Interesting interpretation of the rules. I guess ya have to come up with something in order to explain those nonsensical parts of the OTU. I usually just dump it and use market forces to set the prices.
So you've lost your ship - what now?
- Thread starter Frankymole
- Start date
Interesting interpretation of the rules. I guess ya have to come up with something in order to explain those nonsensical parts of the OTU. I usually just dump it and use market forces to set the prices.
You just don't get it, Hans...
Megafreighters on their routes run more jumps per year (reducing LS, salary, and monthly payment shares, as well as PP fuel shares) than tramps. At a reasonable 3 jumps per month, megafreighters can scootch the costs down a good bit. They make their money on spec and internal... but the megacorp owning the freight is moving it 'internally'... and not paying actual passage rates. But it's well within the expected Cr1200 return per ton under Bk7... and in volume, it adds up quickly. If you can refine your own fuel offboard (which a megacorp can), you can get the cost down to about Cr950 per ton per J3... at 3.111 jumps per month on a 50KTd ship. (mind you, the cost savings is less, because the MegaCorp absorbs those into the overall scheme...) It's extremely tight, and relies upon lots of prep outside... orbital warehousing for both fuel and cargo, and rapid transfer of both... but it's doable.
It's also the kind of prep that won't be happy for passengers... being ready to board for an entire 24 hour window, and having to be off in a matter of an hour after dejump... Oh, and HP only.... MP is a losing proposition...
And the margins are such that passage costs rely upon high fill rates to make money ... The more I work with the numbers, the more it looks like Marc ran the numbers very carefully in 1977... specifically to make J3 long haul profitable only if you don't have to have any downtime.
J4 can make a profit on spec.
Megafreighters on their routes run more jumps per year (reducing LS, salary, and monthly payment shares, as well as PP fuel shares) than tramps. At a reasonable 3 jumps per month, megafreighters can scootch the costs down a good bit. They make their money on spec and internal... but the megacorp owning the freight is moving it 'internally'... and not paying actual passage rates. But it's well within the expected Cr1200 return per ton under Bk7... and in volume, it adds up quickly. If you can refine your own fuel offboard (which a megacorp can), you can get the cost down to about Cr950 per ton per J3... at 3.111 jumps per month on a 50KTd ship. (mind you, the cost savings is less, because the MegaCorp absorbs those into the overall scheme...) It's extremely tight, and relies upon lots of prep outside... orbital warehousing for both fuel and cargo, and rapid transfer of both... but it's doable.
It's also the kind of prep that won't be happy for passengers... being ready to board for an entire 24 hour window, and having to be off in a matter of an hour after dejump... Oh, and HP only.... MP is a losing proposition...
And the margins are such that passage costs rely upon high fill rates to make money ... The more I work with the numbers, the more it looks like Marc ran the numbers very carefully in 1977... specifically to make J3 long haul profitable only if you don't have to have any downtime.
J4 can make a profit on spec.
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Let me remind you that in a previous post you explicitly stated that jump-3 and jump-4 traffic wasn't profitable. I pointed out that jump-3 and jump-4 traffic is canonical. How you reconcile this paradox is what I don't get.
What I don't get is what relevance the profitability of 50,000T jump-4 freighters operating between high-population worlds in a way that ignores several of the canonical rules for operating freighters has to the profitability of a 600 or 1000T jump-4 passenger liner operating between worlds with lower population scores.
Side issue: Also, of course, if 50,000T jump-4 freighters can make a slim profit at Cr1000 per dT (where did the Cr1200 come from?), 50,000T jump-1 freighters can make huge profits at Cr1000 per dT. This would require very heavy-handed enforcement of the price-fixing, something that does not jibe very well with the other activities of the Imperium.
Losing for who? If I'm going from Lunion to Strouden, all I have to do is plunk down Cr8,000 and get aboard a liner going there. That's the price the Imperium has fixed, and that's the price the company can charge me. Making a profit is the company's problem. Which, of course, makes one wonder why it carries passengers at all. That's what I don't get.
Again, totally irrelevant to my argument. J4 merchants can make profit on spec. J4 freighters and passenger liners can't. Because they're using their cargo space to carry freight and/or passengers instead of speculative cargo.
To sum up:
a) Canonically, small jump-3 and jump-4 ships exist and thrive in the OTU. (Stellar Class, Tukera Long-liners, Al Morai ships).
b) Canonically, these ships operate on a two jumps per month shedule (Description of Al Morai SOP) and carry passengers at Cr8,000 unless they can fill up with high passengers.
Until and unless you can explain why these ships carry passengers and freight at all, and how they stay in the black doing so instead of dedicating all their tonnage to speculative cargo, this picture is wrong somewhere.
Side issue: If the Imperium is indeed fixing the price of jump-3 and jump-4 passage, it is effectively supporting long-distance travel by making it cheaper.
Hans
Ever since reading this, I've thought it an error to apply LBB2 cargo and passenger costs and prices too rigidly:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=23347&highlight=questions
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=23347&highlight=questions
Good call. Those rules weren't written to make ANY econ sense. Purely a way to keep players from becoming, if I may paraphrase another RPG designer, "green grocers" and to keep them "adventuring".
I'd rather have realistic rules and leave it to the GM to figure out how to 'railroad' the players. But, I see why he wrote the rules that way.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
When I bought my house the homeowner's insurance was paid automatically from the same escrow account that paid the mortgage and the property taxes!
I paid into the escrow account the correct monthly payment and the bank paid out to the separate accounts as needed to meet the terms of the mortgage, the insurance premiums, and the county/state property taxes.
Frankymole
SOC-12
Freight, passage and indeed speculative cargoes' income must all be net of tax; because the values returned on the sales tables go straight into the players' account, the same logically applies to the Megacorps. So all it requires is that larger trading companies get tax breaks - the ref can decide how much, and add these tax rebates on to the profit.
1) Imperial companies pay taxes?
2) Only companies large enough to get tax breaks own jump-3 and jump-4 ships?
3) There are tax breaks to be had when every centi-credit paid for freight and passages is still too little to cover the expenses?
Hans
No. You pay fees independent of the income. You (ship owner) don't pay income tax in the OTU. The buyer might pay sales tax. None of this would allow "breaks" for megacorps.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
That sounds like a system of administrative and accounting convenience.
The total amount you paid included the mortgage and the insurance, and it was later divided and sent to the correct destinations by the bank; it does not describe the insurance being covered by a portion of the payment on the mortgage. Or am I reading it wrong?
This sounds as if, to buy a ship, you would pay a monthly installment based on the total of the Standard Mortgage Calculation + an Insurance Calculation. Others here are stating that the insurance is covered by the monthly payment of the installments on the Standard Mortgage Calculation. Those are two different things.
pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
I take it you don't own a home, or anything more expensive than a car, and that you put down a considerable down payment on your car (if new, if not you have a high car payment and no downpayment)
When you talk to the mortgage broker/bank loan officer they DO break it down for you how much of your payment goes where, but you know at the time of signing for everything that if you don't send the escrow company/bank the entire amount for everything in the monthly payment then you have not made the payment at all, just a partial payment, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the insurance and taxes get paid first for 2 reasons: 1) if the house gets destroyed the bank gets their money back and 2) by paying the taxes and insurance first the bank gets to charge additional interest on the now unpaid premium you missed.
One thing to remember: The exceedingly low interest rate on the canonical loans all but precludes including an insurance payment. Hell, they amount to a subsidy in and of themselves.
Either that, or the loans are in fact 0% APR but include insurance....
Either that, or the loans are in fact 0% APR but include insurance....
The Bk 2 Interest Rate is 4.35% so it has to include insurace since this is a prime rate sized loan (several hundred Millions)..so figure 3% interest + 1% Insurance + 0.35% taxes ..or the same as Prime Rate in 77 or 2011...
(dont forget the 10% down is pure interest when comparing)
(dont forget the 10% down is pure interest when comparing)
The 20% down means that the amount of the loan is 80% of the full price, not the full price. That's all.
Hans
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
I agree.
It sounds reasonable, but this is well beyond the scope of what I was discussing.
One possible assertion is that the standard starship mortgage as discussed in Book 2 is the payment for the starship only. If this were the case, any type of insurance would have to be some form of additional payment beyond the noted calculation.
What the exact components of the monthly payment amount is not specifically relevant to what I was discussing, only whether that monthly payment amount is:
1) "Starship mortgage payment amount as stated in Book 2" + "Some Additional Payment for Insurance" = "A larger amount, regardless of how or when it is paid"
2) "Starship mortgage payment amount as stated in Book 2" = "Payment for ship and insurance; again, regardless of how or where it is paid."
In case one, the payment is going to be larger than the amount that would normally be expected based on the stated Book 2 rate.
In case two, the payment is the same as the normally expected amount.
RainOfSteel
SOC-14 1K
What is the basis for that claim? Is this some reference to real life financial regulations?
Ehh i do not recall that part ..I recall 10% down + 1/240th of the full price for 480 months ..however my memory could be faulty and playing tricks even if it goes standard 20% down and 1/240th of 80% then the interest rate is effective is still just under 4% ..3.98% ergo still in the prime rate zone + insurance and taxes easily ...
same kinda deal medium to large business and multi-millionares get for borrowing more millions...which is to say far more than large corporations pay for money (1-2% ) since they tend to skip the banks or are the banks and borrow directly from governments..
You borrow 80% of the full amount and repay 240% of the full amount. Which means you repay 300% of the original loan.
Hans
Many of the original adventures involve losing your ship, or being stranded awaiting repairs or administrative hurdles while your payment comes due (marooned, the pyramid one, exit visa, etc) also there are patrons/ adventures with ships, or (rarely) having a possibility of getting one.
As regards insurance, on a bad day i'd say the representative/factor of the note holder rides as a free passenger on the ship, if he gets spaced or doesn't report in (through xmail even?) deep trouble for all, or maybe he needs to type the secret code periodically for it to jump heh. And unless you buy the 10kCr/Jn one-use jump tape, you are liable for the full note regardless of what happens to the ship (imperial debtors prison planet anyone?) Oh and it's highly reccomended that you purchase the refined fuel from the imperial gazelle that is going to escort/convoy with you as well...
On a good day people are so thankful to be out of the long night any ship travelling is good, paperwork's a breeze, don't even need weaponry cause it's civilized! And any uppityness of local worlds they'll just get bought off by the note holder (influenced by a recent 5M payment to pirates for return of the ship and crew), heck you can even just hot bunk as short term crew in exchange for passage! or do a lil broker deal and just ride with your cargo space available.
A lot of the talk about non profitable 600-1000t J3/4 ships, my take has always been most of then are subsidized, hence subject to recall for naval service, in essence world/polity ships or privateers, again an opportunity to have a naval/governmental "rep" on board as well.
Not all ships are mortgaged!!! A megacorporation hauling the 10000t of lead trans sector may very well just fly back empty and still make a profit, or could easliy carry passengers for um, risk, i mean profit! Owned ships are very profitable! Actually just skipping payments for the remaining time before annual maintenance could likely then freely buy outright some ship.
All that aside i like piracy existing, privateers, repo attempts, lots. I think one's take on this stuff is more of an IMTU thing, the scale frequency ships their dispositions, trade and all is highly variable between peoples traveller universes.
As regards insurance, on a bad day i'd say the representative/factor of the note holder rides as a free passenger on the ship, if he gets spaced or doesn't report in (through xmail even?) deep trouble for all, or maybe he needs to type the secret code periodically for it to jump heh. And unless you buy the 10kCr/Jn one-use jump tape, you are liable for the full note regardless of what happens to the ship (imperial debtors prison planet anyone?) Oh and it's highly reccomended that you purchase the refined fuel from the imperial gazelle that is going to escort/convoy with you as well...
On a good day people are so thankful to be out of the long night any ship travelling is good, paperwork's a breeze, don't even need weaponry cause it's civilized! And any uppityness of local worlds they'll just get bought off by the note holder (influenced by a recent 5M payment to pirates for return of the ship and crew), heck you can even just hot bunk as short term crew in exchange for passage! or do a lil broker deal and just ride with your cargo space available.
A lot of the talk about non profitable 600-1000t J3/4 ships, my take has always been most of then are subsidized, hence subject to recall for naval service, in essence world/polity ships or privateers, again an opportunity to have a naval/governmental "rep" on board as well.
Not all ships are mortgaged!!! A megacorporation hauling the 10000t of lead trans sector may very well just fly back empty and still make a profit, or could easliy carry passengers for um, risk, i mean profit! Owned ships are very profitable! Actually just skipping payments for the remaining time before annual maintenance could likely then freely buy outright some ship.
All that aside i like piracy existing, privateers, repo attempts, lots. I think one's take on this stuff is more of an IMTU thing, the scale frequency ships their dispositions, trade and all is highly variable between peoples traveller universes.
