Noble Lands

[Selandia]

oops

made a punch mistake (20x1.02 then punched repeat 20 times rather than 19 :nonono

so 29.7 Mcr as capital cost at the time of first return

Second, benefit received - benefit you could have made with a safe investment on the 29.7 Mcr:
(10% of 20 millions) - (2% of 29.7Mc) = 2Mcr - .59 Mcr = 1.41Mc of Risk Reward on 29.7Mcr of investment = 4.7% return = 21.1 years to recover the money if you do not put your yearly risk reward in a safe investment where it would generate its own 2%.


Now compare the two investment strategies on plain ROI rather than Risk return

if you had put your 20 Mcr safely at 2%, 41 years of compound interest would have left as asset 44.16 Mcr of cash generating .883Mcr a year.

by investing that 20 Mcr you now have a 20Mcr infrasctructure AND 2Mcr return a year
Accumulated over 21 years, the return provided a capital of 42 Mcr and at 2%coumpound interest (sigma the compound of 20 deposit of 2 Mcr starting at the end of year 21) a capitalized interest of 6.76 Mcr for a cash account of 48.76

Infrastructure generating 2 Mcr
cash account generating 0.975Mcr
Total yearly return 2.97 vs 0.883
Total assets 68.76 vs 44.16

have fun

Selandia

 

[esampson]

Loans on starships are rather risky... credit card issuer level risky... which implies a much lower bank interest on account.

Not entirely sure I agree with you there. A very large part of it comes down to 'how easy is it for a person to run with a ship?' If you assume that it isn't all that easy since ships need maintenance at high quality starports and that provides places for the bank's agents to stake out and wait for the starship then the major risk is that the ship will be destroyed. Assumedly the odds of this happening are relatively low or else interstellar trade would grind to a halt or else have a much higher profit margin because of the risks. Sure, PCs may have a tendency to destroy their ships but then PCs are always suppose to be the statistical outliers of society.

Assuming that the ship remains relatively 'safe' (unlikely to be stolen or destroyed) then the creditor always has the option to repossess a valuable ship if the borrower defaults. In contrast there are many things that might be purchased with a credit card that are either cannot be repossessed (such as services) or that depreciate in value so quickly that repossession would only render a small fraction of their value.

I would guess that starship loans probably have a risk more along the lines of a home loan (or possibly a small business loan). Yes, there exists a small danger of someone trying to run off with the ship, which cannot happen with a home, but if the odds of that are assumed to be low then you are left with risk of destruction (which all told is probably about even. Starship travel may involve some risk but homes can't run away from fires, earthquakes, tornados, floods, etc.) and depreciation (homes don't tend to depreciate much, but then Traveller starships seem to be capable of running just fine after 40 years, so they don't seem to depreciate all that much, either).

A lot of those factors may vary, though, depending on your personal Traveller Universe.

 

[aramis]

Not entirely sure I agree with you there. A very large part of it comes down to 'how easy is it for a person to run with a ship?'

THe odds of a misjump being what they are, especially with the new jump mechanics, it's a credit card level risk with nigh-unforgeable transponders and extremely low chance of skips, and no pirates of note, and a Jump 2 ship, astrogator with int 8 and astrogator 3 (a typical 1st or 2nd term astrogator) will be misjumping 1/36 of the time.

And a trainee astrogator with level 1 and int 7? he's misjumping 5/6 of the time (actually, 181/216... 1/216 more than 5/6) for J2. He can't really fail at J1.

Now, for a J1, under T5, only if there's damage is it an issue...

Fleet level J4 with a master astrogator (skill 8, stat 13, 21 TN) is going to misjump about 1% of the time - once per two years. and is hitting 1dx4 Pc off course when it does - without damage.

Plus, there's the occlusion chance. For J1, it's 1/1296. A typical J1 ship carries no spare jump fuel. A ship normally makes 25 jumps per year; for forty years on mortgage. 1000 jumps. Which is a 46% chance of not hitting an occlusion. This means that 54% of J1 ships will drop out of J-space at a rock or iceball in deep space. If we assume 2/3 are ice, that's still 18% losses from lack of fuel over the course of the mortgage.

 

[esampson]

That's all assuming that 'normal' ships roll like players do when they are jumping. Given the high probability of misjump over the normal career of an NPC if they were to use the same rules I would think interstellar commerce would have a significantly higher overhead.

As an example, imagine what air travel would be like if there was a .5% change per year of a jumbo jet crashing and killing everyone on board (that's roughly the same odds that there is an 18% chance of a ship becoming lost with all hands on board over a 40 year period). In the real world this would cause approximately 5000 commercial aviation crashes per year or approximately 15 per day.

Of course the number of crashes would actually be much lower because people would consider flying to be an extremely high risk which would only be done when absolutely necessary, but that's kind of the point. Interstellar travel would only be done when absolutely necessary (goodbye yachts and safari ships) and the markups on imported ship parts would no doubt be considerably higher than 10%.

I understand that yes, what you've quoted are the T5 rules and I'm not advocating changing them because the odds are too high. What I'm saying is that those should be the odds when players are involved, because as I said earlier, PCs are statistical outliers.

 

[aramis]

I understand that yes, what you've quoted are the T5 rules and I'm not advocating changing them because the odds are too high. What I'm saying is that those should be the odds when players are involved, because as I said earlier, PCs are statistical outliers.

I disagree quite strongly with this, as a generalization; I might agree that they are representative of those who travel the spacelanes. But I'm still enough of a simulationist that, given a set of mechanics not clearly labeled as "PC's only", I must assume it's the universe of the game being described.

In sci-fi, I really don't buy the special snowflakes mentality; it's a genre convention for fantasy... but not for Sci Fi other than leader-focused.

 

[rancke]

In sci-fi, I really don't buy the special snowflakes mentality; it's a genre convention for fantasy... but not for Sci Fi other than leader-focused.

That is completely untrue. It's a genre convention for ANY genre where the protagonists prevail againt odds. Including 100% authentic true-to-life biographies, because selection bias means you get biographies of the few people who prevailed rather than the multitude that tried and failed. Any action/adventure tale messes with the odds in favor of the protagonists[*].

[*] And against the protagonists early in the story -- something always goes wrong with their plans.​

There was a book of short stories by Eric Franc Russell where he deliberately contravened these genre conventions. They were very powerful stories. But they were also very depressing.


Hans

 

[aramis]

That is completely untrue. It's a genre convention for ANY genre where the protagonists prevail againt odds. Including 100% authentic true-to-life biographies, because selection bias means you get biographies of the few people who prevailed rather than the multitude that tried and failed. Any action/adventure tale messes with the odds in favor of the protagonists[*].

[*] And against the protagonists early in the story -- something always goes wrong with their plans.​

There was a book of short stories by Eric Franc Russell where he deliberately contravened these genre conventions. They were very powerful stories. But they were also very depressing.


Hans

Bull. You apparently misunderstand the term.

Special Snowflake, as a convention, means only the protagonist COULD solve the problem; the hero is superior and/or unique in unrealistic ways. They're far above or outside the norm. Most are also Mary Sue/Marty Stu characters, and the two overlap highly.

Much sci-fi, it's a matter not of being the only one who could, but having been the one who was in the right place at the right time. (which rules out everything David Webber's ever written, as far as I can tell, since his protagonists are the only ones capable of even rudimentary logic in his universes...)

Many of Niven's protagonists are not the special snowflake, either... tho Luis Wu runs on the edge. In fact, many of Niven's protagonists are in fact inept in particular ways, and are protagonists more for being the schmuck who happens to be in the right place. Gavving Quinn of the Integral Trees being a key example. The crew of the MacArthur are not special snowflakes, either - they're competent, but other crews in the CoDo universe are equally so.

Yes, there ARE a lot of Special Snowflake Sci-Fi stories - Dune, Honor Harrington, Star Wars, Sten - but there are as many where the protagonists are not. Whereas, in Fantasy lit, almost all are about unusual folk; the Hobbit was not, and was an intentional deviation from the convention - Bilbo was not a special snowflake until he obtained the ring, and really, is there to show just how dumb/inept Dwarves are, as this simple estate owner is more capable than the lot of them. LOTR, however, Frodo and Sam really are the special snowflakes. Without the both, and their particular strengths and chaste bromance, Middle Earth would have fallen to Sauron. Myth Adventures works due to the special snowflakes involved. Dresden Files is a clear special snowflake amonst a secret society special snowflakes.

Traveller, as with much of military Sci-Fi, has the protagonists differ only in opportunity and motivation, not raw capability, nor the universe particularly favoring them. The PC's are not the center of the universe, and the universe doesn't run differently simply because they are there. In fact, it's pretty clear that they aren't even terribly special from the adventures.

And, unless the mechanics specifically state otherwise, it's not safe to assume special snowflake status in Sci-Fi gaming. There are a few cases where the T5 rules specifically state that they're going into Special Snowflake territory, and limit it explicitly - the best example is the trade and commerce rules, which explicitly state that they don't scale up to an economy. Traveller is, however, written by a wargame designer noted for historical simulations, and has always had a simulationist bent. (That the simulation is bad doesn't make it any the less a simulation.)

 

[rancke]

Bull. You apparently misunderstand the term.

Special Snowflake, as a convention, means only the protagonist COULD solve the problem; the hero is superior and/or unique in unrealistic ways. They're far above or outside the norm. Most are also Mary Sue/Marty Stu characters, and the two overlap highly.

You're right, I misunderstood the term. But then, the term does not, as far as I can tell, apply to the post you were replying to (Though I could be wrong there if an earlier post made that distinction). It's perfectly true that many protagonists are not special ('statistical outliers') in the sense that they are better qualified to overcome the problems they face. But they are special in the sense that they do, in fact, overcome the problems they face whether they're particularily well qualified to overcome them or not.

As for your 'special snowflakes', they're pretty much irrelevant to the question, because their authors/referees simply put them up against tougher problems.


Hans

 

[esampson]

As Rancke has stated, I'm not saying that PCs are 'special snowflakes' in the sense of being Luke Skywalkers or Paul Atreides. They are statistical outliers because the situations they are in are often statistically anomalies.

To use the example of Louis Wu that you have given, even before adulthood there were certain highly unusual and traumatic events in his childhood. Later on he averts a genocide, is first contact to an alien species, becomes a Protector and returns to human (the only person ever to have known to do this) and journeys to Ringworld twice.

That seems to me to indicate someone who is a statistical outlier. Is he perfect? No. He has all sorts of flaws including problems with addiction. Is he better than the people around him? Well, he is a bit smarter which is why Nessus thinks he's a good person to send to Ringworld but he's hardly the cleverest man in Known Space or anything like that. By and large he's just a guy trying to get by but the things around him are what make him a statistical outlier. He simply has more things happen to him than would happen to any five 'normal people' and one of those things that might happen to him is a misjumping ship that leads him to another adventure (I mean come on, how many Referees go 'Oops. You misjumped to an area with no resources. Your dead. Guess that's the campaign'?)

Of course you don't have to subscribe to the outlier theory, but then you have the problem of justifying why things like Yachts and Safari Ships exist when transversing space is so incredibly dangerous (yes, I realize that .5% may not seem like that much of a risk but compare it with things that are known to be high risk such as skydiving and bungie jumping and it is orders of magnitude more dangerous).

You might justify it by 'people are just willing to take that risk' and honestly, that's fine. That's your justification and you're welcome to it. Mine just happens to be that for most people the odds of a misjump are quite a bit lower (although probably more likely to be fatal as opposed to leading to an adventure).

 

[ekervina]

Either PCs are statistical outliers, or they are having the average number and type of adventures for their universe.

I leave the implications to your imagination.

 

[Selandia]

In real life, do you have 1/36 chance to be a Baronnet and 1/18 to be a knight?

IMHO, anything that make the game going goes.

Have fun

Selandia

 

[rancke]

In real life, do you have 1/36 chance to be a Baronnet and 1/18 to be a knight?

Bad example since NPCs apparently have the same chance as PCs of being knights and baronets. Unless there are new rules about that in T5?

In my campaigns PCs are special in the opposite direction when it comes to social status. None of them have any chance of being Imperial noblemen (Though I'm not saying I might not some day run a campaign where such exalted beings would have a place).


Hans

 

[esampson]

Bad example since NPCs apparently have the same chance as PCs of being knights and baronets. Unless there are new rules about that in T5?

In my campaigns PCs are special in the opposite direction when it comes to social status. None of them have any chance of being Imperial noblemen (Though I'm not saying I might not some day run a campaign where such exalted beings would have a place).


Hans

Actually it is still a pretty good example because I'm pretty sure that not 1 in every 36 NPCs in your universe is a Baronet. Instead only 1 in 36 of the significant npcs is a Baronet. Otherwise every single bar your PCs walk into probably has 2 or 3 Baronets in them at the time the PC walks in. If they land in a city the size of New York the city would have about 375,000 Baronets and three quarters of a million knights.

So already you are assuming that the normal rules of the book don't apply to every single NPC.

 

[rancke]

Actually it is still a pretty good example because I'm pretty sure that not 1 in every 36 NPCs in your universe is a Baronet. Instead only 1 in 36 of the significant npcs is a Baronet. Otherwise every single bar your PCs walk into probably has 2 or 3 Baronets in them at the time the PC walks in. If they land in a city the size of New York the city would have about 375,000 Baronets and three quarters of a million knights.

So already you are assuming that the normal rules of the book don't apply to every single NPC.

Oh dear. You are inadvertently pushing one of my buttons here. I'll resist the temptation to pontificate and just point out that for 30odd years Traveller writers have implicitly assumed that one NPC in 36 is a baron and two in 36 are knights or baronets[*]. That is what has given us such canonical pearls as Imperial barons that served as marine privates and customs inspectors.

[*] Or rather, if you think it makes a difference, that one in 36 has a SOC of 12 and two in 36 has a SOC of 11.​

Hans

 

[HG_B]

Actually it is still a pretty good example because I'm pretty sure that not 1 in every 36 NPCs in your universe is a Baronet. Instead only 1 in 36 of the significant npcs is a Baronet. Otherwise every single bar your PCs walk into probably has 2 or 3 Baronets in them at the time the PC walks in.

Not necessarily. There might be at bars where only Baronets can get in. Exclusive ya know.

 

[esampson]

Oh dear. You are inadvertently pushing one of my buttons here. I'll resist the temptation to pontificate and just point out that for 30odd years Traveller writers have implicitly assumed that one NPC in 36 is a baron and two in 36 are knights or baronets[*]. That is what has given us such canonical pearls as Imperial barons that served as marine privates and customs inspectors.

[*] Or rather, if you think it makes a difference, that one in 36 has a SOC of 12 and two in 36 has a SOC of 11.​

Hans

Again, the writers have implicitly assumed that one significant NPC in 36 is a baron and two are knights. Like the players these people are statistical outliers. Otherwise Regina, a planet with a population in the hundreds of millions would have at least 5,555,555 Baronets and 11,111,111 Knights.

And if you think that's crazy, those guys have 22,222,222 hexes of land grants between them, which if I have my math straight is enough to cover 461 size 8 planets (ignoring for a moment that its a land grant and not an ocean grant of middle-of-some other-large-body-of-water grant.

 

[rancke]

Again, the writers have implicitly assumed that one significant NPC in 36 is a baron and two are knights.

Not so. NPCs have been rolled with the same 2D for SOC as far back as The Kinunir (Unless the plot required them to have a specific SOC, of course). The complete crew of the Luuru is listed with UPPs and over and above the baron and the two knights among the officers the crew includes a gunner who's a knight and a private of marines who's a baron.

The booklets containing random NPCs also features this distribution as do various adventures.


Hans

 

[esampson]

For the purposes of this discussion all I really mean by significant is that they are distinguished from the faceless masses. Why are they distinguished from them? Because they have stats.

When a player walks down a crowded street the majority of NPC on it are insignificant. There is no meaningful interaction between them and the player and so there is no reason for them to have stats. As insignificant people without stats there's no possibility of them being Baronets or Knights (because they would need a stat for that to happen).

So what happens when your player wants to randomly lash out at one of these individuals? Well, aside from you wondering why you allowed a twelve year old to play that NPC moves from being insignificant to significant. Now they have stats (or now they need stats, take your pick). They are having some form of interaction with the PC that takes them past the point of being insignificant. They have become statistical outliers. Why? Because of all the billions of inhabitants in space they are the one who was in the right place at the right time to be attacked by the PC. Billions of other NPCs will never even see a PC much less be attacked by one. They are one of the lucky few.

Ok, I'm getting a bit weird now, but I think you see my point. It isn't 1 person in 36 who is a Baronet. My math above pretty much disproved that. You simply will not have enough planets for all the land grants if 1/12th of the population gets land grants. Somewhere something's going to have to give.

My way of handling it personally? I assume that those stats are errors. In this case they aren't simple typographical errors but are similar to the Scout ship on pg. 358 being TL-10. When it was written up someone missed the fact that a shipbuilder needed to be TL-11 to install a Jump-2 drive. Easiest and most logical fix is to say that it should be TL-11 as opposed to deciding that all Imperial Scout/Couriers are flying around with experimental drives. Likewise I would personally just assume that that guy isn't really a baronet or knight.

Of course that's just me. You are completely free to handle it however you think makes the most sense in your Traveller universe.

 

[rancke]

For the purposes of this discussion all I really mean by significant is that they are distinguished from the faceless masses. Why are they distinguished from them? Because they have stats.

Ah, I see. The true Scotsman argument. Well, I reject that. There are plenty of NPCs in Traveller publications that are faceless even if they do have stats.


Hans

 

[esampson]

Ah, I see. The true Scotsman argument. Well, I reject that. There are plenty of NPCs in Traveller publications that are faceless even if they do have stats.


Hans

No, it is not a true Scotsman argument. A true Scotsman argument would be the case if you were to show me something that implied that 1/12 of everyone in the Imperium (not simply people who have been published) is some form of Noble and I the argued that that 1/12 were not insignificant characters.

As for being faceless even if they have stats, the point is that they have stats because there is an expectation of interaction with them that will not occur with the vast majority of the population. That interaction may not be enough to justify a 'face' (I'm not about to figure out the personal life history of Random Thug #6 unless there is a need for it) but the NPC is nonetheless more significant than the person the character passed on the street or even the cabbie who dropped the player off in Downtown.