Starship Economics, Book 2

[Random Goblin]

Page 7 says: "2. Life Support. Each occupied stateroom on a starship involves an overhead cost of Cr2000 per trip (two weeks) made."

Where does this money go? What does it get spent on? I buy off on it for game mechanic's sake, but it kind of makes no sense.

What if the players are on a trip out past the spinward client states to explore new worlds? Where do they "buy life support?"

It seems to me that if you have fuel to run the power plant, and food to eat, and all systems are running smothly, you should have life support. Fuel has its own cost, and food certainly doesn't cost Cr2000 every two weeks.

The cost per week implies somehow that there is something being expended (as is the case with fuel or food). If nothing is expended, then why the cost per week? If something is expended, then what is it, and where do you buy it?

Come to think of it, the Cr overhead for low berths doesn't make any sense either. You've got power, right? Then the low berth should stay cold.

If there's some specific material needed to provide life support (frozen or not), then it should be more specific, because when exploring away from starports, you couldn't get it. And what if you had enough fuel to make four j1 jumps? That's at least four weeks in space, right? Have you run out of "life support stuff?" Or do you just pay the Cr into an invisible magic hole in the wall the next time you're at a starport?

I like to adhere crankily to the CT rules, but often they make no sense.

 

[Hal]

The 2,000 Cr rule never made much sense to me either - but remember this:

At the time the game was written, the closest thing we had to starships were submarines and the Apollo space craft. Air needs to be recycled, water needs to be reclaimed, refuse must be either dumped into space or somehow dealt with, etc.

As for Low berths, it isn't just cold that involved, but life support monitoring systems, reviving processes, and so forth, not to mention perhaps drugs injected into the bloodstream to prepare a subject for cyroberth transport, etc.

If the costs don't make sense to you, why not halve them or something to that effect. It allows you to retain the concept of cost of maintenance for life support without it forcing you to hit the "I believe" button to suspend your disbelief

 

[Golan2072]

Originally posted by Hal:

At the time the game was written, the closest thing we had to starships were submarines and the Apollo space craft. Air needs to be recycled, water needs to be reclaimed, refuse must be either dumped into space or somehow dealt with, etc.

We don't have much better RL examples to rely on today, except for the Mir space station (and it's child the International Space Station). Apollo or Skylab (American small space station in the 1970's) missions weren't nearly as long as the Mir ones (up to 400 days of continued zero-g life, IIRC), but still, Mir was supplied monthly. However, I think we could learn about late TL7 life support from it - IIRC Mir had a Progress-class supply capsule launched to it every month or so. I don't know how big it's cargo hold was (it's the size of a Soyuz capsule, just unmanned, so it wasn't THAT large), but it was enough to supply for the needs of 2-4 cosmonauts for a month or so.

But you have a point - CT does not take into account more modern recycling systems, not to mention "biosphere" experiments and Hydroponics.

Anyway, according to Beltstrike, these Cr2,000 per two weeks correspond to about 0.014 tons of life support supplies (150 weeks of life support take 1 ton). The supplies are composed of "food, air and water (to replace leakage from the recycling process) and consumable elements of the loife support system, such as filters, CO2 absorbers and so on."

 

[The Oz]

I've been re-reading the economics rules recently and I think I've seen something I've missed seeing all these years I've been playing.

In the section on paying for life support, there's a sentence right at the end of the section that says,

Military vessels or chartered ships may be used with a double occupancy system (two persons per stateroom), but this requires twice the normal cost.

The way I read that it implies that the Cr2,000 cost is not really per occupied stateroom, but rather Cr2,000 per person aboard. Since most PC ships I've known have used double stateroom occupancy this doubles the cost of the life support.

I wonder how I missed this all these years.....

 

[Spinward Scout]

How did the Starship Operator's Manual cover this? I seem to have lost/misplaced mine. Don't forget that on a "Cruise Ship" those meals are expensive. And so is the service. But we're talking about a cross between a Cruise Ship and a Submarine (and that's only on the good ships). Think about eating out at a fine restaurant every day, three meals a day for 14 days. That's 42 meals. Out of the 2000Cr required for two weeks of life support, that comes out to about 47Cr per meal - or about 142Cr a day. Not that much when you look at the price of a hotel room nowadays. So look at it this way. Let's say it takes 47Cr per 8 hour shift to support one person. This includes meals, air, entertainment (pay per view?), fresh linen, soap, shampoo, other various sundry, they have to keep DRINKABLE water on board - take a look at the price for a bottle of water these days (and one person would need a minimum of 4 bottles per day - more like 8). I think that makes it look a little more realistic...

Hope that helped,

Scout

 

[kaladorn]

47Cr will be somewhere between 141 and 235 US$. Now, that's stiff, but manageable for a hotel. But it is really stiff for a military crewman!

And you would think that the crew doing its own laundry, not having the same standards of cuisine, etc. would reduce the cost.

Also, one would think you could either stock up extra in advance (store spare scrubber filters, store spare food, etc) or you could pay some of it after the fact to replenish the presumed bank of supplies.

Also, the rules don't cover 'what to do if you run short'. I assume the answer should not be 'die instantly'.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Yeah - I keep forgetting that T4 said 1Cr is about $3.

Sorry,

Scout

 

[Hal]

When looking at costs - compare the cost of living in Traveller for a Month with the cost of life support

 

[rvatsaas]

Don't forget toilet paper.....

 

[Straybow]

*Points to many discussions on economics, ergonomics, and other considerations that seem to have been left out when Traveller was designed.

Far Trader cargo/Freight manifest questions
Price-Fixed Travel
Making a Jump 2 freighter profitable
Traveller Cargo Standards (This one I started)

Enjoy!

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Random Goblin:
Page 7 says: "2. Life Support. Each occupied stateroom on a starship involves an overhead cost of Cr2000 per trip (two weeks) made."

Where does this money go? What does it get spent on? I buy off on it for game mechanic's sake, but it kind of makes no sense.

It's another part of the original economic rules that is stuffed up. Some people consider it a feature rather than a bug. I disagree, but I've more or less given up trying to convince TPTB.

If it bugs you enough, I suggest you sit down and work out reasonable costs and from them work out reasonable passenger and freight rates. It will take you a bit of work, but it's not that difficult and IMO it's worth it.


Hans

 

[BetterThanLife]

The THB does state things that life support costs include and sets different rates for high passage, Officers vs. middle passage and crew. It also sets up what buying lifesupport supplies in bulk cost and take up in terms of cargo space.

If you don't buy it then you run out of things like food and potable water. Guess what, you might survive without food for a week in jump, (it will be close) but without potable water you won't survive the week in jump, and without breathable air you definitelly won't survive the week in jump, so I guess the answer is that if you don't pay for it, then yes, you do die! Ooops, so sorry.

The average human can go 7 days and survive without food (barely). Actually survival manuals I have read say 7-10 days. The same manuals say no more than 3 days without water. I think it is something under 10 minutes without air. In all cases environmental conditions change how long you can survive without. FOr example in Texas, being active, outdoors, in the Summer you should drink 6-8 quarts of water per hour. (Because that is how much you are losing.) If you don't keep up that pace you will develope headaches, muscle cramps (AKA Heat Cramps), severe dehydration, Heat Exhaustion and/or Heat Stroke. And then you die. The process from start to finish can take less than a day.

 

[flykiller]

FOr example in Texas, being active, outdoors, in the Summer you should drink 6-8 quarts of water per hour.

per hour? be so busy drinking you won't be doing anything else.

 

[Shadowdancer]

I've lived just about my whole life (so far) in Texas. I've been active, working out in the sun (was raised on a working cattle ranch, just a family operation) in the summer, and I've never drank 6-8 quarts of water an hour. Some days I might drink that much in a day, but never in an hour.

There is such a thing as drinking too much water, and it can cause serious health problems, too.

Getting back to the original thread topic, we've always assumed that the Cr2,000 for life support included food, water, and air recycling. If you are going out for an extended mission and can't resupply regularly, then you have to buy in bulk and take it with you. As someone else has posted, there are rules/costs for that in T20.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
I've lived just about my whole life (so far) in Texas. I've been active, working out in the sun (was raised on a working cattle ranch, just a family operation) in the summer, and I've never drank 6-8 quarts of water an hour. Some days I might drink that much in a day, but never in an hour.

There is such a thing as drinking too much water, and it can cause serious health problems, too.

Getting back to the original thread topic, we've always assumed that the Cr2,000 for life support included food, water, and air recycling. If you are going out for an extended mission and can't resupply regularly, then you have to buy in bulk and take it with you. As someone else has posted, there are rules/costs for that in T20.

In a MOPP Suit and Body Armor with a Heat Index of 110 before taking into account the extra wonderful heat retaining capability of the things you are wearing, a gallon an hour was the minimum during the day, 6-8 quarts was recommended. And that is without doing things like digging foxholes, running, etc. (Ft. Hood, in the Summer.) And as someone else pointed out that means you are spending lots of time drinking and refilling your water containers. (Yes we each carried 2x1 quart Canteens and one 2 Quart Canteen and usually a Camelback with an additional 2+ quarts.)

It does sound like lots of water but with all the water lost to perspiration, a gallon+ per hour did not cause excessive trips to the facilities, and if you spent a week out in those conditions then only drinking a gallon an hour would have your urine get progressively darker. If you failed to hydrate before starting one of these little field trips, and failed to drink that much an hour you could require MEDEVAC by the end of the first day.
(I have seen that happen, fortunately we never had anyone die from Heat Stroke, but we did have a couple, over the time I was there, get MEDEVACed for it.)

I guarantee that without proper medical care, dehydration will kill you, and it will take less than a week to do so.

 

[BetterThanLife]

One other thing about Traveller and Life Support. Traveller, like Star Trek and Star Wars, starships don't use Hydroponics Areas to recycle air. Most other Science Fiction uses a large garden to help recycle air aboard starships. (Or Algae tanks etc.) If it is subsumed in the size of the bridge and staterooms perhaps it is algae tanks in Traveller that helps keep the air breathable. In that case your KCr2 per person includes replacing dead plants, plant food, water for the plants, etc. After all in the Earth Eco system trees may turn CO2 to O2 but the majority of the exchange is actually Algae, Plankton, Seaweed, etc. (Which do the same thing as Trees, they just aren't as big and impressive as Redwoods but they do definitely have more surface area and volume in the grand scheme of things.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Paraquat Johnson:
Getting back to the original thread topic, we've always assumed that the Cr2,000 for life support included food, water, and air recycling.

No one has suggested that food, water, and air isn't necessary to survive for ten days in space. Some of us just find it extremely difficult to accept that it should cost Cr200 credits a day, seeing as a meal costs Cr5. Add Cr5 for the water and we're talking about Cr20 for the food and water. I don't really feel that Cr180 per day for air and sundries sound reasonable.

A secondary issue is that if it really costs that much, then there is a significant (i.e. big enough for players to bug the referee about) difference between spending 14 days in space or ten days in space the way a passenger ship does every jump. So what is it? Ist it Cr2,000 per 10 days or Cr2,000 per 14 days?


Hans

 

[Golan2072]

I'd say that some photosynthetic bacteria would be optimal for air recycling - surface area advantages aside, some of them could even utilize N2-form nitrogen by themselves (most plants need bacterial symbiotes for this) and you could probably gengineer these bacteria to be harvestable as edible biomass (inserting genes for vitamin and/or vital amino acid synthesis into bacteria is partially possible even today; bacteria and fungi are quite easy to gengineer, even in late TL7/early TL8). You could even gengineer them to deal with some of the nastier biological by-products. The only issue would be taste and foodstuff variance, and for that you'll have hydroponic gardens with vegetables and/or edible fish (or insects - they are quite efficient protein sources, and could be tasty as well - the Matriarchate and Alliance IMTU have locusts and grasshoppers as main components in their cuisines).

 

[Fritz_Brown]

A portion of the money is probably cost spreading, as well. You (ideally) wouldn't want to pay that 15KCr for the biannual purge and overhaul of the air scrubber all out of this trip's profits. You would budget for it (or pay afterward in installments) over the two years - 625Cr a month. All this stuff is just subsumed under one lump sum to ease the record-keeping burden.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

2-4601,
And then people wonder why they can't get passengers....