Jump 1 vs Jump 2 ships in the CT Imperium

[atpollard]

A thought occurs to me.

Perhaps the starship creation system PERFECTLY reflects the 'REAL' economics of building FTL ships in an Interstellar Empire.

Perhaps the trade system PERFECTLY reflects the 'REAL' economics of an Interstellar Empire (macro and micro).

Perhaps it is the Banking model that has been oversimplified and does not work.

If a CT ship lasts 1000 years (the Annic Nova suggests that it is a possibility) then a 500 year mortgage is perfectly reasonable.

With a 0.00001% inflation rate, a 2% return on an investment like 'interstellar shipping' seems more generous. (Banks pay no interest and charge fees - they are a service industry based on goverment fiat. You MUST use a local bank if you want to business on this world.)

 

[rust]

Repeat until you grow tired of making money.

Yep, this was one of the reasons why I decided to move the trade part of the
game from the rules system to the setting: I grew tired of rules which could
easily be exploited by the players.
With "in setting" trade (prices, profits, etc., as a result of "in setting" trade
negotiations), I can modify the "trade rules" whenever I consider it necessary,
and I can tailor them to my setting ("No, no profit to be made by selling a
shipload of ATVs on a water world ...").

 

[rancke]

Ahh, I see. Hans was snipping phrases out of context to support his argument. No wonder I couldn't find that wording anywhere. I was looking for the whole para he outlined.

I quoted the part of the text that I considered relevant. I indicated that I had elided part of the text by the use of the symbol '[...]'. I gave the original source of the quote so that others could check it for themselves. Unless you have personally read the part I omitted and honestly feel that it was relevant to the argument, you're way out of line to state that I was quoting out of contest.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Very often a good cargo would end up over 100% purchase price with DMs. And more than once we had to take a loss when the sale roll was less than the purchase roll. I'm pretty sure the rules are in fact once offered for sale you can't back out.

The rules says that if you use a broker, you have to pay him his percentage even if you decide not to sell. So obviously you can decide not to sell.

2 - You can only use one of Broker, Bribery, or Admin. At least that was the way we read it.

Only one character may affect a sale. A generous ref may interpret that to mean only one PC and allow both a PC and the broker. However, I would have no problems with a ref who said that it's only one character -- broker or PC.

But what about a PC with both Admin and Bribery skill? The rule doesn't say 'only one skill'...

Still, a good game can be had even where the ref allows the players to pay off their ship quickly. That's the important part. Use the rules to have fun. Don't let the rules dictate how you play, especially if it ruins the fun.

I like to call it The Merchant Game, and I agree that it can be a lot of fun. But it's not a role-playing game. Nor is it very realistic. Think about it. A free trader arrives at a world. He's never been there before and who knows when he'll be back again? He engages a local broker. What are the odds that the broker will try to cheat him? According to The Merchant Game it's 0%!?!

And don't try to look behind the curtain and figure out how the universe runs, the Emperor is just an ordinary man with a special effects machine and some twisted logic

I agree that we shouldn't try to use the rules for running a minute (albeit colorful) niche market (free-trading) to figure out how the universe is run, but I very much want to figure out how it's run somehow. Why? Because I think it increases role-playing enjoyment if you can figure out how often the regular passenger liner from Regina visits Forboldn[*]. In one adventure I ran on Forboldn, the PCs arrived by liner and was told that it would go the opposite direction 40 days later (having been to Efate in the meantime). That gave them a time limit for the task.


Hans


[*] And all sorts of other stuff like that.

 

[rancke]

This is really the meat of the issue, why don't higher jump number ships get to charge more?

My answer is "They do". However, more than what? Cr8,000 is actually far too much for a jump-1 passage and more or less reasonable for a jump-2 passage. It's not until you get to jump-3 that it's much too little to support a jump-3 ship. And how many PC ships are jump-3? So the question is really, why does a jump-1 ship get to charge so much? Hence my idea of passages being vouchers rather than tickets.


Hans

 

[Icosahedron]

And the point is he said it was a trade system. That's what all this is about. A game that is not really about trade doesn't really need a trade system. Anymore than a game that is not really about mercenaries really needs an advanced weapons combat system.

On the contrary. I think most games need a trade system of some sort. Adventurers need a day job to pay their living expenses. Adventuring itself is too unreliable.

Even if trade is only a backdrop to your adventures (like mine), you still need it to pay for the operation of your ship - whether you use a detailed or abstract system is what matters to the type of game - but either way, the system should be realistic insofar as it reflects the fundamental requirements of economics.

I'm not convinced that the Traveller trade system does this, since competition and supply and demand are the most basic of economic principles and the Traveller system doesn't seem to address them - not without a lot of input from the Referee.

For a throwaway idea in a few lines of text, I quite like Anthony's 'system', it just needs developing. I'll be very pleased to see what Ishmael comes up with - he and I see eye to eye on a number of topics.

 

[pendragonman]

Anymore than a game that is not really about mercenaries really needs an advanced weapons combat system.

Heretic. BURN HIM!!!!!

 

[robject]

A thought occurs to me.

[...]

If a CT ship lasts 1000 years (the Annic Nova suggests that it is a possibility)

[...]

I dunno, do I want to go there? Oh okay.

Actually, Alien Module 8 (Darrians) suggests that certain ships can last 1,000 years -- namely , TL16 ships. It explicitly states that Imperial ships can't last 100 years (er, more or less, I don't exactly recall the quote).

I don't recall any age estimates on the Annic Nova, but you're right, it could be really-old-yet-operable.

At any rate, I prefer to think that ship longevity is a sign of higher-than-Imperial technology. YMMV.

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re: PC's with multiple skills
What about Streetwise...?
On a more realistic note, if you had multiple skills, should you only use the skill with the highest level, even if it's not strictly appropiate, or the average level of all the skills....?

 

[spank]

I dunno, do I want to go there? Oh okay.

Actually, Alien Module 8 (Darrians) suggests that certain ships can last 1,000 years -- namely , TL16 ships. It explicitly states that Imperial ships can't last 100 years (er, more or less, I don't exactly recall the quote).

I don't recall any age estimates on the Annic Nova, but you're right, it could be really-old-yet-operable.

At any rate, I prefer to think that ship longevity is a sign of higher-than-Imperial technology. YMMV.

I don't have that module, but would be interested to know the exact quote. There was a discussion some time ago about the working life of a ship and noone thought of this.

 

[spank]

My answer is "They do". However, more than what? Cr8,000 is actually far too much for a jump-1 passage and more or less reasonable for a jump-2 passage. It's not until you get to jump-3 that it's much too little to support a jump-3 ship. And how many PC ships are jump-3? So the question is really, why does a jump-1 ship get to charge so much? Hence my idea of passages being vouchers rather than tickets.


Hans

Well I can certainly understand the thinking, even if I don't agree. Mostly I don't think it is as simple as just allowing a higher charge for farther travel. If you charge more for shipping volume will go down. More things will be produced domestically.

 

[daryen]

I don't have that module, but would be interested to know the exact quote. There was a discussion some time ago about the working life of a ship and noone thought of this.

Here is your quote:

The number of tech level 15 warships expected by the Imperium to remain in service after 2,000 years is zero. The percentage of tech level 15 starships which could remain in service after 2,000 years, if the Imperium had a mind to keep and maintain them for longevity, is also zero.

Thus, survivability and endurance can be inferred to be two of the characteristics that Darrian tech level 16 starships have.

... The implication is clear that tech level 16 ships have qualities that justify such a conversion, while such a conversion at tech level 15 or 14 would be inefficient at best.

-- "The Darrian Navy", p 24 Alien Module 8

 

[aramis]

Re: PC's with multiple skills
What about Streetwise...?
On a more realistic note, if you had multiple skills, should you only use the skill with the highest level, even if it's not strictly appropiate, or the average level of all the skills....?

I read it as one skill, and the skill implies the mode of approach.

 

[Anthony]

If you charge more for shipping volume will go down. More things will be produced domestically.

It's not obvious that you charge more overall for shipping; shipping rates for 1 parsec voyages may well go down. In any case, since the rules don't specify what the shipping volume is, there's no need to account for changes.

 

[spank]

I had an idea after my post last night,

Trade procedure:
1)Determine basic trade potential
Add origin Pop digit and destination pop digit divide by 2

               Major              Minor          Incedental 
0                -                   -                 -
1              1D-4                1D-4                -
2              1D-2                1D-1                - 
3              1D-1                1D                  -
4              1D                  1D+1                -
5              1D+1                1D+2                -
6              1D+2                1D+3                -
7              1D+3                1D+4              1D-3
8              1D+4                1D+5              1D-3
9              1D+5                1D+6              1D-2
A              1D+6                1D+7              1D-2

Move up or down the chart for the following mods:

Tech level
Origin TL-DestTL

Origin pop
4-,-4
8+,-1

Destination pop
4-,-4
8+,-1

Delivery time
-1 per week beyond 1

Shipping cost
+1 per 100 Cr below 1000
-1 Per 200 CR above 1000

 

[spank]

In any case, since the rules don't specify what the shipping volume is, there's no need to account for changes.

The rules do say what the shipping volume is. When you roll for available cargo that is the shipping volume.

If you are interested in modeling trade there is a need to account for there effect of raising or lowering the cost of shipping. If you raise the cost beyond what there rules suggest you will or should be offered less freight for shipment.

Of course if you are just interested in handing out money.........

 

[rust]

Tech level
Origin TL-DestTL

I once used a similar formula, and ran into a problem: What about low tech
resource worlds (agriculture, mining) shipping large quantities of resources
to high tech industrial worlds in order to buy technology there ?

With a TL 7 resource world and a TL 15 industrial world you get a modifier
of -8, making the shipment of large quantities of resources impossible.

 

[daryen]

The rules do say what the shipping volume is. When you roll for available cargo that is the shipping volume.

Not quite. When you roll for available cargo, that is just the cargo available for you. It means nothing else. There is no "larger system" implied by those rolls. They are just the cargo available for you for that period of time.

 

[Anthony]

The rules do say what the shipping volume is. When you roll for available cargo that is the shipping volume.

No, that's the cargo available to you. Total trade volume is not specified in the Traveller rules (other than Far Trader).

 

[spank]

If you charge more then fewer people will pay to ship; You will have less availible to you.