20,000 cr for 40 tons of collapsible tank. That shouldn't need to go to shares!

In reply to Khuevaengh (msg # 210):

Okay.

It was mentioned in the message #156 in this thread.
But if it is postulated that he has no shares, then the updated list is:

Carver: 2
Heike: 4
Leroy: 2
Tal: 2
Danila: 0
Copeland: 0
Khue: 2
Alyx: 0
Gvoudzon: 0

Total: 12

One way to resolve the Skill package issue is to list three skills in order of preference along with the character number of skill level. This should allow the GM to allocate the skill package to the characters. If that somehow doesn't work then our GM could ask for a forth from the player

 I don't recall seeing the character skill points being the basis for selection but it does make sense

In reply to Andrew Steward Copeland (msg # 213):

There is no formal order. The core rules just says the players take it in turns to select from the list until there's no more. It's up to the players to decide on the order. Given the amount of time it could take to hash it out we seem to have settled on a rubric that works pretty quickly. That said, the GM did just say to pick one each way back on this thread, so order might not matter.

Why does everybody assume my character is asking for something immoral when he is asking for 2%, in cargo space, which is cheaper than credits since the crew doesn't have enough capital anyway to fill the ship anyway? In other words: His demands wouldn't cost the owners a single credit.

Core book page 210 says that he is entitled to a whooping 30% of the trade volume, since he gets a +6 DM to broker roll (+5 if not using his computer).

That is 30% for buying the cargo, and another 30% for selling it at the destination. It drops our available capital from 120.000 credits to 75.000 credits (x+0,3x+0,3x=120.000). Broker may not be the most glorious of jobs, but the broker's buying and selling the cargo make at least 45.000 credits on a single operation of buying and selling (more if the cargo is sold for more than the buying price). Rather than using that NPC broker Copeland suggested, we should at the very least transfer this job to another PC (maybe someone with a DM of +3 or +4), because using NPC-brokers cut deep into the ships earnings. We will also need a player who looks up the trade rules and does the buying and selling since it loooks like I'm not going to be the one.

If the people owning this ship (my character among them) will be faced with the captain's choices, they will not be happy. No company would be happy with a decision that costs at least 37,5% of the company earnings.

What my character offered was an absolute bargain. He's not being a dick, but he's being unbelievably fair. Leroy doesn't want to command others during a space fight (or ever), but I think it makes some sense to make a flight plan for a trade ship with an eye on trade, so he should definitely have a seat at the table when destinations are chosen.

On a different note:
I know there are rules for subsidized freighters having to pay less maintenance and or salary. Which costs are paid by the owners in exchange for a share of the profits, and which do the crew have to pay? Berthing? Fuel? Salaries? Other?

In reply to Leroy Ogambe (msg # 215):

Your reasoning is correct, but there are some other factors you didn't put in the equation. For example, our characters didn't read the Mongoose rulebook :)
If you ask Danila in-character privately, that could be a good role-playing dialog.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:28, Fri 04 Sept 2020.

In reply to Danila (msg # 216):

The decision isn't up to the captain, it isn't his ship. I couldn't find that on page 210 of the Core book Leroy, where is it?

NPC hires often work on different math than PC ones do. It's a game element meant to encourage having a PC to do it. Nor do I see anything saying that they get a 30% cut of the trade value.

Getting a +1 DM for 5% of the trade value isn't a case of paying them a giant share of it. It's a case of letting them grease palms with some of the money to get a circumstance bonus to their roll. It doesn't actually increase their Broker skill!


And if push comes to shove then the other PCs could outright replace the need for a PC broker by picking up a handheld computer with an Expert Broker program for a relatively small sum. So it's best not to make that appear to be too cost-effective an option. ;)


*All* of the cargo capacity is owned by the holding company. If we want to use any of it for personal purposes then we have to pay for that space (which isn't cheap). Shadow funds are sometimes used by a crew to do that on a collective basis.

As far as what we have to pay for: everything but the mortgage. The company takes their 50% (or somewhat less if we put our ship shares into revenue share) up front of everything, and THEN we pay expenses out of what's left. That means salaries, fuel cost, maintenance, repairs, life support, etc, etc.

Given how much red ink a mortgage usually represents this is actually a decent deal.

In reply to Khuevaengh (msg # 218):

Amen Khue!

Somewhat related to the above: most of the time a subsidized merchant is going to be hauling freight. This works out reasonably well given its cargo capacity (205 tons) - that's just over 200,000 cr per jump, and even with a week's turnaround in each system it can still pull in a little over 400,000 cr per month this way.

200,000 of that lands in the operating fund and should cover non-extraordinary costs with a bit left over. Passengers are pretty much all-profit at that point.

If it does carry speculative cargo then it probably only hauls a few tons worth at a time, either following the usual company-gets-half protocol, or with the crew having bought out that freight space for that trip (and paying for the speculative cargo) out of the shadow fund.


And, of course, there will always be people who have 'special assignments'. Payment highly variable, but as long as the company gets its share...
This message was last edited by the player at 21:04, Fri 04 Sept 2020.

In reply to Leroy Ogambe (msg # 215):

It's not an unreasonable request if you've already proven yourself or you're negotiating for space for a cargo you already have. It's a perverse incentive otherwise. You're setting yourself up as competition for the ship in a way, since any cargo you find you could buy for yourself or for the ship. As you astutely pointed out there's not the funds to buy anywhere near enough to fill the hold (even if all the PC's pooled their funds) so space isn't the issue. It's the fact that you're demanding it upfront, without proof that there's value in it and you're explicitly disrespecting the new captian while doing it, which isn't showing that you're a "team player" who can be trusted with a potential conflict of interest.

As a player, I don't really have a problem with it, but there will be RP consequences. To himself, Leroy IS a proven quantity and I don't think he sees himself as setting himself up as competition for the ship. I think it's fair to roleplay this through. If Alyx weren't currently conflict avoidant, he'd suggest you take it up with the captain in private. Maybe with the council of three, since one of them has already backed you up on expertise.

I know I'm actually having fun. Shadows of Sindal is out Khue, it runs beside or after Pirates of Drinax. Maybe we'll get to it in ten years or so? ;-)
This message was last edited by the GM at 21:11, Fri 04 Sept 2020.

On a more meta level...


The game assumes that players and characters are working more or less cooperatively as a team.

If you have the Broker declaring that they want a 4% reserve for their own use because they're negotiating the deals...

...then the Pilot can demand 4% because otherwise the cargo doesn't fly anywhere.

...and the Sensors operator can demand 4% because otherwise it will fly right into an asteroid.

...and the Engineer can demand 4% because otherwise there's no power to fly the cargo anywhere.

...etc.

So no, in the context of the game, it's really not appropriate for people to be trying to hive off special set-asides for themselves.



*If* everyone is doing their job, and especially if they're doing it well, that comes back to them in the form of dividends from the operating fund and/or transfers to the shadow fund.

Amen Khue and Alyx for saying something because I am sorry to say this Leroy, you're coming off as an Ass Hole.   If you showed my character as much disrespect as you're showing the new captain, I'd break you in two.   Andrew didn't lobby for the position.    If you're a broker, use your skills to help us get either cargo or stuff to make a cargo possible.    Like my character is using his Survival stuff to get the items that may be useful for getting into places, like 3 cases of good scotch.    Quit sulking about not getting your way and start acting like an adult.

4 tons of 200t is not 4%, but 2 % (less than the two ship shares he owns).

@Khue: regular freight does not fill the hulls:



So, if we're VERY lucky, we get 60 tons + 30t + 6t of regular cargo, for a total of 96 tons.

That leaves 104 tons empty, or 99 tons after mail. You can't possibly fill that room with speculative cargo, not if you have just 120k credits.

So what exactly is it Leroy is asking: He is asking for storage that would be unnused otherwise.

So far he hasn't asked for anything, he has demanded and disrespectfully at that. Again, you're not wrong that it's a minor concession, but it's not anyone else making it difficult. Leroy has talked himself into a corner, he needs to see that and try a different approach.

If there was one of each lot available, that would be true.

However, there are usually 2d6 to 4d6 of each lot available on a given world.

Filling your hold with freight is rarely a problem unless the world is a very low-tech backwater with no starport and a travel warning.

On Aramis, even Khuevaengh could easily do it.


In any case, the fundamental problem is that you're trying to claim a special privilege for your character that is not part of the game, nor reasonable for everyone else to accept in-character.

That you've apparently misrepresented the trade rules twice in support of that claim doesn't help matters.

I can't find that in the rules.

My character wouldn't know these details, so I'm writing this ooc:

The combined mass of the radioactive substances set free in the Chernobyl accident was less than 50 kg. Salad produced 1500 km away was declared not edible.

A 5000t freighter has a cargo hold of what? 100t? 1000t? So, is there any danger of radioactive contamination?

And don't tell me the government would warn people. It wouldn't make much of a difference anyway, with most people doomed, but it might make their withdrawal to the spaceport or a bunker more difficult.

On the story level: What's more interesting? A quiet trip to a neighboring system? Or a quick getaway with a hold full of contaminated refugees, disoriented and angry?

Also on the story level: I like how Copeland portrays his Captain as a leader who doesn't even look at the facts. It reminds me of another leader prone to ignoring facts. It's a real character!
This message was last edited by the player at 07:23, Sat 05 Sept 2020.

It's right after the part you quoted, on the page facing.


Unfortunately, it probably won't be as big an opportunity as we'd like.

Given that most ships in the setting use fusion power rather than fission power, radioactivity would mostly be a threat from any cargo that it's carrying. Even then, it probably isn't a big threat in this case because almost all of the planet's population is in a single underground city due to the corrosive atmosphere. We know that it's not going to hit the city, so the only potential danger would be a direct crash into one of the outlying sensor posts, prospector bunkers, or the like.


A salvage operation would be nice as long as it's cleared with the navy (they'll be touchy about those cannons), although it also occurs to me that the ship is currently under maintenance so we'd have to go by local flyer.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:43, Sat 05 Sept 2020.

@Khue: Thanks, funny, I've never seen that chart before (stupid me).

In reply to Leroy Ogambe (msg # 229):

Chernobyl has nothing to do with anything. Aramis is a hellscape already. There's no agriculture on the surface and everyone already lives in massively environmentally controlled living spaces, even those living on the surface. You could have a nuclear war and it would barely affect the population, who already live underground in, as mentioned before, massively environmentally controlled living spaces. All that ignores that we have no reason to believe that there were radioactives in the cargo (no reason why tl-12+ meson guns would have them) so it doesn't matter, and that Aramis is significantly more technologically advanced than Chernobyl era Europe (and the Navy has Nuclear Dampers and such).


I can see that you're enthusiastic to start on an interesting plot line, but it seems that one is starting and we might want to see where it goes before we start running off on tangents.

And you've also gone from being disrespectful in character to being disrespectful out of character.

And in a pm to the gm, I've already asked for Leroy to be removed. What he did (ignoring the fact that the population lives underground) makes his behavior inacceptable.

This was inappropriate. Sorry to all. Good luck with your game.

In reply to Leroy Ogambe (msg # 233):

And good luck to you. I hope you find a game with a style that more matches your own.