Cost of a Lab Ship

[AnotherDilbert]

The mechanism for vast riches is not acquiring a ship, which will come with vast expenses (I assume - I haven't gotten to that part yet), it's the land grant system.

Yes, but remember that even small ships are worth tens of MCr or even hundreds of MCr.

I would love to see the rules for how to get a mortgage when the down payment required is measure in MCr's - money PC's just don't start with. Is there something I'm missing?

That is what the ship shares are for. Even a single ship share can give you part ownership of a ship with a mortgage on the rest.

I'm saying that some careers give the ability to acquire a ship in exchange for ship shares. If there's 3 shares required, then each on is 1/3 ownership of the ship. Right?

No, it's a loan. In the case of the Lab Ship the University keeps the ownership of the ship, but lets you use it (for now...).

And by RAW you get no access to loaner ships without all the required three ship shares. We are merely suggesting that you use Referee fiat to override this and lend the Traveller a ship in exchange for his two shares, probably with some strings attached.



By RAW your ex-Scholar can either:
Use three shares to get a loaner Lab Ship,
OR a variable amount of shares as a down payment on any ship with a mortgage.

So, by RAW your ex-Scholar can use his two ships shares as down payment on any reasonable ship (including a Lab Ship) having payed off 50 Dt worth of ship, with a mortgage on the rest. Note that the mortgage would cost several hundred thousand credits per month, so he better have a plan to make some money...

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I thought that only applied if it wasn't specific to your career. In other words, anyone [who doesn't fit one of the career-based categories] can own a ship at 1 share per 25 tons, but only a noble can own a Yacht at 3 shares.

Yes, anyone can own at at 1 share per 25 tons,
but only a noble can borrow (not own) a Yacht at 3 shares.

 

[kilemall]

Hmm, well I wouldn't have this conundrum because I would be looking at this with CT/COTI eyes.


The original lab ships were defined in the S4 Citizens supplement and were a benefit. The boilerplate says Yacht, Lab ship and Safari ship are available as benefits. In the Lab ship definition the ship is described as being owned by 'some scientific foundation' and cannot be sold or disposed of.


So you could play it that way and ignore the ship shares.


Or say that's earnest money the character was required to put down to have access to such an expensive tool, a share of any profits generated from knowledge or discoveries, or this is a ship for profit and the character is under the gun to meet the other shareholders' expectations.



You've already said the university pays for crew the ship share character doesn't want, so that suggests at the least that the character is carrying the burden of salary. Which neatly points out how nobles can follow pursuits the regular working class space schmuck can't.

 

[kilemall]

Yes, anyone can own at at 1 share per 25 tons,
but only a noble can borrow (not own) a Yacht at 3 shares.

In T5 it's borrow? Or sounds more like a timeshare yacht?



I rather enjoyed dropping a yacht on noble characters. It's not a ship suited to paying it's way, so immediately the noble is forced to figure out a way to keep flying.


Of course then you have to have a mechanism that makes sure they don't just sell it and use the proceeds to invest and essentially become an NPC patron/cash fountain. I guess in CT terms I would imply full ownership but that it was part of the fief and some penalty, including possibly loss of title and/or SOC were involved (a humiliating admission of failure to be able to pay bills on the lifestyle even if not 'official').

 

[whulorigan]

Yes, anyone can own at at 1 share per 25 tons,
but only a noble can borrow (not own) a Yacht at 3 shares.

I would think of it as the Yacht is a part of the Noble Estate (i.e. Land Grant, et al) at 3 shares, and goes with the estate (so if the Noble should lose his estate for some reason, he loses the yacht). Alternatively, the Noble can use 1 share per 25 tons of yacht, and personally own a ship outright of the size he can afford with his ship shares (or shares plus mortgage, with the appropriate income to pay off the mortgage).

 

[AnotherDilbert]

In T5 it's borrow? Or sounds more like a timeshare yacht?

I assume it's a long term loan, like a detached duty scout.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I would think of it as the Yacht is a part of the Noble Estate (i.e. Land Grant, et al) at 3 shares, and goes with the estate (so if the Noble should lose his estate for some reason, he loses the yacht).

Or it's provided by your family, or it's provided by your Duke, or it's provided by a megacorp to make sure some business interest does not bog down in red tape, or ...

Alternatively, the Noble can use 1 share per 25 tons of yacht, and personally own a ship outright of the size he can afford with his ship shares (or shares plus mortgage, with the appropriate income to pay off the mortgage).

Of course.

 

[Frewfrux]

For clarity, maybe the rules should give "Eligibility" a main heading, with "Loaned Ships" and "Purchased Ships" sub-headings. Without that, I still read it as three different ways to acquire ships.

However, assuming you're right, in my case it would mean that the PC's 2 shares represent 1/8th ownership, not 2/3rds ownership. Right? If that's the case, what's the point of saying a Lab Ship can be "acquired" for 3 shares? Sure it can, but it can also be "acquired" for 1 share, or 8 shares, or whatever. And not just by specific careers, either, but by anyone.

And how does a down-payment fit into all of this?

 

[Frewfrux]

Okay, so I'm working through what I think you mean. You're saying, in terms of borrowing, only nobles (and fame 17+), ex-scouts, ex-scholars, and ex-naval officers qualify to borrow a ship, and they must have and sacrifice all the required ship shares to do so (1 in the case of a scout, 3 for everyone else).

Everyone else, only has the option to purchase a ship, with each ship share reducing the total price by 1 ship share per 25 tons.

So, an ex-naval officer with 3 ship shares has the choice to either sacrifice them all to borrow a Corvette (long-term, in theory), or they can use them to reduce the price of any ship. If they went for a 200-ton Free-Trader, it would reduce the cost by 3/8ths from something like, say, 40 MCr to 25 MCr.

Of course, they still have to come up with the 20% down on the 25 MCr to be able to finance it.

So, are ship shares sellable, then? What can an ex-Scholar do with 2 ship shares if he doesn't have the millions of Credits needed for a down payment?

 

[whulorigan]

So, are ship shares sellable, then? What can an ex-Scholar do with 2 ship shares if he doesn't have the millions of Credits needed for a down payment?

I do not believe they are sellable, but they are retainable for future use.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Okay, so I'm working through what I think you mean. You're saying, in terms of borrowing, only nobles (and fame 17+), ex-scouts, ex-scholars, and ex-naval officers qualify to borrow a ship, and they must have and sacrifice all the required ship shares to do so (1 in the case of a scout, 3 for everyone else).

Yes!

Everyone else, only has the option to purchase a ship, with each ship share reducing the total price by 1 ship share per 25 tons.

Yes. Note that scout, spacer, and scholar characters also have this option.

So, an ex-naval officer with 3 ship shares has the choice to either sacrifice them all to borrow a Corvette (long-term, in theory), or they can use them to reduce the price of any ship. If they went for a 200-ton Free-Trader, it would reduce the cost by 3/8ths from something like, say, 40 MCr to 25 MCr.

Yes.

Of course, they still have to come up with the 20% down on the 25 MCr to be able to finance it.

No, that is part of what the ship shares do.
You have the ship, with mortgage, and 3/8th is payed off. The down payment happened earlier offscreen.

The entire point of the ship shares is to provide the Traveller with a ship, despite that they could never afford a down payment directly from char gen.

So, are ship shares sellable, then? What can an ex-Scholar do with 2 ship shares if he doesn't have the millions of Credits needed for a down payment?

No. They are more like brownie points, or as MgT puts it:

Ship shares represent contacts, credit rating, savings and favours owed ... Travellers can pool their ship shares towards the use of a vessel, but cannot trade ship shares for cash.

This is not stated in T5, but I assume it works roughly like in other editions.

I would perhaps let unused ship shares work like contacts that owes large favours?

 

[Frewfrux]

The only flaw in all of that (apart from how it's presented in the rules, but that just may be poor wording/formatting) is that then the first ship share is worth 20% of the ship's cost, plus the value of 25 tons of the ship. That may not seem like a HUGE issue, but if people are allowed to "save" their ship shares, then there's no point in having rules that include down-payments. Just save up your ship shares and use each one on a different ship. Talk about a get-rich-quick scheme!

Of course, any GM worth their salt would never allow that. They'd have to find some way to justify not allowing it while still allowing these rules to exist, but I guess it is a game, after all, and not reality. GM's can do as they please.

That said, because it IS just a game I think I'll stick with my interpretation for now. There doesn't seem to be much difference between owning a ship under certain conditions verses being loaned a ship long term under certain conditions. Sure if you own it you're maybe a little more likely to leave town without meeting the conditions of ownership, but that's a risk no matter how you acquire a ship, except for paying it off completely.

 

[Maksim-Smelchak]

The wiki has documented the canon, published cost here:

http://wiki.travellerrpg.com/Type_L_class_Laboratory_Ship

I believe that there are even page citations now.

Shalom,
Maksim-Smelchak.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

That cost of MCr 158 is one opinion. There are other officially published numbers, e.g.:

MCr 161: CT'77 S04
MCr 158: CT'81 DA3
MCr _72: MT IE
MCr 129: TNE

None of the above gives much hint of what it would cost in T5.nn.


(Note that the crew and passenger numbers in the stat block is incorrect; With 20 staterooms and a basic crew of 5 is has 15 staterooms free for scientists and passengers [high passengers would require additional Stewards].)