High Passage, or not

[welsh]

Carrying on from our recent thread re freight prices (which implies similar flexibility in passage prices), one thing that's been bugging me is what high passage actually entails. What do you getbfor that extra Cr. 2000?

The rules say a type A free trader can sell both high and low passage. If I buy a high passage, I get to spend a week in the same stateroom as the guy with the middle passage, and use the same passenger lounge. I don't see an extensive galley in the deck plan, and the rules tell me that excellent meals on a daily basis ought to run me Cr. 1050 for that week.

So ... there is clearly no real reason to oay that Cr. 1050....

My take is that high passage ought to offer better accommodations ... more room, better onboard entertainment, etc. (On which note: look at the type A deck plan & tell me how much you'd look forward to spending a week confined to that passenger compartment.) This leads me to the counter-canonical conclusion that a high passage cabin is a high passage cabin, and if your ship (type A) doesn't have the facilities, you can't charge the price.

Thoughts?

 

[mike wightman]

High passage includes the services of the steward and a 1 ton cargo allowance (how many people remember to subtract this from their cargo hold - carry 8 high passengers and you are down 8t of freight or speculative goods).

I should explain - in CT'77 edition one shipboard ton could carry 1000kg of cargo.

The high passage 1000kg baggage allowance is one remnant of that to make it into 81 revised, the other being the shotgun example in LBB2 trade section.

The high passenger enjoys a higher standard of food, and entertainment is provided.

 

[Ulsyus]

This leads me to the counter-canonical conclusion that a high passage cabin is a high passage cabin

Your logic is blinding in its stark accuracy.

Alternatively, trying to think outside the 1970's-80's box, maybe what is different is an array of virtual entertainment (a sim-module: expensive but lots of fun), preventative medical treatment to cover the effects of being cooped up for a week in a high-cost cabin, and a personal diet designed to meet the customers personal preferences as well as their physical requirements for optimal conditioning during travel: a much more intensive culinary preparation effort than the nuked readi-meals that everyone else gets.

That could also account for the need for higher Steward skill levels on ships that regularly want to court High Passage customers.

 

[Adam Dray]

The extra price avoids the chance of death of low passage.

 

[khadaji2002]

IMTU high passage and middle passage might use the same cabin, but only on different trips. If the crew signs a high passage passenger that passenger has the cabin to themselves (though they of course may have a servant berth there if desired). The crew must get top-end food service, and the cabin is detailed to ensure the utmost cleanliness. If they fail to provide any of the three services they will not find a high passage passenger within their jump radius of the destination planet for months. That is the difference IMTU.

 

[kilemall]

So to translate the cargo value, you get Cr1000 luggage allowance, the MidPassage gets Cr100.

The other Cr1000 using CT pricing gets you Steward services, for simplicity let's call it Cr800 worth of meals at Cr100 per day, and Cr200 for other services- housekeeping, valet, tailor, concierge to the extent that can be accommodated onboard, and access to extra entertainment or an exclusive lounge.

Excellent meals are described as costing from Cr20 to Cr50 each, while ordinary restaurant meals are Cr10 per day. Ordinary cook at home is Cr5 per day.

The MidPassage ticket is described as having low quality cuisine. So probably a lot of vending machine/microwave type meals they cook themselves, have to make their own bed and clean up the place, they only get Basic Cable.

Now then as to the potential for variable passenger rates, we have to establish a baseline for what it costs per passenger. I'll be using CT for the numbers, you would need to plug in your version. I will be contrasting the cost of a passenger vs. freight, and disregarding common per ton costs like total ship mortgage service, operating crew, fuel costs, etc. as those are very ship/situation specific.

Life support- Cr2000 per person per trip.

Stateroom mortgage- staterooms are more expensive then freight holds and are a significant mortgage cost. Cr500000, - 20% down at ship purchase leaving Cr 400000 to be financed, Cr1666.66, so Cr833.33 per trip.

Steward services- a Steward is required for High Passage. A steward can serve up to 8 HP passengers. Steward salary is Cr3000, divide by two for two trips a month, so Cr1500 per trip. However, the life support and mortgage cost has to be factored as well. 2000 +1500 + 833=4333. Assuming optimal utility at 8 HP passengers, that yields Cr542 per HP passenger per trip. The per passenger cost will be higher of course if there are less then 8 passengers per steward.

Optional Opportunity cost- Passengers take up 4 tons, which could be done without either the life support or mortage overhead. Freight could be carried for Cr4000. There is also a like opportunity cost loss with operating a steward.


So for a MidPassage ticket, the low base cost is Cr2833, for High Passage it is Cr3375. That yields profits of Cr5167 for MidPassage and Cr6625 for HighPassage.

It is also instructive to compare the profits of 8 HighPassages and 1 Steward vs. 9 MidPassages, to get a feel for the opportunity cost/profit of the steward's stateroom.

9x5167= Cr46503 8x6625= Cr53000

Freight of course is 36 tons, Cr36000.

So, that's your margin.

If you do allow for variable ticket prices, there should be bonuses for getting more passengers, or perhaps different routes get permanently discounted.

Another factor to consider is that subsidized merchants would forego having to pay the stateroom mortgage and thus could undercut the ships that still have mortgage overhead. Paid off ships and megacorps looking to drive off competition could also have that advantage.

A reason to do it would be that there is a real cost to not filling those passenger berths, so even at cost its' cheaper then nothing and they can't be re-purposed.

 

[Condottiere]

First class isn't simply twenty five percent more expensive, assuming Middle Passage is Business class, more like forty percent.

 

[Timerover51]

IMTU high passage and middle passage might use the same cabin, but only on different trips. If the crew signs a high passage passenger that passenger has the cabin to themselves (though they of course may have a servant berth there if desired). The crew must get top-end food service, and the cabin is detailed to ensure the utmost cleanliness. If they fail to provide any of the three services they will not find a high passage passenger within their jump radius of the destination planet for months. That is the difference IMTU.

High Passage also buys you 1,000 kilograms per passenger for your gear. A Middle Passenger gets a 100 kilogram allowance. Unless the High Passenger has some fairly dense gear, that is going to take up several cubic meters of cargo space. As for service, I assume that the Middle Passenger has to make up his or her own bed and clean up their cabin. Then it depends on how you handle food. Either way, you should be able to get reasonably good meals as the passengers are paying either 10,000 or 8,000 Credits for the stateroom, while life support costs per stateroom are only 2,000 Credits. Current US Army Meal Rates are $13.85 per day for about 4500 calories. That comes out at $96.95 for a week per person. For a 2,000 Credit life support cost, you should be able to provide decent meals.

Edit Note: For a set of the Current US Army Recipe Cards, go to the following website and then hit the download recipe cards. It is not hard tack, salt pork, and water any more.

http://www.quartermaster.army.mil/jccoe/publications/food_links.html

 

[Blue Ghost]

Carrying on from our recent thread re freight prices (which implies similar flexibility in passage prices), one thing that's been bugging me is what high passage actually entails. What do you getbfor that extra Cr. 2000?

The rules say a type A free trader can sell both high and low passage. If I buy a high passage, I get to spend a week in the same stateroom as the guy with the middle passage, and use the same passenger lounge. I don't see an extensive galley in the deck plan, and the rules tell me that excellent meals on a daily basis ought to run me Cr. 1050 for that week.

So ... there is clearly no real reason to oay that Cr. 1050....

My take is that high passage ought to offer better accommodations ... more room, better onboard entertainment, etc. (On which note: look at the type A deck plan & tell me how much you'd look forward to spending a week confined to that passenger compartment.) This leads me to the counter-canonical conclusion that a high passage cabin is a high passage cabin, and if your ship (type A) doesn't have the facilities, you can't charge the price.

Thoughts?

None of the groups I've ever gamed with ever saw the sense of HP. If you needed to freight some extra baggage, then you slipped the ship's cargo master a few credits extra.

 

[mike wightman]

High Passage also buys you 1,000 kilograms per passenger for your gear. A Middle Passenger gets a 100 kilogram allowance. Unless the High Passenger has some fairly dense gear, that is going to take up several cubic meters of cargo space.

As I posted earlier, according to the trade rules section in CT 1000kg of cargo is one ton of cargo hold.

A 4t stateroom could earn you Cr4000 if you filled it with freight - so your minimum ticket price including life support consumables cost (Cr2000) is to charge Cr6000 just to break even.

 

[aramis]

As I posted earlier, according to the trade rules section in CT 1000kg of cargo is one ton of cargo hold.

A 4t stateroom could earn you Cr4000 if you filled it with freight - so your minimum ticket price including life support consumables cost (Cr2000) is to charge Cr6000 just to break even.

Only in CT.
In almost all later editions, it's about 0.1 Td.

MT you allot 1 tonne per kiloliter for cargo, so it's about 0.08Td.
TNE, again, default assumption of 1 tonne per kiloliter, but a performance note of 10 tonnes per Ton-Displacement.
T4 is the exact same cut and paste text.
GT, the cargo ton is a 500 cu ft space, and mass isn't explicit.
T20, the rate is 1000 kg, but cargo tons are displacement tons, not mass.
MGT says 1 ton of cargo space - and defines tons for ship purposes as pure volume. 14 cubic meters.
T5 uses volume based tons, but provides no baggage allowance.

CT is not the only edition, and CT is not the Definitive Edition, either.

 

[welsh]

Pardon my waiting and then replying to a whole bunch of people at once.

None of the groups I've ever gamed with ever saw the sense of HP. If you needed to freight some extra baggage, then you slipped the ship's cargo master a few credits extra.

This is part of my thinking. In my experience, players often like to cheap out on PC expenses. Some of this can be penalized ("Look: if you insist on drinking in dives, you're not going to get good job offers") but nobody sees the point of shelling out for high passage (unless they have to, to bump a mid passenger from a full ship).

If the players' goal becomes to accumulate money, then I like to find ways to separate them from it ... this keeps people motivated.

High passage includes the services of the steward and a 1 ton cargo allowance....

I forgot the cargo allowance. But this is still accounting for only half of the extra cost, and it's only valuable if you actually have to carry a ton of baggage.

Re extra baggage, I have always assumed that any ship is going to carry over-allowance baggage at the standard cargo rate, plus up to 50%. Show up with 100 kg extra, and you pay Cr. 100 - 150 for the captain to carry it as incidental cargo. This kind of sucks the value out of the high passage, unless you have a lot of bags.

Alternatively, trying to think outside the 1970's-80's box, maybe what is different is an array of virtual entertainment (a sim-module: expensive but lots of fun)....

Entertainment is one of the benefits of high passage, but thinking out of the 1970s computer box, I kind of assume that (a) most passengers bring their own and (b) even for mid passage there will be all kinds of entertainment options freely available. (Consider the seat-back TV now offered on newer passenger aircraft.)

The last thing I would really want as a type A captain is to have a bunch of passengers bored out of their skulls and crammed together in tight quarters ... there are good reasons to keep them entertained for free.

Now, maybe high passage gets you better than "basic cable," but that's not worth Cr. 1000.

IMTU high passage and middle passage might use the same cabin, but only on different trips. If the crew signs a high passage passenger that passenger has the cabin to themselves (though they of course may have a servant berth there if desired).

"Cabin" meaning? As it stands, it's one stateroom / pax.

Excellent meals are described as costing from Cr20 to Cr50 each, while ordinary restaurant meals are Cr10 per day. Ordinary cook at home is Cr5 per day.

You err, sir! (But so did I, in my original post.)

It's Cr. 50 "per person," quoting The Traveller Book, in a paragraph where everything is given as per diem, not per meal ... so I think this is Cr. 50 per diem.

This makes sense given that long-term "high living" is Cr. 900 / month for both meals and accommodation. So that's Cr. 225 / week. The actual life support costs are no higher for a high passenger.

First class isn't simply twenty five percent more expensive, assuming Middle Passage is Business class, more like forty percent.

Right. To kilemall's point, I think your extra value is in steward service, laundry, being waited on hand and foot, and as he suggested, an exclusive lounge. Which standard designs don't provide for ... most deck plans lack a galley, and have a shared passenger lounge, which is often rather cramped.

My current thinking is that ships either have high passage facilities, or they don't ... and a high passage should be priced at Cr. 12,000 with 6 dtons / stateroom vice 4, bearing in mind that the 4 dtons / stateroom is supposed to allow for staterooms, passageways, common areas, and so forth.

Your standard type A is not set up to offer high passage. This means it doesn't need a Steward ... though in practice, many may have an apprentice/steward/gunner/dogsbody crewman who gets to deliver meals.

Only in CT.

Wait, what? There are other editions?

 

[Fovean]

Mongoose 2e offers High (6 ton) and Luxury (10 ton) staterooms, both of which are obviously more expensive than a standard stateroom but also offer +DMs to attracting high passengers.

I know, CT not MgT but it actually addresses the issue. Make the players knock out a partition wall and upgrade a stateroom or two if they want High passage income.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Pardon my waiting and then replying to a whole bunch of people at once.



This is part of my thinking. In my experience, players often like to cheap out on PC expenses. Some of this can be penalized ("Look: if you insist on drinking in dives, you're not going to get good job offers") but nobody sees the point of shelling out for high passage (unless they have to, to bump a mid passenger from a full ship).

If the players' goal becomes to accumulate money, then I like to find ways to separate them from it ... this keeps people motivated.

Heh

When I ran games (not so much as a player) I often wondered what my friends would do if they were really there. Would they opt for a cabin with some scuff marks, or would they splurge on some extra nice accommodations? I remember trying to think of a rule to either force or encourage various groups to spend money on more expensive things, like people might do in real life.

lol, one time I remember telling one of the players who was heading up the group that the only air raft available was from a Vargr manufacturer, painted in bright neon colors in swirly flowing patterns all over the exterior. I think they opted for ground cars or something. In the end it became a moot point once they stated acquiring ships.

 

[kilemall]

You err, sir! (But so did I, in my original post.)

It's Cr. 50 "per person," quoting The Traveller Book, in a paragraph where everything is given as per diem, not per meal ... so I think this is Cr. 50 per diem.

This makes sense given that long-term "high living" is Cr. 900 / month for both meals and accommodation. So that's Cr. 225 / week. The actual life support costs are no higher for a high passenger.

I am quoting LBB2. TTB explains some things, shortens or alters others. So no error, just different versions.

Right. To kilemall's point, I think your extra value is in steward service, laundry, being waited on hand and foot, and as he suggested, an exclusive lounge. Which standard designs don't provide for ... most deck plans lack a galley, and have a shared passenger lounge, which is often rather cramped.

On Free Traders, there isn't enough spare room for setting aside a second lounge, but bigger ships could. There might also be other things like gyms, swimming lanes, the equivalent of holodecks, etc.

My current thinking is that ships either have high passage facilities, or they don't ... and a high passage should be priced at Cr. 12,000 with 6 dtons / stateroom vice 4, bearing in mind that the 4 dtons / stateroom is supposed to allow for staterooms, passageways, common areas, and so forth.

<Shrug> that's a reasonable house rule. For CT that would be Cr 750000 that would be a bigger chunk of mortgage to service.

Your standard type A is not set up to offer high passage. This means it doesn't need a Steward ... though in practice, many may have an apprentice/steward/gunner/dogsbody crewman who gets to deliver meals.

The CT crew pay does note that Steward-0 will do.

Walking away from that extra money would be tough though, especially as short-handed as FTs are. Double duty would be logical, but even handling cooking meals and cleaning chores would be a tough 12 hour day.

The whole Free Trader work cycle is brutal though. Not a lot of give. That's why I choose to go with the 10% premium bridge space cost as being 5x as automated as a normal HG 2% bridge.

 

[kilemall]

Heh

When I ran games (not so much as a player) I often wondered what my friends would do if they were really there. Would they opt for a cabin with some scuff marks, or would they splurge on some extra nice accommodations? I remember trying to think of a rule to either force or encourage various groups to spend money on more expensive things, like people might do in real life.

You could impose MidPassage checks against -1 INT for poor entertainment/boredom, or maybe -1 END for the food.

Or HighPassage positives like the US 'but I stayed at a Holiday Inn' ad campaign, maybe a temporary +1 SOC coming to a small planet for instance.

Also, maybe you get better contacts or patrons in High Passage.

 

[kilemall]

CT is not the only edition, and CT is not the Definitive Edition, either.

I used CT because it was right there- could use CE or MgT too, I would hope people would work it out in their favorite system.

The numbers are just suspension of disbelief tools, the bigger question is what gameplay value this has and how to rig it to get the desired effect without players abusing or being abused.

 

[aramis]

I used CT because it was right there- could use CE or MgT too, I would hope people would work it out in their favorite system.

The numbers are just suspension of disbelief tools, the bigger question is what gameplay value this has and how to rig it to get the desired effect without players abusing or being abused.

From a gameplay standard... no two editions math matches. Not even MGT1 vs MGT2, nor CT 1 (1977–1980 printings) vs CT 2(1981 printings, TTB, and Starter).

In CT, it's a safe bet you have to set aside cargo tonnage for highs.
In MT or TNE, you do as well, but 1Td per 10 HP. That's a HUGE difference.

 

[welsh]

I am quoting LBB2. TTB explains some things, shortens or alters others. So no error, just different versions.

So CT doesn't even agree with CT.

There's a significant conflict between Cr. 150 / day for excellent meals and Cr. 225 / WEEK! for "high living" food and accommodation!

Also, maybe you get better contacts or patrons in High Passage.

That's my preferred option: dress for the job you want.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Well, one of my big issues and questions was price variation. Cargo was priced according some variables that could kick a price up or down .... I think TL differences of buying freight on one world and selling it on another came up. But there was never anything like that for passage. Not a big deal, but airline ticket prices and cruise ship accommodations vary some.

I guess for gameplay purposes I understand the need to sleek the rules and not burden the ref and players with minutiae like inflation.

I may try to scrounge a group together and play with this concept.