Shrug, sure, although I would say most iconic deck plans aren’t that way.
Most bridges and computers are not next to engineering.
Thought Experiment- drop the ship price
- Thread starter kilemall
- Start date
Most bridges and computers are not next to engineering.
Sure, there have been several articles and even some officialish mechanics. I seem to recall quirks tables that had one roll of one quirk with 10% off per 10 years of age. Some quirks were positive, but getting into the 30-40% off range involves some risk.
If we went into the proposed -1 cheap starship direction, a further cost reduction on a quirk/age table might even bring a ship into the purchase range of someone like Malcolm Reynolds.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
They are presumably cheaper, but you have to pay off that cost over a shorter period.
A 20-year old ship financed over 20 years wouldn't be all that much cheaper per month.
Presumably maintenance and repair cost will increase over time, making the ship uneconomical after about 40 years, hence the default mortgage is 40 years: Most shipping lines find it more economical to buy a new ship every 40 years or so, than to keep old clunkers going.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
LBB S7, p16 already has the precedent for you.
A "factory new" type-S Scout/Courier costs around MCr27.63 to construct (to the government).
A 40-year old "surplus" type-S (ripe for conversion to a type-J Seeker) can be had for MCr15-18 if paid in cash (since financing is usually difficult to obtain for 40+ year old starships).
15 / 27.63 = 54.3%
18 / 27.63 = 65.2%
Or to put it in game mechanical terms:
Base surplus price = 60% of new construction price
Roll 2D6-7, result is the +/- modifier (in increments of 1%) to the base surplus price.
2D6= 2-7 = -5 ... so 60-5=55% of new construction price
2D6= 12-7 = +5 ... so 60+5=65% of new construction price
A "factory new" type-S Scout/Courier costs around MCr27.63 to construct (to the government).
A 40-year old "surplus" type-S (ripe for conversion to a type-J Seeker) can be had for MCr15-18 if paid in cash (since financing is usually difficult to obtain for 40+ year old starships).
15 / 27.63 = 54.3%
18 / 27.63 = 65.2%
Or to put it in game mechanical terms:
Base surplus price = 60% of new construction price
Roll 2D6-7, result is the +/- modifier (in increments of 1%) to the base surplus price.
2D6= 2-7 = -5 ... so 60-5=55% of new construction price
2D6= 12-7 = +5 ... so 60+5=65% of new construction price
That is another good point.
Normally, if you don't start out with a ship from mustering out benefits, you will not be able to afford one, ever. Even the down payment for a Type A is ~MCr 7.5
If you know this down to 1/10th, we come down to the range where a group of people working dangerous jobs, maybe doing mercenary tickets and the like, could ostensibly afford a ship after a period of saving.
The biggest impact of cutting the payment by a factor of 10 is that it no longer dominates the economics..
Also, I found my old post of the econ for pure budget box... Carlo asked me to copy it over to the reference section.
Using Bk5 or Bk 7 voids the warranty... Tho' Bk5 not by as much as Bk7...
Max beast one can reliably fill on the spinward main using Bk2 is about 200 Tons cargo; right about a type R. But that also requires having ship crew with skills in steward, admin, streetwise, and if one can get it, Trader. 1 level of trader is ""How bad can it get" at purchase end. Trader-3 is "What will it sell for at the other end?"
Oh and "reliably" means about 60-70%.
But, every time I've run TTA, one good run of computers has resulted in them hiring a captain, giving him a starting ship's fund of MCr0.5, and buying outright a new R2... With or without Trader skill. (It's much faster with.) The issue came up uring t
As written, the numbers compare well to those for greenwater mercantile vessels, and the profitability per cargo ton at J1 and KCr1 freight works fine provided you use book 2 designs, and book 2 spec trade.
Also, I found my old post of the econ for pure budget box... Carlo asked me to copy it over to the reference section.
Using Bk5 or Bk 7 voids the warranty... Tho' Bk5 not by as much as Bk7...
Max beast one can reliably fill on the spinward main using Bk2 is about 200 Tons cargo; right about a type R. But that also requires having ship crew with skills in steward, admin, streetwise, and if one can get it, Trader. 1 level of trader is ""How bad can it get" at purchase end. Trader-3 is "What will it sell for at the other end?"
Oh and "reliably" means about 60-70%.
But, every time I've run TTA, one good run of computers has resulted in them hiring a captain, giving him a starting ship's fund of MCr0.5, and buying outright a new R2... With or without Trader skill. (It's much faster with.) The issue came up uring t
Space shuttle has to amortize the vast amount of raw research, one off engineering, and development of new materials and procedures.
A Traveller space ship is using 1000 year old technology. It's just raw labor and material costs now.
More like 10,000 years old... Vilani J1 is -9235 TIC¹, while the CT era begins 1101, so 103 centuries. 10 millenia. About the age of rice or wheat farming on Earth. 4000 years more than the Wheel on Earth. The Vilani Imperium (aka the First Imperium) has been flying about as long as Solomani have been farming. And it took them about 800 years from first space explorations to jump drives. Took Solomani in canon merely 128 to do likewise... Solomani Jump drive in -2,431 TIC.
¹: MT IE p6. TIC = Third Imperium Calendar
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
I'm not talking about the ~$200 billion program cost, but the ~$1-2 billion to build the last shuttle, partly from already existing spare parts, according to vague sources (attributing to NASA).
Let's round it to $1 billion (c:a 1990?) for a 78 tonne craft. Without development costs.
Each additional launch without overhead or program cost, cost something like $250 million (c:a 2011?)
Are Traveller spacecraft starting to sound cheap yet?
TL-15 tech isn't remotely that old, and massive development work is presumably being done on TL-16 tech that the Imperium is approaching.
Even within a TL, massive development is being done. Compare what we build today with twenty years ago, arguably within the same TL-8.
But, yes, each Traveller ship is probably not loaded all that much with those costs, but someone is, somewhere.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I wonder how much a falcon 9 is going for these days?
Or in fifty years time how much will a second hand Starship II cost you?
Or in fifty years time how much will a second hand Starship II cost you?
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Our starships are reusable.
You might wonder if they are recyclable.
You might wonder if they are recyclable.
Krikkitone
SOC-12
I think the best way to do that is decrease upfront cost but increase the maintenance cost. (so that the 40 year operation expense+purchase price stays about the same)
TL-11 tech is, and it is entirely sufficient to build interstellar workhorses like the Type S, the Type A and many others.
You seem to envision the OTU as an enlarged version of 20th/21st century Earth, with technology apparently (only, I would argue) advancing rapidly at all times. That is just not the picture Traveller presents. Tech plateaus out, further progress is glacial, and millenia-old starship designs are still valid. You might not think it realistic, but that is the way things are presented.
No they don't, they don't even match for the Aircraft costs either.... Especially if you consider the 1977 baseline economics that sits at the base.
But, it really comes down to how you rung your games in the long run. I am in the cheaper more ships camp, which coupled to the small ship universe makes a lot of sense.
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Krikkitone
SOC-12
(adding…if cost was dropped 5x and maintenance increased to 10% per year it would be roughly equivalent)
..
old: 100 MCr base… 2.5 mortgage (ignoring interest)…0.1 maintenance: 2.6 total
new: 20 MCr base…0.5 mortgage…2 maintenance: 2.5 total
annual costs are the same but with a lower barrier to entry.
..
old: 100 MCr base… 2.5 mortgage (ignoring interest)…0.1 maintenance: 2.6 total
new: 20 MCr base…0.5 mortgage…2 maintenance: 2.5 total
annual costs are the same but with a lower barrier to entry.
Ok, a bit is unstated here, one is what is the model we are using for Starcraft. Unstreamlined ships would tend to trend toward Maritime shipping costs, where as smaller streamlined ships trend to Air Freight shipping. Following that the Fat, Far and Free Traders tend towards be overpriced by 50%, while the unstreamlined ships trend towards 75% or more over pricing.
Just as valid as anything I presented. The point is to create the setting effect you want and work backwards to a justification you and your players can buy into.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
More like those old starship designs can be widely supported under "austere" technological conditions.
Think "bush pilots" rather than cutting edge milspec.
AnotherDilbert
SOC-14 1K
Yes, they can be manufactured at TL-11, or even TL-9, but they are not necessarily identical to what the Imperium produced millennia ago.
Higher tech can have gone into the design of those ships and their components. A jump drive C manufactured at TL-9 can achieve jump 6 which requires TL-15 knowledge. The Ziru Sirka certainly couldn't do that. A jump drive C manufactured a few centuries ago in the 3I couldn't do that.
The history of the 3I is the history of technological progress. The original selling point of the Sylean Federation and the 3I was: Join us and get access to our tech and trade networks.
Entire TL steps takes centuries, but that is just a label of what is considered normal in the 3I at that time. Each step is large and consists of many smaller steps that are continually researched and strived for.
Technological progress is an intentional major point of the 3I, see research stations, and a major mission of the Scout Service.
The 3I isn't static, it was very different 500 years ago or 1000 years ago, both technologically and politically. There are plenty of TL-12 worlds in 1105, but it's generally not the same worlds that were TL-12 a thousand years ago when that was Imperial max TL. Not only the Imperium, but the successful worlds evolve and progress with time.
The 3I is very different from the Ziru Sirka, that was centralised and kept static.
