What does this paragraph mean to you?

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by daryen:

Before moving on to your paragraph, I want to point out one more sentence: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />"Passage is always sold on the basis of transport to the announced destination, rather than on jump distance."

Now, on to your quote. The first part says:

"Differences 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."

Remember: we already know the destination, and it is within our ship's jump range. Consequently, this quote must be taken within that context. Fundamentally, it is simply restating the sentence I just quoted prior to this.

On to the nasty part:

"The difference is that a jump-3 ship can reach a destination in one jump, while the jump-1 ship would take three separate jumps (through two intermediate destination, and requiring three separate tickets) to reach it. Higher jump numbers also may make otherwise inaccessible destinations within reach."

This would appear to be the passage that is tripping you up. The fundamental problem is that you are reading way too much into it. Note that it it references a generic "a destination", not our specific destination we found back in the cargo section. All the passage is noting is that a destination 3 parsecs away can be reached on a single ticket with a jump-3 ship, but would require three tickets with a jump-1 ship. That is all it is saying. It is not qualifying any purchase price, as that has already been explicitly defined earlier. It isn't directly referencing "our" destination.

Finally:

"But for two ships of differing jump numbers going to the same destination in one jump, each would charge the same cargo or passage price."

Again, this should be very, very clear, and directly ties back into the quotes a pointed out that come before your "problem" passage. It is explicitly saying that a jump-3 ship going one parsec will charge the same as a jump-1 ship going one parsec.

Again, I understand that you won't buy this explanation because you simply don't want to. Fine, that is your choice. But, despite the potentionally poor wording of the "problem" two sentences, the rules are very clear and very unambiguous. Cargo and passengers are charge by jump, not by distance. Period.

Also, consider one other thing. If all of the rules in a game say one thing, but a single sentence (or two) seem to say the opposite, then it is pretty obvious that either a) you are reading it wrong or b) the writer/editor screwed up. Either way you don't toss out all of the other rules in favor of the single exception.

In summary, you are reading the rules wrong because they seem stupid to you. Quite frankly, that rule (price per jump) is stupid. But, unfortunately, that is the unambiguous rule. </font>[/QUOTE]I never said or attempted to imply that a Jump-1 and a jump-3 ship going to the same destination in one jump wouldn't charge the same price. Quite frankly I am willing to admit there is a mistake here. What really bakes my noodle is that the same fragging paragraph is repeated in each version of the rules.

I am well aware that the paragraph before the one quoted states that the price is per passage regardless of distance. I have no problem with that. I also know that starship finance wise it doesn't work. There may be dozens of expalinations of this, and everything I have heard is speculation as to why it is set up this way. Frankly it doesn't matter. It is what it is.

Because it also states that two ships of differing jump numbers going to the same destination in one jump charge the same cargo or passage price. Which makkes sense and works with the rest of the rules. No problem. YOu are right the problem I have is with the Second and third sentences of the paragraph that appear to state that the Jump-1 ship charges the same as the jump-3 ship even though the jump-1 ship makes two intervening stopps and requires additional tickets. And those two sentences don't jive with the passage price regardless of distance.

YOu are definitely right that I believe a Per parsec rate works better for Traveller. It means that starship finance for the "Standard Designs" actually allows the ships to pay for themselves. It makes more sense in the time is money scheme of things. And it means that virtually all jump-2+ ships won't be in the hands of the government, either through subsidy or directly.

Do you agree though that those two sentences definitely appear to contradict the paragraph before?

 

[BetterThanLife]

Under those rules they probably wouldn't. Unless it was in response to a very lucrative subsidy. And places like RYHLANOR would be a backwater. Though from other sources they obviously do build higher than Jump-1 ships. There is no margin in a Jump-2+ ship in the OTU.

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Just a thought then, why do the merchant lines bother with drives higher than jump 1?
They will make a lot more money by building jump 1 ships with fuel enough for 2 or 3 consecutive jumps

Or are you saying that the rules say a ship making empty hex jumps don't charge for them?

 

[TheEngineer]

An thought regarding that finance problems of jump 3 ships may be, that those ships are owned mainly by larger companies or even individuals, who have other means to finance this stuff. E.g. its much more easy to get along with 1/360 or 1/480 payment models.

Its a really big goodie to enable some humble Travellers to get a finance contract for a starship, without any cash balance other than the ship itself

But thats what Traveller is made for.
For a humble Traveller.

Its quite clear, that its more efficient to build and use ships for a special purpose. It makes no sense to build a J-3 ship if you want to do a J-1 job.

Putting it together I would tweak the way of financing (= decrease montly payment) long jump ships and keep the rest.
Dont make things to complicate....

Besides, are there any hints about possible starship ages in the rules...?

 

[daryen]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
Do you agree though that those two sentences definitely appear to contradict the paragraph before?

While I never read it that way until you brought it up before, I can see where you are coming from. The problem is that the writers made a transition in what they were talking about in that paragraph.

Everything up to the problem section is saying that a J-3 ship going to a world 3 parsecs away charges the same price as a J-1 ship going to a world 1 parsec away.

The problem section then explains that, yes, this means that a J-3 ship does this in one jump, but a J-1 ship going to a world 3 parsecs away would take three jumps, and three tickets. Do note that price is not mentioned in those two sentences; it is simply stating that a J-3 requires one ticket, but a J-1 requires three tickets.

However, the "but" sentence is covering a slightly different case. It is simply saying that a ticket to a world one parsec away is the same price regardless of whether the ship is J-1 or J-3.

Again, (and I don't mean this as an insult), I think you are reading too much into those sentences.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Hey Daryen,
I am not insulted. I just think it is an interesting coincidence that the paragraph appears to say that you should charge per distance, as opposed regardless of jump capability, contradicting the paragraph before. The Per parsec calculation of passage fixes the broken starship financing, gives incentives to build commercial starships that are greater than Jump-1 and is the method you stated is the approximate conversion of the GT/FT simple system to CT. (Though I do like the discount offered in major routes for competetion purposes.)

Originally posted by daryen:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
Do you agree though that those two sentences definitely appear to contradict the paragraph before?

While I never read it that way until you brought it up before, I can see where you are coming from. The problem is that the writers made a transition in what they were talking about in that paragraph.

Everything up to the problem section is saying that a J-3 ship going to a world 3 parsecs away charges the same price as a J-1 ship going to a world 1 parsec away.

The problem section then explains that, yes, this means that a J-3 ship does this in one jump, but a J-1 ship going to a world 3 parsecs away would take three jumps, and three tickets. Do note that price is not mentioned in those two sentences; it is simply stating that a J-3 requires one ticket, but a J-1 requires three tickets.

However, the "but" sentence is covering a slightly different case. It is simply saying that a ticket to a world one parsec away is the same price regardless of whether the ship is J-1 or J-3.

Again, (and I don't mean this as an insult), I think you are reading too much into those sentences. </font>[/QUOTE]

 

[BetterThanLife]

Actually, when there is no margin for humble travellers, there is also little margin for bigger corporations. While big corporations will get better finance rates the big difference is the cost to revenue potential of the ship. The finance situation illustrates, under the per jump model, how much more efficient the Jump-1 ships are at producing revenue even if purchased outright.

Now while it is better to purchase ships to do specific jobs, a Starship is a major capital investment. A Free Trader is, in CT, prices vary in various versions of Traveller, MCr37.08 and that is unarmed. A retired Admiral's pension is Cr10,000 per year. (Or enough money to book a one way trip, on that Free Trader, once a year.) Even if you have very deep pockets that is still going to be a major investment. So some generality should be expected. But starships must be, by their cost, optimized to make as much profit as possible.

As far as Honest Abe's Used Spaceship lot? The first time I saw those rules was in T20.

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
An thought regarding that finance problems of jump 3 ships may be, that those ships are owned mainly by larger companies or even individuals, who have other means to finance this stuff. E.g. its much more easy to get along with 1/360 or 1/480 payment models.

Its a really big goodie to enable some humble Travellers to get a finance contract for a starship, without any cash balance other than the ship itself

But thats what Traveller is made for.
For a humble Traveller.

Its quite clear, that its more efficient to build and use ships for a special purpose. It makes no sense to build a J-3 ship if you want to do a J-1 job.

Putting it together I would tweak the way of financing (= decrease montly payment) long jump ships and keep the rest.
Dont make things to complicate....

Besides, are there any hints about possible starship ages in the rules...?

 

[aramis]

Bhoins: TNE had rules for wear value, and used equipment was charged for by wear value... assuming both buyer and seller could estimate it accurately. Essentially, a ship would lose no less than 10% of value per decade...often more.

T20 puts the used market in to a very different light, but the underlying concept was there in TNE.

Also, as for starship economics: It is possible (assuming no loan, but creating a replacement fund scheduled at 40 years to replace) to have a J3 merchant make money... as a passenger carrier with limited spec trade cargos.

Under MT it's actually doable without spec cargoes... provided the runs are between pop 8-A worlds within jump distance, and the ship is roughly 300-400 Td...

 

[BetterThanLife]

I didn't realize that TNE had those rules. (Never did buy TNE, when it first came out I didn't think it sounded interesting, and WH40K was just getting expensive.) I saw those rules in T20. And while they are interesting, if they aren't sold new it is tough to find them used. (You don't see lots of Used Ferrari's on the market because they don't sell lots of new ones.)

I do realize that you can buy them outright and make a profit with ships. I also realize that you can probably, given the used starship rules, make a profit with a 40 year old SubLiner and a loan. However the profit margin on a Jump-2+ ship is quite a bit smaller than on a Jump-1 ship even when they are purchased outright. The loan payments are a symptom of the problem with the pricing system under the per Jump rules. Under the standard system the FatTrader (400T Sub Merchant) is probably the most profitable ship, of the standard designs. Though if you want to be a successful merchant, then the best place to start is either as a Scout, especially if you have the T20 version with the 20T cargo, or as a Corsair. You don't have to make payments on the ships. (And that choice doesn't depend on the per distance vs. per parsec rule.)

YOu can get a loan and make your payments without a problem using the T20 Priority cargo rules on a Far Trader, but for that to work you have to find two worlds with high pop and close techlevels that are two parsecs apart. (There are two places in the Spinward Marches where it works.) But then you are stuck between two worlds and that might work for a Tramp Trader it isn't going to work for a Player Character. (It is too sedate.) I am sure you can find a similar situation in the Lurani Cluster but I haven't looked for that yet.

But again it isn't just the mortgage payments that will drive profits. For the bigger companies it is going to be the margins. And the margins on the Jump-1 ships is much higher than those on the jump-2+ ships. So unless there is a major compelling reason, and these will be the exception not the rule, the Jump-2+ Merchants simply won't get built.

Personally I like the Liner, the Far Trader and the old FASA Maru class. Especially as Player Character ships. (I wonder if the Andromeda people knew that ship name was used 20 years ago.

) But to use them, as player ships, there has to be a reason that they were built in the first place. And the starship has to be capable of paying for itself so that it makes the ship an asset not a liability. Besides it is always good to have the Player Character ship as a hook for an adventure, either the ship needs something or someone needs a ride. (The ship needs a new lanthanium coil, or a little battle damage, or "My friends tell me you need a ship.") But it shouldn't be the overall reason that the characters are forced to adventure because if the ship is always causing problems they are likely to abandon it and just book passage as they go. I suppose they could always skip with it but unless you want to run a "Fugative" campaign, it isn't the way to go.

Originally posted by Aramis:
Bhoins: TNE had rules for wear value, and used equipment was charged for by wear value... assuming both buyer and seller could estimate it accurately. Essentially, a ship would lose no less than 10% of value per decade...often more.

T20 puts the used market in to a very different light, but the underlying concept was there in TNE.

Also, as for starship economics: It is possible (assuming no loan, but creating a replacement fund scheduled at 40 years to replace) to have a J3 merchant make money... as a passenger carrier with limited spec trade cargos.

Under MT it's actually doable without spec cargoes... provided the runs are between pop 8-A worlds within jump distance, and the ship is roughly 300-400 Td...

 

[TheEngineer]

A good reason to build and use J2+ ships might be to be able get to places, where a J1 ship simply cannot go. It a different market area
A long jump ship offers much more oppertunities especially for speculative trade. Well, you just need to trade the speculative way in order to get along.

J1 or J2 ships are usable for the beginners. Jumping longer is a game for professionals

I actually see the trouble caused by the rules but I dont see it as problem, as there are always methods for a ref to setup an environment, where everything works.
Maybe its wise to use the rules and not to get used by the rules.
So perhaps its does not take GT:FT to run the universe, but just a tiny long jump passage price or a finacing tweak.

E.g. take some of those J3 traders, which are not able to work well on their own. But perhaps they are cross financed by a couple of humble J1 traders in order to do some VERY lucrative speculative deals on remote J3 routes.

 

[BetterThanLife]

A Jump-1 ship can usually get there. It just takes longer. (Collapsable or demountable tanks.) And the ship is definitely more profitable once it gets there.

Speculative trade is interesting but it is definitely, especially in the Book-2 version, inconsistent. You get a roll and if you wind up with grain or textiles you are basically screwed. Now T20 you get multiple rolls provided that stick to the bigger worlds. Again you can limit your destinations and increase your potential, but shuttling back and forth between a couple of planets is not the stuff of adventures. Well maybe an adventure but not a campaign.

Traveller is about travelling. Throw 20tons of fuel in collapsable tanks in your hold and your free trader can go most places. It just takes longer to get there. A Jump-2 Scout ship can go almost anywhere. (In the Spinward Marches the only problem system was RETINAE, you could get there but couldn't leave.) It may take you time to get there but you could get there. A Far Trader or a Maru Class merchant, if they could make their payments, are ideal PC ships.

Building ships of J2+ would be custom designs for specific purposes, instead of "Standard Designs."

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
A good reason to build and use J2+ ships might be to be able get to places, where a J1 ship simply cannot go. It a different market area
A long jump ship offers much more oppertunities especially for speculative trade. Well, you just need to trade the speculative way in order to get along.

J1 or J2 ships are usable for the beginners. Jumping longer is a game for professionals

I actually see the trouble caused by the rules but I dont see it as problem, as there are always methods for a ref to setup an environment, where everything works.
Maybe its wise to use the rules and not to get used by the rules.
So perhaps its does not take GT:FT to run the universe, but just a tiny long jump passage price or a finacing tweak.

E.g. take some of those J3 traders, which are not able to work well on their own. But perhaps they are cross financed by a couple of humble J1 traders in order to do some VERY lucrative speculative deals on remote J3 routes.

 

[TheEngineer]

Is a lower jump ship really still profitable if using the collapsable tank jump methods ?
A J1 ship would be able to do just one business trip per month....dosnt that kill profit ?

Anyway I agree that J1/J2 ships are quite pretty for abventuring. My players used a classical scout to move around for a long time but finally fall in love with a slightly damaged 400t J3 corsair

I offered commercial "carriers" to help low jump ships to make their way over astrographical gaps.

But one other questions dealing with the finace aspect.
Considering the vast amounts of money needed to build and run ships, I always wondered about the number of ships existing.
Who would be able to even cope with the 20% start payment ?
So, arent Travellers a very rare species ?

 

[jasper]

aren't we forgetting if you get lucky you get part of ship paid off when you muster out.
Also just remember it is a game rule to provide quick and easy prices so you can get on with the adventure.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Actually if you jump to a cluster, spend a week there and then make another jump then you don't really lose money. (And if you get to charge per jump you are up one jump on the month.) As long as you don't make a habit of it, provided you aren't allowed to charge for two jumps in one of those trips, you will be financially fine. YOu lose 20 tons of cargo space for the one trip but as long as the rest of the ship is full the Free Trader and Fat Trader have enough profit margin to run with 75% loads at a profit. (I haven't done the math in a while but I believe you have to be between 50-60% for the break even point, depending on which version of the rules you are using (cost of the ship is the big difference here), which ship we are specifically talking about. Now if you are charging "per jump regardless of distance" then you are fine on the profit margins.

The 20% down, I always thought was a bit high for private individuals as well. Though there are those that will be able to afford it. However if a company buys ships on credit, instead of purchasing outright, they can put 5 ships in space for each individual ship they could purchase outright. As long as the ship returned a reasonable profit then this would be a way to do business. (Under the Per Parsec Model, most merchant ships, return the 20% down in under 10 years. If it comes in at under 8 years then it is a way to expand faster and make a bit more money than purchasing ships outright.)

I never thought of Starship finance as the tool of individuals, in my mind it was the way that companies did business. And big corporations could loan money from the finance division to the starship division this way. As far as I know most Trucking companies don't purchase trucks outright, they take out a loan on the Truck. Same idea. Businesses are financed and leveraged, not owned outright. There are tax advantages and other reasons to do things that way. If you don't think of Starships as a means to travel about but as a business then it makes more sense.

Which is why it always irked me that Jump-2+ ships can't make their payments. Starships should be a means to adventure and an occasional hook not the entire reason to adventure.

Originally posted by TheEngineer:
Is a lower jump ship really still profitable if using the collapsable tank jump methods ?
A J1 ship would be able to do just one business trip per month....dosnt that kill profit ?

Anyway I agree that J1/J2 ships are quite pretty for abventuring. My players used a classical scout to move around for a long time but finally fall in love with a slightly damaged 400t J3 corsair

I offered commercial "carriers" to help low jump ships to make their way over astrographical gaps.

But one other questions dealing with the finace aspect.
Considering the vast amounts of money needed to build and run ships, I always wondered about the number of ships existing.
Who would be able to even cope with the 20% start payment ?
So, arent Travellers a very rare species ?

 

[BetterThanLife]

Yes you can get part of the ship paid off on mustering out, but you still have to make the same payments, over a shorter period of time. (And personally I have never managed to run a campaign that lasted long enough to cover 10 years in game time, with the same characters and the same ship.) Now if you happen to roll the ship 5 times then the ship is paid off and you don't have to think about it anymore. (At most 11 rolls and 5 of those have to be a 6? Yeah right, that'll happen often enough to consider.)

Yes it is a game rule so you can provide quick and easy prices so you can get on with the adventure. But the rule is a problem if the quick and easy prices mean that the Players can't adventure because they have to haul cargo between Sacnoth and Gram, full time, just to be able to afford that ship they were saddled with upon mustering out.

There are several choices of ships that you can receive upon mustering out. Of all those ships the only ones that aren't a burden to the players are The Merchant receiving a Free Trader, (it can makes its payments) the Scout, receiving a Detached Duty Scout Ship, (No payments) and the Corsair receiving his own Corsair ship (again no payments). Any other ship, unless you roll it 5 times, is massive bills and no way to pay them. (And you are upside down in it so you can't trade it in or get out from under the loan.) The worst financial disasters, for a starting player, are receiving the Yacht, the Safari Ship or the Mercenary Cruiser which are all commercially, even using the per parsec rules, unviable.

Originally posted by jasper:
aren't we forgetting if you get lucky you get part of ship paid off when you muster out.
Also just remember it is a game rule to provide quick and easy prices so you can get on with the adventure.

 

[Wayne]

My quick fix to the problem was to change the cost of starships (and construction of ships) in MTU to 10% of listed price. This had the side effect of making monthly payments substantially smaller and putting the economics into the background of game play and not the reason for game play.

 

[mike wightman]

The other way is to allow the players to pool their ship results from mustering out so that they own the ship free and clear.

 

[aramis]

Bhoins:

long-range jump craft can make money enough to fill a market niche, even at book rates.

Base rule of technology: If it can be done, then someone will do it.
Corollary: if it makes a profit, someone will keep doing it, even if it isn't the most profitable way to get it done.

We see this in high-performance autos and aircraft already. The margin for flying CEO's in a Cesna prop pusher is far more efficient than doing so in Lear Jets; for some people, the extra time is worth the hassles and/or expenses.

That being said, J2 merchants will exists specifically becuase there are those who will wait for the J2 rather than buy two J1 passages... and there are those that will provide same in order to make the trip, even tho they could make far more with a jump 1 vessel.

Likewise, speculation is aided immensely by J3 vs J1, or even J2. A J1 ship has 6 targets maximum
A J2 has 18 targets maximum
a J3 has 36 mmaximum targets.

Add the effects of Broker 4, and the CT tables become quite profitable... add Trader 3+, and they become a money mill.

 

[brudin]

to add at whats be said by aramis, when you jump you got a risk of missjump. to move at 3 parsec with a jump 3 you got 1 chance, with a jump 2 you got 2 chance and with a jump 1 you got 3 chance to missjump.
when you are travelling or when you expedite something you dont want to get so much chance.

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
The worst financial disasters, for a starting player, are receiving the Yacht, the Safari Ship or the Mercenary Cruiser which are all commercially, even using the per parsec rules, unviable.

Heh. I remeber a campaign many, many years ago where we (the player characters) had gotten control of a Leviathan (we were morally in the right, although probably not legally; A Megacorporation, LIC[*] had come after us with intend to hurt and we had prevailed). The ref obviously intended that the four of us would keep this huge ship, but after figuring out the fuel cost of a jump, we decided to offer the ship to A Rival Megacorporation, LIC, straight swap for full legal title to a 400 T merchant ship with all the paperwork in order.

[*] I said it was many, many years ago...


We then proceeded to abuse the hell out of the trade system (the ref played the game *By * The * Book * and, among other things, allowed us to unload 80 computers bought at 30% for 300% each on a world with a population score of 4) and became billionaires in less than half a dozen sessions.


Hans

 

[BetterThanLife]

In CT, unless you are using unrefined fuel or in a gravity well, your chance of a Misjump is 13+ on 2D6. (Naval ships are 14+, Scout Ships are 15+) IN MT if your engineer is reasonably competent, Engineering skill plus (EDU/5) = 6 then you misjump on a 1- (On 2D6.) Unfortunately a friend of mine has my T20 manual, as I recall, it is also a non-chance except that in T20 using droptanks improves your chance to misjump. Now T4 and/or TNE may have different chances, I have never seen those rules.

Unless you are trying to engage your jumpdrive while on the planet's surface (I have seen that done, matter of fact there was a Challange article that suggested it.) your chances of misjump are slim to none.

Originally posted by brudin:
to add at whats be said by aramis, when you jump you got a risk of missjump. to move at 3 parsec with a jump 3 you got 1 chance, with a jump 2 you got 2 chance and with a jump 1 you got 3 chance to missjump.
when you are travelling or when you expedite something you dont want to get so much chance.