Steward Skill in Mrechant Prince

[smiths121]

Thanks.
Cannon says:
The year is divided into 365 standard days, which are grouped into 52 weeks of seven days each The lengths of days and weeks is a legacy of Terran domination during the second Imperium. Days are numbered consecutively, beginning with one. The first day of the year is a holiday and is not part of any week. For example, the first day (Holiday) of the year 1116 is 001-1116. The last day of the year is 365-1116.

All payments in MonT are monthly but the rules do not seem to specify what a month is in the Imperium. Going with the four weeks to a month and four weeks left over is ok but it doesn't fit with the 12 months in the year which is a solid part of the mortgage system. To match the 12 blocks of time you really need to use the 30/30/31 day months system with four quarters in the year as has been suggested by a number of people.

Took a look over a COTI (please do not kill me) as it occurred to me this must have come up before. The general consensus suggested 13 months per year with a 1 month holiday for repayment to perform annual maintenance. In CT maintenance was paid for annually and took two weeks, so made more sense there.

I have sort of concluded that as the 365 day year was adopted by the 3I, then the Sol month length was also adopted for business transactions, as this fits in with the length of the year. To be honest not sure it matters that much, as the you can handium-wavium which ever schedule you want, "yes, very interesting you view of the Calendar but the central bank of Regina" uses the "Regina local calendar - here the schedule take it or leave it". It does say there is local variation.

Maintenance in MGT comes along nicely and destroys the "Sol Month" concept, for this I think the 30, 30, 31 day months is best. You do not have to have the same schedule for both.

 

[rinku]

Actually, I'd have thought that business in general would love to be able to ditch the 30, 31 (28/9) day month system and embrace a 4 week month. Note that the Imperal year has an extra day (Holiday) because there are , of course, 52 weeks plus 1 day in a 365 day year. I've never seen it noted, but I assume that the Imperial year is kept in synch with the Terran year and thus would need leap days occasionaly, giving some years an extra Holiday. Holiday is considered outside of the week system, btw. If you need to make payment everty 4th Wonday, that's going to carry over from year to year, and will fall on the same Julian days of the calendar. There is some discussion of this in the old Forms and Charts supplement, and is probably online (Traveller Wiki maybe?).

Another practical solution is to discard monthly payments (and months) altogether and replace them with 13 week quarterly payments. In practice, this is probably more convenient for everyone involved in starship operations anyway.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Took a look over a COTI (please do not kill me)

Did you make sure all your shots were up to date

Have Starship, Will Traveller 5

Re Mortgages and months

Cannon says:
The year is divided into 365 standard days, which are grouped into 52 weeks of seven days each The lengths of days and weeks is a legacy of Terran domination during the second Imperium. Days are numbered consecutively, beginning with one. The first day of the year is a holiday and is not part of any week. For example, the first day (Holiday) of the year 1116 is 001-1116. The last day of the year is 365-1116.

Four week months gives 13 months plus Imperial holiday 001.
30 day, 30 day, 31 day months in quarter years gives 364 days plus holiday. This is not only consistent with a 12 month Imperial year but also makes sense as it is what we use now so no having to learn a new calendar system.

In terms of mortgage payments and stateroom support costs etc there are three ways to do this:

1. Making these every 4 weeks fits with a pattern of one jump every two weeks and means that by the end of the year when the ships overhaul comes round the annual bills have been paid and there is no need to make a payment for the time the ship is on enforced shutdown. You end up paying more due to 13 payments of life support or wages unless you do nothing for the last 4 weeks and your crew gets it as a vacation.

2. Make payments and costs at the end of each month (30/31 days) and put aside a little each month or in month 11 to cover the fact that your ship will be out of action for half of month 12.

3. Set aside mortgage payments every two jumps (4 weeks) and pay monthly costs every (30/31 days). This means the mortgage is cleared before the annual overhaul but you make 12 life support cost payments rather than 13.

Mortgage payments need to be accounted for each month. On a main or established area of the Imperium your Mortgage holding bank or organisation will either have a branch office or will have arrangements in place to transfer funds between worlds. You can make your payment in a branch and have your documents updated to show payment made for that month. It may take a while for the money to hit the payment account but the Imperium has been running interstellar banking for 1000 years.
Mortgage holding organisations like to keep an eye on where the ships they own are going within reason, the important thing here is within the limits of the technology. Financial payments will move short distances at Jump one or two. Over longer distances payments will follow the X-Boat network at jump 4. For this reason banks may not begin to chase missing payments until several months have been missed, this depends where the ship has been operating. If the ship has been keeping to no more than a few parsecs away from the world where the mortgage is held the bank will start to react one month from the missed payment date.

If the ship has been making runs 10 parsecs up and down the main then the bank will be aware that the ships payments will take upwards of a month to travel to them and will therefore allow that month and begin actively chasing payment the month after that.

Banks and mortgage holders understand the nature of interstellar travel. If you plan on being in off in the dark and on worlds generally cut off from the Imperial mainstream you can explain this ahead of time and make arrangements to either pay several months up front or when you get back. If for some reason you are unable to alert the bank ahead of time they will most likely be aware of the realities of interstellar trade and as long as you make all outstanding payments when you get back all should be ok. Of course after you have done this a few times the banks will start to notice as they receive your payments and a report of why payment was late from where ever you made the late payments to.
Regardless of the rules in the Main Rule Book no bank that wants to stay in the ship loans business will send agents after you without allowing a period of time to pass between your last payment and declaring your ship stolen. Any bank that reclaims your ship and then receives the missing payment is going to look incompetent and who does business with an incompetent bank.