Freighters

[Hal]

For what it is worth, while a STAUNCH GURPS player, I've come to the conclusion that GURPS TRAVELLER FAR TRADER isn't worth trying to run at the table - and this despite the fact that I wrote some code to permit the player to search the "trade" database to seek freight lots from local freight brokers. It was simple enough in that the user of the program would look at the list of available freight for the day, determine where he wanted to go based on what freight was available. I even allowed for the fact that if one of the worlds was on the way to a further destination world, the player would want to see what freight was available for THOSE stepping stone worlds in addition to their final destination. It was IMPOSSIBLE for a tramp freighter to not secure sufficient freight at places like Lunion or Strouden because there was just TOO much freight available!

The flip side of the Speculative Cargo rules made it nearly impossible to find any speculative cargo, and if you did find some, nearly impossible to make a profit on without really HIGH (obscenely high in my opinion) Trader skills. GURPS treats skill 12 on 3d6 as "professional" whereas skill 14 is well trained, and skill 16 is expert. Beyond skill 16 is, well, TRULY Expert perhaps. Long story short, professional speculators couldn't succeed at all, while expert speculators could maybe make a living. Others at the GURPS forums didn't see this as an issue, but I did and do. "Stat inflation" bothers me as it were.

In any event, bringing this to relate to what was posted just prior - is the fact that when I look at ANY game system, I look at the economics of that game system (be it fantasy or sci-fi or what have you) to see how my players can - using the rules as written, screw up things for a campaign set up. If it is TOO easy to get rich, then it doesn't mean anything to the players to get their hard won victories (as they aren't hard won!). Too hard, and the players won't be interested in it. As a firm proponent of "A well constructed game universe runs itself so the GM can concentrate on the stories" school of thinking, I'd like to see that people take a good hard look at the rules they create and actively playtest the "Dumb strategies" instead of just what seems reasonable. It gets them (the designers) to realize that while it may SEEM good in their eyes, others who run it can and will find all of the loopholes or logic flaws or what have you.

So, yes, I'm starting to return BACK to the model that was in the original CT where it came to both freight and cargo. I still want the per parsec business model instead of per jump model that CT introduced. I still want players to be able to say "I'm going to destination X with three worlds between here and there, so I'm going to see what is available at the smaller worlds on the way to the final destination". I want the "profitability" to be lax enough so that players have time to "Adventure" without being too lax to allow players who concentrate primarily on being "Merchant princes" don't get rich TOO quickly. Finding that middle ground is tough.

In the meantime, making merchant ships that are NOT cookie cutter imitations of the original stock "Seeker Scout" or "Beowulf" or "Empress Marava" or any of the others - helps to bring to life some of the "Fun" that should be inherent in the game.

Last night, I tried to create freighters based on the Jo Lynn, Exeter, and Wayfarer class ships from THE FUTURE ARMADA series. Some of the illustrations are COOL and the deckplans are somewhat nice. PRoblem is/was: I couldn't fit them into a Traveller Universe all too easily. The ships COULD be built, but they weren't economically feasible in any possible role one could envision for them, or as one player stated "That one with the two engine pods at either end of the wing would be too vulnerable to combat damage."

Ah well...

 

[The Oz]

I wonder if there's some way to make a "bidding war" kind of freight model; where players bid on how much they'll charge to carry a shipment, and a die roll (modified, of course) determines whether or not the players win the bid. Players would state how much they're charging for the entire trip, and how many weeks until delivery. Referees would then look at tables (or formulas) to find modifiers for things like delivery time vs. distance, starport/population size (bigger ports have more potential competitors), and whatever else might affect winning the bid. Then the ref makes a die roll and we see who wins.

 

[kilemall]

I wonder if there's some way to make a "bidding war" kind of freight model; where players bid on how much they'll charge to carry a shipment, and a die roll (modified, of course) determines whether or not the players win the bid. Players would state how much they're charging for the entire trip, and how many weeks until delivery. Referees would then look at tables (or formulas) to find modifiers for things like delivery time vs. distance, starport/population size (bigger ports have more potential competitors), and whatever else might affect winning the bid. Then the ref makes a die roll and we see who wins.

No doubt, I could even whip one up for you and part of IMTU is about an underground unlicensed shipment system (stolen, on the run or 'should-be-decommissioned-for-safety-reasons' ships don't have payments after all), but you have to ask yourself at all times what is the play value of the intro of any rule.

Among other things, on a macro scale you could be undercutting marginal ships and routes to the point that only subsidized routes run to them.

I would also stay away from complexity in the roll, unless your players are specifically playing against rivals on their routes and there is value in action against competitors.

 

[Hal]

I wonder if there's some way to make a "bidding war" kind of freight model; where players bid on how much they'll charge to carry a shipment, and a die roll (modified, of course) determines whether or not the players win the bid. Players would state how much they're charging for the entire trip, and how many weeks until delivery. Referees would then look at tables (or formulas) to find modifiers for things like delivery time vs. distance, starport/population size (bigger ports have more potential competitors), and whatever else might affect winning the bid. Then the ref makes a die roll and we see who wins.

The way to maybe work it out?

Find the actual "standard" income for various freight being carried. Place that at the most common roll on your bell curve. Then pick a modifier for the die roll based upon how busy that port is, or how quiet it is. Then? Have the player pick his bid.

if your die roll is higher than the bid he picked, he gets the bid. If it equals his bid? He wins because he got it in first. If lower than the bid? He loses.

Then you pick high risk Freight. NO ONE WANTS those high risk freights! So you might add a bonus to the die roll so that it usually is HIGHER than what someone bids.

So, example:

Normal bids are say, 1000 credits per parsec. You as GM decide that each 10% increment of 1,000 credits adds or subtraces on the table (ie rolls of 10 equal 1,000, an 11 is 1100, a 12 is 1200 while a 9 is 900 etc.

Then, busy starports have a -2 for class A starports with a lot of traffic, otherwise -1. Class B starports with a lot of traffic are at -1, otherwise, with low populations, a normal roll. Class C gets you no bonus either way. Class D gets you a plus 1 to the die roll
class E gets you a +2 to the die roll. If no ships are in port - NO DIE ROLL is required! No one is bidding against you!

so, hazardous freight might gain a +2 bonus to the roll.

Player bids 1100 for hazardous cargo. You as GM roll a 10. 10 plus 2 is 12. The bid for his freight lot was 1200 (remember how I said the +20% was at the 12 mark?). So 1200 is greater than 1100, he wins. Had you rolled a 9 instead? It would result in a roll of an 11. This means that the NPC bid 1100 for the freight.
The player character got his bid in first, and wins the bid at 1100. Had you rolled an 8?
8+2 = 10. A roll of a 10 means the lowest bid was 1000 credits. That is lower than the player character bidding 1100, so he doesn't win the bid.

The "concept" is there, but the values to put on that table is what will require the work.

 

[Xenon]

insofar as bidding goes, i think a lot of this would depend on the style of the port, both in technology and culture. so it could easily apply to a few worlds, but not all of them.

if anything, a bidding war would make it much more difficult to pay your mortgage, and this just creates another failure state for the players. this type of failure would not be fun, so outside of maybe being a plot about problems in a specific out of the way port (that they wont want to come back to), it wouldn't really add to the game for the players.
some places, the shippers will only pay X because their willing to wait for a cargo ship, in others they can be convinced to pay more because of the lower traffic meaning its a long time between ships.

in the mongoose merchant prince rules, you have to roll well on a broker check to get the 'default' of 1k/ton for freight, as the new default is half that and a bad roll can get even lower.... prices in merchant prince only go DOWN, which makes sense considering how profitable the standard numbers are for hauling freight. from a gamist standpoint, the full number makes it a bit too easy. kind of the opposite of the problem the gurps had.

as it stands, if we assume 2 jumps a month, then cargo space is valued at 1k/ton +20% for J2. low berths have twice this value per ton (when you can find passengers), and staterooms value at 1.5k/ton/jump-rating for j1 or j2 (again when you can find passengers). for most ports, anything with a freight value(merchant prince p.66) of 6+ will likely have a decent amount to keep the hold full, but a freight value of 5 or less has a chance of their being zero freight, and some ports will have a value of zero for some nearby ports.

basically, a freighter makes money if you read the map and plan ahead, it loses money if you pick a bad destination (or get very bad rolls). a lot depends on the part of space your in and how far your ship can jump. if a free trader can haul 80t of freight per jump, twice a month, thats 160k in pay for freight, two berthing fees, plus some random value of passengers (6 staterooms and 20 low berths), less the maintinence, life support, 44t of fuel, salaries, and mortgage payment. that 160k should cover expenses with something left over, but one bad port with no cargo and you could suddenly be short this month.

different versions of traveller make changes to how you can make money. but i rather like how mongoose puts most of the impact on profit on player choices, more than dice rolls. every world will have a value for freight (both current and destination) and by comparing this to another port nearby, you can quickly see where the freight is flowing. im working on a UWP decoder spreadsheet in excel right now to read the input and output the various codes and purchase/sale DMs. =if(and(or()), 1, 0) and =max() are useful functions for most of these. im using the lunion subsector of the spinward marches as my test batch (and thus spotting the typos in the 3rd Imperium book), ill probably input the rest of the sector once its done.

 

[warwizard]

I may have mentioned this ship previously, it's built on a 100dton asteroid, err inside it actually, it has three 100 dton demountable cargo modules attached to the outside of the basic hull.

The interior is the power plant to support a J1 at 400 tons and the J-drive to make that happen, 20dt bridge, a 1G maneuver plant for only the basic hull
1/2 stateroom for the very busy single person flying this ship, fuel tankage and about 4 Dt of internal cargo. Model 1 computer is installed , no hard points or provision for weapons. one airlock, one small cargo hatch. There are no gravity compensation or artificial gravity facilities, cargo must be packaged to be vacuum safe. Loaded acceleration varies with the mass of the cargo but is around .1 to .25 g's.

Now the asteroid was obtained at a TL 8, B class starport and hollowed out there, the jump drives were imported from a neighboring A-9 starport paying for shipping and workers to come install it. The cargo modules are a varied lot, one from Ling Standard products appears to be at about TL 12 or 13, perhaps higher, one is from General products and appears to be TL 10, and the third is from local manufacture at the original yard, so TL 8.


The cost of this ship is paid for in TL 8 star port B credits so has a steep discount compared to the A-15 imperial credits this imperial retiree had at his disposal. The cargo modules were obtained at scrap values for the GP module , 50% for the ling STD, and full list for the locally produced.

Required skills for the owner aboard:
All skills at level 2 or better
Pilot, navigation, engineering, Vacc suit, zero g environment, mechanical, electronics, trader, broker

Operations,
Averaging one jump per month due to the really slow acceleration, and the fact that this is a one man operation, this ship nets about imp 3 million a year if it was carrying freight, but mostly it carries trade and speculation cargo.

Current location: Trading between Glisten and Aki.

 

[The Oz]

Another possible way for PCs to get freight might be to investigate how independent long-haul truckers find their loads. I have often thought that the life of an big-rig owner-operator is more like that of a tramp freighter crew than anything else these days.

 

[aramis]

Another possible way for PCs to get freight might be to investigate how independent long-haul truckers find their loads. I have often thought that the life of an big-rig owner-operator is more like that of a tramp freighter crew than anything else these days.

The owner-operators I've known either hire out to a corporation on a long term contract, or do slope work on a seasonal contract - and contract via Carlisle Trucking for the ice road season. The contracts pay based upon distance and hazard level, flat rate for a given run.

The USPS also hires a few extra truckers for December, but it hires them through a company.

Which isn't dissimilar to what is seen on Ice Road Truckers. (Which focuses in seasons 5 & 6 on three companies: First Nations Trucking (Manitoba), Polar Industries Trucking (Manitoba), and Carlisle (Anchorage/Fairbanks/Prudhoe Bay). I've seen a few of the drivers on the road...

 

[Beerfume]

I just posted a 200 ton armed merchant in another thread on this forum:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=36264

 

[mike wightman]

The fluff text stat block that goes with the deckplan says it is 400t by the way.

 

[Beerfume]

Good catch. Thanks! Image and downloadable PDF have both been corrected.

 

[GypsyComet]

...a 600 dTon former subsidized merchant, based on a modified 400 dTon subsidized merchant hull...

I realize this type of upsizing and Frankensteining is popular (and have done it myself) but I'm more a fan of coming up with a new hullform. It IS sort of baked in to the A2 give the history of its deckplans, but I'm curious why the R, which is a compact and clean form (and the right size), would get used for this sort of thing when there are 600-ton "Standard" hulls around already.

But Drop Tanks are TL 12, not 15. It's just that the 3I didn't discover them until 1107...

Or didn't feel the need to push the necessary infrastructure out to the wild spinward frontiers until 1107. Drop tanks do call for someone to pick up after you.

And it occurs to me that loose drop tanks should appear on ship encounter tables in some capacity. Burnt, mangled scrap still returns a sensor ping.

 

[mike wightman]

1105 actually.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

IN Unicorn of the Gazelle class was built on Rhylanor, drop tanks and all, in the 1080s.

There is nothing to indicate that this was new, experimental, or remarkable.

 

[GypsyComet]

IN Unicorn of the Gazelle class was built on Rhylanor, drop tanks and all, in the 1080s.

There is nothing to indicate that this was new, experimental, or remarkable.

Except for the TAS News item in JTAS#2, dated 097-1105. This does somewhat contradict the construction dates in JTAS#4 for the Unicorn, but this can be interpreted as the military getting nice things before civilians do. Since the "long-storage jump capacitors" cited in both places probably came out of the Black Globe development program, which is definitely TL15 and would have been top secret, the advent of civilian drop tanks so late is not a huge stretch.

 

[mike wightman]

IN Unicorn of the Gazelle class was built on Rhylanor, drop tanks and all, in the 1080s.

There is nothing to indicate that this was new, experimental, or remarkable.

They are military - canonically civilian use of drop tanks started in the core Imperial worlds in 1093. The military were probably using drop tank technology for a long time before it was declassified for civilian use.

Oh - and the Gazelle was, is and forever shall be a broken design (except in TNE, T4 and GT:ISW :devil

 

[mike wightman]

Except for the TAS News item in JTAS#2, dated 097-1105. This does somewhat contradict the construction dates in JTAS#4 for the Unicorn, but this can be interpreted as the military getting nice things before civilians do. Since the "long-storage jump capacitors" cited in both places probably came out of the Black Globe development program, which is definitely TL15 and would have been top secret, the advent of civilian drop tanks so late is not a huge stretch.

You know, I never thought of combining black globe reverse engineering with jump drive capacitors and drop tank technology - but it makes perfect sense setting wise.
Many thanks - you just gave me something else for the crew of the Bloodwell to investigate

 

[Whipsnade]

They are military - canonically civilian use of drop tanks started in the core Imperial worlds in 1093. The military were probably using dop tank technology for a long time before it was declassified for civilian use.

Very true.

As I always reminded Hans whenever the yearly Drop Tank Donnybrook flared up:

How many civilian airlines perform in-flight refueling?

The needs of the military and the needs of civilians aren't necessarily the same. The resources available to the military and the resources available to civilians aren't necessarily the same. The technology available to the military and the technology available to civilians aren't necessarily the same.

We can now discuss how it can be that HG2 has drop tanks available at TL 7 and Imperium not "inventing" them until the late 11th Century IE.

Could it be that HG2 isn't an OTU-only supplement and that not every rule in HG2 applies to the OTU? :devil:

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Very true.

As I always reminded Hans whenever the yearly Drop Tank Donnybrook flared up:

How many civilian airlines perform in-flight refueling?

The needs of the military and the needs of civilians aren't necessarily the same.

Certainly, but from estimates using ship designs we can see that drop tanks would revolutionise civilian jump shipping, long-range freight prices would plummet (or shipping line profits would soar), unlike current air transport.

In Traveller the civilian sector would rush to be first with drop tanks. How long would the Navy be able to keep something secret that the megacorps really, really wanted? How long would the Emperor allow the Navy to keep something secret that could significantly stimulate the Imperial economy?

 

[mike wightman]

In the OTU the frontier sector drop tank program was sabotaged - sorry - suffered a catastrophic accident that set it back a few years.
Then the FFW kicked in, and just as everything is settling back down the Emperor goes and gets himself assassinated (or rather his clone/body double/synthetic/robot duplicate).