Traveller space craft are astonishingly cheap!!

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

This came out of someones comment in a different thread, and one I have read before, that ships in Trav are too expensive.

Really? Look at a standard J1 free trader. It can fly, break orbit, jump 3 light years all while carrying at least 10 sophants in fair comfort and 20 in hibernation, is strong and robust, runs off very cheap fuel, can land directly on planets, can carry cargo, etc, all for a mere 36,567,000Cr. Astonishing.

Using HG it is easy to build a basic ships launch for under 6MCr, and so on. Things only start to get expensive when you want high spec militaty designs, and even then they seem very cheap for what they can do.

Actually, I like this about Trav, if puts the ships within reach of the players, and can be handwaved away (with some pretty vigorous flapping), though (in my rare sober moments) I do tend to agree with those who post on here with "Traveller economics are joke" .

Egil

 

[Treebore]

Traveller ships are considered expensive in relation to how much money is to be made via the Traveller Trade rules.

Personally I think it has more to do with people thinking small business' operate on something more than a razor thin margin of profit. When in fact it is common practice for small business' to get a loan on a monthly basis just to make it to the end of the month, pay off the loan, and then take out a new one for the next month.

The small business that has a healthy profit margin is the exception, not the rule. Heck, even big business can crash and burn without much change, which is why the recent world wide depression was as bad as it was, too many businesses were operating on too thin of a margin. The same with house holds. Too many were living pay check to pay check, so when the pay check was lost, they lost everything.

Same thing applies to "owning" a Merchant vessel, it owns you until the mortgage is paid off.

 

[simonh]

For reference, here are some web sites giving prices of various types of modern vehicles.

Ship price list. These are for used ships, not new.

Boeing. Their prices for new planes, in reality the airlines get at least 20% to 30% off.

Military fighter jets typically range from $20 million to $100 million.

It depends on what you decide to base your economic equivalency on. I don't think Traveller starships are particularly cheap though.

A 737 comes in at around $80 million and is about 35 Traveller displacement tons. On the other hand, the merchant ships linked above are extremely cheap compared to traveller ships. The PRS10 looks like it's about 1000 traveller displacement tons and can carry maybe 275 Traveller tons (4k metric tons) of cargo. It only costs $2 million.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Captain Jonah]

Cheap or expensive. Depends on the market.

If starships are too expensive to be viable then the sales will drop and manufacturers have to drop prices to make sales.

If they are too cheap the makers profits vanish but they can introduce "new, improved" models with extras and raise the price easily to bring in more money since the market can aford it.

Many startups go under, so do many established companies. What happens to the ships those startups had, what about the fleet of haulers owned by local cargo inc.

Are players buying new build or are those ship shares representing contacts who are selling them second hand. Do your players have a ship that has been declared bankrupt three times in the last 20 years, do they know :twisted:

Real economics are complex, interstellar economics are going to be mind bendingly complex. A few pages in an rpg can not scratch the surface.

So its a matter of the overall and simple market. Can players make money as merchants. If no small merchant can survive then the big companies have locked down the market and it becomes time for the underground merchant campaign, black market cargo runs, illegal passengers etc.
If everyone can make hods of cash then the market will drop prices because people can afford to undercut and over time everyone will drop prices to compete.

In the end its an RPG. If you want your players to do ok as traders and the mortgage is too costly rig a cheaper 3rd hand ship whith a much cheaper monthly payment. If your players are making piles of credits each month have other merchants under cut them. Start a price war.

The rules are guidelines. Starships should be as expensive or as cheap as you want and make as much or as little profit as you are happy with.

 

[Treebore]

For reference, here are some web sites giving prices of various types of modern vehicles.

Ship price list. These are for used ships, not new.

Boeing. Their prices for new planes, in reality the airlines get at least 20% to 30% off.

Military fighter jets typically range from $20 million to $100 million.

It depends on what you decide to base your economic equivalency on. I don't think Traveller starships are particularly cheap though.

A 737 comes in at around $80 million and is about 35 Traveller displacement tons. On the other hand, the merchant ships linked above are extremely cheap compared to traveller ships. The PRS10 looks like it's about 1000 traveller displacement tons and can carry maybe 275 Traveller tons (4k metric tons) of cargo. It only costs $2 million.

Simon Hibbs

Did you read the fuel consumption on those ships? 25 gallons PER HOUR! Thats approximately $2400/day in just fuel costs. Thats for a pretty small ship, in comparison to the really huge container vessels out there.

:shock:

 

[Captain Jonah]

By comparison

737 - 300 burns 5500lbs of av fuel per hour cruising, 2950lbs of fuel taking of from runway to cruise level (thats roughly 15 mins).

fully loaded a 737 - 800 burns 28160lbs of fuel for a 2200nm trip.

Roughly 6.75lbs per gallon at sea level. It varies by type and temperature but this is a good margin/

So 28160lbs = 4171 gallons. As at 8th april fuel was $3.40 per gallon.

So that is $14,000 approx per flight. Those ships at $2400 per day are not so expensive.

 

[Treebore]

By comparison

737 - 300 burns 5500lbs of av fuel per hour cruising, 2950lbs of fuel taking of from runway to cruise level (thats roughly 15 mins).

fully loaded a 737 - 800 burns 28160lbs of fuel for a 2200nm trip.

Roughly 6.75lbs per gallon at sea level. It varies by type and temperature but this is a good margin/

So 28160lbs = 4171 gallons. As at 8th april fuel was $3.40 per gallon.

So that is $14,000 approx per flight. Those ships at $2400 per day are not so expensive.

Then I would say running a star ship, at least small ones, is pretty darn cheap.

But your also comparing a pretty small ship to the largest air plane. I'll have to see what the largest cargo vessels use.

 

[Treebore]

14,000 pounds per day for a 6,000 ton cargo capacity ship, still pretty darn good.

 

[rust]

Really? Look at a standard J1 free trader. It can fly, break orbit, jump 3 light years all while carrying at least 10 sophants in fair comfort and 20 in hibernation, is strong and robust, runs off very cheap fuel, can land directly on planets, can carry cargo, etc, all for a mere 36,567,000Cr. Astonishing.

An acceptable price in an economy where these starships are built in the
same way we build our airliners and merchant ships today, but a questio-
nable price in an economy where robots can do almost the entire work,
from mining the raw materials to the final quality control.

 

[Captain Jonah]

By comparison

737 - 300 burns 5500lbs of av fuel per hour cruising, 2950lbs of fuel taking of from runway to cruise level (thats roughly 15 mins).

fully loaded a 737 - 800 burns 28160lbs of fuel for a 2200nm trip.

Roughly 6.75lbs per gallon at sea level. It varies by type and temperature but this is a good margin/

So 28160lbs = 4171 gallons. As at 8th april fuel was $3.40 per gallon.

So that is $14,000 approx per flight. Those ships at $2400 per day are not so expensive.

Then I would say running a star ship, at least small ones, is pretty darn cheap.

But your also comparing a pretty small ship to the largest air plane. I'll have to see what the largest cargo vessels use.

Nope

737 - 800 is no where near the largest aircraft. But to make it worse.

800 has a maximum take off load of 30 tons which is cargo, and passengers and fuel.

3 runs a day, 6 days. thats 540tons including fuel for a cost of $252,000

That small ship with 2000 tons of cargo doing one run taking the same 6 days costing $2400 a day or $14,400 for the run. The big slow ship is slightly cheaper to run

Also buying a smallish cargo ship for a million or so instead of one of those 50+ million aircraft, you could run the ship for decades and still not spend enough on fuel to buy the aircraft :wink:

 

[zero]

Again I'm going to have to agree with what was said above in that a Traveller ship is not cheap purely because of the need to make the monthly payments.

You could build an amazing ship, but to make one up you can actually afford (remember life support costs are per stateroom/cryoberth, plus the maintenance costs) something has got to give, like speed, armour quality or weapon quality, even the actual possibility of the last two in some cases.

 

[Treebore]

I agree as well, when I am running a game where we want to worry about such details.

 

[phavoc]

For reference, here are some web sites giving prices of various types of modern vehicles.

A 737 comes in at around $80 million and is about 35 Traveller displacement tons. On the other hand, the merchant ships linked above are extremely cheap compared to traveller ships. The PRS10 looks like it's about 1000 traveller displacement tons and can carry maybe 275 Traveller tons (4k metric tons) of cargo. It only costs $2 million.

Simon Hibbs

There's gotta be an error there. A 737-900 can carry 150 people, plus cargo, plus fuel, 3 restrooms and crew.

In Traveller 40 Dtons gets you a cramped pinnace. The general Traveller rule of thumb is 2 people per Dton if you are trying to calculate passengers.

Though I'll admit that there's some discrepancy here. In GURPS Modular Cutter there is a in-system 30ton module that can carry well over 100 passengers in a 2-deck configuration.

 

[apoc527]

http://www.traveller3d.com/sizechart/index.htm

That's a Boeing 747, basically the largest commercial airplane. A 737 is dwarfed by it.

Not only are Traveller starships "astonishingly cheap," they are astonishingly tiny.

 

[AndrewW]

That's a Boeing 747, basically the largest commercial airplane. A 737 is dwarfed by it.

Nope, that title has passed to the Airbus A380.

 

[gloomhound]

Not only are Traveller starships "astonishingly cheap," they are astonishingly tiny.

Shockingly so!

What's the tonnage for a Boeing 747?

 

[locarno24]

What's the tonnage for a Boeing 747?

Quick estimate - assume it's a cylinder about 19m diameter by 70m long, and that the wings are a flat metre-thick block about 560m square. That is close enough to the published stats for the plane on wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/747-400), that I can't be bothered looking up the exact values.

That's about 19850 cubic metres in the fuzelage and a further 560 cubic metres in the wings, for a total of 20410 cubic metres. The engines are smaller cylinders about 2m diametre by 4m long, so another 50 cubic metres there. Total 20460 cubic metres.

One Dton is about 14 cubic metres, so your 747 is a 1400/1500-ish dTon ship...

 

[zero]

^ That is a big Traveller ship :shock:

Well I knew that my ship was small, but I thought thats because it was 100dtons... hm :?

My ship is 18m long and 7.5m wide (w/o wing/fuel tanks). You could fit about three of my ship in a Boeing :shock:

 

[DFW]

Then I would say running a star ship, at least small ones, is pretty darn cheap.

You are omitting relevant data points. You looked ONLY at expenses and not at profit centers. Compare how much the Boeing makes per trip compared to the Free trader hauling cargo per trip...

ONLY then can you make the above statement have meaning.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Again I'm going to have to agree with what was said above in that a Traveller ship is not cheap purely because of the need to make the monthly payments.

You could build an amazing ship, but to make one up you can actually afford (remember life support costs are per stateroom/cryoberth, plus the maintenance costs) something has got to give, like speed, armour quality or weapon quality, even the actual possibility of the last two in some cases.

Yeah, if you are going for owning some special bespoke design, you had better have a sound business plan, especially if there is not much cargo space.

The Free Trader, Far Trader and Fat Trader economics work so long as most months you make two jumps each month, with a pretty much full cargo bay and most of your berths full of paying customers.

However, if you do not have a lot of cargo space you need to think a lot more laterally about how you are going to keep enough money coming in. The Scout Ship looks cheap, but unless you can get one on loan from the Scout Service the economics may be very tricky.
Egil