Ship Operation Costs

[hemulen]

Hi,

Under the Travelling section (sorry, don't have my book handy), there is a table of Basic Operating Costs, has prices for Life Support etc on it. Also on that table, there is a set of prices for passengers/crew:

High Pass/Officers: Cr 1000/week
Mid Pass/Crew: Cr 750/week
Low Pass: Cr 50/week

(I think the costs are per week, rather than per month).

What are these costs for, and how do they differ from Life Support costs? I couldn't see any mention of them in the accompanying text.

Just wondering how my player with 7 term Scout PC and Type S is going to run the ship:

- Cr 2700/month for life support (if she's the only person on board!).

- Cr 3000/month from costs above (750 x 4)

- Fuel at Non-Scout base: 20 tons = Cr 10000, or Cr 5000 if you do Jump-1.

- Social Standing costs as well.

Looks like that Cr 8000/year pension isn't going to stretch too far...that's without the risks of cargo speculation! Hm, no turret, or weapons either.

cheers,

Mark

 

[kewplum]

While on ship or in transit in jump space, I do not charge PC's there SOC costs after all, they are drawing on Life Support. It is listed somewhere in the equipment costs that costs of food and lodging are covered on ship.

 

[hemulen]

Yes, I guess that's true, they haven't got anyone much to impress, and nowhere to buy fancy threads from (except maybe on a big liner!)

Mark B

 

[endwarde]

The costs cover food pretty much. If you take the monthly costs for food for mid and high passage and divide by 4, they work out to the amount for the weekly values.

 

[aravain]

Yes, it is a pain, but everyone who has a ship must be on the look out for the oportunity to carry either cargo, people, or mail to make the ends meet. Sure you wish you could afford to jump from system to system without thought of the costs, but let's face the facts that it would make a pretty boring game. The risks brought to the PC through the cargo (or person) they carry helps make the system work. The need to have a budget or, at least a finite ammount of credit, allows for the GM to introduce many plot threads as well as preventing the spread of "munchkenitis"...(the MEGA-ship with all the options and equipment for the crew, etc) Our party still has a blast trying to meet their monthly bills and it sure allows for plenty of role-playing as we decide what we can afford and what we want to get. The economic factoring is intended to help drive the plot engine, not bog the PCs down in accounting paperwork. The best group of travellers are those who are still hungry and need to work to reach their needs. So enjoy your "scruffy" start-up, revel in your arguement between choosing new weapons or extra oxygen, cheer the need to risk all you have in speculative cargo because that is part of what makes Traveller great!

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Aravain:
Yes, it is a pain, but everyone who has a ship must be on the look out for the oportunity to carry either cargo, people, or mail to make the ends meet. Sure you wish you could afford to jump from system to system without thought of the costs, but let's face the facts that it would make a pretty boring game.

Agreed, but IMO the answer isn't to have a broken trade system, it is to give the PCs a broken ship.


Hans

 

[sea_tyger]

What I've noticed is that the T20 Ship Economic System seems to be geared toward smaller (less than 1,000Td) PC ships.

I have subsidized luxury liner (just under 8,000Td) that I built as a background for a couple of adventures. The ship plies a set route of 5 Pop 8, 9, and A worlds, and makes about a 10MCr operating profit from standard passenger and cargo revenue (vs. salary, life support, fuel and berthing costs...the ship is streamlined and has fuel purifiers, but buys its fuel at the low tech worlds to avoid possible pirate attacks). I even went to the trouble of optimizing the ship's passenger berths and cargo bays to the worlds it visited, ensuring that as little space as possible was left unused during the liner's circuit (this came to 50 high, 62 middle and 90 low berths, along with 400 tons of cargo space). An additional 285 tons were added for speculative cargoes.

The ship also has the ability to carry 1,500Td of starships, and makes an additional profit of up to 310kCr per jump for that (from the use of 34 additional high berths for the carried ships' crews). Add in a robust gambling take on the ship (10MCr per year), and the ship makes an annual profit of between 32-39MCr annually (or about 3MCr/month).

Now, the ship's loan payments are 120MCr annually, requiring the captain to make a 7MCr monthly profit on speculative trade. The route provides for an average of 2.8 potential sellers per jump. Assuming the captain can sell quickly (and make a 60% profit on average), he would need to hit the jackpot (meaning 3.4MCr profit on a single trade) at least once per jump (a roughly 50-50 chance on average) to make the liner profitable.

In my view, that wouldn't be a good business risk, and I would expect that even larger liners would be more difficult to make profitable. Does this mean that the "passenger liner" business is limited to small starships (less than 1,000Td), due to the cost of the vessels themselves? Or do major shipping lines purchase these massive vessels outright (dropping the 3-plus billion credits necessary to purchase the one I mentioned) and not expect them to pay for themselves for 40-50 years (again, something that I would consider to be a bad business decision)?

If the answer is the former, are there fleets of these smaller starships jumping about space on set routes, like today's modern airliners? It makes you wonder if there are any civlian non-combat vessels over 1000Td at all...

 

[womble]

Hi Davy

When I first got the T20 rules, I ran some figures which seemed to suggest that small (200T) traders didn't have an earthly chance of breaking even on operating costs, if they were J2. J1 ships were easier. It turned out that without the mortgage interest on a new ship (i.e. operating as Megacorporations would and buyuing the ship outright), standard cargo rates and High Passage fees produced a comfortable living, and PCs who bought an older, depreciated ship could afford the interest on the rduced capital; they'd never get rich, but that's what speculative trading is for, right?

I didn't look in detail at larger vessels, but my gut feeling was that their cargo hold increased at least proportionally to their purchase price and fuel tankage, so similarly-configured J2 ships would make more profit as they got larger... J3 ships are less efficient still, though and the breakeven size might be larger than 1000T. If you put up fuel use, purchase price and cargo configuration numbers, I'll push 'em through my model and see if they work as a business proposition, if you like.

 

[sea_tyger]

Actually, I've done all of the analysis work involved on the route.

In it's 8 jump (16-week) circuit, the liner makes 5,004kCr in passenger revenue and 2,585kCr in cargo revenue (a total of 7,589kCr). It spends 994.44kCr in fuel, 1,956kCr in life support, 1.95kCr in berths, 220.47kCr in cargo handling fees, 284.28kCr in cash set aside for routine and annual maintenance, and 1,004kCr in crew salaries (a total of 4,261.14kCr). This provides a monthly profit of approximately 901.30kCr.

I assume a 10MCr annual gambling take (or, about 833kCr monthy profit). The ship also has the ability to carry 1,500Td of large craft (with berths available for up to 34 crewmembers at 9,000Cr each)...this makes up the potential 310kCr/jump extra revenue (all profit, as the life support costs have already been paid for).

Still, without large amounts of speculative cargo, the ship would be short on it's monthly loan payment by 8.5-9MCr. That was my point. Excluding loan payments, the ship makes a tidy profit (10MCr annually) before speculative trade is taken into account.

So, if the corp purchased the ship outright (at a cost of nearly 3.1GCr) and we completely ignored speculative trade, it would take 308 years for the ship to pay for itself (i.e., lifetime profits greater than the original cost of the ship). If I factor in an average 60MCr annual speculative trade profit (this is based on 60% profit on each speculation, based on the average profit for 7 stops at a UWP Pop 9 world and 1 stop at a UWP Pop 8 world per 8-jump circuit), then it would take 44 years for the ship to pay for itself. Do you consider this a good business decision? Wouldn't a corp rather use ships that would pay for themselves within 10-15 years?

That fleet of smaller passenger ships that act as jets in a modern airline idea is starting to really sound good right now.

 

[aravain]

...and that is why my crew and I go a'reaving!!!arghhhhhhh,matie!!

 

[womble]

I'd be interested to figure out the numbers for myself, Davy, see if the model I use produces similar results. It's more generic than yours, produces a "break even cost per CargoTon". It might help identify why the ship isn't capable of making money, at the very least.

I think the only data I'm lacking to try my model out are:
* the ship's jump rating (if it's very high J-rated, that might be the reason you can't make any money)
* its Power Plant fuel use
* the basis on which you're charging for the transport of other ships.

I'll run some generic "freighter" stats through my model later, but your case seems like it might have special issues.

 

[sea_tyger]

Originally posted by womble:
I think the only data I'm lacking to try my model out are:
* the ship's jump rating (if it's very high J-rated, that might be the reason you can't make any money)
* its Power Plant fuel use
* the basis on which you're charging for the transport of other ships.

Ship's tonnage: 7,937 tons
Jump Fuel: 2381.1 tons (Jump-3)
Power Plant Fuel: 400 tons (100 tons/week)
Passengers: 50 high, 62 middle, 90 low
Cargo: 685.96 tons
Charter: 1500 tons, 34 berths

Now, the liner is a jump-3 starship because the worlds on its route are all 3 parsecs apart.

The ship is able to scoop and purify on four of the eight stops (at the other four stops [two worlds], they purchase fuel at the starport because of security reasons). So, the liner only purchases 10,324.4 tons of unrefined fuel (at 100Cr per ton) every 8 jumps.

On the charging of the transport of other ships, I use the standard 9,000 Cr. per person and 9Cr per ton of cargo (in this case, the tonnage of the ship). However, since that is an unreliable source of income for the ship, I didn't use charter fees when I calculated the liner's profitability (however, I need it because it's essential to the plot [i.e., the PC's ship is being carried

]). However, if the ship carries a full capacity of chartering vessels, then it would be worth up to 319,500Cr per jump.

Need anything else?

 

[womble]

Well, at Jump-2 my 8000Tonner comes out a smidge cheaper than yours, Davy... and requires the free trader who's had the ship from new to make about 2.5kCr/TCargo/mth (counting non-crew staterooms @ 4T each, middle berths @ 2T each, Low Berths @.5T each and Cargo hold on a 1-for-one). If the private owner took a loan to buy the ship at 20 years old, it's around 1.6kCr/T/Mth. The Corp owned ship depreciating over 40 years needs to make around 1.8kCr/T/mth.

2.5k is difficult, but with a careful plan 1.6-1.8k is relatively easy to maintain... all the casino take and ship-transport fees as well as any higher-than-breakeven cargo is clean profit for the line...

At J-3, though, my numbers start to agree with your assessment. A full mortgage-payer needs to make 4kCr/T/mth which is, to say the least, a "demanding" target. The Corp needs to make nearly 3k/T/mth even without interest payments to break even. If the private owner takes a loan to buy a 20 y.o. ship, they've still got to make 2.5k/T. It does look like 8000T J-3 is somewhat marginal as a commercial prospect. But that's what Imperial subsidies are for...

Certainly, there's a ship size at which the tables in Chapter 14 will top out and fail to fill the holds and staterooms to an economic-to-run level; I reckon that sort of cargo tonnage is probably beyond the scope of the game, and can be assumed to be filled by the "industrial scale" import-export handlers, the ones contracted to shift tens of kTd of grain or raw materials.

One thing I am wondering, though, is what the internal tonnage of the ship has been used for - the hold seems very small. I stuck my ship-transport bays into streamlined external mounts, and had a hold of around 3300T... Bringing the transported-ships inside cripples the capacity.

 

[sea_tyger]

Originally posted by womble:
One thing I am wondering, though, is what the internal tonnage of the ship has been used for - the hold seems very small. I stuck my ship-transport bays into streamlined external mounts, and had a hold of around 3300T... Bringing the transported-ships inside cripples the capacity.

The large craft berths are internal.

One thing you have to remember; this ship is a passenger liner, not a freighter. Second, I built the ship based on the route. I took the average passenger and cargo availability at each stop along the way and installed the appropriate number of staterooms, cabins, low berths and cargo bays to maximize the ship's efficiency. The liner will be almost always filled to passenger capacity throughout the circuit, and will have about 150-200 tons worth of cargo space available for speculative trade for each jump.

Even if I took the 80 percent savings on large ship berths (btw, it wouldn't really be 80%, since the ship would technically have an additional 1,500Td for the purposes of calculating jump and maneuver drive needs), most of that extra tonnage would go unused, simply because there wouldn't be enough cargo waiting transport to fill the holds.

Using those passenger and cargo availability averages to represent an "average" jump for each leg of the circuit, the liner makes an operating profit of over 890kCr/month. Add in about 390kCr/month in gambling takes, and you have 1,280kCr/month profit.

My problem on the profitability of the ship is that the loan payments are 10,265.773kCr/month. To be profitable, the liner would need to make 11,430.665kCr each month, or 1.44kCr/Td/month...and that's buying the ship brand new.

Either way, we're talking about needing to make 9MCr/month in charter fees and speculative trade.

I'm going to build some smaller J-2 and J-3 passenger ships based on the same route, and see if I can come up with something more profitable.

 

[hemulen]

Ok,

My players got to go trading yesterday. They made some nice cash to start with (they are shuttling between a couple of systems, one with a Scout base, in a Type S, so only 20 tons of cargo). Because they are in the Type S, I don't think they can get High Passengers, so they are relying on Middle fares, which they are doubling up at the moment.

I used far-trader's idea for the ship, changed a bit, so they have a 40 year old ship, with a drive that uses 10% more fuel, -2 on Sensor rolls, and (although they don't know this yet) a -1 on weapon rolls due to a sticky turret. All these things are due to old systems that need replacing.

They've realised that they *really* need someone with Broker skill, after a cargo of plates had to sit in a warehouse for several months without a buyer...they did manage to bring in a mangled 30 dt Belter bucket that went in for salvage, but they have to wait a year to get the use of that one...

If they had the cash, I think the best thing to do in the long run would be to put down as much as possible on a ship, and mortgage the rest, could cut down the monthly repayments, pretty much as people do in real life for large purchases.

It all seemed to work out fine. No one has attacked them yet, which is when you can get BIG repair bills, and a turret weapon seems a long way away...

cheers,

Mark.

 

[womble]

As I said, the tables in THB only go so far. The bulk cargo is ad-hoc (like UPS parcels) and the passengers are 'on standby'. I think for a ship that big to be viable you'd have to get into the "contract carrier" biz, shipping regular amounts of a planet's major product to its markets. The tables don't cover that aspect of interstellar trade (it has to exist between Pop8-A planets; the quantities of material that hundreds-of-millions of sophonts needs is simply staggering). That way the liner wouldn't need to dedicate a fifth of its paying space to extremely speculative ship-transport... Though in the right location, a J-3 ferry's ship transport capacity might be more of a sure bet than a speculative stab.

To take the "liner" metaphor, I think you'd need to do something along the lines of publicise your set route on the planets it serves to up the number of passengers who want to use the service.

Basically, an 8000Td ship can't operate viably on the same basis that smaller ships can. So, since IYTU, it exists in the configuration you've specified, it must be profitable. Perhaps it charges premiums on passenger spaces, or has guaranteed shipping contracts that pay better because they're for the long-Jump the ship is capable of (equivalent to priority cargo rates, maybe - makes the corporate requirement of 3kCr/T/mth achievable with a J-3 ship).

And then there're always subsidies...

 

[rancke]

Originally posted by Sea Tyger:
In it's 8 jump (16-week) circuit...

If it is a regularly scheduled ship with a paid factor in each system, it shouldn't have to spemd 5 days each place to scrounge around for cargo and passengers. Cargo and passengers should be lined up ready for loading/embarkation. It should be possible to make a jump per 10 days. That will improve its profit margin.


Hans

 

[Falkayn]

Originally posted by womble:
As I said, the tables in THB only go so far. The bulk cargo is ad-hoc (like UPS parcels) and the passengers are 'on standby'. I think for a ship that big to be viable you'd have to get into the "contract carrier" biz, shipping regular amounts of a planet's major product to its markets. The tables don't cover that aspect of interstellar trade (it has to exist between Pop8-A planets; the quantities of material that hundreds-of-millions of sophonts needs is simply staggering). That way the liner wouldn't need to dedicate a fifth of its paying space to extremely speculative ship-transport... Though in the right location, a J-3 ferry's ship transport capacity might be more of a sure bet than a speculative stab.

Opinions differ as to how much interstellar trade goes on, with some people's TU built around very low volumes of trade, and other with amounts closer to what international trade is today.

IMTU, I think the volume of trade should be very large, although much of it does not go through the main starport but through purpose built bulk cargo ports.

I also decided that seeing as there are a number of rifts throughout the Julian Protectorate that require Jump-3 to cross, it would make sense to have a Jump-3 ferry to transport other starships back and forth across that part of the rift, thus was born the 1,000,000-ton Useful Object Class Jump-3 Ferry. It carries 490,000 tons of other ships in internal hangars and operates a dedicated Jump-3 route (just going back and forth).

 

[sea_tyger]

Originally posted by womble:
Basically, an 8000Td ship can't operate viably on the same basis that smaller ships can. So, since IYTU, it exists in the configuration you've specified, it must be profitable. Perhaps it charges premiums on passenger spaces, or has guaranteed shipping contracts that pay better because they're for the long-Jump the ship is capable of (equivalent to priority cargo rates, maybe - makes the corporate requirement of 3kCr/T/mth achievable with a J-3 ship).

Yeah, I was thinking that the rules would have to be different for larger vessels...I was just hoping that the rules would support larger merchant ships.

Perhaps larger ships on established, well-advertised routes to highly-populated worlds would have guaranteed maximum turnout for bulk cargo and passengers. Other large vessels are contracted by major firms and governments to carry resource trade between worlds...using the priority cargo costs would be reasonable.

Now, since this is an established route I'm working from, I figured that at each world, I would take the average roll on the table for each world en route to determine the number of passengers available. I'll use that result to determine the number of berths the ship would need (I plan to take the maximum number of passengers onboard at any one time, plus 20%). For cargo, I'm going with the simpler assumption that cargo will be on board for only one jump, and new cargo will be picked up at each world (again the maximum amount of cargo onboard at any one time, plus 20%).

Using those figures, I'll see what I can come up with on a profitable ship.

Stay tuned.

 

[womble]

Since the liner is fast (J-3) I don't think it's unreasonable that its cargo contracts could be charged at higher than bulk-standard, either. Cetainly if I was an importer-exporter and had the option of either getting my stuff on a ship which would arrive in 1 week or putting it into a chain of J-1 ships with 2 stops which might stretch the journey time to 6 weeks or more, I know which I'd pay the premium for, because, let's face it, bulk cargos are someone else's speculative cargos, so even (especially) if they're successful Market analysts, they'll want prompt delivery of their wares.