Economics of a Mercenary Campaign

[BetterThanLife]

For a while now I have been trying to work out the economics of a decent Mercenary Unit, Star Mercs, etc.

From the published material I have gathered over the years, I have come to some conclusions.

So far, canon Mercenary Tickets vary widely in terms of risk vs. reward. None of the Mercenary tickets actually pay for enough to cover the Unit expenses if they have organic starships, in most cases even if they have an organic mech component. The few and far between escort/piracy suppression tickets I have seen published that are supposed to be hiring the ship, don't cover the operating expenses of the ship. In Ground combat, if a Merc Unit loses a grav tank in combat they couldn't replace it with the tickets offered.

Most Mercenary tickets appear to be suited for a minimum of a Company sized element. The ones that call for a company are usually better suited to a Batalion. But even with the Company tickets there is no provision for getting the Company to the target zone. Yet most Merc Units are based on Broadsword or Javelin class "Mercenary Cruisers" that carry a Platoon.

I have always liked the Mercenary campaign but the economics have always been beyond me. What formulas have people come up with to determine what a Mercenary ticket will pay?

I have seen countless discussions about freighter economics. Building starships to turn a commercial profit. Using Trade and Speculation. But Mercenary Unit Economics seem to be left in the dark.

Any ideas?

 

[mike wightman]

I've run a couple of merc. campaigns. In the first the group was only a platoon sized cadre, their ticket was to train up a battalion, and act as a special force unit if needed.

They had to travel by liner or merchantman, so it took a while for them to all get on planet.

The second time involved a company strength unit who had to crew locally provided equipment and again train the local in its use. Once again transport to and from the ticket was via Tukera.

No way could they ever afford to operate their own mercenary cruiser without going pirate.

 

[Badbru]

I think we have a romantic ideal of mercenaries having "All the cool shit" so to speak. However I suspect, historically speaking, that you will find overwhealmingly that mercenaries have used either a) Patron supplied equipment. Rarely more than minimum required to get the job done, and rarer still is it "better than" your opponents gear. (Maybe less applicable in Traveller with all it's Tech levels)
b) Locally "acquired" equipment. That means local to where they are deployed, and acquired can mean alot of things...
or, c) Second hand, hand me down, junk that has been bought on the black market and smuggled in.

If the Merc's loose a Grav tank then that's the patrons' lookout. They probably wont hire you again. (No-one will be hiring the crew of lost grav tank, eeeew sticky). If, shock horror, the grav tank was theirs, then I'd suggest they go back to the scap yard they got it from and see if there is another lying about.
By that I mean most mercenary companies will really only be just the people.

If we start involving starships too then the only way to finance that is through battlefield salvage rights, I feel. If you loose a starship that'll be a major cost burden but if from every battle that you didn't loose a ship you gained/looted/salvaged one quarter of a ship in parts, like jump drives, powerplants, computers, turrets etc etc you may have a war chest to cover it. Perhaps.

 

[mike wightman]

It's always a good idea to be personally equiped a couple of TLs higher than the likely oposition.

If your ticket is to a TL8 or less world then a combat environent suit and either a laser carbine or an ACR would be my minimum.
Between TL9 and 11 I'd want combat armour and a gauss rifle. Anything higher and I'd look for another ticket.

 

[flykiller]

drew up a unit using book 4. one company of motorized infantry, tech 7. counted every paycheck, pistol, round of ammo, vehicle, and gallon of gasoline, in addition to assumed repair/maintenance costs, meals, housing, etc - fairly generous expectation of fuel and ammo usage. didn't count medical costs or life insurance. came up with a base cost of 5.3 MCr the first year, 3.9 MCr each follow-on year. this is with minimal pay, no profits, no replacement costs, no interstellar transportation, and no specialty skills. raise it to tech 12 with combat armor, plasma guns, and grav vehicles and I'd expect the base costs at to quadruple at least.

cadre and light-infantry commandos seem to be the only mercenary units possible without raising prices very high. toss in armor or air support and prices go through the roof. toss in a merc cruiser and it would be cheaper to bribe the enemy. "hey chief, we'll give you 50MCr to let us win."

 

[Ganidirsii O'Flynn]

In the mercenary campaigns I've played in, we actually did make money with the addition of 'reasonable expenses and combat losses' clauses.

Our unit was an expensive one, a heavy mechanized short company at TL 12, and supplied it's own transport in two Type R Vilani Flying Bricks and a Type C Fuzzy Ball of Mercenary Death. The unit itself consisted 6 TL 12 grav tanks, a platoon of dedicated infantry, and a support unit (medical, supply, maintainance, and two TL 9 mortars).

The clauses allowed for replacement of lost vehicles, ammuntions costs, and limited(!) spare parts. And use of the ships themselves was definately extra. And we were fairly picky about the contracts we took. We didn't do Internal Security jobs, and jobs that required extra conditions on the men were extra as well. These were considered to be Tainted Atmospheres, ProFors, and Cadre. Further, we insisted on tactical control of our operations, within reason. The idea was to keep our risks managable by doing jobs we were suited to, and not to be placed in untenable situations due to local politics. And we usually got paid in advance.

I should note that our campaign borrowed some info from the BattleTech universe regarding unit reputations, employer reputations, hiring halls and so on. We assumed that each stellar region (subsector, cluster, or what have you) had a world that was the principal mercenary gathering point, and that Hortalez et Cie. and Interstellarms were the principal bonding authorities.

That explain it, sorta?

 

[aramis]

I did much the same, Mr. O'Flynn... Bk4, MT, and BT Merc's Handbook...

Most of my merc games were SOG's... not line.

Mason Ferarri's Nail Teams were transported on Type T's. Mission costs included full charter of the needed type T's, prorate on the 5 year life of a suit of BD for each trooper, salary for each trooper, ammo load-out for at least 1000 rounds basic ammunitions, and 30 rounds of disposables (grenades & laws). Then mark up 50%, and require this PLUS repatriation bonds through LSP, HetC, Instellarms or Nasiraaka. Need to hire them? Simple, His excellency is readily found at Regina... and is active in the Sector Duke's court...

TO&E was a 10-man squad in IGB-BD-14, HoloHUD, TL14 2mm caseless HiVel carbine (a 3g3 design..) with a 100 round brick detachable box, . 2 PGMP14's, two radiomen, and a medic in the teams. At MCr 2.5 per suit, that's 500KCr/year, and the prorate was KCr40/month! Also, repairs escrow of MCr50 (refundable if not needed) for the ship.

So a one-month "Smash and grab" was starting at KCr40 for the suits, KCr 20 or so for the meat, KCr10 for ammo, plus the cost of transport. Call it MCr1.6 per month for a 10man Elite Battle Dress nail team with integral transport, plus 20 repatriation bonds. (Ship's crew, too.) Teams in the field could take new contracts under these terms, if en route home.

Of course, a lot of their jobs were "wetwork"... kill this target.

 

[BetterThanLife]

I have built a fair number of Merc Units. Platoons centered around a Type C. More recently around a Javelin. Companies, usually either a large ship or a Broadsword or two and 2-4 Subsidized Liners.

With or without armor support. Always with mobility faster than walking, and generally equipped in the TL12-14 range. Before T20 Combat Armor was standard because it was more cost effective than battle dress. It was always a fun campaign, but the tickets never seemed to cover the costs. It the ships were on a mortgage, (they were usually purchased outright or provided by a patron) there is no way they would get paid for.

The Patron, would never be able to show a profit during the life expectancy of a Mercenary unit, given the normal payment rates.

Also given the normal payment rates for tickets found in canon, if they are representative, Aramis, your teams would be priced out of the market. I don't believe your pricing scale is wrong, but canon tickets don't pay anywhere near that rate.

There are very few Platoon Tickets, the most lucrative is double standard salaries (which for a platoon payroll is nothing) and a 2 Million upon success (Adventure 7, Broadsword). Otherwise the best price is MCr1 success only. Most of the Company tickets are in the MCr1-2 range.

EA6 pays KCr150 per month for 6 months and expects you to hazard the boat during operations, in a situation where you are vastly outnumbered.

EA7 pays per operation, most of which are short duration, generally less than a week, but implies that you are sitting on your butt most of the time with no pay. Those tickets run in the KCr300 range for Platoon tickets, though one is MCr1. You are in almost all of them, running long odds with a shortage of equipment.

IMHO Mercenary Units are rarely going to get cushy assignments. Low risk decent pay assignments aren't going to exist in the majority of the Traveller Universe. If they are low risk, minimum exposure, they can use their own military. The assignments that Mercenary untis would generally be hired for will be missions like in EA 6 and EA 7 and Adventure 7. Unpopular missions. High risk at impossible odds, generally for the minimum pay that the hiring agency can get away with.

The one Star Merc ticket I have seen wouldn't even cover the operating expenses of the ship, yet was a 6 month anti-piracy sweep where the ship was supposed to act as bait.

I have Aslan Mercenary Cruisers, which details the Aslan Tleikhoi (or however it is spelled) Regiment. None of the published tickets would pay their operating expenses.

The key would be to calculate average mercenary units then compute expenses and restructure the pay rates in the canon material to deal with those.

Amortizing armor and expensive personal equipment over 5 years sounds reasonable, perhaps 10 years with Organic Starships, and armored vehicles.

You would also have to calculate the average length of contracts and the average down time between contracts. (To include transport time between contracts.) Remembering that People contracting Mercenaries aren't going to want to pay for them to sit on their butts (That is what they have an Army for.

). The contract has to include pay for transit but not look like pay during transit.

I think the tickets that say double salary without a bonus would have to go.

However asking the Patron to pay for combat losses is unreasonable. Giving a Mercenary Unit a blank check for expenses is a bad idea. Suddenly a MCr2 ticket turning into MCr20, because a few vehicles got "damaged" would not go over well with the clients.

I also think that Human Mercenaries would prefer to travel awake and human mercenary commanders would prefer this as well. Travelling in Low Berth is like travelling on repartriation bonds, in other words for losers. It is a morale thing.

 

[Hal]

If it helps put things in perspective...

Using GURPS GROUND FORCES, I've thus far identified the cost of maintaining a Battalion level unit of TL 15 Lift infantry as being over 109 MCr per year. This does not include various costs such as basing costs, fluctuations in pay for hardship pay, health care, retirement costs, etc. It is just the cost of wages, maintenance cost on equipment issued for standard infantrymen, as well as maintenance costs for vehicles. I did not include costs such as radios for commo intercepts, battalion level communications, etc. At a guess, if you're using straight costs from STRIKER or MEGATRAVELLER etc, that the costs will be comparable to GURPS prices, if not more.

Also note, I did not include costs for training either. As a rough rule of thumb, I'd be willing to bet that cost to maintain a Battalion of Lift Infantry runs around 150 Mcr per year.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Thanks Hal. Though a Batalion is outside of typical Traveller campaign sizes. Does that include transport, to and from the tickets?

 

[Hal]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
Thanks Hal. Though a Batalion is outside of typical Traveller campaign sizes. Does that include transport, to and from the tickets?

Sorry for the delay in answering your question

That does not include the cost of transportation. Also keep in mind that was for the yearly cost of operations and maintainance - so divide it by any factor you desire. If you're interested in company sized units, let me know, as I can give you the data on that easily enough

 

[BetterThanLife]

My rough guess would be to use 10% of equipment cost per year (maintenance, combat losses and ammo), minus organic starships unless the starship was expected to take an active role in the unit's missions, plus salaries x2, (Have to account for bonuses.) plus 20% of personal equipment cost (to amortize over 5 years), plus 10% of major equipment cost (to amortize over 10 years), plus organic starship mortgage cost, plus organic starship maintenance, per year.

Does that sound like a reasonable formula?


Energy weapon armed troops would cost less ammo wise but more when it comes to equipment maintenance costs.

Based on that and bulk transport for vehicle cost, that may or may not be useful at the target site, I would suggest that most Merc Units would be light infantry.

There are some definite equipment issues with Mercenary campaigns as well. For example there is no squad level man portable supressive fire weapon above TL6, though I seem to recall TNE having one. The infantry rifle advances but the machinegun doesn't. Of the energy weapons only the laser rifle has any sustained combat capability. (Everything else runs out of ammo too fast and extra power packs are definitely excessively bulky.)

 

[Hal]

I guess to some extent, especially since I have NO mercenary experience You might want to take this with a grain of salt.

A) most equipment that the Mercenaries buy are picked up second hand and usually cheap. As such, equipment costs should be lower by a considerable margin.

B) Ships are in and of themselves expensive as all hell to purchase and maintain. Your best bet would be to decide just how much cargo capacity you need, how much transport capacity you need, and hoof it from there. Remember, it is far cheaper to arrange for a 2 month charter and not need the transport for the remaining 10 months, than it is to purchase a ship, maintain it 12 months out of 12, and need that albatros around your neck as you finance your own operations on the ground

C) when it comes to ticket prices, I suspect that mercenary pay is going to have to be one of those "art of the GM" kind of things than any given formulaeic kind of thing. For example, your unit is hired by low income natives of a world - they can't afford to pay TOP of the line prices, but closer to bottom of the line prices instead. If there is a shortage of jobs, then you won't be able to take higher paying ones unless you're lucky, hence, you take it to keep from starving. On the flip side, you might have a unit that is so good, that people are willing to pay for what amounts to a KNOWN quanity of assured or near assured success. My guess? A functional unit constantly scavenges the battlefield as part of its contract with the employer required to pay for transport. Thus, you defeat your foe, the contract lets you loot your battlefields - you make a profit from the loot either as war material for your unit, or as something to sell and then buy what you need later. That's how I'd run it at least.

First - count how much it costs to train a guy to minimal levels. Then compute how much it costs to arm him to the unit standards. Then, charge the transport costs directly against the employer himself. And, like Hammer's Slammers - authorize some bank to hold in escrow, the agreed upon payment with a negotiator lined up in case of a dispute. Include some sort of penalty clauses for anything injurious to your unit ahead of time.

If you want? I can dig up my old MERCENARIES booklet, plus STRIKER, plus any other stipulations you might have, and work on it as a spare time project. When do you need it by?

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Hal:
I guess to some extent, especially since I have NO mercenary experience You might want to take this with a grain of salt.

I actually doubt that anyone here has any serious Mercenary experience, but I could be wrong.

A) most equipment that the Mercenaries buy are picked up second hand and usually cheap. As such, equipment costs should be lower by a considerable margin.

I think that would depend on several factors.

1. The feel of the campaign. In grittier futures this would be more true than nice clean ones.

2. The level of quality of the Mercenary Unit.

3. The size of the Unit. After all how likely are you to be able to pick up 36 slightly used Gauss Rifles, with the same specs, spare parts, ammunition and magazines? How about 150?

4. The length of service that the unit is likely to be together for. If it is one short tour, more likely. If it is a unit that intends to work together over a period of several tickets and years, less likely.

5. The amount of marketing that the Unit engages in. Nice pretty weapons uniform weapons, and other equipment will sell the unit to prospective clients easier than a conglomeration of junk that looks like you picked it up at a Army Surplus store and a swap meet.

B) Ships are in and of themselves expensive as all hell to purchase and maintain. Your best bet would be to decide just how much cargo capacity you need, how much transport capacity you need, and hoof it from there. Remember, it is far cheaper to arrange for a 2 month charter and not need the transport for the remaining 10 months, than it is to purchase a ship, maintain it 12 months out of 12, and need that albatros around your neck as you finance your own operations on the ground

Yes and no. After all if you can't get to the job, or travel between jobs because you have to wait on a ship visiting your current location that is available for charter and has sufficient capacity, you are going to be sitting idle much more often. It of course depends on the level of traffic and the distance to the next destination. Further a dedicated Mercenary Cruiser will have a crew that is trained to put you on your objective, even in a hot LZ, with the right equipment to get your troops down and pick them up. Further a dedicated ship can provide the missing artillery support that your small unit otherwise would do without. Yes it is expensive but it could also pay for itself since you can react faster and therefore get more jobs.

Further since this is Traveller. For some reason players like to have means to travel. So Starships for Mercenary Units actually have to be considered.

C) when it comes to ticket prices, I suspect that mercenary pay is going to have to be one of those "art of the GM" kind of things than any given formulaeic kind of thing. For example, your unit is hired by low income natives of a world - they can't afford to pay TOP of the line prices, but closer to bottom of the line prices instead. If there is a shortage of jobs, then you won't be able to take higher paying ones unless you're lucky, hence, you take it to keep from starving. On the flip side, you might have a unit that is so good, that people are willing to pay for what amounts to a KNOWN quanity of assured or near assured success. My guess? A functional unit constantly scavenges the battlefield as part of its contract with the employer required to pay for transport. Thus, you defeat your foe, the contract lets you loot your battlefields - you make a profit from the loot either as war material for your unit, or as something to sell and then buy what you need later. That's how I'd run it at least.

But what is that battlefield salvage likely to be worth. After all it is all shot up. Especially in a Low tech environment. Further you have to not just salvage and sort it but you also now have to transport it. Yes a Unit will make money from this type of situation, but it is not assured, nor highly lucrative. Tanks with holes in them aren't worth much.

First - count how much it costs to train a guy to minimal levels. Then compute how much it costs to arm him to the unit standards. Then, charge the transport costs directly against the employer himself. And, like Hammer's Slammers - authorize some bank to hold in escrow, the agreed upon payment with a negotiator lined up in case of a dispute. Include some sort of penalty clauses for anything injurious to your unit ahead of time.

Now that is fine and good but what does it cost to train up a recruit? (That cost is not covered in the rules.

) If you are waiting on some transport, or the new patron to provide transport you could end up like Falkenberg's legion. Stuck on a planet with no job and no prospects, so you have to take any job that comes along to get you off the planet.

If you want? I can dig up my old MERCENARIES booklet, plus STRIKER, plus any other stipulations you might have, and work on it as a spare time project. When do you need it by?

<EDIT> Ooops Missed this.

This is more an exercise in process and identifying potential problems before they come up. I can design Mercenary Units, come up with missions for them, etc. (I don't have a Merc background but I do have an intelligence and infantry background so I understand missions and mission parameters fairly well.

) I am just trying to establish a good baseline for ticket pricing. To do that I have to first, figure out a decent formula to calculate what a unit's expenses are going to be. After that I will need to make a determination as to the frequency of tickets, and how a unit gets tickets in the first place. </EDIT>

 

[clementk]

People may find the Mercenary Unit Ticket contest thread useful. Some practical matters were hashed out in the process. Mainly based on Book 4, Striker, and T20 along with real life military and mercenary experience of the judges.

 

[aramis]

One other consideration for integral transports is mission types.

The units I ran for were nail-mission specialists. In at least one case, the Duke hired teams out to both sides for near-simultaneous missions; each came in with both sets of codes, just in case... and orders to not interfere with each other's missions. For this type of mission, get in, hit the target, get out, relying on trusted associates is a vital part of mission morale and operations. Part of the premium price.

For line infantry, no, integral transport makes no sense... you can hire companies for the costs of a nail mission elite spec-ops team. Nail missions are hired for their very deniability.

Another mission the Duke chose to field a team for was a dispatch from a field marshal, asking the duke for his assistance in ending a war by eradicating the head of the government, so that the successor could take over. The elite team jumps in, makes no "overt" moves, then last minute, having received their targeting, divert, drop, assassinate, and leave. Playing through the court intrigues following were a hoot.

 

[BetterThanLife]

For Line Infantry integrated transport makes no sense, Aramis? For small 2-8 man teams that can and probably should travel covertly using commercial transport, to avoid notice, limiting the unit to a couple of specialized courier ships makes sense. For a Line unit that is expected to deploy in larger numbers?

Example:

Grav Belt equipped Light Infantry Company. You can accept a ticket that is 3 parsecs away but you are on a backwater planet. How are you going to get 150 men and approximately 60 displacement tons of gear to the target zone? (That does include 4 air/rafts, 4 combat loads of ammo, 4 weeks of C-Rats, TL12 Combat Armor, but nothing heavier than a PGMP-12 for weapons.)

If you accept Low Berth passage for some of your troops, it would still take more than 3 trips on a subsidized liner, if you can get lucky enough to find one that is available for charter. With minimal turn around time, it would take you 8 weeks to make the transit. On the other hand, if you keep your leadership and medics awake, you could (using the two spare cutter modules to carry low berths and a little of your cargo space to catch the overflow.) move the entire company on a Single Broadsword Class Mercenary Cruiser. Instead of a minimum 2 months between tickets you now can run tickets with less than a month between them as long as they are a reasonable distance apart. (That is get the ticket, train, load up and travel up to 9 parsecs.) With your command staff awake you can refine your battle plan enroute.

Your Mercenary Unit is also more marketable as they can get there within a reasonable, defined, timeframe, with their gear. If they have to wait for transport or worse yet, find transport, they will take quite a bit longer and not be as marketable.

Your 2-8 man teams could always find passage. Moving a Company, requires transport or long periods of time between tickets. Typical starship encounter charts gives about a 20% chance of a ship encounter. (Any ship, not just an appropiate ship.) How long can you afford to sit around and wait for the right ship or combination of ships to move your unit to another destination?

 

[BetterThanLife]

I just thought about this. What are good ways for typical Mercenary Units to get tickets? Since communication is limited to the Speed of Ship, that would pose some issues in terms of getting the word out that you need Mercenaries. It would also make hiring Mercenaries Units quite a bit more difficult.

If you need a Mercenary Unit to accomplish a mission, you could:

1. Have a few on retainer, and send couriers to each of them and see who is available.

2. Post a ticket on the X-Boat Network and see who applies for the job. (Which is what many of the tickets look like.)

3. Hire individual Mercenaries and try to form them into a unit for your particular job.

4. Mercenary Units register with a broker. The broker then gets a request for a Merc Unit, and sends a Courier to the Merc Unit to give them notice of the job. The Broker gets a finder's fee off the top.

5. Mercenary Units Post their Brag Sheet and availability on the X-Boat network. They maintain a courier at the nearest X-Boat Station. A Client with a job offer simply sends the request via the X-Boat Network to the Mercenary Unit, or to several Mercenary Units that have availability that fits your time frame and capabilities that fit the job. The Courier can be a specialized ship or the Unit's inherent transport. (Which would also make supply runs for the unit.)

Looking at these. 3 is the fastest way to get troops but also likely to have the lowest success rate. 2 will get you what you want, but 2 is very public and has disadvantages, in that you have no idea who will respond. 1 will get you what you are looking for but is the most expensive and assumes that you will use Mercenary services on a regular basis. 4 and 5 strike me as the most likely.

5 makes the most sense for units that are Ground based units. Star Mercs would need a seperate courier craft or need to use a Broker.

Brokers would have to be trusted implicitedly by the unit.

For the seperate Courier craft, something along the lines of the Zhodani Leader Scout would be a good choice, especially for Star Merc outfits that are acting as escort or patrol craft among several worlds. For Ground units, something with the same jump capability as the Unit's transport, would be sufficient, though something faster would be a good idea for units that tend to operate away from the X-Boat network.

In areas wihtout X-Boat networks there will still be transportation hubs, though brokers would probably be more prevalent.

 

[ravells]

If war is about to break out or has already broken out, presumably a good broker with his ear to the ground will approach the either of the adversaries and try to sell their mercs to them.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by ravs:
If war is about to break out or has already broken out, presumably a good broker with his ear to the ground will approach the either of the adversaries and try to sell their mercs to them.

The problem you run into here is that Mercenary operations have to be planned ahead of time. For security operations, this is no big deal. Otherwise you are looking at a probable minimum of 2 months from the time you decide you want Mercs to actually having Mercs. But yes the concept of using Mercs can be proposed by a Broker or another agent of the Mercenary Unit. I am thinking that the owner of the Mercenary Unit is not likely to actually lead the unit in combat, the owner's job will primarily be to line up jobs. If the Owner is actually going to lead the unit then there will be a dedicated non-combat person, with each unit that will be looking for work while the unit is working. (And that person is unlikely to be the commander of the Mercenary Unit's Transport vessel either.)