Salvaging ships - military & otherwise

[NW_Paul]

Until the day the Imperial Navy showed up and wanted it back.


Hans

*Snipped from CT-Judges Guild thread*

The quote above comes from a tangential turn in this thread regarding the Kinunir, and the possibility of PCs defeating the computer and recovering the Kinunir for their own use.

This actually leads to an interesting question regarding salvage rights. The Kinunir has, at the point the adventure begins, been missing for over 17 years.

Later in the adventure, there is explicit mention of the site of The Battle of Two Suns, and that there is much salvagable gear from both sides to be had from the site.

Is there some point at which the Kinunir becomes subject to commercial salvage?

 

[travlar]

I would think so, but on the other hand, it's in Shionthy, right? How are you going to explain that?

 

[NW_Paul]

I would think so, but on the other hand, it's in Shionthy, right? How are you going to explain that?

I'd think if the group were clever enough, they could either move the ship out of system, or out of the belt and claim to have 'accidentally' discovered when they jumped in-system to refuel.

 

[HG_B]

Is there some point at which the Kinunir becomes subject to commercial salvage?

Are you assuming that the Imperium's "law of the stars" is similar to Earth's maritime laws?

 

[NW_Paul]

Hashing it out is the point of the thread!

 

[HG_B]

Hashing it out is the point of the thread!

There's no way to really hash it out as it comes down to house rules. There's no canonical rule on it.

 

[ssgbryan]

There's no way to really hash it out as it comes down to house rules. There's no canonical rule on it.

Well, this IS the "In My Traveller Universe" forum.

IMTU, The Imperium has "1st right of recovery" on their property. The players are rewarded with what they would gain from a prize court (See Challenge Mag 37 or 38 for details).

The main problem w/ keeping the Kininur is maintenance. Odds are you would have to get every repair part fabricated. (Short production run - all military - I would double or triple basic maintenance costs).

Using the prize court route, the PCs will get a nice chunk of change and connections at higher levels of the Imperial Navy.

 

[rancke]

There's no way to really hash it out as it comes down to house rules. There's no canonical rule on it.

Exactly. However, I will say this. Given that the Imperium is the font of interstellar law, I'd require a canonical statement to accept that the Imperial Navy hasn't made sure it keeps title to any of its property in perpetuity.

A traditional finder's fee, or even a legally mandated finder's fee -- that's another matter. But from a roleplaying POW, it can be a huge problem if PCs become entitled to even a small fraction of the value of a starship. Those things are worth a lot of money and 10% of multiple millions will enable a lot of adventure groups to stop struggling and just kick back and relax. If you're already running a campaign where those sort of sums are involved all the time, fine, but if your players are used to counting their credits, you'd better be prepared for a major focus shift in your campaign.


Hans

 

[HG_B]

Exactly. However, I will say this. Given that the Imperium is the font of interstellar law, I'd require a canonical statement to accept that the Imperial Navy hasn't made sure it keeps title to any of its property in perpetuity.

That would be in line with Military ships (ocean going) on Earth.

 

[NW_Paul]

IMO, there has to be a recourse for the PC's to get some type of substantial reward for recovering this ship if they do so. I understand the reluctance to allow the PC's to keep the Kinunir, however a substantial reward in terms of credits is certainly reasonable. Personally, I don't see this as a deal-breaker in terms of their adventuring career; if they were to receive ~5% value as a settlement from the Navy, that is about 65MCr. Certainly enough to pay off a Far-Trader; enough to upgrade it quite nicely, but to give them much less than this value, does as much to deter adventuring as would giving too much.

 

[rancke]

IMO, there has to be a recourse for the PC's to get some type of substantial reward for recovering this ship if they do so. I understand the reluctance to allow the PC's to keep the Kinunir, however a substantial reward in terms of credits is certainly reasonable. Personally, I don't see this as a deal-breaker in terms of their adventuring career; if they were to receive ~5% value as a settlement from the Navy, that is about 65MCr. Certainly enough to pay off a Far-Trader; enough to upgrade it quite nicely, but to give them much less than this value, does as much to deter adventuring as would giving too much.

It may not be a problem, but it is going to make a huge difference to any campaign where MCrImp65 isn't already pocket money. For instance, with a nest egg like that, a player group can play the CT trade system like a fiddle to become richer and richer. What you do is jump around until the luck of the dice gives you an opportunity to buy some high-value merchandize for 30-50% of base value and invest, say, ten MCr. You then jump around until you come across a place where they'll pay you 250-300% of base value for the entire cargo, netting you some 50-100 MCr for a few months' work. The key is to have enough money to invest properly when the right opportunity comes along, plus enough to tide you over until you find the right customer.

Or they can buy half a dozen Free Traders or a couple of subsidized merchants (20% down payment) and start a fledgeling line. Which is fine if you want to GM a fledgeling line campaign, but not so much if you don't.

I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad thing to give your players 65 megacredits to play with; I'm saying that if they used to worry about where the next down payment was going to come from, you have to be ready for a huge change in the campaign focus.


Hans

 

[ssgbryan]

Exactly. However, I will say this. Given that the Imperium is the font of interstellar law, I'd require a canonical statement to accept that the Imperial Navy hasn't made sure it keeps title to any of its property in perpetuity.

A traditional finder's fee, or even a legally mandated finder's fee -- that's another matter. But from a roleplaying POW, it can be a huge problem if PCs become entitled to even a small fraction of the value of a starship. Those things are worth a lot of money and 10% of multiple millions will enable a lot of adventure groups to stop struggling and just kick back and relax. If you're already running a campaign where those sort of sums are involved all the time, fine, but if your players are used to counting their credits, you'd better be prepared for a major focus shift in your campaign.


Hans

Easy fix. They only get a percentage of the "estimated" value of the ship, just lowball the ship value - (easy enough)

If, as the GM, you still feel that the PCs have too much money, send in the tax man (My favorite way of relieving PCs of that burden of idle wealth.)

Normally, those kind of 1 offs have a very high tax rate. - I allow the players to mitigate it by investing in business ventures (This can go well, or bad depending on how the PCs run it.)

Got Mercenary characters? - All that money can be easily spent on outfitting a Merc Company.

Navy, Merchants, Nobles etc- Pay off that ship they go running around in. (It isn't like they would be able to afford crew salaries for a Kininur.)

It is very easy to relieve PCs of their credits.
The best part is: Their decisions will make them go broke. And they can't blame it on the GM being a bad guy; PCs rarely, if ever, make long term calucations.

 

[rancke]

Easy fix. They only get a percentage of the "estimated" value of the ship, just lowball the ship value - (easy enough)

We're still talking millions. You know how it is. Ten million here, ten million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

If, as the GM, you still feel that the PCs have too much money, send in the tax man (My favorite way of relieving PCs of that burden of idle wealth.)

And this differs from stiffing them on the reward exactly how? If they're OK with the one, they'll be OK with the other, and if they'd resent the one, they'd resent the other.

The problem I'm pointing out lies in what happens if they get to keep a huge chuck of additional cash.

Got Mercenary characters? - All that money can be easily spent on outfitting a Merc Company.

Do you want to run a mercenary campaign? Not a problem, then.

It is very easy to relieve PCs of their credits.

Less easy to do it without creating resentment if you try to invoke in-game mechanisms. I usually solve that kind of problems by explaining that having that much money would ruin the campaign and inviting them to come up with explanations of how the lost that fortune.

The best part is: Their decisions will make them go broke. And they can't blame it on the GM being a bad guy; PCs rarely, if ever, make long term calucations.

"We'll invest in Imperial bonds. We should be able to get, what, a 3% return? That's about 2 million credits per year."


Hans

 

[E.D.Quibell]

I think kit is better than credits as a reward.

A bigger jump drive, a more capable power plant, a tripple beam laser turret, or if you have to a couple of years off the ships mortguage.

Or you could give them a ship along the lines of "O we've just confiscated a fat trader found smuggeling, and it's a shame for it to go to waist. Would you be interested in it by any chance?"

Regards,

Ewan

 

[JAFARR]

I think kit is better than credits as a reward.

A bigger jump drive, a more capable power plant, a tripple beam laser turret, or if you have to a couple of years off the ships mortguage.

Or you could give them a ship along the lines of "O we've just confiscated a fat trader found smuggeling, and it's a shame for it to go to waist. Would you be interested in it by any chance?"

Regards,

Ewan

Even better combine their current ship and the reward for a new experimental design that's 1/2 to 3/4 paid off so they still need to make payments or something like that and give them some criteria and let them do the design. Subject to your approval of course. Then send them on a mission for the navy that requires the use of the ship as the next phase in the campaign.

 

[NW_Paul]

I think kit is better than credits as a reward.

A bigger jump drive, a more capable power plant, a tripple beam laser turret, or if you have to a couple of years off the ships mortguage.

Or you could give them a ship along the lines of "O we've just confiscated a fat trader found smuggeling, and it's a shame for it to go to waist. Would you be interested in it by any chance?"

Regards,

Ewan

This is a cool idea. Perhaps offer a confiscated smuggling vessel along with some cash for upgrades. Even without the mortgage, it does actually cost money to keep a ship running. Assuming the PC's get a bigger ship, they'll most likely need more crew to help run it which they'll probably want to offer a straight salary to rather than shares...

Oh and that fat trader would be much more comforting to fly if they just did x, y, & z to it? It will cost XMcr, but they've actually got most of that liquid for the moment...

 

[Vargas]

The Imperium could always cap the amount of any reward offered for a salvaged naval vessel. Or the percentage of the ship's (highly subjective) net worth when found could be around 0.05%, or even 0.005%, instead of up at 10%.

 

[Dragoner]

I'd say IN keeps title to the ship forever, but would give a "prize" to get their ship back. However, since the Imperium uses mercenaries, what is to say the Intelligence Service wouldn't use contractors? It retains plausible deniability, especially if they want to send the Kinunir into Zhodani space to grab the Zhodani fleet disposition map from a fleet courier. If captured, a mind scan wouldn't implicate the Imperium and a snapsot of the Kinunir wouldn't provide conclusive evidence that the Imperium did it, as the Imperials could counter claim it's proof the Zhodani had the ship all along and it is a setup. A quid pro quo for the Diplomat being killed say.

 

[Icosahedron]

The problem I'm pointing out lies in what happens if they get to keep a huge chuck of additional cash.

"We'll invest in Imperial bonds. We should be able to get, what, a 3% return? That's about 2 million credits per year."

I usually solve that kind of problems by explaining that having that much money would ruin the campaign and inviting them to come up with explanations of how the lost that fortune.

Hans

As others have said, there are many ways to spend that sort of money in a starfaring campaign.
The PCs can retire, in which case, game over (until the bad guys come looking for them and they can't stand still long enough to access their cash) or they can spend it on upgrades to their ship, or they can invest it. That 2MCr pa will buy them what? A new twin laser to repair the turret damage they're gonna get next time they have to leave a planet in a hurry...

If they've gained 50MCr, they could find themselves marooned after a successful hijacking, and they have the option to buy a new ship and go hunting for the old one...

Life or death issues, combat damage and hijacking are much more acceptable to players than the taxman, I think, especially if they have the opportunity to exact retribution...

The rewards should lead not necessarily to greater character wealth, but to greater player fun.

 

[Mithras]

Wise words, well said.

The rewards should lead not necessarily to greater character wealth, but to greater player fun.