item by item
On 8/16/17, Jeffrey Schwartz <xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
> So, I'm a little odd in how I look at things sometimes.
>
> The way I'm reading this, players can get a 50 ton cutter, and pay
> 25kcr per jump to latch on to a Jumpship?
> Or if you've got a really small group (1-3 PCs) they could get 10 ton
> fighters and pay 5kcr per jump each and do the "Luke Skywalker in his
> X-Wing" thing?
> Maybe add an extra 500cr per fighter for a 1 d-ton bunk area and
> permission to use the fresher?
There's a few like that, but since I'm also going with much increased
jump limits, so there's now value to small craft in exploiting a
system.
Any Jump-Carriers for small craft only follow established trade routes.

> On the other side, this puts the players in a "We need jump-fare....
> so we need a job"
> It puts a funnel in the exiting a system, so there's some additional
> drama if the players need to get out of Dodge while being chased.
Exactly what I was trying for.

> On Wed, Aug 16, 2017 at 2:21 PM, Bruce  Johnson
> <xxxxxx@pharmacy.arizona.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> On Aug 16, 2017, at 2:36 AM, Amber Witherspoon <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>> So, in the TU that I'm working on, ships are cheap, jump drives
>>> aren't. I gave every component except jump drives a 75% discount (I
>>> really wanted my cheap small craft so I can have space RVs), while
>>> jump drives are at 150% book cost.
>>> Now, the issue with this is that with the freight and passenger income
>>> as written (especially with the assumptions that Mongoose writes
>>> in...), there's no need to adventure except as an accident (I know
>>> I'll take a safely profitable milk run any day over having to do shady
>>> stuff to make ends meet... And where's the adventure in that?).
>>
>>
>> So here’s the solution. Unfortunately, it means ‘throw out the rules’ and
>> make it up yourself.
>>
>> Published freight/pax rates are for the big commercial lines. PC-scale
>> ships operate as charter vessels.
>>
>> Jane PlayerCharacter with her 65-year-old creaky free trader with the
>> patched together Jdrive and that wonky grav compensator in the forward
>> hold that always causes weird shifts in the cargo cannot compete with
>> those rates not if she wants to keep flying, eating and keeping her crew.
>>
>> *everything* on a PC-scale ship is speculative trade.
>>
>> Someone needs to get a box of widgets to some off the beaten track place
>> with a D starport that only sees a regular ship every 3 months and it’s a
>> rotating schedule so the next one going there from *here* is in 6 or more.
>> Unfortunately they need this *right now*, or as *right now* as can be
>> gotten.
>>
>> Jane PlayerCharacter is now competing with any other similarly situated
>> tramp in port for the contract. You can develop some sort of table or
>> formula to generate a range of what Jane and the logistics factor
>> negotiate for.
>>
>> You get a couple passengers who want to go someplace. Why aren’t they
>> using the regular lines? Same reason as above, where they want to go is
>> not going to be serviced for some time, they want to move under the radar,
>> or they’re looking for adventure or ‘adventure on a tramp freighter plying
>> the stars'.
>>
>> You don’t have to go full-bore murder hoboes, but small ships like the
>> ones PC’s have subsist on the scraps the regular transports leave behind,
>> not the published rates.
>>
>> Likewise, if your PC’s arrive in port and need to go someplace they can
>> either go to one of the Bigs, pay the official rates and be subject to the
>> schedule of the Bigs, or they can charter a PC scale ship and follow their
>> own schedule.
>>
>> Again, what it costs will depend on who’s available for charter.
>>
>> View it like the hub-and-spoke system of air travel.  There’s a lot of
>> places between the hub-and-spokes that have irregular, intermittent or no
>> service at all.
>>
>> Just last week, the last airline flying out of our airport direct to NYC
>> dropped Tucson from their routes. The local airport authority is looking
>> to entice a replacement carrier, but consider this in Jump transport
>> terms: getting to NYC now requires traveling to Phoenix, then picking up a
>> direct flight from there (or worse, a flight from there to Hobby, O'Hare
>> or Atlanta, then to NYC) which in the TU could be several weeks.
>>
>> Or you could charter a ship here and jump to NYC directly.
>>
>> Fundamentally the transportation economics and rules in all the OTU’s are
>> irretrievably broken, and if you want realism or to nudge your players
>> without railroading them, you have to rewrite the whole thing.
>>
>> --
>> Bruce Johnson

Well, the original rules were written for the frontier areas of a weak
and dying centralized empire. Put in that context, those rules make
sense.
Now, the PC's pulling charters make sense.
I'll have more later, but I gotta leave for work now.