Hello Folks,
Totally late to this party and wading through a lot of posts means that what I'm about to say might have already been said (and that I've just not reached the end of the thread yet!)...
That having been said, have you ever considered the process involved with mortgages?
Why does one have to buy a ship with all of the bells and whistles at the start? For instance, suppose the ship is being purchased at the show room at a shipyard. You specify that you want the hull built with functioning turrets, one defensive weapon per turret? You further stipulate that the launch bay, which comes standard with the hull class, is left empty? If the ship requires an air raft bay, stipulate that the air raft bay is empty.
Does the ship have to have the best software at the time of purchase, or can it have the bare essentials, with the goal of improving the software as needed later?
Think about it. Everything you front end load on the mortgage costs DOUBLE what it would have cost to purchase it later in the long run. Why not buy "weapon dummies" to simulate offensive lasers aboard your turrets, but only start out with sand casters initially? That saves money off the mortgage AND it allows you to upgrade at NORMAL cost when you have (if you have!) sufficient money to buy it later. Such upgrades are easily enough attained and implemented right? Same with software. Buy the software and install it later.
And finally...
Who says you have to buy a spanking brand new launch or air raft to put into the now vacant bays?
In the end? A captain who doesn't treat his mortgage like yanking out one of his/her/its most treasured body part in the most painful manner possible, is someone who is likely to treat all expenses as if they were nothing and of no consequence.
In the up coming campaign I'll be running for a buddy using FG2 (Fantasy Grounds 2) for use with GURPS - he's starting out with a Rogue like captain (think modeled after Hans Solo) whose best friend from his youthful years on Lunion, is a retiring scout. With the mustering out benefit of a scout hull, he's hoping that a no strings attached hull as far as mortgages go, will permit him to engage in speculative cargo trade to where he can hopefully get up enough cash for a down payment on his dream boat, the Empress Marava Model B class ship.
That his ship has shielded compartments and has a little more "oomph" in its manuever drives means that he's going to have to bribe a few people to keep it off the blueprints and the like.
Now, what happens when a ship is designed - all of the potential design errors have been fixed, and the ship STILL have problems because the crew who installed the ventilation ducts, were hung over and someone goofed the process up to where... "We're very sorry, but the initial test flight we did of your order, resulted in us finding out that the ventilation ducts were improperly laid. All staterooms on the port side of your Empress Marava class ship, will hear an annoying rattle any time your ship uses an acceleration greater than 75% max accel. For your trouble, we can either take the ship back to the yard, and fix the issue, or we can give you a discount of 1% on the ship's cost - or we can simply give you a credit towards remedying the issue for your yearly maintenance the next time you are in port for a two week down period. What ever works best for you."
Imagine having a brand spanking new hull, with that "new hull" smell pervading the ship. And in the ship's bay lies a used, badly painted, pitted hull of a launch with graffiti written all over it that hopefully will burn off the first time the hull builds up heat from an atmospheric re-entry. Imagine the look of joy the gunner has when he walks into the ship having seen it looking like it mounts two lasers - only to discover that his work station screen shows only sand casters as being part of the operations screen. Then imagine your crew finding out that if they want all of the nice frills, they have to find some speculative cargo they can buy at low cost, and resell at higher cost. That is just to be able to afford to buy ONE laser to install in one of the three turrets for a 300 dTon hull?
Granted, I don't know what the adventure is that will be involved in being played at a convention, but try this on for size?
What would the player characters do if they thought they could salvage a functional ship mounted laser without getting caught? That might be "bait" worth dangling before them. Then, the first time the ship lands, and the administrator who is at the star port asks for papers, makes a successful roll against admin, to discover that the ship is rated as having defensive sand casters only, and it now has 1 operational laser. Where is the paperwork that documents the purchase and installation of the laser?
:CoW:
