loans of Speculative Trade?
- Thread starter SirKerry
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kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Maybe in the Gurps Trade book, not anywhere else I'm aware of.
That is largely a Referee campaign design decision sort of thing, which is a good thing.
Now as far as game design is concerned, I always understood the CT trader game to start small and on the edge, make some milk runs and buying jump tapes, then slowly building enough of a kitty to get the most basic program (Generate), then into speculation.
You start with the 1000s of credits sort of speculation, then work your way up to the Big Money.
Then, the ship has literally millions of credits of improvements to do to suck down all that money, not to mention repairs.
So I don't believe the game was originally designed requiring loans or patrons to get speculation going.
One sort of Trader game I have posted about before is the Gentleman Trader- one who does not own a ship, but speculates as he can, buys cargo space and a Passage to go along with the trip, selling off then waiting for the next good deal and meanwhile doing who knows what on planet. A very relaxing and freeform version that does not have the driving planet of the week vibe, and truly a Traveller.
That is largely a Referee campaign design decision sort of thing, which is a good thing.
Now as far as game design is concerned, I always understood the CT trader game to start small and on the edge, make some milk runs and buying jump tapes, then slowly building enough of a kitty to get the most basic program (Generate), then into speculation.
You start with the 1000s of credits sort of speculation, then work your way up to the Big Money.
Then, the ship has literally millions of credits of improvements to do to suck down all that money, not to mention repairs.
So I don't believe the game was originally designed requiring loans or patrons to get speculation going.
One sort of Trader game I have posted about before is the Gentleman Trader- one who does not own a ship, but speculates as he can, buys cargo space and a Passage to go along with the trip, selling off then waiting for the next good deal and meanwhile doing who knows what on planet. A very relaxing and freeform version that does not have the driving planet of the week vibe, and truly a Traveller.
Leveraging other peoples money is a core business tenet. Having a solid nest egg to protect yourself against bad deals with loans against them is a handy thing to have, but, as they say, never spend your own money.
The problem is not so much the idea of getting a loan, it's the matter of how the lender secures the loan when the borrower goes of track, gets their cargo lifted in deep space, misjumps, comes back with a story "yea, but..." and returns a load of merchandise ruined with laser scorch marks all over it.
Financing a ship is easy(-ish) as you have a monster chunk of valuable collateral. But lenders aren't really interested in a 20 tons of pork bellies should your deal gone bad.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
All true far as your comments go, but not the rules the OP was looking for.
Like I said, don't think there is anything on this topic except possibly in that GURPS book.
If the OP wants, we can certainly opine and suggest our takes on how to handle that sort of mechanic.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
The key word is "speculative". Basically, you are buying goods with the hope of selling them. That will make a lender nervous. Next, you will be traveling to another star system with said goods, so the lender has no collateral for the loan, as the collateral is leaving too. You might be able to get someone to finance you who is going to go along to monitor his/her investment, but who is also going to demand immediate payment upon sale. Unless you can buy very low, and sell very high, your profit margin is going to be a bit slim.
There was an article, Speculation without a Starship by Loren Wiseman. in JTAS number 5 that might give you some ideas. There is also an article by Frank Chadwick in JTAS 4 on Trade and Commerce, which also has some discussion of speculative trading.
Potential investors will need to be convinced that (a) you won't just skip off with their money, and (b) they'll get a competitive return. But if you can pull that off, I did a write-up on how financial markets work (including trade-based instruments) here: http://sol.trisen.com/default.asp?topic=10&page=32
Now, I used the finger-in-the-air method to get the specific rates, so you may want to make adjustments. But the basic takeaway is that rate of return varies with perceived risk.
The players will need a lot of admin (business plans, contracts, etc), social skills (lots of meetings in suits), and find ways to defer/defray investors' risk
... Or they go downmarket and get a loan from some local equivalent of Jabba the Hut. (With all that that entails.)
Now, I used the finger-in-the-air method to get the specific rates, so you may want to make adjustments. But the basic takeaway is that rate of return varies with perceived risk.
The players will need a lot of admin (business plans, contracts, etc), social skills (lots of meetings in suits), and find ways to defer/defray investors' risk
... Or they go downmarket and get a loan from some local equivalent of Jabba the Hut. (With all that that entails.)
Typically up to 80% of the equity in the ship
Maximum Loan = 0.8 x (current market value of ship - what you owe on the ship)
The lower the percentage of the equity, the easier it is to get the loan.
