Starship Finance 101, Or what does this paragraph mean to you?

[BetterThanLife]

In the rules of CT, MT and T20 the general accepted method of starship travel is the Passage price per jump regardless of distance. So if I travel from RHYLANOR to POROZLO (1 hex) and want a "High Passage" I find a ship going there, plop down my Cr10,000 and pick up my ticket, and get there in about a week. Now if I want to go to Jae Tellona (2 hexes away) I have two choices. I can find a Far Trader or some other ship with a Jump 2+ drive going there, plop down my Cr10,000, pick up my ticket, and get there in about a week. The second choice is I can find a ship going to POROZLO, plop down my Cr10,000 then find a second ship on POROZLO going to Jae Tellona plop down another Cr10,000 and go to Jae Tellona, using 2 to 3 weeks.

Looking at that it makes little sense. Why would I not want to go direct? Why, as a ship owner would I want higher jump capable, more expensive ships? Why would a bank finance a Jump-2 or higher ship when it can't pay its mortgage out of revenue with full loads? A Jump-1 ship can pay its mortgage.

However, while the rules state that passage prices are regardless of distance, the rules also state:

"Difference in starship jump drive capacity have no specific effect on passage prices. A jump-3 starship charges the same passage price as a jump-1 starship. The difference is that a jump-3 ship can reach a destination in one jump, while the jump-1 ship would take three seperate jumps (through two intermediate destinations, and requiring three seperate tickets) to reach it. Higher jump numbers also make otherwise inaccessable destinations within reach. But for two ships of differening jump numbers going to the same destination in one jump, each would charge the same cargo or passage price." (Book 2 pg. 9 also copied directly into MT and T20 rules)

I personally interpret that as the intention of the rules is to charge the same regardless of jump number but with regard to distance travelled. For example in the above example Travelling from RHYLANOR to Jae Tellona via POROZLO on a High Passage would require me to buy two tickets and take 2-3 weeks and therefore cost me Cr20,000 but travelling from RHYLANOR to Jae Tellona directly would cost me the same Cr20,000 and only take me one week. So a trip from EFATE to REGINA (6 hexes) would cost me Cr60,000 regardless of the jump numbers on the ships I have to take to get there. (Whether it is a week on a Jump-6 ship or a Free Trader taking 6 jumps and 11 weeks.) Or any combination.

But that is what I see. What is your interpretation of that paragraph?

 

[BetterThanLife]

Here is a more extreme example. A Sub-Liner going from REGINA to Iderati can make the trip in 11 jumps, 11 to 21 weeks. (Bottom of Subsector C to top of Subsector M in the Spinward Marches, (Both Subsector Capitals) and both on the Spinward Main.) Distance travelled by the Liner is 30 hexes, costing you Cr300,000 in the per distance model. A Jump 1 ship making the same trip takes 41 jumps costing you Cr410,000 and two of the worlds on the route are Interdicted and one of those has no water or gas giant. 41 jumps are, obviously, going to take you from 41 to 81 weeks travel time. (4 times as long.) I personally would be willing to pay more for the shorter trip but I actually save money on the shorter trip anyway. And the liner, all other things being equal, will actually be able to make its mortgage payments on the trip.

 

[Malenfant]

Don't forget to add in the time it takes to get from the jump exit point at 100D to the starport and then back out to the jump departure point at 100D.

 

[BetterThanLife]

In the grand scheme of things it isn't significant. Even with a 1G drive, from orbit of a Large Gas Giant it still takes less than a day to get to or from 100 diameters.

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Don't forget to add in the time it takes to get from the jump exit point at 100D to the starport and then back out to the jump departure point at 100D.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
In the grand scheme of things it isn't significant. Even with a 1G drive, from orbit of a Large Gas Giant it still takes less than a day to get to or from 100 diameters.

That's true in those cases.

It's pretty significant if the destination planet is well within a star's 100D limit - which can be pretty frickin' huge if the star is a giant or supergiant. The 100D limit for Antares for example is at 1000 AU! (admittedly that's about as big as a star gets in Charted Space, and I plonk the habitable world there around a brown dwarf that's orbiting beyond that limit to get around that)

 

[Ran Targas]

As the saying goes, "Time is money". Why did people pay huge sums to fly the Concorde? Because it saved time (okay, it was trendy too).

If there was a market for it, a J-6 ship could charge a lot more for a ticket than a J-2 ship crossing the same 6 parsecs. The same is particularly true of cargo, specifically perishables that could not survive an extended journey or other time critical deliveries.

In the case of 2 parsec or less jumps, the advantage of the superior engineering plant diminishes and customers would demand equal pricing, unless the J-6 ship had other selling points worth paying for.

But using a J-6 ship to jump only 2 parsecs is like using the Concorde for commuter flights; don't make no sense!

 

[BetterThanLife]

Absolutely and I have no problem with ships of differing numbers charging the same to the same destination regardless of capability of the ship. But they should be allowed to charge the same amount to get there. A Jump-1 ship going two hexes gets to charge Cr20,000 for the trip, I say that paragraph says a J-2 ship gets to charge the same amount for the same trip, whether it does it in one jump or two. (Cr20,000) Hell if I have a jump-2 ship I would take the round about Jump-1 route, drop stuff off, pick up some stuff (short layover and go on to the next destination) I don't even need to refuel. But now you need two tickets and I get Cr20,000 for the same seat that before I got Cr10,000. (Granted I will still be short when it comes time to make mortgage payments but...

)

Originally posted by Ran Targas:
As the saying goes, "Time is money". Why did people pay huge sums to fly the Concorde? Because it saved time (okay, it was trendy too).

If there was a market for it, a J-6 ship could charge a lot more for a ticket than a J-2 ship crossing the same 6 parsecs. The same is particularly true of cargo, specifically perishables that could not survive an extended journey or other time critical deliveries.

In the case of 2 parsec or less jumps, the advantage of the superior engineering plant diminishes and customers would demand equal pricing, unless the J-6 ship had other selling points worth paying for.

 

[Malenfant]

Originally posted by Ran Targas:
[QB] As the saying goes, "Time is money". Why did people pay huge sums to fly the Concorde? Because it saved time (okay, it was trendy too).

Actually, most of the cost for a Concorde ticket was down to the fact that it used a hell of a lot of fuel, was expensive to run, and requires specialist parts. That's mentioned here.

 

[Ran Targas]

^ I'd apply a +/- 1d6-1 percent adjustment to those prices just to reflect the market.

If the port receives little traffic, the prices might be higher due to a conspicuous lack of competition. But then again, they may also be more readily negotiated down as well.

Where a port receives a large amount of traffic, the price would hover near the profit margin if only because of the competition.

Mal, the point I was making was that people still paid for that fuel just to save time. If you're a Traveller business man, you're not going to spend 6 weeks out-of-pocket just to save some money when you can travel the same distance in a week.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
In the grand scheme of things it isn't significant. Even with a 1G drive, from orbit of a Large Gas Giant it still takes less than a day to get to or from 100 diameters.

That's true in those cases.

It's pretty significant if the destination planet is well within a star's 100D limit - which can be pretty frickin' huge if the star is a giant or supergiant. The 100D limit for Antares for example is at 1000 AU! (admittedly that's about as big as a star gets in Charted Space, and I plonk the habitable world there around a brown dwarf that's orbiting beyond that limit to get around that) </font>[/QUOTE]In general the Habitable Zone of a star is near the 100D limit. (Funny how that happened to work.) For example the 100D limit of Sol is between orbit 2 and 3. The habitable zone is Orbit 3. If you are headed to Orbit 2 and the planet is at perigee then it may take longer than normal to get to 100D of the star, but that would be the exception rather than the rule. So the 100D limit of a star is generally (granting the occasional exception) not going to effect travel time significantly.

Oh and in most cases the round trip to 100D is less than 12 hours at 1G.

 

[dancha]

Hey there:

I found this thread and its companion thread to be pretty interesting. I'd like to offer two possible "wrinkles" for you to consider (near the bottom).

First of all, I agree with Andrew that the OTU case is supposed to mean: [one ticket per jump]

...which keeps it clean and simple, and it is one of the more unrealistic points about stellar travel in the OTU, economically, at least for me.

Results/Cases for the OTU:
(A) 3-parsecs with J1 ship = 3 x High Passage = 30,000CR, taking 3 weeks = slow and expensive (compared with (B); really, this is the baseline)
(B) 3-parsecs with J3 ship = 1 x High Passage = 10,000CR, taking 1 week = fast and cheap -- all other things being equal, the marketplace will overwhelmingly favor this ship (but things are rarely equal)
(C) 1-parsec with either ship = 1 x High Passage = 10,000CR, taking 1 week = bad business for the J3 ship

BUT -- as for this thread, from a gut-level basis, I like your solution a lot. I have tried half-heartedly for years to come up with some model that addresses this apparent flaw with the economics.

Results/Cases for Your Proposal(TM):
(A) 3-parsecs with J1 ship = 3 x High Passage = 30,000CR, taking 3 weeks = slow and expensive (compared with (B); really, this is the baseline)
(B) 3-parsecs with J3 ship = 3 x High Passage = 30,000CR, taking 1 week = fast and expensive...but did I mention fast? This certainly adds a truer degree of real world competitiveness into the picture
(C) 1-parsec with either ship = 1 x High Passage = 10,000CR, taking 1 week = bad business for the J3 ship

Your solution attempts to represent the effect of Demand on the OTU (B) case, which might make it tend towards the Your Proposal (B) case. I like it.

SO -- one wrinkle to consider when "justifying" the higher-than-one-jump price for a faster ship is this:

Fundamentally, from an erstwhile physics-cum-astrogation perspective:

1) Is there a route that a lower Jump-capable ship could take? Or does it cross one or more empty hexes? (Yes, I know, with drop tanks, blah blah...)

...and, moreover:

2) Are there ships that actually take that route? That is, is there a slower competitor?

I suppose the easy answer to both issues is: "we don't care; we pay attention only to distance."

But I do present them as possible reasons why you might either not switch to your proposal, or switch to it, but make it more complicated, and allow lower prices for trips where there is no way a slower ship could get there, or where there aren't any slower ships taking such routes.

I suppose these potential complications were taken into account when the original rule was written, perhaps?

Thanks,
Dan

Hmm...as I've been editing this post (before actually posting), I've thought about doing the full analysis with a spreadsheet, comparing J1 vs J2 and so on, up to J1 vs J6 on distances of 1 parsec up through to 6 parsecs, to see which routes are more advantageous for the faster ships, etc.

But my gut feeling is that, of course, it's best for a Jump N ship when it is always jumping N parsecs. This is true in the OTU, and overwhelmingly true in Your Proposal(TM). So maybe doing the analysis is unnecessary...

 

[Malenfant]

Why not say that High Passage costs two or three times as much as however much normal passage costs for a given distance?

 

[etherflyer]

The rules in Traveller don't make much economic sense. One can assume that passengers prefer the faster, cheaper fare, and thus a higher-jump ship will be more likely to be full than a lower-jump ship, but even so...

Take a look at GT: Far Trader. Jim came up with an economic model that works.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Funny thing is this economic model works. If I charge per parsec all the starship finance rules work. Banks gladly start giving out mortgages on Fartraders and SubLiners. Interstellar commerce gets a nice shot in the arm and planets that aren't on a main get visited if there is a reason to visit. If all traders are Jump-1 (Well almost all.) why would Rhylanor and Trin be Subsector capitals, nobody can get there? Why move the Domain capital to Anapabar, you can't get there nor can you stimulate trade that isn't on the mains or within clusters. Buying ships that can go from the Reaching arm to the Link worlds cluster then on to SHANAPE is economic suicide. THe only traffic they will see in the Link Worlds Cluster is detached Scout/Couriers because they don't have a mortgage.

Originally posted by Robert Prior:
The rules in Traveller don't make much economic sense. One can assume that passengers prefer the faster, cheaper fare, and thus a higher-jump ship will be more likely to be full than a lower-jump ship, but even so...

Take a look at GT: Far Trader. Jim came up with an economic model that works.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by dancha:
Hey there:

I found this thread and its companion thread to be pretty interesting. I'd like to offer two possible "wrinkles" for you to consider (near the bottom).

First of all, I agree with Andrew that the OTU case is supposed to mean: [one ticket per jump]

I am not so sure I agree. Actually the point in LBB 2 where it specifies that it is one price regardless of distance is the paragraph before the quoted paragraph. They appear to contradict each other. You can use one paragraph or the other but not both.

...which keeps it clean and simple, and it is one of the more unrealistic points about stellar travel in the OTU, economically, at least for me.

Results/Cases for the OTU:
(A) 3-parsecs with J1 ship = 3 x High Passage = 30,000CR, taking 3 weeks = slow and expensive (compared with (B); really, this is the baseline)
(B) 3-parsecs with J3 ship = 1 x High Passage = 10,000CR, taking 1 week = fast and cheap -- all other things being equal, the marketplace will overwhelmingly favor this ship (but things are rarely equal)
(C) 1-parsec with either ship = 1 x High Passage = 10,000CR, taking 1 week = bad business for the J3 ship

Well (B) is good for the passenger or the guy that owns the freight but very bad for the owner of the ship. The ship comes up several hundred thousand short of the mortgage payment at the end of the month. (C) is the same results for the Jump-3 ship as (B) It makes no difference whether the ship actually uses 1/3rd or all its jump fuel, might as well go jump 1. (Matter of fact might as well ditch the Jump-3 drive and fuel tanks and just build it as a J-1 ship you make more money.

)

BUT -- as for this thread, from a gut-level basis, I like your solution a lot. I have tried half-heartedly for years to come up with some model that addresses this apparent flaw with the economics.

Results/Cases for Your Proposal(TM):
(A) 3-parsecs with J1 ship = 3 x High Passage = 30,000CR, taking 3 weeks = slow and expensive (compared with (B); really, this is the baseline)
(B) 3-parsecs with J3 ship = 3 x High Passage = 30,000CR, taking 1 week = fast and expensive...but did I mention fast? This certainly adds a truer degree of real world competitiveness into the picture
(C) 1-parsec with either ship = 1 x High Passage = 10,000CR, taking 1 week = bad business for the J3 ship

Now under (B) the Jump-3 ship gets to make its mortgage, people are paying the same for the same trip but getting there faster and are happy. Remember it is only a high price compared to the other interpretation of the rules that passage price is the same regardless of distance. (Which is, unfortunately, spelled out in the paragraph before this paragraph.) It is not a high price compared to what one would have to pay for a Jump-1 ship.

Your solution attempts to represent the effect of Demand on the OTU (B) case, which might make it tend towards the Your Proposal (B) case. I like it.

SO -- one wrinkle to consider when "justifying" the higher-than-one-jump price for a faster ship is this:

Fundamentally, from an erstwhile physics-cum-astrogation perspective:

1) Is there a route that a lower Jump-capable ship could take? Or does it cross one or more empty hexes? (Yes, I know, with drop tanks, blah blah...)

...and, moreover:

2) Are there ships that actually take that route? That is, is there a slower competitor?

I suppose the easy answer to both issues is: "we don't care; we pay attention only to distance."

But I do present them as possible reasons why you might either not switch to your proposal, or switch to it, but make it more complicated, and allow lower prices for trips where there is no way a slower ship could get there, or where there aren't any slower ships taking such routes.

I suppose these potential complications were taken into account when the original rule was written, perhaps?

Thanks,
Dan

Hmm...as I've been editing this post (before actually posting), I've thought about doing the full analysis with a spreadsheet, comparing J1 vs J2 and so on, up to J1 vs J6 on distances of 1 parsec up through to 6 parsecs, to see which routes are more advantageous for the faster ships, etc.

But my gut feeling is that, of course, it's best for a Jump N ship when it is always jumping N parsecs. This is true in the OTU, and overwhelmingly true in Your Proposal(TM). So maybe doing the analysis is unnecessary...

OK in cases of long trips. Where you are travelling long distances, using the distance formula it can actually be cheaper to pay per parsec on a high Jump ship than a J-1 ship, on which you are paying per parsec anyway.

Example from the Spinward Marches. REGINA to Iderati. (Both are on the Spinward Main)

J-1 ship 41 parsecs, 41-83 weeks, 41 jumps. Passage Price KCr410.

Jump-3 ship most direct route, 11 jumps 31 parsecs, 11-21 weeks. Passage Price KCr310. (Note two jumps are Jump-2)

Example from Ley Sector, Gateway Domain.

DARAAM to Dagger's Edge (Both are on the Reaching Arm).

Jump-1 ship: 18 Parsecs, 18 jumps, 18-35 weeks, Passage price KCr180.

Jump-3 ship: 16 Parsecs, 6 jumps, 6-11 weeks, Passage Price KCr160.

You may see sticker shock about the price of one jump-3 passage, but it is like buying a Carton of Cigarettes for $35.00 It may seem like alot, especially compared to a Pack of cigarettes. But if a Pack of Cigarettes costs $4.5 and there are 10 packs in a Carton which makes the best sense? If you smoke you will smoke the entire carton. My ex girlfriend decided it was better, smoking a pack a day, to buy it by the pack since it was a smaller outlay each time she went to the store. (It didn't matter that it meant she was spending almost half again as much, that way.)

 

[BetterThanLife]

Sure the passengers will prefer it, but the bank won't give you a loan under the per jump model because with a full load, even up to 5000T ships, (I never bothered to figure bigger than 5000T because the charts won't allow you to fill a 5000T or bigger ship consistently.) a Jump-2 ship can't make enough to pay its mortgage payment. It doesn't matter if the load is more full than the Jump-1 ship you still get the ship repossesed.

Take a Far Trader, CT, MT or T20, fill it to the rafters, charge KCr10 for high passage and KCr1 per ton of Cargo and KCr1 for the low passages.

Make the standard 2 jumps per month and tell me how much profit you make after paying the 1/240th of the ship's price in a mortgage.

If you actually still have a positive balance, then subtract 1/240th of the ships sticker price divided by 12. (FOr the month you are having your routine maintence done.) Or you can take 1/480th of the sticker price of the ship and divide by 12.5 if that helps keep you positive because the ship will only be in maintenance for 2 weeks and there are 13 months in a standard year. Now if you still have money left over remember you have to set aside .001 times the sticker price of the ship per year for the annual maintenance. Still in the black? Now pay lifesupport, crew salaries and set aside vacation pay for the crew. (By the way your mortgage put you in the red you can't even get close. Jump-3 ships are even worse.

Originally posted by Robert Prior:
The rules in Traveller don't make much economic sense. One can assume that passengers prefer the faster, cheaper fare, and thus a higher-jump ship will be more likely to be full than a lower-jump ship, but even so...

Take a look at GT: Far Trader. Jim came up with an economic model that works.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
Sure the passengers will prefer it, but the bank won't give you a loan under the per jump model because with a full load, even up to 5000T ships, (I never bothered to figure bigger than 5000T because the charts won't allow you to fill a 5000T or bigger ship consistently.) a Jump-2 ship can't make enough to pay its mortgage payment. It doesn't matter if the load is more full than the Jump-1 ship you still get the ship repossesed.

Take a Far Trader, CT, MT or T20, fill it to the rafters, charge KCr10 for high passage and KCr1 per ton of Cargo and KCr1 for the low passages.

Make the standard 2 jumps per month and tell me how much profit you make after paying the 1/240th of the ship's price in a mortgage.

If you actually still have a positive balance, then subtract 1/240th of the ships sticker price divided by 12. (FOr the month you are having your routine maintence done.) Or you can take 1/480th of the sticker price of the ship and divide by 12.5 if that helps keep you positive because the ship will only be in maintenance for 2 weeks and there are 13 months in a standard year.

Now if you still have money left over remember you have to set aside .001 times the sticker price of the ship per year for the annual maintenance. DIvide that number by 12 and get your per month cost.

Still in the black? Now pay lifesupport, crew salaries and set aside vacation pay for the crew.

OK now there are berthing costs and fuel. Plus possible import and export duties.

(By the way your mortgage put you in the red you can't even get close. Jump-3 ships are even worse.)

I don't have to get Far Trader. The Per Parsec model is simple and it works. My ships pay their mortgages, the banks are happy, the passengers are happy, the companies that have to ship their goods are happy and the ship owners are happy. Everybody wins.

There is an additional solution. If you carry twice your allowable load in Canaries you can make your payments. THe trick is to make sure you can keep at least half of them flying all the time so you don't exceed your weight capacity.

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Robert Prior:
The rules in Traveller don't make much economic sense. One can assume that passengers prefer the faster, cheaper fare, and thus a higher-jump ship will be more likely to be full than a lower-jump ship, but even so...

Take a look at GT: Far Trader. Jim came up with an economic model that works.

</font>[/QUOTE]