper deck sleeps 10 single roomettes which do two single beds though one is a bit small, and five cabins that have a double and single beds.

Lower deck isf our more romettes and two family bedrooms that do a double and two single beds. POlus the lower area has shower block and changing rooms.

I would say the roomettes were restricted to middles, the cabins as a high or shared middle and the family rooms as shared highs. THis gives you 14 middles plus 10 more shared middles or 5 highs upstairs and 4 middles plus 4 highs downstairs. THat is up to 28 middles and 4 high or 18 middles and 9 highs and still leaves you with 32Dtons of deck space for corridors, lounges etc since this space already includes showers etc. This doesn't use the bunk beds or childrens beds at all which could add another 23 people (well small people).

The rooms look ok as well if you have a nice large lounge to spend your time in.

This actualy carries more people than you would fit into the 16 staterooms anyway even with double middles a stateroom you would need 18 staterooms at a minimum.

Add in the miniturisation of technology to hide things (ultra thin extra beds folding flat into thin walls and fold out chairs etc that go from a few cm in the wall to proper chairs) and you should be fine for a jump. I would expect crew cabins would be larger and the crew lounge area smaller if seperate since they live in the cabins and working on the ship use the lounge for down time and do not need a 16 hours a day entertainment area. Or the crew use the same lounge as the passengers which adds yet more size to it. WIth 16 staterooms and say 6 for the crew that gives you 44Dtons of extras, half of that for the lounge is 22Dtons or 44 squares.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Also, don't forget the different alien races are going to have different ideas of what Luxurious space really is.

I envision Vargr as sleeping in big open rooms laying on top of each other etc. A PACK.

Aslan probably sleep by family, so 2-4 staterooms sized areas connected together somehow or combined.

Zhodani will have Luxury cabins for the Nobles, Good cabins for the Intendants and bunks/barracks for the Proles.

K'Kree will need something like 10-20 tons of space EACH, but it would all be combined together into a big open area.

Hivers will have burrow like spaces with short ceilings (1.5 m instead of 3) and bigger open rooms.

 

[phavoc]

I ran the numbers using the costs listed. On the surface it seems that they make sense, though I have to say I don't know how closely they would be to a future 'reality'. I tried to base things off what seemed reasonable.

There's not much chance of any ship making 4 jumps/month, so I took the liberty of assuming a liner would only make 3. My experience with the cruise industry seems pretty close to this. The ships are hardly ever in port (and being in port means you aren't making money).

The costs for everything came from the previous posting, except for Stewards, and I costed them out on a per-trip basis, though their cost would be slightly higher (Cr 2,000 / month vs Cr 1,800 for 3 voyages). Food costs I based off the 'average' type of person who would be buying that sort of cabin. And since you are onboard a ship with nothing to do for a week, they are going to find ways to have passengers part with their credits. I just averaged the amount of money that could be made, which seems to follow how cruise ships operate.

I also threw out the rule from the book that had costs associated with unoccupied staterooms. If the room is empty it can be powered down, and empty rooms consume no air, water or food. The cost of maintaining the room would come out of the annual maintenance charge.

Let me know what you think.

 

[DFW]

Let me know what you think.

Excellent work. As I (sadly) expected. Popsicles are the most profitable way to move people between stars.

IF, the passage price is as in the rules, small ships aren't built with passenger staterooms... Only, lowberths.

 

[zero]

A bad point to filling up the ship with lots of lowberths is that like most passenger runs, you can only grab a certain amount of passengers from a world.

Having a high number of low berths and relying on them for the monthly bills is a sketchy idea as there will be times that not all your berths will be filled due to not enough people wanting to go to the next system on your run (unless you go down the road of repeatedly docking in two specific systems, but then you've killed alot of the fun of exploring the vastness that Traveller allows).

 

[DFW]

A bad point to filling up the ship with lots of lowberths is that like most passenger runs, you can only grab a certain amount of passengers from a world.

Right, so you max on LB's and remainder is cargo (which nets more than staterooms). Or, like in Realityland, passage in a stateroom costs a lot more than the rule books state.

 

[phavoc]

I would question how much people would travel around frozen. Yes, it's there for the very destitute, but I think human nature would be working against it. At least today's human nature. Who knows, maybe we'll be ok with being corpsicles in the far future...

I still think the analogy of using ship passage in the early 20th century is the best parallel that we have. Yeah, travelling by ship wasn't cheap for the most part. But lots of people still did travel, and some did it in some pretty nice style too.

With trillions of beings out there, you know that people are going to have the same need to move from planet to planet (or in case of our analogy, continent to continent). Space is just the final version of crossing the sea.

 

[BFalcon]

With regards people's attitudes towards the low-berth cryo... just look back at the Victorian attitude towards going 60mph in a train - it was thought that people wouldn't be able to breathe at that speed... nowadays we're happy to sit in a train that does up to 120mph and goes under deep rock and lots of water (not sure how deep the channel tunnel is, but it's deep enough to have major shipping routed through it...).

 

[BFalcon]

A bad point to filling up the ship with lots of lowberths is that like most passenger runs, you can only grab a certain amount of passengers from a world.

Right, so you max on LB's and remainder is cargo (which nets more than staterooms). Or, like in Realityland, passage in a stateroom costs a lot more than the rule books state.

Question: why? The book's prices equate to 3rd Class and 2ns Class in Phavoc's spreadsheet - meaning around 1,700Cr profit for the High Passage (as per the MRB) and only 609 per dton for Middle - and these prices take into consideration the Life Support costs and allow some costs for food (although I'd argue that the basic food would be included in the Life Support costs, personally, for Middle Berths).

I think the Middle Berths are as I said elsewhere for the level of service - an automatic food dispenser at most (may be self-catering, but easier just to provide a basic nutrient) while anything remotely fresh comes in at High.

 

[zero]

^

"You know what this food is made from, right?"

"Yeah, but I dont want to think about that when I'm eating it."

"Hey, food is food so pass the cornbread."

 

[Jame Rowe]

I would suggest that one stateroom would have water and toilet recycling worth 6 human-sized creatures for a month, that is to say a stateroom's water and sanitary facilities should take six human-sized creatures to wear it out in a month (i.e. all 6 sealed in for a month without outside backup).

My corrolary is that the rest of one stateroom's life support should take 4 human-sized creatures one month of continuous (i.e. all 4 sealed in for a month with no outside backup) to wear out.

 

[DFW]

Question: why? The book's prices equate to 3rd Class and 2ns Class in Phavoc's spreadsheet - meaning around 1,700Cr profit for the High Passage (as per the MRB) and only 609 per dton for Middle -

Because starships are insanely expensive and have a hard time breaking even. LB's make ~Kcr3 and so does cargo in the same amount of time. So, ships (below Capital class) would minimize carrying "live" passengers as not cost effective.

N.B. Look at the costs per month for a Middle Class existence. Then, look at mid passage costs. It would take a large % of a persons annual income to travel that way. Most would opt for LB if it isn't a deadly endeavor.

 

[phavoc]

Question: why? The book's prices equate to 3rd Class and 2ns Class in Phavoc's spreadsheet - meaning around 1,700Cr profit for the High Passage (as per the MRB) and only 609 per dton for Middle - and these prices take into consideration the Life Support costs and allow some costs for food (although I'd argue that the basic food would be included in the Life Support costs, personally, for Middle Berths).

I actually seperated out food and life support costs for a very good reason. A person who bought an Iriduim class ticket uses the same amount of life support as a person who is in 3rd class. But the food and other consumables that they use during a trip are at much different cost rates. Therefore I thought it was important to keep the two separate in order to create a cost model that has some logical basis. I won't use "reality" because its all supposition.

I think the Middle Berths are as I said elsewhere for the level of service - an automatic food dispenser at most (may be self-catering, but easier just to provide a basic nutrient) while anything remotely fresh comes in at High.

I would have to disagree here. Even a middle birth is going to be a big expense. Passenger liners don't want to haul cattle, they want to haul people. And people taking a trip want to to at least feel that they are getting their money's worth. Even the military tries to make sure their troops get one good hot meal a day because they know the psychological value of it.

Food dispensers serving concentrates and reconstituted protein sound neat and simple. But even buying the crappiest cabin on a cruise liner today you get cooked food served to you, no matter what class you are. My last trip I was in a small cabin at the waterline, but our meals were served in the same dining room as the people with the cabins who paid 5X what I did. And we ate the same meals, and saw the same shows, could gamble at the same places, etc.

Now on a ship that would be more akin to say the Mauratania, the Titanic, or Queen Mary, there were and are separate dining facilities for first class and 3rd class. They did get fed much different meals. But both groups also made the best of their passage. Because I feel that traveling by starship is going to be like travelling by ship, I have tried to re-create the same type of model.

But keep in mind that most people of our generation have not travelled in such a fashion. So the best we can do is to try to apply historical models and to the future. With a few tweaks here and there to make it fit into a gaming setting. Plus, most of this discussion is oriented around true passenger liner service. The small subsidized liner in the book is not anywhere close to being a true "liner".