Merc Pay Scale

[someoneelsehasmyname]

The group I play in has is making the transision from merchant to merc.
The ? is what would be a good base to charge our "Clients" for our services?

We curently have only 1 ship a Heavly modified Mercenary Cruiser (Jump 6, 6-g acceleration, AR17, 2 fusion guns, 2 triple beam turrents, and 4 triple missel turrents, better computers ext.) and 8 marines. A small start but we have about 11 months of in game time before out light cruiser is finished and that will have 600 Marines all in TL 14 combate armor and gauss rifles.

Just realy looking for a reasonable range the Gm is leaving it up to us to come up with what we want to charge and than roleplaying the final price.

Any help would be apprecated.

 

[Anton]

About a million gold pieces per day?

 

[tjoneslo]

It depends on how much your GM wants to play "Accurate Accounting in Space".

The simple answer is: Whatever the client will pay. Go ahead, ask for a million credits a mission. If they pay it, ask for two the next time. With the cruiser completed, I'd start somewhere in the 10-20 range and go up from there.

The more complex answer is to add up all your expenses (ship maintenance, ship mortgage payments on the cruiser), salaries (look under the Professional skill for an idea of pay scales), and incedentials (like food supplies, medical expenses, ammo, bribes, and repair costs for the armor and ship). Double this, and add a profit margin. Divide by the number of missions per year.

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

Thanks for the ideas

We already have a expense ledger keeping track of our income form shiping and speculitive shiping, bulk shiping, passengers, ext. and our expences like salries, jump fuel, life suport, ext so it wont be to much of a problum to figure a reasonable price to charge.

 

[Commander Drax]

Traveller if done properly can be like real life in the sense that the bigger your equipment, the bigger your problems become if only in simple logistics, just think about the life support cost for the cruiser alone! ! Not to mention mortgage payments, crew and marine salaries, bonus payments and rewards for exemplary service of subordinates, ammunition (small arms, space missiles, sandcasters), repair costs, intelligence gathering costs, bribery and corruption, not to mention fines from the local starport/world based police authority gained when you grant your 600 jar heads shore leave and they smash up the town and infringe on local customs etc. And all of this without an actual adventure, in other words a head ache

Now if you want to avoid this then you need to hire some accountants (Professional class) and make sure you pay them well....

Now to work out how much you should charge.

mortgage+life support+logistics+repair budget+wages+bonuses+slush fund=MCR X2. This amount might well be your ideal figure (100% profit margin should keep you rich), but don't forget your not going to be the only mercenary force out there, a government who needs your services might invite quotatuons/tenders for contract etc from competing outfits, and just like the real world, cheapest usually wins, irrespective of quality. It's up to you to do some good roleplaying and negotiate otherwise.

Hope This helps.

 

[savage]

I found these numbers, since I was running a Merc campaign they seemed appropriate. Although there at imperium rates not collapse

1. 750cr/merc /month
2. 30cr/ kl of cargo protected or
100cr/ merc for every 400t cargo
3. 120000cr troop/month --imperium rate

Savage

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

Thanks
The mortgage isn't much of a facter, we payed off about 80% of the cost of the cruiser. We do still owe around 1.2 billion pluse interest, but we are just gitting into the merc field. I didn't even think to add the price of our vehicles into the price at first but maintaining battledress and gcarriers would kick up the price alittle.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by someoneelsehasmyname:
out light cruiser is finished and that will have 600 Marines all in TL 14 combate armor and gauss rifles.

Just realy looking for a reasonable range the Gm is leaving it up to us to come up with what we want to charge and than roleplaying the final price.

OK, so you are loading yourself up with massive fixed assets... You need long term contracts, or you will go broke, or get zapped as pirates.

That essentially means that you won't be able to charge much of a premium over the cost of a regular unit of the same size and type. That isn't good, since that premium is your corporate owners' profit!

The deal with mercs of your type is that they are trained and experienced, and can be deployed in the field while regular units are still trying to work out which end of their rifles should be pointed towards the enemy. Eventually, however, regulars can match the mercs, are usually cheaper, and are often more politically acceptable. (Political _reliability_ can go either way.)

I suspect you won't have too many competitors. Let's face it: you are hugely economically marginal. The worse thing that could happen to you is that someone like an Aslan Ihatei fleet could turn up in your patch of space, competing for your contracts.

I presume you did do an economic feasibility study before your characters invested their money in this kind of asset? Is there actually a market for a white elephant of this type?

Personally I would suspect the GM of planning on flushing all your cash down the tubes unless you have done your homework.

Alan B

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

The Gm has the Imperium and the Zhodani at the edge of war (they have already had a few small battles) Half the players being former Imperial marines (among them a Lt Colonel and a Colonel) and were doing well as merchants and were giving the choice of being reactivated or forming a indipendent unit that could be used without the zhodani knowing we were working for the imperium. After all the 2 CEOs were pows at one time and have gone to great lengths to pay back the Consulate at every opertunity.
The main question we had was how much to charge the imperium and anyone else who had need of our services.

 

[savage]

Try to build "repairs in the line of duty" into your contracts. Or at least partial. If its the imperium they have there own engineers...etc. and might be willing to cut a back scratch deal...

Savage

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by someoneelsehasmyname:
Half the players being former Imperial marines (among them a Lt Colonel and a Colonel) and were doing well as merchants and were giving the choice of being reactivated or forming a indipendent unit that could be used without the zhodani knowing we were working for the imperium. ...
The main question we had was how much to charge the imperium and anyone else who had need of our services.

Ah, now, this is a whole other kettle of fish. You're guaranteed work and to not go broke. Cool.

Basic idea: work out how much it costs to run your unit if it was a regular unit. Stick a profit margin on top of that. I presume you would have suitable sources to work out your costs.

In theory you might have a few extra costs (insurance!) as well as having to pay commercial rates for berthing repairs and so on. That could add up to a fair bit of change. This could be partly offset by using the facilities of your "public" clients.

What you might want to do is set up a cost-splitting arrangement. You have a public client who pays part of your charges, plus you get an under the table payment from the Imperium. Obviously this would only work if the Imperium approves of you working for the particular client.

The Imperium gets deniability. The public client gets "cheap" mercs.

Anyway - use whatever rules you have to work out your costs. Stick on an "inconvenience surcharge" to allow for the fact that you aren't working out of an established network of bases. Then stick on a profit margin.

Itemise it in sufficient detail to convince your GM that she would rather just take your word for it than read the fine print.

Alan B

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

One of the other things we are trying to get on any of our new contracts is a repaitration clause just in case.