Steward Skill in Mrechant Prince
- Thread starter smiths121
- Start date
far-trader
Mongoose
rinku said:
That's an odd change then. It was 2 weeks (1 typical trip) in CT and I think every other version. For Cr2000. Maybe it should be noted as errata? Or maybe they were just going for easier bookkeeping
rinku said:
I hear you
One way to handle it (the mortgage bit) is treat it as 4 weeks to a month (2 typical trips) which leaves you 4 weeks free each year when you don't have to make a payment. A bit of a bank holiday. Time in which you can get the annual maintenance done without needing to worry about making credits to make a payment while the ship is laid up and the crew is off making merry. Time enough even for a quick special trip for a little extra operating capital in case you find yourself short during one of those payment months.
rinku said:
It helps that they cut the cost (effectively, by doubling the duration, if that was intentional)
Does the core book list restaurant meals? CT (Book 3) had 3 meals (daily) costing between Cr10 for ordinary quality, to Cr20 through Cr50 for high quality. So your Cr71 is a bit high imo but not exceedingly so I suppose with other factors considered. My 10% method (for the CT Cr2000 per 2 weeks) works out to about Cr15 for 3 meals (daily) in CT, a nice happy medium between ordinary fare and the low end of high fare and a nice simple round Cr5 per meal.
My reason for applying the 10% pretty much across the board* was to preserve the balance of finance flavour. It was a kind of deflationary attempt and as noted aimed at creating a more everyman universe. I think it started with noting the extreme difference in the salaries for Starship Crews compared to Mercenaries in CT Book 4. I suppose I could have just increased the Merc pay scale
* for those interested, having had a quick look at notes it looks like I applied it to:
From CT Book 1: VaccSuits (adjusted to Cr1000), Combat Armor (adjusted to Cr2000), and Battle Dress (adjusted to Cr20,000) though I'd still not make BD easily available outside of properly licensed mercs
From CT Book 2: Everything except Missiles, Sand, basic Vehicles (adjusted cost for Grav Vehicles and Small Craft though). Adjusted costs included Salaries, Ship Revenues, Ship Expenses, Ship Construction, Computer Programs (no basic program allowance), Drugs, Trade and Commerce goods, and the 4 year sabbatical in the Experience section (adjusted to Cr7,000)
From CT Book 3: VaccSuit, Grav Vehicles (including Grav Belt), and Psi Training (not testing) and Drugs
far-trader
Mongoose
DFW said:rinku said:
Then why isn't it double the cost for two to a stateroom?
Excellent question!
Put on the spot (why did that never occur to me) I guess I'd say the Steward would have to get creative with bulking up the servings or dressing the plates up so less seemed like more. Of course with the general serving (over)size of standard (North American anyway) restaurants cutting it in half would still be a good serving size. Maybe the Steward could promote it as a healthy alternative, part of a weight management program since exercise during jump is somewhat limited on most small ships
...though, imtu, there is a good deal of recycling done and Middle Passage and Crew (the only ones in mtu doing double occupancy) are expected to engage in a good portion of in room processed food when in double occupancy. Passengers don't know (and don't want to know) how it's "created" and while Crew know, they also know enough to not have it bother them. Most of them anyway
DFW said:rinku said:
Then why isn't it double the cost for two to a stateroom?
Good point. I'd have to say that that would imply that the per-person consumable costs (mainly food) are Cr1000, with the per stateroom running costs also Cr1000. As to what exactly those costs are, it's hard to tell - we can quantify food, but it's trickier to tell what fixed costs are involved in air and water recycling. Current space life support systems use disposable CO2 scrubbers and rely on topping up the O2 and water. Given that Traveller spaceships typically have endurances measured in weeks, it's probably more cost-effective (at least in the short to medium term) to use something like that than to have a totally sealed system. Especially on a small ship that can top up for free at suitable planets.
(one thing that ALL ships likely do is to recyle all waste water - this involves nothing more than boiling it and condensing the vapour, with some process to dump condensate - any fusion powered ship will have power to spare for this job)
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Variable food costs for double occupancy is easy, a High Passanger wants quality food and wine with his meals. The two sharing a cabin for a cheap run can eat the Imperial version of Walmarts own brand.
As far as the monthly payment thing. 12 4 weekly periods and one 4 weekly period with no payment to cover the overhaul would not be a problem for the banks at all. They recieve the full years payment 4 weeks before the end of the year, why would they complain. If you have agreed 12 payments in a year and pay each after 28 days instead of every 30.4 days no one is going to complain. Its the whole not getting paid thing they have problems with.
As to why weeks and months in Traveller. The Imperium may use day of year but every major culture uses thier old fashioned version of counting days. Non Vilani will have used weeks and months for thousands of years and probably refuse to use the Vilani system of counting because its Vilani
As far as the monthly payment thing. 12 4 weekly periods and one 4 weekly period with no payment to cover the overhaul would not be a problem for the banks at all. They recieve the full years payment 4 weeks before the end of the year, why would they complain. If you have agreed 12 payments in a year and pay each after 28 days instead of every 30.4 days no one is going to complain. Its the whole not getting paid thing they have problems with.
As to why weeks and months in Traveller. The Imperium may use day of year but every major culture uses thier old fashioned version of counting days. Non Vilani will have used weeks and months for thousands of years and probably refuse to use the Vilani system of counting because its Vilani
Captain Jonah said:As to why weeks and months in Traveller. The Imperium may use day of year but every major culture uses thier old fashioned version of counting days. Non Vilani will have used weeks and months for thousands of years and probably refuse to use the Vilani system of counting because its Vilani
I find this argument unconvicing. The Julian year of 365 standard days has been established as the standard 3I timekeeping unit since quite early in the peace. I quote from Library Data A-M (1980):
"Three major dating systems are in use when referring to historical events - Terran, Vilani and Imperial"
"Terran years have 365 days and are considered a standard for the length of a year. Years are further subdivided into months ond weeks, although these divisions have fallen into disuse outside the Solomani Sphere."
"Vilani years are approximately 1.33 standard years in length. Vilani years are further divided into seasons, months, and weeks."
"Imperial dating uses a Julian system for specifying days..."
"...Weeks of seven days and months of 28 days are used to refer to lengths of time, but rarely to establish dates."
So, nup. Don't blame the Vilani here. Cleon the first imposed the monthless, weekless 365 day calender and it's totally Imperial.
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
As a relative new comer to Trav I don't have the older, canon, material. Have done Imperial timekeeping on the basis of 30 day months (for salaries, maintenance, mortagages etc, and the 5 days left over are a kind of Imperial bank holiday, so your annual mortagages are paid by day 360. The players have taken to calling this "free week". I am aware that this is very much a book keeping fudge, but it works fine.
Egil
Egil
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
rinku said:Captain Jonah said:As to why weeks and months in Traveller. The Imperium may use day of year but every major culture uses thier old fashioned version of counting days. Non Vilani will have used weeks and months for thousands of years and probably refuse to use the Vilani system of counting because its Vilani
I find this argument unconvicing. The Julian year of 365 standard days has been established as the standard 3I timekeeping unit since quite early in the peace. I quote from Library Data A-M (1980):
[i
So, nup. Don't blame the Vilani here. Cleon the first imposed the monthless, weekless 365 day calender and it's totally Imperial.
Well the Imperium may use a 365 day period and log dates as 123-1105 but over at Mongoose Tower they clearly use the much nicer Solomani weeks and months
Either way it still makes monthly payments doable and acceptable to banks etc, the documents they thumbprinted may well call for a payment every 30 days but the characters and players can go on happily putting aside the cash every 4 weeks.
Anyway its always the Vilani fault, even when it clearly isn't
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Egil Skallagrimsson said:
Hey if it works go with it, a 5 day Imperial holiday at the end of every year sounds like a fine idea.
As regards Traveller Cannon. Its a minefield of plastic mines with anti tampering covered by support weapons and razor wire in an active war zone. :shock:
If you want to delve into the richness that is 30+ years of the best sci fi RPG out there (biased, Moi) check with ebay for old books or Marc Millers discs. If you plan on keeping your life and don't realy want to catch up on 30 years of back issues and old foggy arguments then stay with MonT and have fun.
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Captain Jonah said:
Ha ha. If I had 30 years to catch up, then I would.
Oddly enough, back in 81 or 82 I remember someone bought some of the traveller books (CT? I don't even know all the abbreviations!), but we never took to it, and gave up on it after a few sessions, we had much better rules for wargaming, and for RPG we played (a lot of) AD&D. Perhaps we were just callow and naive youths, though most of us had read a scarey amount of classic sci-fi, and were pretty contemptous of most of the fantasy authors (except Tolkein, Moorcock and Howard).
So my experience with trav has really been the last 2 years or so when I saw a copy of Mongoose Traveller and thought "lets have a look". Overall, have been favourably impressed with the core system, mixed feelings about the supplements.
A book I would like to see from Mongoose would be one that brings together the canon, esp on 3I, in an easily accessible way, to bring late comers like me up to date!
Egil
I very much doubt that Mongoose will try to do this in the near future,Egil Skallagrimsson said:
it would be a true nightmare project for the poor author. :shock:
However, for a start you could buy the PDFs of the Classic Traveller Li-
brary Data supplements, they contain the basic framework of the Third
Imperium setting, and everything beyond that framework should be up
to you and your players anyway.
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
rust said:
Thanks, when I set up our groups 3I game, the basis was even more basic than than, used the introduction and history sections from Mongoose's Spinward Marches, and that was pretty much that. Have added some ideas from various websites that we have become aware of since (many through this forum), but have rejected much more stuff than have included. We never realised how big the 3I canon was, so have tended to get around that by taking to heart the "Final Notes" from Spinward Marches and altering things very freely. A fairly unique MTU is emerging! However, I will continue to try to do my homework!
Egil
Lord High Munchkin
Mongoose
That extra month free of mortgage is when you have the bank mandated "lay-up" in the bank mandated berth, while the bank mandated inspector checks that the bank mandated repair/official log-book maintenance schedule is being followed, and who then completes a bank mandated set of forms attesting to all such steps being completed to bank mandated terms & conditions.
Bank mandated fees apply at each point, of course....
Bank mandated fees apply at each point, of course....
The concept of a month came up a few months ago:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4176
Cannot believe as their are rules using months it has never been defined. Number of choices in the thread above.
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4176
Cannot believe as their are rules using months it has never been defined. Number of choices in the thread above.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Link says it no longer exists, could you check it or post a date or name so we can search for it.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
Thanks.
It seems to me this is one of the fuzzy rule areas that need to be sorted by the powers that be, having to houserule a rule from the main rule book is a bit (no offense intended, please don't send me to the dungeon, I like you very much mongoose) sloppy.
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.
I think we are getting to the point where there are enough little niggly points like this to put together a sort of campaign handbook on
It seems to me this is one of the fuzzy rule areas that need to be sorted by the powers that be, having to houserule a rule from the main rule book is a bit (no offense intended, please don't send me to the dungeon, I like you very much mongoose) sloppy.
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.
I think we are getting to the point where there are enough little niggly points like this to put together a sort of campaign handbook on
