Merchant cruisers, the Millenium Falcon, and the profit imperative: a rant of sorts

[Black Globe Generator]

I'm a big fan of Adventure 4. A merchant exploration mission searching for new markets in a poorly known subsector - this is cool! Sure, the fact that there are "unknown" worlds just a stone's throw from the Imperial border didn't make much sense - and then there are those goofy jump torpedoes - but the idea of contacting forgotten worlds in the shadows beyond the edge of Imperial illumination was pretty exciting stuff.

And then there's Leviathan herself. Re-reading the adventure yesterday (thanks, Titan Games!), I luxuriated in the precise details of the ship - this hatch opens this way, here's the small galley that serves the bridge crew, in this compartment are the environmental controls for the cargo bay...brilliant, just brilliant. No other deckplan gave me that same feeling of, "Wow, this is what a big ship would really be like!"

Except for the cargo hold.

Seventy tons. For an 1800-dton merchant ship.

My character was fortunate enough, way back in the day, to captain the mighty Leviathan on its journey across the Outrim Void, and I remember being frustrated by the tiny hold - I was pretty good at turning a profit, you see (to the point where we almost never encountered the Droyne in Twilight's Peak since we were making so many credits trading along the Main), and that darn seventy tons just didn't cut it for a truly mercantile adventurer. I filled the various ship's boats with trade goods on the way out and again on the return voyage, and even then our profits were modest (at least by my standards - once you've made that first 100 MCr, anything less feels like pocket change!).

I see this same thing in many ship designs, like the Lorimar or various and sundry "fast traders" (the progeny of naval architects suffering from "Millenium Falcon syndrome") that pop up from time to time. These designs give my suspension of disbelief a swift kick in the slats. I have a hard enough time figuring out how any sane financial institution would finance a far trader, let alone any of these monstrosities - in fact, IMTU a character must have a successful trading history, decent starting capital, and a business plan that's a bit more detailed than "look for odd jobs" in order to finance a type A2.

T20 gives me a little bit of relief with priority cargos for fast traders - at least that slim cargo tonnage can be stretched a bit, but the event horizon of the debt gravity well looms large should the ship leave a populous route. And merchant cruisers are partially subsidized by their parent companies in anticipation of future profits - spending money to make money, as it were - but this is cold-comfort to a crew that is expecting a percentage of the profits on a type MC trading expedition.

Still, the idea that anyone is interested in designing and building merchant ships that have little or no chance of breaking even, let alone turning a profit strains my credulity more than a ten-ton computer ever will. Merchants exist to make money, and IMHO their ships should reflect this.

Why build a Leviathan when you can build a 3000-ton Tukera Lines-style freighter and a 400-ton patrol cruiser to escort it for about the same investment? Twelve-hundred tons of trade goods compared to seventy seems like a heck of a good incentive, and if operating beyond the border is the justification, the ten turrets on the freighter along with the four turrets of the speedy type T kick the snot out of either a Leviathan or a Lorimar.

The reason that these ships get built is a metagame one, of course - it's because they make fun platforms for players and their characters. I find no fault in this logic - it's a game, it should be exciting, and the Leviathan is an exciting ship, especially when your referee springs both a Chamax Horde-like alien infestation and a mutiny on you! (Our referee homebrewed all the planets in the Void and the associated rumors, since two or three of us already owned and read the adventure before we played.)

Nonetheless, it's my one sticking point in the TU - strangely enough, I can accept many of the oddities that hang up other Traveller gamers, but merchant ships that are unlikely to turn a profit set my eyes to rolling faster than you can say, "feudal technocracy."

 

[Golan2072]

One way to solve the "Far Trader" issue is to charge per parsec of transport rather than per jump (I even consider giving 3-parsecs-per-week travels a 10% surcharge). Also, some planets will be problematic to get to (i.e. require drop-tanks at best and take two weeks) without Jump-2+.

IMTU the star density is a bit closer to the realistic one rather than to the OTU one, so there are less "mains" and more Jump-2-only worlds; most starships are Jump-2, with Jump-1 used only in certain localities (i.e. in the small "mains"). Before Jump-2 was invented, most Jump-1 ships had enough internal fuel tankage for 2-Jump-1. Jump-3 is rarely needed IMTU to get to one place without interstellar "calibration" (Jump-2 is usually enough), but it could make detours to cut travel time. Nescery for the military and the corps, far less for trade goods.

Turrets-wise, most small starships (that is, 1,000 dtons or less) IMTU are usually produced with the maximum amount of hardpoints, but (in the case of purely civilian designs) no turrets or weapons intsalled. Hardpoints are cheap (in starship-price terms, that is), small (1 dton per hardpoint) and customizability brings customers. Above 1,000 dtons the practice is typically to assign half the maximum amount of hardpoints (for ship intended for frontier use) or one third (for ships intended to be used in the safe core-worlds).

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
One way to solve the "Far Trader" issue is to charge per parsec of transport rather than per jump.

Fie on per-parsec cargo costs! Fie, I say!



This is one of the things I like with respect to T20 priority cargos - it works alongside the inviolable concept of charging per jump rather than per parsec for standard cargos that is acid-etched in canon.

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
Also, some planets will be problematic to get to (i.e. require drop-tanks at best and take two weeks) without Jump-2+.

And this is why type A2s get built at all, IMHO - a master interested in such a vessel better have a good record in business ventures before she can hope to get a loan and insurance for such a ship.

 

[mike wightman]

Go and read this thread over at Steve Jackson Games' forums.

You'll find some interesting stuff in there about the role of a Merchant Cruiser.

 

[Whipsnade]

BGG,

The thread Sigg has linked is a good one. To paraphrase the conversation there; Leviathan is a merchant explaratory cruiser and not just a merchant ship. Daryen put it very well in the thread; Leviathan carries beads out to the natives.

The vessel doesn't carry a cargo of freight or specualtive trade goods. Instead, she carries samples and know how.

A firm is interested in trading opportunities along a certain or within a certain region. They take a ship, load it with samples of likely trade goods, and staff it with contact specialists, master traders, money jugglers, and player characters, then dispatch it on its mission.

When a vessel arrives at world, it doesn't stay for the usual "One week, find passengers, scramble for cargo" period. Instead, the ship and her crew explore the world from an economic viewpoint. Likely goods are identified, suppliers approached, and business relationships begun. At the same time, the various samples the ship carries are presented to likely purchasers and consumers.

The idea is to create a basis for future trade, trade that other vessels will undertake becuase those vessels have the carrying capacity to do so.

You can also see that this 'economic exploring' is made to order for role-playing. QLI has a wonderful pdf on this very subject; Merchant Cruiser.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Go and read this thread over at Steve Jackson Games' forums.

You'll find some interesting stuff in there about the role of a Merchant Cruiser.

I did, thank you.

I'm going to borrow a quote from the SJG forum, courtesy of Bill Cameron:

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Instead of being a merchantman or merchant cruiser, I've always viewed Leviathan as a merchant exploratory cruiser. She goes where no trader has gone before, hence all the back-up systems and the relatively large crews. She doesn't plod along the spacelanes carrying 542 dTons of Stroudenese imitation neck sleeves to Lunion every two weeks. She carries samples of various goods to flog to new markets while sampling any new or unusual goods those markets may have. Leviathan simply 'discovered' that Perrior/Pax Rulin mineral water that is all the rage among the upper crust of Glisten, other merchant ships now carry it back in the quantities required.

I understand this is the intent of the merchant cruisers - why pokes my suspension of disbelief is the idea that this is something that a corporation would find profitable enough to underwrite. This goes beyond speculative trading and into the realm of playing three-card monte in a back-alley with the company trust.

When I think of merchants exploring new markets, I think of Robert Gray and the Columbia - the backers of the expedition expected Gray and Kendrick not only to explore the PNW coast but to make a profit on the voyage as well, and they were supplied accordingly from the outset. This is much more of what I envision from the kinds of frontier missions undertaken by corporations IMTU, not exploration for exploration's sake.

Merchant cruisers are incredibly expensive to produce for a wholly uncertain return. That they exist seems to me to be solely for metagame reasons.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Looks like you posted while I was composing!

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Daryen put it very well in the thread; Leviathan carries beads out to the natives.

And that's exactly what Kendrick and Gray carried in the Columbia and the Lady Washington - the difference was that the cargo wasn't merely symbolic, but rather an attempt to turn a profit from the trip.

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
The vessel doesn't carry a cargo of freight or specualtive trade goods. Instead, she carries samples and know how.].

This is an insanely expensive way for a corporation to explore new markets, IMHO, and it also belies one of the explicitly stated reward systems in the adventures: profit.

In Adventure 4, the crew all expect to earn a percentage of the resale of trade goods obtained on the voyage - the captain gets 4%, for example, which was my incentive to pack the every bit of empty with goods on both the voyages out and back from Egryn.

Unless you trade exclusively in low-bulk, high-value goods, you cannot expect a generous return on seventy tons of cargo space, and to assume that lanthanum or zuchai crystals or radioactives in readily-transportable amounts is like putting your whole stake on double-zero the minute you step up to the roulette table. This is what sucks some of the air out of the adventure for me: what board of directors would ever greenlight this?

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
A firm is interested in trading opportunities along a certain or within a certain region. They take a ship, load it with samples of likely trade goods, and staff it with contact specialists, master traders, money jugglers, and player characters, then dispatch it on its mission.

When a vessel arrives at world, it doesn't stay for the usual "One week, find passengers, scramble for cargo" period. Instead, the ship and her crew explore the world from an economic viewpoint. Likely goods are identified, suppliers approached, and business relationships begun. At the same time, the various samples the ship carries are presented to likely purchasers and consumers.

The idea is to create a basis for future trade, trade that other vessels will undertake becuase those vessels have the carrying capacity to do so.

Arguably all of this is more properly the realm of the IISS, not a private corporation which must answer to its investors, but for the sake of argument, let's assume for the moment that this is an accepted business practice in the Third Imperium - after all, Adventure 4 is canon!

This then raises another question: Is a ship like Leviathan or Lorimar really suited to this task? Why not purchase (or build new) a much less expensive Donosev-class vessel and outfit it instead? Are the redundant systems and large crews of both Leviathan and Lorimar really necessary to perform a task that the Scouts do with far fewer people?

It screams inefficiency to me, and that's just a bad business practice.

The fact remains that Leviathan is not merely expected to "return samples" but rather to turn a profit as an incentive to the crew, something that is woefully inequipped to do.

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
You can also see that this 'economic exploring' is made to order for role-playing. QLI has a wonderful pdf on this very subject; Merchant Cruiser.

(I have Merchant Cruiser, and though I haven't played it, it looks like a hoot.

And ultimately this is, to me, the only reason that merchant cruisers and "trade exploration" exists in the game. Not that it's a bad reason - as both a ref and a player, it's one of the most enjoyable ways to adventure to be sure! - but IMTU, the ships and the trade goods are intended to be profitable as well as entertaining.

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Black Globe Generator: When I think of merchants exploring new markets, I think of Robert Gray and the Columbia - the backers of the expedition expected Gray and Kendrick not only to explore the PNW coast but to make a profit on the voyage as well, and they were supplied accordingly from the outset.

BGG,

Apples and oranges.

Gray wasn't 'exploring' anything other than previously known trading opportunities. The coastline was already known well enough for him to sail along it, the presence of the natives was already known, the trade goods the natives had to offer was already known, and the trade goods the natives wanted was already known.

All Gray 'expored' was whether a larger volume of regular trade involving known goods conducted by white men could be set up by sea instead of across the continent.

In contrast, Leviathan and her ilk are exploring 'new' worlds. Not totally unknown worlds as A:4 suggests (one of its weakest aspects, IMHO) but economically unknown worlds. What goods are available? What goods are in demand? What trading potentials may have been overlooked by both the locals and visitors in the past? What has changed since the last time we visited?

In the Real World, corporations, states, and nations routinely send trade missions abroad at some cost to 'economical explore' very well known markets. Sometimes they earn back their cost, but the real payoff comes from the trade that follows.

Columbus personally didn't earn the Spanish Crown a dime, yet they underwrote three voyages that were very costly for the period. Later, Spain did earn back - and much, much more - the 'start-up' costs Columbus' voyages represented.

Nearly all exploration followed a similar pattern. The Portugeuse effort to round Africa didn't pay off until De Gama reached India decades after the project began. The yearly exploratory voyages before that never paid for themselves despite the slaves, gold, and ivory they broght back.

The purely trading fleets following in the exploratory fleet's wake did make money, but they weren't pushing south towards the Cape and beyond. They exploited the trading relationships the exploratory fleet had already discovered.

That's what merchant explorers like Leviathan are; they're R&D efforts. The payoff is in the future they discover.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Chaos]

I have wondered about that very thing, too. But there´s more... I´ve played around with ship design quite a bit, too, and hardly any of the traders, freighters and whatever that I constructed were able to break even by carrying a full hold of cargo and and filling their staterooms with double occupancy High Passengers.
In particular, things like installing and arming turrets (and carrying gunners, even if some regular crew doubles as some of the gunners), carrying more than one very small Small Craft, or installing something bigger than Jump-2 (plus fuel) drove the "Credits needed per jump per d-ton of freight" number through the roof.

That is, these ships needed to engage in speculative trade - and be *good* at it - in order to be able to make ends meet. IIRC the Free Trader and Far Trader can just barely avoid red numbers, but that´s it. IF they can fill up to capacity.

This seems illogical to me. Sure, there´s a good *game* reason for that - it forces the PCs to take a risk to earn money - but in reality, things wouldn´t work that way. Prices would rise, in other words.

I admit I haven´t tried to construct really big ships (10,000+ d-tons), so there might be some designs in that range that can make money just hauling freight and passengers. But then, these ships are only going to be economical when they can consistently load up to full capacity, which is probably only possible on the main trade routes, if at all.

Which, in the end, leads me to the - provisional - conclusion that transportation fees are not the same all over space. Particularly, you´ll see lower prices where the little Free Traders have to compete with the 100,000 d-ton megacorporation freighter, and higher prices where they don´t. *Much* higher prices, in out-of-the-way places.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
Apples and oranges.

I'm sorry, but I respectfully disagree. Neither the coast nor its markets were that well-known, even to the British and Spanish who'd exploited them for decades by the time the Americans arrived on the scene - heck, Vancouver missed the bloody great Columbia River, and even questioned Gray's report after it was charted!

A general understanding that there were people somewhere in the PNW who would trade pelts and fish for manufactured goods, yes - beyond that, not much.

Now contrast that with the information contained in the rumors pages of Adventure 4 - there is a considerable amount of information available to intrepid adventurers before Leviathan leaves port.

And to continue the contrast, there is next-to-nothing unknown to the crew of the Lorimar about the Gateway.

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
In the Real World, corporations, states, and nations routinely send trade missions abroad at some cost to 'economical explore' very well known markets....

Virtually every one of these early explorers did so under government subsidy - that's not the case with Leviathan (unless I missed something about BT working under contract to the IISS or the Ministry of Commerce...?). Private companies didn't appear on the scene, usually with royal charter in hand, until after the initial government-funded exploration was complete.

Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
That's what merchant explorers like Leviathan are; they're R&D efforts. The payoff is in the future they discover.

I would buy this argument if the adventure stipulated that the crew received a percentage of the market, rather than the pittance they are likely to earn from the cargo.

My point here is not the relationship between exploration and trade - it's the specific tools suggested in the game as the means by which this comes about (merchant cruisers with execrable cargo capacity) and who pays the bills (private companies answerable to their shareholders).

[Edited to fix a formatting goof.]

 

[Whipsnade]

Originally posted by Black Globe Generator:
This is an insanely expensive way for a corporation to explore new markets, IMHO...

BGG,

Explain how it can been done in other ways then.

You've got a setting where communications move as fast as the ships that carry them. Not every world is on major trade and/or comm routes you'll need in order to dispatch 'drummers' or other lone traders. You need to get a representative selection of your trade goods to the target location(s) along with the personnel who can dig up the needed information, establish the required relationships, and make the important decisions. How else can you do that except by ship?

... and it also belies one of the explicitly stated reward systems in the adventures: profit.

That's an artifact of it being a RPG campaign and not an integral part of the idea behind an exploratory trading mission.

Unless you trade exclusively in low-bulk, high-value goods...

Which is exactly what you'll be packing aboard for both trips. You'll have samples of the trade goods you want to flog plus known high value, low bulk goods like medicines, gems, and luxuries. You'll bring the same back in return.

This is what sucks some of the air out of the adventure for me...

You're not supposed to get filthy rich in the adventure and you're not relying on your cut of the trade goods either. You're paid double the normal salary for your position and skill rating. The 'cut' of the goods you recieve - which is described as a reward - depends on whether the mission is regarded a success or not. Let me quote the mission objectives from A:4 that success will judged against:

The objective is to discover new trading possibilities, and to bring back sample trade goods, reports and survey data.

You'll notice no mention of 'a cargo that will aloow the crew to split 1 million CrImps among themselves'.

... what board of directors would ever greenlight this?

The same sort of board of directors that greenlights research and development expenditures.

Arguably all of this is more properly the realm of the IISS...

Why? Does the IISS have a Commerical Opportunities Division we've all somehow overlooked on the LBB:6 organization charts? Did the RN, USN, or any other government body involved in surveying and exploration also undertake trade and commerical missions?

... not a private corporation which must answer to its investors...

Investors who will be wnating to know just what you've done to expand the firm's markets.

... but for the sake of argument, let's assume for the moment that this is an accepted business practice in the Third Imperium...

It's just not an accepted business practice in the Third Imperium, it is an accepted business practice in the Real World!

This then raises another question: Is a ship like Leviathan or Lorimar really suited to this task?

I'll be the first to admit that Leviathan has too many drives, too many small craft, and is woefully underarmed. A:4 is an early CT adventure and a non-GDW adventure to boot. Leviathan would be much better suited for long range surveys of relatively unknown regions and not for popping over the subsector border a few parsecs.

However, the idea of merchant exploration cruisers is still sound and not every ship used for such a task is a Leviathan. In D:6 'Night of Conquest', the merchant exploration cruiser is the Scotian Huntress, a Marava-class far trader.

It screams inefficiency to me, and that's just a bad business practice.

Inefficient in the short term perhaps. After all, what is immediately gained from an R&D budget?

The fact remains that Leviathan is not merely expected to "return samples" but rather to turn a profit as an incentive to the crew...

No. The crew is already well paid and their cut of the cargo is a reward for a successful mission. Whether or not the mission is a success depends less on what is in the hold and more on what is in the data they bring back.

A crew that brings back gems at 1 million CrImps per dTon and a fistful of tourist brouchures covering "Old Doc Shemp's Alligator Farm and Salt Water Taffy Factory" on Kydde isn't going to get any reward at all no matter what is in the hold because the mission failed.

... but IMTU, the ships and the trade goods are intended to be profitable as well as entertaining.

Let me point out that A:4 isn't a trading or merchant adventure at all. You're looking at through the wrong set of glasses, as your Captain Gray/Columbia analogy suggests. A:4 is about exploration, exploration with an economic bent, but exploration nonetheless. A:4 is not about trading at all.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Golan2072]

Here's my attempt at scaling down the Leviathan while retaining the overall approach. The result is 416.5 dtons of cargo rather than 70. Removing all backup equipment would yeald 526.5 dtons of cargo.

Ship: Leviathan
Class: Leviathan
Type: Exploratory Trader
Architect: Bilstein Yards
Tech Level: 13
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">USP
MC-A4323E2-000000-60004-0 MCr1,285.2 1.8 KTons
Bat Bear 1 1 Crew: 33
Bat 1 1 TL: 13</pre>[/QUOTE]Cargo: 416.5 Passengers: 4 Low: 6 Fuel: 594 EP: 54 Agility: 2 Shipboard Security Detail: 2
Craft: 1x 95T Shuttle, 2x 20T Launchs, 1x 4T Pressurized Air/Raft
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification
Backups: 1x 1G Maneuver Drive 1x Jump 1 Drive 1x Factor 1 Power Plant 1x Model/2bis Computer

Architects Fee: MCr12.2 Cost in Quantity: MCr1,040.5


Detailed Description
(High Guard Design)

HULL
1,800 tons standard, 25,200 cubic meters, Close Structure Configuration

CREW
11 Officers, 22 Ratings (11 Command, 3 Engineering, 3 Gunnery, 10 Flight, 4 Services, 2 Security)

ENGINEERING
Jump-3, 2G Manuever, Power plant-3, 54 EP, Agility 2
1xJump-1 Backup, 1x1G Manuever Backup, 1xPower plant-1 Backup

AVIONICS
Bridge, Model/5fib Computer
1xModel/2bis Backup Computer

HARDPOINTS
18 Hardpoints

ARMAMENT
- 4x Dual Missile Turrets organised into 1 Battery (Factor-4)
- 6x Dual Beam Laser Turrets organised into 1 Battery (Factor-6)
- 8x Empty Hardpoints and 8 tons reserved for Fire Control

DEFENCES
None

CRAFT
- 1x 95-ton Shuttle (Crew of 2, Cost of MCr33)
- 2x 20-ton Launchs (Crew of 2, Cost of MCr14)
- 1x 4-ton Pressurized Air/Raft (Cost of MCr0.6)

FUEL
594 Tons Fuel (3 parsecs jump and 28 days endurance)
On Board Fuel Scoops, On Board Fuel Purification Plant

MISCELLANEOUS
37 Staterooms, 6 Low Berths, 4 Middle Passengers, 6 Low Passengers, 416.5 Tons Cargo

COST
MCr1,235.9 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr12.2), MCr978.9 in Quantity, plus MCr61.6 of Carried Craft

CONSTRUCTION TIME
130 Weeks Singly, 104 Weeks in Quantity

 

[Golan2072]

A little side bonus - the Belgardian Lancer described in A4, p.15.

Ship: Lancer
Class: Lancer
Type: Lancer
Architect: Belgard
Tech Level: 9
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">USP
LM-2114531-000000-00003-0 MCr167.2 200 Tons
Bat Bear 1 Crew: 5
Bat 1 TL: 9</pre>[/QUOTE]Cargo: 20 Fuel: 70 EP: 10 Agility: 4
Fuel Treatment: Fuel Scoops and On Board Fuel Purification

Architects Fee: MCr1.7 Cost in Quantity: MCr133.8


Detailed Description
(High Guard Design)

HULL
200 tons standard, 2,800 cubic meters, Needle/Wedge Configuration

CREW
Pilot, 2 Engineers, Medic, Gunner

ENGINEERING
Jump-1, 4G Manuever, Power plant-5, 10 EP, Agility 4

AVIONICS
Bridge, Model/3 Computer

HARDPOINTS
2 Hardpoints

ARMAMENT
2 Triple Missile Turrets organised into 1 Battery (Factor-3)

DEFENCES
None

CRAFT
None

FUEL
70 Tons Fuel (3 parsecs jump and 28 days endurance)
On Board Fuel Scoops, On Board Fuel Purification Plant

MISCELLANEOUS
5 Staterooms, 20 Tons Cargo

COST
MCr168.9 Singly (incl. Architects fees of MCr1.7), MCr133.8 in Quantity

CONSTRUCTION TIME
57 Weeks Singly, 46 Weeks in Quantity

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Bill Cameron, please forgive me for not responding line-by-line to your post – I started to, and then realized I was going to go blind trying to keep the formatting straight.

On exploration and trade in the Third Imperium generally, yes, the IISS is responsible for identifying new markets and sharing them with Imperial business interests, as described herein Adventure 13, Signal GK, p. 4. (1985):

The Scout Service encourages trade by publishing accurate planetary and interstellar charts, contacting new markets beyond the borders, and administering the express boat service for swift transfer of information.

(Quoted from a summary of the Imperium by thrash; emphasis added by poster.)

As I understand it (and have played it), when a merchant entity puts together an "exploration" mission, its purpose is to initiate trade with these different entities, and with this in mind, IMHO neither Leviathan nor Lorimar is well suited to the task.

How would I do it? That depends a bit on who "I" am in this context: am I a player with a merchant character? Am I the referee? Am I the imaginary head of BT? In the interest of brevity I will assume the foremost.

When my merchant captain wanted to open up trade with our referee’s homebrewed Foreven sector, I made our first couple of journeys in a type A2 with a type S as escort to make contact with a couple of worlds and gather what information we could, which turned out to be roughly what we obtained before taking Leviathan into the Outrim. We then returned to one of the Hi In worlds not far from the Imperial border (Glisten, maybe? I don’t have my reprints handy to check), bought a 1000-dton J-3 freighter, then hired a factor for a year to fill it with cargo while we traded in the area. Once the ship and the cargo was ready and additional crew positions filled, our little flotilla set out for Foreven with a load of industrial trade goods that brought us a huge fortune on the many Ni and Na worlds we encountered. We lost both the A2 and the S but managed to limp home with the freighter and a pants-load of goodies and cash about four years (game-time) later.

We explored heretofore vaguely known systems and made bank on the trip.

If I was the imaginary head of BT, I would either buy a Donosev-class explorer and send that out, or use a bulk carrier and an escort ship or two with the trade goods to really make the trip worthwhile. The Leviathan is a poor compromise for either task, IMHO. This is a more cost-effective use of the shareholders' capital when it comes to developing new markets.

As to whether trade is one of the objectives or not, well, you say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe: the hold is filled with thirty-five tons of trade goods on the trip out, and a portion of the recompense for the crew is based on what the ship brings back. You may not see that as the primary incentive, but I do: if a commission is available, it's a solid bet that a merchant crew will be hustling for it, IMHO again.

The analogy of R&D I think misses a couple of important points. How many privately owned and operated fusion plants are there in the world? How about privately operated superconducting supercolliders? Both offer a lot of potential to a private company that can make something of the technology and the research results, but it is my understanding that this is mostly in the public and educational arena, with support (some significant) from business. IMX, private business conducts applied research in most fields: about the only two that I would consider doing true "exploration" would be pharmaceutical labs and energy developers. As I understand it trading companies have historically followed close on the heels of explorers, but rarely are true explorers in their own rights.

In any case, the point of this exercise is to discuss unprofitable merchant ship designs: if you see the Leviathan’s value amortized over the long term life of a company, okay, I won’t dispute that – I will say that I think there are better ways, and better ships, for getting the job done.

Moving on...

Chaos, the way merchants ships are made more profitable is quite simple: don’t finance them. Raise capital first, then buy the ship outright. There’s a JTAS article on capitalization – I think it's called High Finance or something (again, no reprints handy). Capitalization requires a reasonable business plan (at least if I am the referee!), so again the “fast traders” find it hard to get built IMTU.

 

[Chaos]

BGG:

Thanks for replying.

I´m studying Economics, so I like to think I know a thing or two about financing. (no offense intended, of course)

On a (hypothetical) perfect capital market, it doesn´t make any difference whether you pay the full price up front or finance. Sure, paying the full price saves you paying interest, but you also lose out on the profit you´d get from investing the sum you would not have had to pay up front if you had financed the ship. And whatever the interest rate is, you´ll have to assume that there are ways to reap a higher profit than that from investments, else nobody would take out a loan at that interest rate for investments.

And raising capital from shareholders is not necessarily a better way... at least if you have a return on investment (i.e. profit divided by sum of investments) higher than the interest rate, then you would save money having financed over having capitalized.

The business plan thing is dead on, though. Except with a big, long-term government subsidy, only very risk-friendly investors would even consider a fast trader. Unless, maybe, the "safe" areas are so overrun with freighters that competition is cutthroat and there´s no profit to be made there.

 

[Golan2072]

One thing that should be remembered about the Leviathan is that it is owned and used by a large corporation; and from a large corporation POV (especially in the "big-ship" HG OTU), even the 416.5 dtons of cargo in my "scaled down" variant aren't profitable for trade - too much initial cost per dton of cargo space. The Leviathan is an exploratory ship, with several backup systems and several exploratory craft and facilities, far from an efficient corporate frieghter/merchant.

The way I see it, the Leviathan doesn't really trade (atleast not in any corporate-relevant amounts); it generates profit by finding potential markets and resources. Once the corporation receives the data generated by the Leviathan's exploratory journey, it sends forth its big frieghters - and even colony-ships in some cases - to start cornering the markets.

 

[rancke]

The Leviathan certainly isn't a profitable design. Let's look at the features that reduces it's capacity:

The 4G maneuver drive. It takes up space and requires a bigger power plant that otherwise necessary. Is the ability to maneuver at 4G a survival factor that is worth spending so much money and cargo space on? I'd probably design a merchant cruiser for 1G and then suggest that it tries not to be surprised by pirates while deep into gravity wells.

Weapons. That depends on what ship design system you believe in. The 10 T the CT version spends on 10 turrets is well worth it (I'd use all 18 hardpoints myself -- might even spring for a couple of barbettes) The QSDS design I worked out last weekend wants 62 T for ten lasers and a total of more than 100 T for 18 weapons. That I might be tempted to reduce. Anyway, whatever the weapon mix, a purely commercial ship would like to be able to do without any at all. Whether it can afford to depends on just where it wants to do bisiness.

Staterooms: The Leviathan has one double-sized owner's suite, one oversized captain's stateroom, 24 standard staterooms, and seven 6T bunkrooms with four bunks each for a total tonnage of 132. If you want a crew of 56, 132 T is certainly not wasteful. Any staterooms not used by a reduced crew on a commercial run can be used for passengers, so I don't see a problem here. A sickbay and a couple of workshops seems reasonable too.

Fuel tankage: If you want to jump 3 parsecs, you need taknage for 540 T of jump fuel. No way around that. Power plant fuel... CT wants 54 T, QSDS is satisfied with 16 T... in any case, whatever it takes, any purely commercial ship will need the same amount of tankage.

Small craft: This is one of the major tonnage hogs. 175 T of small craft takes up a lot of cargo space. Again, the exact amount depends on which design system you believe in.

My QSDS design wound up with a cargo space of 250 T. I installed a 180 T demountable fuel tank to give the L a little backup fuel, but that would come out for a purely commercial trip, of course.


Hans

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Chaos:
The business plan thing is dead on, though. Except with a big, long-term government subsidy, only very risk-friendly investors would even consider a fast trader. Unless, maybe, the "safe" areas are so overrun with freighters that competition is cutthroat and there´s no profit to be made there.

Unless actually forced by some insane Emperor to accept the unreasonable 'pay per jump' scheme (in which case there simply won't be any jump-3 and higher ships[*]), jump-2 and jump-3 ships are cheaper ways to move stuff long distance than jump-1. Assuming, of course, that astrographics don't force you to jump short too often.

[*] Unless you have a way to circumvent the regulation.


Hans

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Chaos:
*snip*

Chaos, I understand the arguments you put forth, but keep in mind that I'm talking about the kinds of trading and investment that merchant-adventurers do in the TU, which while loads of fun still requires a bit of a wink-and-nod (or a vigorous handwave, if you prefer).

The capital that one saves by financing rather than buying outright is rarely relevant to an independent merchant-captain with one ship tramping around different star systems: most adventurers don't spend a lot of time managing long-term investments, and the cash on-hand for investing in speculative cargo is readily generated in the absence of a ship's payment. (Not being chased by heavily-armed skip-tracers should the captain miss a payment is also a nice benefit.)

Originally posted by Employee 2-4601:
The Leviathan is an exploratory ship, with several backup systems and several exploratory craft and facilities, far from an efficient corporate frieghter/merchant.

Okay, setting aside trade for a moment, is the Leviathan, or the Lorimar for that matter, really a good exploration ship? I have my doubts.

I think as an exploration vessel, Leviathan is hopelessly overbuilt in several areas, and inadequate in others, and the shareholders are paying for this excess.

I wonder if the only member of the Leviathan-class that's really earning its keep is the Marcucci...

 

[Ptah]

Employee 2-4601,
Excellent redesign. I like what you've done. For a merchant ship I might also cut the two 20 tons launches or the 95 ton shuttle. Also saving on crew quarters. Which should allow 500 dton+ of cargo for J-3, 2G ship. Pretty darn good.

What say you BGG?

In the house rule arena, I tend to cut crew requirements down and allow for hot bunking. This is no pleasure cruise. Saving between 25%-50% of crew quarter space.

Another house rule is the provision of cargo-fuel bays. Basically for an increased cost, the baffles in the fuel tanks can be collapsed and the fuel feed lines closed to provide extra cargo space on those short juns. Particularily valuable for a J-3 that gets itself into a main. All of a sudden 360 dton might open up for cargo. Of course there always seems to be outgasing H2 in the cargo/fuel hold so no smoking.