Using Mongoose's ship shares in CT

[Max]

Aigh, at last I found the TNE rulebook, I knew I had it somewhere. OK, TNE uses 2 tables each with a 2D6 roll to generate the starship owned by the player group, one to determine the quality/ownership and one to determine the actual ship (3 actually but 1 is just a modified based upon where the campaign is based and inapplicable outside of TNE). Since mustering out is massively different in TNE (no mustering out tables - DMs to the first table are received automatically on the basis of terms served in a particular career, but there is no need to port that mechanic to CT) we convert ship benefits received in mustering out to DMs on the first table. The tables and conversion values may need to be adjusted, I haven't done more than cursory checking of them for ballance and the first table is NOT the TNE table but one I created to produce what appear at first glance to be reasonable values and is actually backwards form the TNE system, while the 2nd table is from TNE and may provide a reasonable ballance.

Step 1 convert benefits to a DM, each benefit received becomes a + 3 DM to first table, total the ship benefits for the group to get the total DM to the table in step 3

Step 2 roll 2D6

Step 3 add results of step 1 and step 2, consult the following chart (not the same as the one used in TNE) to see the quality/ownership number of the received ship .

ROLL QUALITY/OWNERSHIP POINTS

5 .................................. - 4
6................................... - 3
7 .................................. - 2
8 .................................. - 1
9 .................................... 0
10 .................................. 0
11 .................................. 1
12 .................................. 2
13 .................................. 2
14 . . .. . . . . .. ..... .......... 3
15 .................................. 4
16 .................................. 4
17 .................................. 5
18 ................................ . 6
19 ................................ . 6
20 ..... ... ... ..... ..... ...... . 7
21 .................................. 8
22 .................................. 8
23 .................................. 9
24 ................................ 10
25 ................................ 10
26 ... ... ... ... ... ... ...... . 11
27 +.............................. 12

Step 4 players allocate the points from step 3, each point can be converted into 5 years of ship payments to a maximum of 8 points equaling complete ownership, each point can be converted into a DM for the table in step 6 to a maximum of +/-4 (players may take a negative DM, resulting in a smaller ship which they own more of)

Step 5 decide which category on the table in step 6 will be used proposed that the category corresponding to the type appropriate most number of ship benefits used in step 1 be mandated and allow the players to chose in te event of a tie

Step 6 roll 2D6 and add or subtract the DM agreed to in step 4

ROLL..SCOUT..TRADER..YACHT..LABSHIP..MILITARY
-2 .......... S............S.........mS..........mS...........mS
-1 .......... S............S.........mS..........mS...........mS
-0........... S............S.........mS..........mS...........mS
1............ S............S.........mS..........mS...........mS
2............ S............A.........mA..........mA...........mA
3............ S............A.........mA..........mA...........mA
4............ S............A.........mA..........mA...........mA2
5............ S............A.........mA..........mA2.........mA2
6............ S............A.........mA2........mA2..........mR
7............ S............A.........mA2........mA2..........mR
8............ S............A2.......mA2.........mR...........mM
9............ S............A2.......Y..............mR...........mM
10.......... S............A2.......Y..............L...............PC
11.......... S............A2.......Y..............L...............PC
12.......... S............R.........Y..............L...............PC
13.......... mA2.......R.........Y..............L...............CE
14.......... mA2.......R.........Y..............L...............CE
15.......... SS.........M.........Y..............L...............MC
16.......... SS.........M.........Y..............L...............MC



* decoding (with class names)
S= scout
A= free trader
A2= far trader (Jayhawk)
R= subs merchant
M = liner
SS = Survey ship (Donosev)
Y = yacht
MC = mercenary cruiser (Broadsword)
CE = close escort (Gazelle)
PC = patrol cruiser (????, 400 tons J3, 4G tech 15)

m = modified to fit the category, a modified far trader from the scout category for instance will have additional sensors and exploration equipment. Yacht category ships will replace cargo with recreational area and have well appointed staterooms. LabShip category ships will convert cargo to labs space and extra staterooms for scientists. Military category ships will come equipped with weapons and may convert cargo space for troops, have drop pods or other modifications suitable for a military ship.




*********************

I'd test this before I adopted it, and players still might hate it, so I might never adopt it. I try to strike a balance that lets players influence what happens to their characters but not to control it. I've always used the straight chargen rules with GMfiat and deus ex machina to correct random flukes, but I think an alternative would be better. I also think going to a purchase system as you propose lets the players have too much control, but maybe my players will prefer a purchase system enough for me to let them have it.

If you do allow TA memberships to convert to ship shares it might be better to lower the value of ship shares a bit. I'd set the value of a ship share based on amount of ship you want the players to have divided by the number of ship shares they are likely to get during chargen. If TA memberships convert then the players will have more ship shares than if they don't convert, however it also means that players will not be forced to a limited number of careers in order to get a ship. Ship shares also means that players won't be forced to have at least one old geezer merchant in the group to get a free trader (when I'm a player I too often wind up being volunteered to be that merchant, so I could roll a marine for a change).

 

[CosmicGamer]

CosmicGamer... as the question in the OP was "While I did not care much for Mongoose Traveller, I like the idea of ship shares as an option. How can this be implemented in CT?" then we DO have to know what a MGT "ship share" is to comment in an intelligent and pertinent way on the issue of incorporating MGT "ship shares" (or something similar) into CT.

I have the Mongoose rules and to me, taking in the entire post, BlackBat is not trying to use them. So I took his request as more of a 'how do I allow characters to acquire any ship they want' and not 'I want to use the Mongoose ship share system from Mongoose in CT'. The only concept he seams to be using is to allow characters to pool together their benefits when acquiring a ship.

Did not intend to confuse. MGT mustering out benefits such as "Ship Share", "2 Ship shares", "+1 Edu or 2 ship shares". A ship share is 1% ownership of a ship.

I can see how you may think this. Page 35 of the core rulebook

Ship Shares: You obtain one or more ship shares that can be put towards obtaining a ship.

Page 36

Ship shares represent contracts, credit rating, savings and favors owed that a character can put towards ownership of a space vessel.

and

Each ship share reduces the cost of the ship by 1%

Also of note

...cannot trade ship shares for cash

IMO, the name 'ship shares' is a bit misleading. It is not ownership of a ship. Since the 'ship shares' are favors, credit and such, they have no value other than in helping reduce the price of obtaining a ship. 'Captain Fredrick vouched for ya, so I'll give ya a discount.' Once the ship is acquired, you no longer possess any 'ship shares'. They are not like shares in a corporation.

Something else to note. The Mongoose 'ship share' benefits are not just general ship shares, there are also benefits of Free Trader, Yacht and so on. For example, a Scholar is more likely to get shares in a Lab Ship than general ship shares. Each benefit roll for a specific ship type is typically equal to 5 ship shares towards that type of ship or can be used instead as 2 ship shares toward any vessel.

Man, MGT sure skimps on the value of "ship" benefit rolls, doesn't it?

I certainly can't speak for Mongoose, but my impression is that the ship benefits are just a means to reduce the cost of obtaining a ship and the cost of a mortgage - if the characters decide to obtain a ship. Characters don't have to acquire a ship and a ship with a huge mortgage is not bestowed upon them when mustering out.

 

[BlackBat242]

??? for a merchant it says first roll to get possession (with 40 years of payments) and 4 more to pay it off. Where did that 50% come from?

Sometime back in the mid-1980s one of our group did a calculation of what the starting principle amount had to be to result in those cr150,000/month payments (book 1 pg 24) on a 200 ton type A free trader... using the then-prevalent interest rates for real-world commercial merchant ship purchases... and it turned out to be almost exactly half of the book price of a standard type A 200dt free trader.


Not specifically spelled out in the rules, but... from then on we used that calculation (50% of new price at a set interest rate divided by 48 monthly payments) to figure payments if the character wanted a different ship than the standard.


Unfortunately, I no longer remember the interest rate, nor do I have it written down anywhere.

 

[aramis]

480 payments, each 1/240 of full price, which said full price is 5/4 financed amount... (see standard ship loan rates in CT...)

1/192 of financed amount
x480 payments
===
2.5x financed amount

gives 0.19% interest per month.... or 2.29%/year, compound monthly.

(13 months/year gives 2.7083x Fin, or about 2.4%/year, again, compound monthly.)

2.3 to 2.4 APR.. pretty low (I get 2x that on my savings account! Mom's checking gets that rate!)

 

[JAFARR]

CosmicGamer,

Of course the shares are "gone" when spent, but when you combine them to purchase a ship, you are in effect purchasing shares in the ship. If for example you use Aramis' 7.5 MCr/5MCr proposal to purchase a Type A2 and 3 of 5 crewmembers had shares to contribute, those 3 would own the ship jointly, in effect making them a small corporation. The other 2 would work for them. How responsibility was divided and who has the final say for decision making would have to be part of the agreement they made to establish the corporation.

As to the interest rate BlackBat242 was refering to how about accepting that the intent of MWM and crew was to symplify playability without having a bunch of math intensive rules. I always played it as written rather than trying to tie it to current banking reality. Now if as Aramis suggests you are purchasing a ship outside of the chargen system and can make a larger down payment, then you get the full 40 years to pay it off, but with reduced payments. I, with a partner, was once able to pay the full price with my order, so we had ZERO payments. We even made a deposit large enough that the interest would pay the for annual overhaul, but that is a story for another forum.

 

[CosmicGamer]

CosmicGamer, Of course the shares are "gone" when spent, but when you combine them to purchase a ship, you are in effect purchasing shares in the ship.

SHORT RESPONSE
With the Mongoose system of ship shares, they are not 'spent' like money. The character does not automatically gain shares of ownership.

LONGER RESPONSE (Sorry for taking this a little off topic by going into detail about Mongoose in this CT thread)
An argument could be made that the ship shares are only viable if the character that possesses them is purchasing a ship. For example, John Doe was in the Navy and has a letter from the duke

For exemplary service, John Doe is awarded two ship shares good towards the purchase of any ship of their choosing.

This award may only be used by the party named within and they must be the sole owner or a full partner in ownership

or

Because of Johns good credit, the group gets a discount if he signs on the ownership loan papers.

But check out this example using a car. John's 'muster benefit' from his career at an auto plant was 2 'car shares'. John and his friend Jane decide to get the car together and they get a discount because of Johns ship shares. They get a loan for the final price of the car. They are both owners [have their names put on the title] and both responsible for the debt [co sign on the loan]. Johns car shares do not give him greater ownership nor is he responsible for more of the debt. (If a corporation is created, anyone can be given shares of any amount.)

A ships Captain who has no shares or personal funds to help acquire the ship could be given ownership shares because of the expertise that he brings to the 'corporation'.

Those who do own the ship may decide to offer 'shares' to crew members. This type of shares determine how profits are divided but they do not represent any real ownership in the ship or responsibility for debt.

My examples are not perfect and can be torn apart. They may not even help get across the point that the Mongoose system of 'ship shares' do not equate to shares of ownership in the ship and shares in profits can be a totally separate thing. Lets try Page 36

Characters can also get extra ship shares by taking an older and more damaged ship

'Reduction to the full list price of the ship' doesn't roll off the tongue like 'ship shares' but maybe 'ship discounts' would have been a better term.

All this, of course, is just my interpretation of the Mongoose rules.

There is no reason why you can't have a system where muster benefits represent 'money' that can be spent on any ship and give the character ownership. It has almost nothing to do with the Mongoose system though and thats why I suggested earlier to ignore the Mongoose system and just look at the system the OP proposed.

 

[tbeard1999]

I really can't imagine why anyone would bother with ship shares. Owning/financing a starship is no more complex than buying a car.

Here's a replacement:

Each award of a ship gives you MCr_______ equity in a single ship.

Use any of the 50 million amortization calculators out there to determine payments, remaining loan balance, etc. (The standard interest rate for starship financing is 5.575% APR).

Equity can be "spent" for the starship downpayment, to reduce the loan balance, or (maybe) pay for starship improvements, but can't otherwise be converted to cash.

Unless otherwise agreed by the players, owners share profits and loss prorata by equity %.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Each award of a ship gives you MCr_______ equity in a single ship... ...Equity can be "spent" for the starship downpayment, to reduce the loan balance, or (maybe) pay for starship improvements, but can't otherwise be converted to cash.

No shopping around for a ship, you are 'stuck' with a single ship you are awarded equity in? Not sure how you can have 'equity' in a ship before you obtain one. Please explain further.

Also, if 'equity' can be used to reduce the loan balance couldn't you now get a equity loan because the ship is worth more than the current mortgage, thereby converting your 'equity' into cash?

 

[tbeard1999]

No shopping around for a ship, you are 'stuck' with a single ship you are awarded equity in? Not sure how you can have 'equity' in a ship before you obtain one. Please explain further.

If you're using the standard CT approach, the first award of a ship is legal title to the ship (with 40 years of payments). So there's no equity until you get the ship.

OTOH, if you're wanting equity to be fungible...well, there's already a system in place to handle that -- it uses money. The shares are a pointless gloss. They don't really do anyrthing that the economic system doesn't already do.

Also, if 'equity' can be used to reduce the loan balance couldn't you now get a equity loan because the ship is worth more than the current mortgage, thereby converting your 'equity' into cash?

Yep. And the same would logically be true of shares. If it isn't, then you've introduced an economic absurdity. If I can get (say) 5% of a MCr100 ship by negotiating my "shares", then someone would pay me <MCr5 for that right. For that matter, you could simply sell the ship, then split the profit on the sale.

 

[JAFARR]

Maybe I miss understood MGT's use of shares, but what I was proposing for CT (and maybe some other versions too) was a method of giving the players some options in purchasing a ship other than the "standard" ship from chargen. I wanted to:
(1) make use of mustering out benefit rolls, including those which are normally "wasted",
(2) allow some other standard ships from the canon to become part of those options,
(3) allow for the possibility of players designing a custom ship and using chargen benefits to make the down payments or even pay it off if they had enough benefits and/or money,
(4) follow Aramis' plan of making a larger inital down payment than required in exchange for more manageable payments.

I know that as a referee I can do those things if I choose in MTU, but I posted the idea looking for help to keep things in balance.

 

[JAFARR]

With respect to the idea of the owners forming a corporation revolving around ownership of a ship.

To me this just seems to be the logical way to handle things. CosmicGamer's comments quoted below are a good extension to the concept.

A ships Captain who has no shares or personal funds to help acquire the ship could be given ownership shares because of the expertise that he brings to the 'corporation'.

Those who do own the ship may decide to offer 'shares' to crew members. This type of shares determine how profits are divided but they do not represent any real ownership in the ship or responsibility for debt.

To extend on that idea, these shares could be considered a bonus to salaries with a percantage of profits going to the bonus pool etc.

 

[tbeard1999]

Maybe I miss understood MGT's use of shares, but what I was proposing for CT (and maybe some other versions too) was a method of giving the players some options in purchasing a ship other than the "standard" ship from chargen. I wanted to:
(1) make use of mustering out benefit rolls, including those which are normally "wasted",
(2) allow some other standard ships from the canon to become part of those options,
(3) allow for the possibility of players designing a custom ship and using chargen benefits to make the down payments or even pay it off if they had enough benefits and/or money,
(4) follow Aramis' plan of making a larger inital down payment than required in exchange for more manageable payments.

I know that as a referee I can do those things if I choose in MTU, but I posted the idea looking for help to keep things in balance.

The problem is that the Traveller mechanic of awarding ship ownership (in any form) is inherently unbalanced. When starships cost scores of millions of credits, anyone with any significant equity in a ship is a millionaire. I've long criticized this aspect of Traveller. And ship shares do not fix this problem. Worse, they add an unnecessary mechanic that really does nothing. Even if you utterly stretch the bounds of logic by making shares only useable to buy ships, you've accomplished nothing you couldn't do easier by giving MCr_____________ equity that they can put into a ship.

IMHO, the best approach is to simply ignore mustering out benefits that grant ships (or some kind of equity in ships). If the campaign requires them to have a ship, give them one. Make it easy to finance used ship -- no money down and reasonable terms.

Shares just don't add anything to the equation IMHO.

 

[tbeard1999]

As a business attorney, here's how I'd structure a ship's ownership. Note that "shares" are shares of stock in the company, not MGT starship shares.

1. Form a company, which will own the ship. Cost is Government Level of home port X 3d6 x 100. A player with Admin-2 or Law-2 can do it at 1/4 cost. (There's a filing fee in addition to the legal work needed). If a PC does the work, the referee secretly rolls 11+ for there to be a major flaw in the paperwork that will eventually cost 3d6 x Cr1000 in fees to sort out.

2. Issue (say) 10,000 shares of stock. Set a price per share equal to the initial investment divided by 10,000. 2. The initial investment in the ship will cover any downpayment, initial operating costs, etc.). For instance, to finance a new MCr40 ship, the bank will require MCr8 down. The players agree that the ship needs another MCr1 in initial funds for operations, etc. The share value is MCr9 / 10,000 = Cr900 per share.

3. Profits (and losses) are borne by the PCs pro-rata. PCs who can;'t cover losses can borrow money (if a lender is available). The lender will take his stock as collateral (so the PCs might wind up with Fat Tony as a partner if they fail to helps a poor player out).

4. When making decisions, each player gets a vote for each share. Majority rules. Players can agree to make this 66% (or whatever) instead of >50%.

5. New investors are brought in by issuing new shares (their money goes into the company) or by buying shares from others (their money goes to the other player). Value is whatever the parties can agree to. A majority vote is required to issue new shares (and to determine the price).

6. When a PC dies, his shares go to his heirs. I do not allow PCs to leave shares to each other. A new PC can enter the game with those shares if the Referee agrees (he bought them from the dead player's heirs). Or, the players can acquire a silent (or not so silent) partner.

This gives a way for PCs to have a ship without being millionaires. They can have silent partners who let them run the ship (but cover most expenses and keep most of the profits).

Since the stock is private stock, it is very hard to sell. Typically, the company will sell the ship, then distribute the proceeds pro-rata to the company owners (after paying off the ship, of course). Few buyers will want to pay full value for private company stock.

 

[rancke]

Don't forget the Emperor's Share.


Hans

 

[FreeTrav]

I believe the Emperor's Share only applies if the company wants a Limited Imperial Charter, i.e., to be able to put LIC after the company name. If they're a planetary corporation or private partnership, the Imperial Share doesn't apply.

 

[FreeTrav]

As a business attorney, here's how I'd structure a ship's ownership. ...

Would you be willing to turn this into a more formal article, and send it to me (editor@freelancetraveller.com) for posting to "Doing It My Way" at Freelance Traveller?

 

[rancke]

I believe the Emperor's Share only applies if the company wants a Limited Imperial Charter, i.e., to be able to put LIC after the company name. If they're a planetary corporation or private partnership, the Imperial Share doesn't apply.

True, but companies are not allowed to engage in interstellar trade unless they have Imperial charters. Individuals may, which is why a Free Trader usually don't need to have one, but as soon as you want limited liability, you need a charter.


Hans

 

[FreeTrav]

True, but companies are not allowed to engage in interstellar trade unless they have Imperial charters. Individuals may, which is why a Free Trader usually don't need to have one, but as soon as you want limited liability, you need a charter.

Can you provide a cite for this? It doesn't seem consistent with what I remember, but I'm willing to accept the possibility that I'm misremembering.

 

[rancke]

Can you provide a cite for this? It doesn't seem consistent with what I remember, but I'm willing to accept the possibility that I'm misremembering.

"Except for those pre-dating the Imperium, all corporations engaging in interstellar commerce are required to possess an Imperial charter." [LDAM:40]​

That Free Traders are allowed to engage in interstellar trade is implied by the rules. That they don't have an Imperial charter is implied by the lack of reference to any such thing. That the reason why they don't need a charter is that they're not a corporation is an assumption, but, I submit, a good one.


Hans

 

[BlackBat242]

Ldam?
............