Ship's shares, An unformed Idea.

[spank]

Based on the "ships accounting" thread,

General Thread 'Why are Players doing the Ship's Accounting?'

Dec 10, 2025

Are you a Player and your Referee says you have to do the Ship's Accounting by hand?

Why?

If you have a perfectly good 100+ ton starship that has a Ship's Computer, why would a person ever do the Ship's Accounting when the Computer can do it?

It should be software for the Main Computer. Even a Hand Comp can do it. Or at least the Hand Comp can keep track of spending and upload it all when you get back to the ship.

It just makes me wonder why in the Far Future that a person would do this.

• Spinward Scout
• Replies: 53
• Forum: The Lone Star

• 

I had an bit of an idea. The "ship's share" as a fungible asset. Instead of issuing an arbitrary number of shares, at an arbitrary value Ship's shares are valued at a nominal 1000 Cr. When each ship is constructed a number of ship's shares are issued equal to the cost divide by 1000. In the case of outright purchase the shares are divided as the owner sees fit. In the case of financing the Bank takes all the shares. Every year during annual maintenance the bank, or it's representative conducts a review of the Loan's financial health, considering such thing as cash flow, operating margins, payment history and disburses a percentage of the ship's share to the mortgagors. typically this amounts to 1/500th of the shares for every month of satisfactory operation of the ship. The mortgagors can then hold, sell or trade these shares as they see fit.

In practice this would allow a number of interesting behaviors, such as paying for fuel, salaries, repairs or maintenance with ship's share's. Each shares would also pay dividends based on the ship's profitability. This gives the player's operating capital, but also limits the amount of profits they can take. So they have the choice of holding shares, so they get a greater percentage of the profits in the future, or using the Ship's shares to pay operating expenses.

The primary benefit is that less profitable ships, such as Scout/Couriers, Far Traders or Mercenary Cruiser get some wiggle room. Rather than just paying out every month for the mortgage they are able to access the equity they have built in the ship in the form of shares. But they are also limited in the amount of profit they can take from the ship, rather than just dividing profits they get a very small percentage based on the number of shares they own.



For example a Free Trader would pay a mortgage of 154,500Cr per month, but be rebated 74,000Cr worth of ship's shares. They can sell, trade or hold these, making it much easier to operate, but selling or trading the shares means giving up some amount of ownership (and future profits). It also makes it much easier for them to wander further from the "high profit" trader routes. If they hold the shares every month they will end up with 96% ownership of the ship, with the bank retaining 4%. They can either pay the bank 4% of the ship's profits or purchase the remaining 4% from the bank.

That's the idea anyway, I don't know how well it would work in practice and I can see room for abuse, but I still think it's interesting.

 

[Condottiere]

If the Scout/Courier is on loan from the Scout Service, what the investment is in is the cargo, and the administration of such.

 

[spank]

If the Scout/Courier is on loan from the Scout Service, what the investment is in is the cargo, and the administration of such.

In that case the Scout Service would likely own most or all of the shares. Conceivably, if the ship was being surplused, they might payout shares in a manner similar to the bank. Probably at a lower rate, 0.1% percent per month instead of 0.2% would work well. In that case the Scout Service still owns 52% of the ship at the end of 40 years.

Also in character generation if the player who gets a ships share gets up to 10 years worth of annual shares each time he rolls the benefit. Maybe (2d6-2) * 2.4% of the ship's shares each time a ship is rolled as a benefit.

However that would dump a large pile of money in the player's lap. For a Free Trader that would be up to 8.8 MCr worth of Fungible shares. It would make it alot easier to start speculative trading, but they would be burning equity to do it, and should be required to pay freight cost for anything they move on the ship. I'm not sure how it would shake out in the end, but it'd be interesting to see.

 

[Grav_Moped]

In that case the Scout Service would likely own most or all of the shares. Conceivably, if the ship was being surplused, they might payout shares in a manner similar to the bank.

Detached Duty scout ships are still Imperial property ‐ just on loan to a Scout taking an extended Busman's Holiday. (Wiktionary.org)

No shares are involved, unless Mongoose did something different.

On the other hand, the idea of the Scouts self-financing the sale of genuinely surplus ships is interesting.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Also in character generation if the player who gets a ships share gets up to 10 years worth of annual shares each time he rolls the benefit. Maybe (2d6-2) * 2.4% of the ship's shares each time a ship is rolled as a benefit.

However that would dump a large pile of money in the player's lap

I've used that with a Noble character's yacht, to pre-fund a few years of use before having to hand back the keys. (...and maybe the horse will learn to sing.)

 

[Ulsyus]

Detached Duty scout ships are still Imperial property ‐ just on loan to a Scout taking an extended Busman's Holiday. (Wiktionary.org)

No shares are involved, unless Mongoose did something different.

That's the way we had always played it: the retired/detached scout had use of the vessel, would respond to jobs the Service sent their way, but were otherwise responsible for the upkeep of the vessel. Hence speculative trade and the consequential adventures which spun out of that.

 

[Rupert]

That's the way we had always played it: the retired/detached scout had use of the vessel, would respond to jobs the Service sent their way, but were otherwise responsible for the upkeep of the vessel. Hence speculative trade and the consequential adventures which spun out of that.

Canon says you get free fuel at Scout Bases, and free maintenance at Scout Bases at class B starports. All else (crew costs, life support, fuel away from bases, etc.) is not free. This probably contributes to the reputation the Type S has for smelly air, as skimping on LS costs is likely common.

 

[whulorigan]

Detached Duty scout ships are still Imperial property ‐ just on loan to a Scout taking an extended Busman's Holiday. (Wiktionary.org)

No shares are involved, unless Mongoose did something different.

On the other hand, the idea of the Scouts self-financing the sale of genuinely surplus ships is interesting.

But there is also the possibility that since the Type-S is such an old-standard and common/basic ship design that in addition to buying a surplus Type-S outright, you could commission a new-build Type-S Scout at a Yard (minus any special IISS service-specific on-board equipment). It is not a classified design.

Depending on what ruleset you are using, ship-shares can operate in some peculiar ways under particular sets of circumstances.

In T5 (I believe still in the current version (5.10), but maybe I am remembering an earlier iteration):

• A single ship share gets you use of a Type-S if you are mustering out of the Scout Service. It still belongs to the IISS, and you have it on Detached Duty status, subject to recall by the Service.
• I believe 3 Ship shares explicitly for someone mustering out of the Scholar Career (Scientist, Naturalist, Researcher, etc) gets you a Lab Ship (or Safari , or similar), but the individual presumably does not own the vessel, but has the use of it (the Scholar's vessel is owned by an institution, but he has it on loan from them regarding its use).
• I believe 3 Ship shares explicitly for someone mustering out of the Nobles gets you a Yacht - the Noble's Yacht is part of the appurtenances of the Fief and/or Estate grant for those 3 ship shares and belongs to the granted estate, but the Noble has use of it.

But in each case if the individual DID want to own it outright, he could pay the full ship-share cost for the vessel (presuming he had the requisite number of shares) and then own the vessel free and clear as personal property (or have a mortgage on it for the difference between the number of shares required versus the number of shares applied - just like a Merchant with a Free Trader).

 

[Grav_Moped]

But there is also the possibility that since the Type-S is such an old-standard and common/basic ship design that in addition to buying a surplus Type-S outright, you could commission a new-build Type-S Scout at a Yard (minus any special IISS service-specific on-board equipment). It is not a classified design.

It's also the minimum starship possible under LBB2 (other versions permit J1/1G in 100Td).

There's a market for that. Maybe dispense with a couple of staterooms and the Air/raft, but that's pretty much what you get with A drives in a 100Td hull.