Starship Mortgage

[GBoyett]

After posting a question about Starship pricing in T20, I decided to do some number crunching on the mortgage payments for the CT Scout and the T20 Scout. I did find a significant difference in payment amount, about 40Kcr higher for the T20 pricing.

I then began to ponder interest saving programs that a ship owner can use. This will be similar to some programs that RL home owners can use to pay down interest. These programs involve additional principle, usually enough make an additional month per year. So a trader will be effectively paying 13 payments a year.

A couple of thoughts occurred to me
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• The Imperial Calender has no official monthes. All it has is 52 seven-day weeks and Holiday.</font>
• If MPs are paid on a monthly basis, then there needs to be an universally defined month.</font>
• If you go with 12 monthes in a year, you need to have RL type of calender that defines the days in Month</font>
• If you got with 4 weeks makes up a month, with Holiday as an exception, then the Imperial Calender would have 13 months!</font>

If you go with point 4 (13 months), that will make the standard starship mortgage, 480 months, to last 36 years and 11 months, not the published 40.
This is probaly an "Ask Avery", but I thought I should share with others and hear other opinions on this discovery.

 

[Mr. Oberon]

I would just use the old standard: 30 day month. No one said that it has to be easy to know when the next payment is due!

 

[RabidVargr]

And how do you handle payments when the ship is a subsector away from where it was purchased? Especially if you've gotta pay every month? Gotta pay waaaaayyyy in advance? Or is there a clause prohibiting the ship from travelling more than J6 from the originating bank?

RV

 

[DrSkull]

Well obviously Starship mortgages are always sold to megacorporations, who are ubiquitous, and with each payment the ship master is given a receipt.

When a ship with a Hortalez (for example) mortgage enters a system with a Hortalez agent, the system tracking control will note the transponder signal, the mortgage lien will come up in the traffic control computer and the Hortalez agent automatically notified. On landing the Hortalez agent checks with the ship's captain, who must show an up-to-date mortgage payment receipt book. If isn't up to date, he is given a chance to get caught up but is prevented from leaving the system.

 

[GBoyett]

Originally posted by RabidVargr:
And how do you handle payments when the ship is a subsector away from where it was purchased? Especially if you've gotta pay every month? Gotta pay waaaaayyyy in advance? Or is there a clause prohibiting the ship from travelling more than J6 from the originating bank?

RV

It's more likely the mortgage company is a sub of a bigger company with branches almost everywhere, or the MC has payment deals with subsector/sector wide institution.

 

[savage]

I've used credsticks tracking payments. But I think a weak subspace communications system is more likely. The Xboat system seems extremely vulnerable.

Savage

 

[Starlocke]

Your late 20th Solomani obsession with credit is astounding. I think you will find, if you examine the history books of my time that there is a major collapse due to this over extension of credit.
In fact the payments are due yearly due to the requirements of jump. However payments can be sent in earlier if desired, and are applied based on a daily interest system that is marked as payed at the local equivalent of a notary public found at any SPA and sent through standard post that way. In fact few extra planetary loans are granted, in part due to the lesson learned in the 21st century depression again caused by the North American fascination and addiction to overextended credit.

 

[Liam Devlin]

Thus speaketh the Hiver. I'll go with Dr Skull's idea meself.

 

[Tom Schoene]

Originally posted by savage:
I've used credsticks tracking payments. But I think a weak subspace communications system is more likely. The Xboat system seems extremely vulnerable.

Savage

I think this is a rather dangerous idea. Once you add any sort of FTL radio (which is what I assume "weak subspace communications" means), the whole setting changes, unless of course it's no faster than ships, in which case it offers few obvious advantages.

The X-boat system doen't seem all that vulnerable to me. The ships are not subject to interception except in their target systems, which are likely to be reasonably secure.