Starships Comparative Potential Mercantile Revenue

[Grav_Moped]

For the sake of LOGIC. What SHOULD it be. NOT what is. Cannon ships often are illogical when viewed through the lens of the trading rules.

Absolutely. In a per-jump freight fee universe, the standard hull will fit J1/1G drives for that hull (almost certainly exactly so). In a per-parsec freight fee universe, it's not totally irrational to have a standard hull that has room for J2/2G but typically only has J1/1G drives installed.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

For the sake of LOGIC. What SHOULD it be. NOT what is. Cannon ships often are illogical when viewed through the lens of the trading rules.

If logic was involved, there would be no per jump pricing...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

It's just that they also made the drive bay 5Td larger than necessary, too.

It's perfectly sized for an over-sized power plant (to allow laser double fire).

Adventurers have needs too...

Frontier trader:
Four hardpoints, over-sized power plant and computer to allow double fire:
(LBB5 fuel purifier added, so it runs without risk on unrefined fuel.)

MP-4222231-000000-00000-0        MCr 130         400 Dton
bearing                                            Crew=6
batteries                                           TL=11
          Pass=8 Low=10 Cargo=151 Fuel=100 EP=8 Agility=1

Single Occupancy    LBB2 design                   151       144,5
                                     USP    #     Dton       Cost
Hull, Streamlined      400 Dt          4          400            
Configuration       Cone               2                     20  
Scoops              Streamlined                                  

Engineering                                         2            
Jump Drive          D                  2    1      25        40  
Manoeuvre D         D                  2    1       7        16  
Power Plant         E                  2    1      16        40  
Fuel, #J, #weeks    J-2, 4 weeks            2     100            
Purifier                                    1       7         0,0
                                                                 
Bridge                                      1      20         2  
Computer            m/3                3    1       3        18  
                                                                 
Staterooms                                 14      56         7  
Low Berths                                 10       5         0,5
                                                                 
Cargo                                             151            
                                                                 
Empty hardpoint                             4       4         0,4
                                                                 
Air/raft            4 Dton                  1       4         0,6
                                                                 
Nominal Cost        MCr 144,53           Sum:     151       144,5
Class Cost          MCr  15,83          Valid      ≥0          ≥0
Ship Cost           MCr 130,14                                   
                                                                 
                                                                 
Crew &               High     4        Crew          Bridge     2
Passengers            Mid     4           6       Engineers     2
                      Low    10                     Gunners     0
                 Extra SR     0      Frozen         Service     2
               # Frozen W     0           0          Flight     0
                  Marines     0                     Marines     0
                                                                 
                                                                 
Estimated Economy of Ship     Standard                                     
       Ship price     Down Payment         Mortgage       Avg Filled
       MCr 130,14       kCr 26 027          kCr 542              80%
                                                                 
Expenses per jump                       Revenue                  
Bank                Cr 260 274          High           Cr  32 000
Fuel                Cr  10 000          Middle         Cr  25 600
Life Support        Cr  25 800          Low            Cr   8 000
Salaries            Cr  11 520          Cargo          Cr 120 000
Maintenance         Cr   5 205                                   
Berthing            Cr     400                                   
                                                                 
Summa              kCr     313                        kCr     186
                                                                 
     Income potential per jump     kCr -128                    
  Yearly yield on down payment     -12,3%

 

[Grav_Moped]

It's perfectly sized for an over-sized power plant (to allow laser double fire).

Adventurers have needs too...

Frontier trader:
Four hardpoints, over-sized power plant and computer to allow double fire:
(LBB5 fuel purifier added, so it runs without risk on unrefined fuel.)

Spoiler:

MP-4222231-000000-00000-0        MCr 130         400 Dton
bearing                                            Crew=6
batteries                                           TL=11
          Pass=8 Low=10 Cargo=151 Fuel=100 EP=8 Agility=1

Single Occupancy    LBB2 design                   151       144,5
                                     USP    #     Dton       Cost
Hull, Streamlined      400 Dt          4          400            
Configuration       Cone               2                     20  
Scoops              Streamlined                                  

Engineering                                         2            
Jump Drive          D                  2    1      25        40  
Manoeuvre D         D                  2    1       7        16  
Power Plant         E                  2    1      16        40  
Fuel, #J, #weeks    J-2, 4 weeks            2     100            
Purifier                                    1       7         0,0
                                                                 
Bridge                                      1      20         2  
Computer            m/3                3    1       3        18  
                                                                 
Staterooms                                 14      56         7  
Low Berths                                 10       5         0,5
                                                                 
Cargo                                             151            
                                                                 
Empty hardpoint                             4       4         0,4
                                                                 
Air/raft            4 Dton                  1       4         0,6
                                                                 
Nominal Cost        MCr 144,53           Sum:     151       144,5
Class Cost          MCr  15,83          Valid      ≥0          ≥0
Ship Cost           MCr 130,14                                   
                                                                 
                                                                 
Crew &               High     4        Crew          Bridge     2
Passengers            Mid     4           6       Engineers     2
                      Low    10                     Gunners     0
                 Extra SR     0      Frozen         Service     2
               # Frozen W     0           0          Flight     0
                  Marines     0                     Marines     0
                                                                 
                                                                 
Estimated Economy of Ship     Standard                                     
       Ship price     Down Payment         Mortgage       Avg Filled
       MCr 130,14       kCr 26 027          kCr 542              80%
                                                                 
Expenses per jump                       Revenue                  
Bank                Cr 260 274          High           Cr  32 000
Fuel                Cr  10 000          Middle         Cr  25 600
Life Support        Cr  25 800          Low            Cr   8 000
Salaries            Cr  11 520          Cargo          Cr 120 000
Maintenance         Cr   5 205                                   
Berthing            Cr     400                                   
                                                                 
Summa              kCr     313                        kCr     186
                                                                 
     Income potential per jump     kCr -128                    
  Yearly yield on down payment     -12,3%

Not perfectly sized (still wastes 2Td since power plant sizes increment in steps of 3Td) but it's a darn good investment. 4MCr and 3Td that in this case would have gone to waste anyhow. And you've upgraded the computer to make room for the Double-Fire app, too -- nice catch, at a marginal cost of MCr16. Add the cost of the app, and it's MCr24.

On a ship with 4 triple laser turrets, that's like getting 12 extra lasers you wouldn't otherwise have been able to install due to tonnage limits, for MCr2 each. (In triple turrets, they'd be about MCr1.4 each normally.)

That does speak to the idea that the writers were hiding that "standardized hulls" were a performance-limiting game mechanic by not using a drive bay volume that corresponded to a specific combination of drives.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

... And you've upgraded the computer to make room for the Double-Fire app, too -- nice catch, at a marginal cost of MCr16. Add the cost of the app, and it's MCr24.

On a ship with 4 triple laser turrets, that's like getting 12 extra lasers you wouldn't otherwise have been able to install due to tonnage limits, for MCr2 each. (In triple turrets, they'd be about MCr1.4 each normally.)

Yes, ridiculously expensive, but upgradable over time... Still cheaper than an another ship.

 

[BRover]

My approach was to avoid a bit of that argument, and ask instead:

If you have a ship, how do you make best use of the available space? You can do a refit--maybe it was landed on a planet with bad drives, or mothballed for 14 years. Now it's yours: what options do you have? Do you tear out or add staterooms? How many?

 

[Grav_Moped]

Yes, ridiculously expensive, but upgradable over time... Still cheaper than an another ship.

Indeed. And far cheaper than getting an 800Td ship without double-fire capability, which is the other way to double the possible firepower of a 400Td ship. (And cheaper than four fighters, the third alternative.)

 

[kilemall]

But in canon that hasn't happened. Once again, the setting doesn't match the rules. The Type R Fat Trader is probably the most egregious example with its oversized drives, wasted room in the drive bay, and a small craft it doesn't need. But it's a standard for some reason -- I'd argue the reason is regulatory, but that's unsupported in canon.

To rework it, you could just declare either that the standard 400Td hull has an engine bay sized for Size B drives and be done with it, or have the standard also include the Big Far Trader (J2/2G) and size the engine bay for Size D drives.

The thing about the Standard Hulls is that they're an out-of-universe game mechanic to drive player ship design choices to preferred outcomes. They'll cut you a bargain for building merchant ships (even J2/2G merchants) but you have to pay full price if you want to build something that's either a viable combatant vessel or that can take you off the subsector map quickly. On the Fat Trader (with two turrets: MM & LL, and correctly-sized drives -- Size B instead of C -- but keeping the lifeboat), the Standard Hull discount is literally the difference between making a tiny profit per payload ton or having to run at a loss. (This includes the opportunity cost of the wasted space of the standard hull.)

Not a bug, a feature- gives players a goal to get 'the good stuff' by earning it and having a huge money sink before that was a commonly known RPG/video game mechanic. Win big or go home.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Not a bug, a feature- gives players a goal to get 'the good stuff' by earning it and having a huge money sink before that was a commonly known RPG/video game mechanic. Win big or go home.

As a game mechanic, it's a feature.

As something that should be a functional element of an internally-consistent fictional universe, it's flawed.

But yeah, it's a game.

 

[WizWom]

So, a while back I actually did the maths on stateroom utilization.

CT passenger rolls are D-D, 2D-D, 2D-2D, 3D-2D, and 2D (I left off 3D-3D as too calculation intensive); low berths add 3D-D, 3D, 4D-D and 4D.

	D-D	2D-D	2D-2D	3D-2D	2D
Dissatisfied					
4	2.8%	37.5%	12.0%	49.4%	83.3%
5	0.0%	25.9%	5.4%	37.5%	72.2%
6	0.0%	16.2%	2.7%	26.9%	58.3%
7	0.0%	9.3%	1.2%	18.2%	41.7%
8	0.0%	4.6%	0.4%	11.4%	27.8%
9	0.0%	1.9%	0.1%	6.6%	16.7%
10	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	3.4%	8.3%
11	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.6%	2.8%
12	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%

					
Mean	0.97	3.66	1.94	4.63	7
SD	1.42	2.69

So, this is for just one roll of the type. 3D-2D is very common - pop 3-7 on high and 5-8 on mid. So, 8 staterooms will almost always be filled if you have a steward. Also, I left off the destination modifiers.

Oddly, the table has 2D-D ABOVE 3D-2D, despite the maths showing the 3D-2D giving a much higher mean passenger count.

Doing this, a case could be made for as many as 9 staterooms, but with one steward.

9 Staterooms ..... MCr4.5
1 Steward half SR. MCr.25
Cost per 2 week voyage ... Cr9,896
Salary ................ Cr1500
Life support......... Cr19,000

Expected revenue between Pop 5-7 worlds... Cr78,124

Profit: Cr 57,623, 1516 per dTon.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Unfortunately the means on the rolls mean little. You have to calculate how many staterooms you can fill on average with two independent rolls (high + mid), the total on each pair of rolls capped by the number of available staterooms, and of course high passengers bumping mid passengers.


With two 3D-2D rolls and 8 staterooms I get going full about 50% of the time and average ~2.0 unfilled staterooms per trip. That many unfilled staterooms kills profitability.

With 6 staterooms (+steward) I get going full about 65% of the time and average ~1.1 unfilled staterooms per trip. Still questionable.

Even with 4 staterooms (+steward) I get going full about 80% of the time and average ~0.5 unfilled staterooms per trip. Still higher average revenue than without steward and only mid passengers.


The hopefully few trips with negative mods will further increase the average number of empty staterooms.


Note: The steward requires a full stateroom on commercial ships.

 

[WizWom]

Unfortunately the means on the rolls mean little. You have to calculate how many staterooms you can fill on average with two independent rolls (high + mid), the total on each pair of rolls capped by the number of available staterooms, and of course high passengers bumping mid passengers.


With two 3D-2D rolls and 8 staterooms I get going full about 50% of the time and average ~2.0 unfilled staterooms per trip. That many unfilled staterooms kills profitability.

With 6 staterooms (+steward) I get going full about 65% of the time and average ~1.1 unfilled staterooms per trip. Still questionable.

Even with 4 staterooms (+steward) I get going full about 80% of the time and average ~0.5 unfilled staterooms per trip. Still higher average revenue than without steward and only mid passengers.


The hopefully few trips with negative mods will further increase the average number of empty staterooms.


Note: The steward requires a full stateroom on commercial ships.

3D-2D gets 4+ slightly over 60% of the time. But it gets 2+ 82% of the time. So, you'd fill your 4 with high passengers 60% of the time, and if you only had 3 high (12% of the time), you'd then have a 90% chance to fill the 4th with a mid. If you get 2 high (10% of the time) then you have an 82% chance to fill the two others with mids. If you get just one high (8%), a 90% chance fills. This works out to running your 4 staterooms full 83.9% of the time.
The calculation is fairly easy, once you have the exact counts for each number:

Pass.	Chance	Revenue	Expected
HHHH	61.4%	40	24.55761317
HHHM	10.3%	38	3.898354644
HHH0	1.1%	30	0.32127135
HHMM	8.2%	36	2.945464916
HHM0	0.8%	28	0.219642797
HH00	0.9%	20	0.187195565
HMMM	5.8%	34	1.958753271
HMM0	0.8%	26	0.203954025
HM00	0.6%	18	0.112959153
H000	0.7%	10	0.074878226
MMMM	5.8%	32	1.856980008
MMM0	1.1%	24	0.25701708
MM00	0.9%	16	0.149756452
M000	0.7%	8	0.059902581
0000	0.9%	0	0
	1		36.80374324

 

[AnotherDilbert]

3D-2D gets 4+ slightly over 60% of the time.

You mean 3+?

I get 3+ 60.03% and 4+ 50.00%.

But it gets 2+ 82% of the time.

I get 2+ 69.48%?

Are you sure your distribution is correct? I get an outcome of "0" 1722 out of 6⁵ = 7776 possible outcomes => 1722 / 7776 = 22.15%.



I'm lazy, so I simply Monte Carlo'ed 10000 rolls to calculate fill rate and get consistently slightly lower results than you. Enumerating all possible results gets tedious with over 10 staterooms...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

By enumeration I get this distribution for 3D-2D, truncated to 10 to make it visible:


It makes sense to me; it centers around 3.5 (the average unbounded roll) but is asymmetric since all low values are concentrated into 0.

0 has the same frequency as 7+; 22.15%. It would be symmetric if low values were not raised to 0.

 

[kilemall]

These commercial viability analyses are all well and good, but I'm wondering what the outcomes are if you run them through with the 1977 rules and greater piracy at higher starport encounter tables.


The original game clearly had a progression built into it- start out on main trade routes but away from big profit systems due to the risk, scrape together enough for the Generate program so you weren't bleeding away jump tape money and get freedom, get better weapons and computer programs to upgrade the ship, get some mail contracts, and once sufficiently armed THEN cash in on the big fat systems.


So I don't know that originally milk runs to pay the bills was in the cards.

 

[whartung]

These commercial viability analyses are all well and good, but I'm wondering what the outcomes are if you run them through with the 1977 rules and greater piracy at higher starport encounter tables.

Guess it boils down to the probability of encountering pirates, and what the outcome is.

What is the outcome with pirates? Loss of cargo? Loss of reputation?

That would be a curious mechanic. The more times you're hit by pirates, the lower your score becomes and you get less passengers. As you get more safe flights under your belt, the impact diminishes and the passengers start showing up again.

I ask about the impact of the pirates simply because if they don't take the cargo, if they damage the ship, then that's pretty much financial ruin right there. It's difficult for me to envision any scenario where a merchant would not relinquish the cargo in lieu of taking random damage to their ship, at least for the small Free Traders we typically talk about.

It's rare that cargos are valued in the MCr range compared to damage to a ship, which is in the MCr range.

Ship combat is simply cost prohibitive.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

These commercial viability analyses are all well and good, but I'm wondering what the outcomes are if you run them through with the 1977 rules and greater piracy at higher starport encounter tables.

The trade system and mortgage costs fold immediately in the presence of even slight pirate activity.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

What is the outcome with pirates? Loss of cargo? Loss of reputation?

Why would the pirate only take a little cargo when the ship is worth much more?


Yes, ship combat is expensive. A drive hit on a Free Trader would instantly bankrupt a Free Trader company, even if the pirate didn't take the ship...

 

[aramis]

S

Oddly, the table has 2D-D ABOVE 3D-2D, despite the maths showing the 3D-2D giving a much higher mean passenger count.

2d-1d has a mathematical mean of 3.5. It has a max 11 and a min -4
3d-2d has a mathematical mean of 3.5 it has a max 16 and a min -9.

Your math is probably based upon treating the negatives as 0, which does then up the mean more for the 3d-2d, but if one isn't paying attention to that detail...

 

[whartung]

Why would the pirate only take a little cargo when the ship is worth much more?

Because it's easier to fence the cargo than it is to fence the ship.

Yes, ship combat is expensive. A drive hit on a Free Trader would instantly bankrupt a Free Trader company, even if the pirate didn't take the ship...

And that's my fundamental point to it all. The "piracy campaign" is not really viable for play, especially as a random encounter, as it turns out to be potentially very lethal, either to the individual players, or their enterprise.

The idea of rolling a bunch of characters, hopping on the Free Trader, huckstering for passengers and filling the hold, only to have it, literally, destroyed due to a random space encounter, just doesn't seem to work.

Traveller character combat can be harsh enough. Many player come from a background like in D&D where combat is "low risk" and "solves problems". It's low risk enough to where combat is routine, if not sought after.

Traveller character combat is a step above that due to how dangerous it all is, but star ship combat is off the charts. It can't be "random, and casual" as the consequences are far too high.

Now maybe that's high time for the game ref to dash the players hopes and make them potentially destitute in the first hour of the gaming session. If that was the plan all along, that'd be fine. But, for a casual encounter, it may well not have been the plan the entire time.

"We started out as a merry band looking for adventure, now we're skimming the yellow pages for a bankruptcy attorney. High adventure indeed."

"So, your ship is where?" "Well, it was between here and the first moon, but it's on a vector outsystem with no power. We can find it, but I couldn't say precisely right now, where it is."

Them of course, imagine the players working it all out, salvaging the vessel, getting it repaired, loaded up and ready to go...and it happens again.