Ron Gianti
SOC-11
Hello!
I'm running through learning the rules by running my own adventure with the Book 1-8 reprints. It says under "Single player" - 'someone undertakes an adventure alone'. Thats me.
First I rolled up 4 characters with enough skills to pilot a Free Trader and one who got it as a mustering out benefit. Decided they all met together to muster out in Regina and started to do some cargo runs to make money for future adventures.
Year 1 (1103?)
Spent year in the local Regina area (can't go far with jump-1!) running cargo and passengers. Ran into pirates twice at the end of the year, had to dump cargo and beg for mercy. Dropped the cargo while moving at odd angles so the pirate had to decide whether to chase the cargo or my (now empty!) Free Trader. Rolled on reaction table and got a favorable response and escaped. End of the year profit was around 100,000 after payments, fuel, refit etc. Making money this way is kind of tight and rolling for hijack each trip is nerve wracking...
What is up with unrefined fuel? I can almost see the rules for breakdown, because that can be role played away (I guess its no coincidence that most of the adventure story's start with, "your free trader has recently broken down, leaving you stranded on a backwards world..."), but the misjump rules are unusually harsh, no? If you ply a 1 jump route where no refined fuel is available, you are almost guaranteed a misjump which could kill the entire party in over 50% of the time? Its 13+ on a 2d? Do that 10 times a year and you'll get a one way ticket to the middle of no where in a one jump ship with no fuel left. Why would anyone do this?
Year 2 (1104?)
Decided to play with the speculation trading rules (sticking to books 1 - 3 until I get this game down, will branch out later...). The very first cargo was Computers for 50% cost! 5Mcr. But who has that kind of cash? Well, since the Free Trader has 10+ years paid off per the mustering out table, I decided that the ship owner would be allowed to take a loan against his part of the ship as collateral at 1% interest per month. Bought the one computer, ran into a pirate (again!) on the way, talked him into leaving us alone for 50,000 cr sent to his paypal account.... Sold the computer for 150% minus broker fees, etc, walked away with almost 10,000,000 (paid off the loan for 1% interest..)
Woot! The 4 characters each got enough money to live like kings for 2 weeks and got good and throughly drunk that night and still had plenty of money to put in 2 triple turrets with lasers.
Did a couple more relatively safe runs in local Regina space, but still getting tired of the threat of pirates and unrefined fuel (which scares me more than pirates!). Noticed 3 safer looking systems coreward of Regina that should be a nice area to make some money. Headed that way with no incidents and spent the rest of the year doing speculation runs, ended the year with somewhere around 30Mcr! Did the year end refit, bought weapons and gear for the locker, partied like it was 19999! Decided that the ship could be paid off early to save interest on the payments and then still had like 10Mcr+ going into:
Year 2 (1105)
- just kind of picked these years, don't know whats going on in the universe...
Decided to stay in safe 3 world area and not even bother with passengers or generic cargo. Figured out how much it would cost to run the ship for one year all expenses paid and just do speculation for that year and pay a lump sum for the yearly expenses.
Also, had the 4 characters try to train themselves up a level. The medic became medic-2 (training to 3) success (and something else I forget), one ex marine successfully started an exercise regimen.
No conflict possible, no pirates, no roll for hijack, no unrefined fuel, just pure speculation for 11.5 months, leaving 2 weeks for refit.
Ended the year with around 130Mcr!
Year 3 (1106) aka "Greed is good"
Ran another year of cargo speculation, got the other characters on training, ended the year with around 250Mcr. This may seem like a lot of money, but there are many ships my characters want that are far beyond that amount...
Year 4 (1107) "Cocaine is gods way of telling you that you make too much money"...
More cargo speculation but made a greedy purchase that actually lost me a few mil in the end. Ended with 320Mcr.
Year 5 (1108)
Now its time to branch out. I want to use the Free Trader (dubbed "Chairman Mao") as bait. I want to hire 6 former military men to pose as refugees and we'll go up and down the dangerous path back to Regina hoping to get a pirate ship to board us and we'll see if we can't get the jump on them and take their ship instead, if I don't break down or misjump...
But first, so I feel like there is some continuity in case I lose the characters, they create a new corporation: "4DC corp.". In the event of death, each of the 4 characters wills 1/4 of their holding in the company to their Next of Kin (aka, the next character I roll to replace them...) so they have a few millions of spending money to start out, then we spend one month looking for 6 military. The deal is each of the 10 crew keep 1/10th the value of any ships caught and resold, with 4DC corp retaining the right of repurchase (I want a patrol cruiser!). If no pirates are met or ships captured before the end of the year, the 6 hired soldiers got a free 1 year vacation and will be paid 500,000cr each.
Bought 10 Laser rifles, 10 TL13 vacc suits, various other weapons, med kits, etc for the dangerous trip and headed to Regina with my "refugees"....
I'm running through learning the rules by running my own adventure with the Book 1-8 reprints. It says under "Single player" - 'someone undertakes an adventure alone'. Thats me.
First I rolled up 4 characters with enough skills to pilot a Free Trader and one who got it as a mustering out benefit. Decided they all met together to muster out in Regina and started to do some cargo runs to make money for future adventures.
Year 1 (1103?)
Spent year in the local Regina area (can't go far with jump-1!) running cargo and passengers. Ran into pirates twice at the end of the year, had to dump cargo and beg for mercy. Dropped the cargo while moving at odd angles so the pirate had to decide whether to chase the cargo or my (now empty!) Free Trader. Rolled on reaction table and got a favorable response and escaped. End of the year profit was around 100,000 after payments, fuel, refit etc. Making money this way is kind of tight and rolling for hijack each trip is nerve wracking...
What is up with unrefined fuel? I can almost see the rules for breakdown, because that can be role played away (I guess its no coincidence that most of the adventure story's start with, "your free trader has recently broken down, leaving you stranded on a backwards world..."), but the misjump rules are unusually harsh, no? If you ply a 1 jump route where no refined fuel is available, you are almost guaranteed a misjump which could kill the entire party in over 50% of the time? Its 13+ on a 2d? Do that 10 times a year and you'll get a one way ticket to the middle of no where in a one jump ship with no fuel left. Why would anyone do this?
Year 2 (1104?)
Decided to play with the speculation trading rules (sticking to books 1 - 3 until I get this game down, will branch out later...). The very first cargo was Computers for 50% cost! 5Mcr. But who has that kind of cash? Well, since the Free Trader has 10+ years paid off per the mustering out table, I decided that the ship owner would be allowed to take a loan against his part of the ship as collateral at 1% interest per month. Bought the one computer, ran into a pirate (again!) on the way, talked him into leaving us alone for 50,000 cr sent to his paypal account.... Sold the computer for 150% minus broker fees, etc, walked away with almost 10,000,000 (paid off the loan for 1% interest..)
Woot! The 4 characters each got enough money to live like kings for 2 weeks and got good and throughly drunk that night and still had plenty of money to put in 2 triple turrets with lasers.
Did a couple more relatively safe runs in local Regina space, but still getting tired of the threat of pirates and unrefined fuel (which scares me more than pirates!). Noticed 3 safer looking systems coreward of Regina that should be a nice area to make some money. Headed that way with no incidents and spent the rest of the year doing speculation runs, ended the year with somewhere around 30Mcr! Did the year end refit, bought weapons and gear for the locker, partied like it was 19999! Decided that the ship could be paid off early to save interest on the payments and then still had like 10Mcr+ going into:
Year 2 (1105)
- just kind of picked these years, don't know whats going on in the universe...
Decided to stay in safe 3 world area and not even bother with passengers or generic cargo. Figured out how much it would cost to run the ship for one year all expenses paid and just do speculation for that year and pay a lump sum for the yearly expenses.
Also, had the 4 characters try to train themselves up a level. The medic became medic-2 (training to 3) success (and something else I forget), one ex marine successfully started an exercise regimen.
No conflict possible, no pirates, no roll for hijack, no unrefined fuel, just pure speculation for 11.5 months, leaving 2 weeks for refit.
Ended the year with around 130Mcr!
Year 3 (1106) aka "Greed is good"
Ran another year of cargo speculation, got the other characters on training, ended the year with around 250Mcr. This may seem like a lot of money, but there are many ships my characters want that are far beyond that amount...
Year 4 (1107) "Cocaine is gods way of telling you that you make too much money"...
More cargo speculation but made a greedy purchase that actually lost me a few mil in the end. Ended with 320Mcr.
Year 5 (1108)
Now its time to branch out. I want to use the Free Trader (dubbed "Chairman Mao") as bait. I want to hire 6 former military men to pose as refugees and we'll go up and down the dangerous path back to Regina hoping to get a pirate ship to board us and we'll see if we can't get the jump on them and take their ship instead, if I don't break down or misjump...
But first, so I feel like there is some continuity in case I lose the characters, they create a new corporation: "4DC corp.". In the event of death, each of the 4 characters wills 1/4 of their holding in the company to their Next of Kin (aka, the next character I roll to replace them...) so they have a few millions of spending money to start out, then we spend one month looking for 6 military. The deal is each of the 10 crew keep 1/10th the value of any ships caught and resold, with 4DC corp retaining the right of repurchase (I want a patrol cruiser!). If no pirates are met or ships captured before the end of the year, the 6 hired soldiers got a free 1 year vacation and will be paid 500,000cr each.
Bought 10 Laser rifles, 10 TL13 vacc suits, various other weapons, med kits, etc for the dangerous trip and headed to Regina with my "refugees"....
