In reply to Beto Arark (msg # 2):



Cargo capacity is 92 tons

400 is the more-or-less permanent population, and even that's variable by plus or minus 1% at any given time. If we find passengers willing to go to sleep for a month (low berth), they could just as easily be crew from other ships or similar transients. They could have been passengers on another ship whose captain got a better deal here at Thrush Highport and changed his destination.

You also left out Freight. On Thrush, it's most likely to be something that is being transshipped, particularly from the Hierate. A ship brought cargo here but that's as far as he was willing to go into the Florian League.

Freight, however, always has a predestination, such as 'here's 40 tons of medical drugs that need to go to Nora'a FAST!' Someone else owns it; we're just hauling it from point A to point B for them... for a price, of course.

Cargo is stuff we buy and thereafter own and then we see if we can sell it for a profit wherever we go.

In reply to Yuri Argonov (msg # 6):

Thanks for clarifying the distinction between cargo and freight. I think I was thinking in terms of freight.

So, Carmichael will also be looking for trade goods available for purchase. Hopefully this place has a lot of highly automated production facilities.

I wouldn't expect there to be any trade goods manufactured on Thrush. With a population of only 400, most of them would be in the Class A starport to keep it running because a lot of ships pass through here. Anything that comes up from the planet is likely to be water, hydrogen and oxygen to supply the station and fuel ships. Easier to obtain than getting it from a gas giant.

There could be cargo sitting in a warehouse waiting to be transshipped. Or possibly transferred from another ship whose captain is having second thoughts about where she was going.

In reply to Yuri Argonov (msg # 8):

Or, automated production facilities.

*low berths
Thanks for pointing a mistake I made. The specs in the other thread states "6 crew, 8 lowberths". Since I assume
- none of the crew wants to be in cryo,
- the inside of the ship looks like that http://www.mu.org/~joe/travell...ckplans/fartrade.pdf

-> we can't put two crewmembers in the same cabin (unless... but we just met. Not on the first date ;) )
-> we have to transform areas into a shared cabin for 4 crew beings

"areas in the cargo bay or engineering will be set aside for very basic accommodation and services. This requires 2 tons of spare room on the spacecraft, a resilient personality on the part of the passenger, and comes with a 10kg baggage allowance." -> 8 tons for 4 of you ('cause Beto shall have a cabin all for herself) ;)

I'll update the "passengers search" for low passage only


Do you mean one week? :)



yes. Small population, all employed at the Class A starport; Thrush is a "hub" for passengers and goods :)



I hear this distinction, but through p.208-209 of the manual, though the chapter is named "freight", they use indifferently both "cargo" and "freight".

e.g. A freight lot cannot be broken up. Cargo is paid for upon delivery, assuming it is delivered on time. Failing to deliver cargo on time reduces the amount paid by 1D+4 x 10%

Stuff bought and sold by the crew is called "Speculative trade & smuggling", pages 210-213, and does not name it "freight" nor "cargo"; it's all about "goods". I suggest we stick to the vocabulary of the book to avoid misunderstandings :)

Also - but I know we agree on this - the rules make no distinction between destinations ; unless the GM tells us where the shipment really has to be transported, we choose somewhere to go and the dice decide how many tons there are to transport.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:20, Fri 12 Mar 2021.

I understood the undifferentiated freight to be stuff one filled the cracks with, once they had bought all other specialized goods they wanted to.

Yes, I meant 'week'. My brain said 'week' but my fingers typed 'month'.


And, yes, Mongoose is very good at confusing their terms. The writers may always know what they mean, but they don't always convey that coherently.

Apparently, to their way of thinking (and I use that word loosely), 'cargo' is anything that you put in your 'cargo hold'. So both Freight and Speculative Goods (can we just call it Spec--the term isn't used anywhere else that I'm aware of) are Cargo.

Entrepreneur Charlie buys 100 tons of gadolinium. He doesn't have a ship, but he knows that it is selling for top dollar on Kabal. He approaches Master Jack, a local buyer for Kabal, who says he'll buy it on behalf of Kabal for 95% of its estimated value. Charlie agrees. But, you see, Jack doesn't actually have the money personally. The gadolinium has to be delivered to Kabal first. So Charlie hires YOUR ship to take it there. You don't have to buy it from Charlie, so he's still the owner. He's responsible for the insurance and paying you whatever the market is for hauling Freight. When you deliver it to Kabal, only then will Charlie get paid. And that'll take about two weeks... one week for you to get there and another week for the payment to make it back to Charlie.

And that's what Freight is. All you have to do is pay fuel and crew, which the shipping charge should cover.

If you want it to be Spec (speculative cargo), you'd have fork over the 20,000,000Cr for the gadolinium. Charlie would certainly be happy, but when you get to Kabal, you could find out that the market has dropped out of gadolinium and all you can sell it for is 15,000,000, but that's the chance you take. You can then either sell if for a loss, sit on it until the market improves, or take it to another system where you might get a better deal.

Just remember that one of the reasons you file a flight plan is  that electronic data is uploaded to your ship (which could include Charlie's payment), and that when you get to your destination, your transponder downloads it to the system net while new data is uploaded to your ship. If no one wants to pay for priority shipment, then it becomes Mail. And, yes, the data is uploaded to more than one ship... just in case you don't make it to where you are going.

Only on Class E or X starports does this not happen because there's usually nothing there but a flat piece of land.

This is all my 2 credits. The Referee has the final say on what anything means or how anything is done. Traveller is very good about leaving it up to the Referee to 'fill in the blanks', which not everyone is good at.

In reply to Beto Arark (msg # 10):

Another option for berths is shifts?

In reply to Baris Dahl (msg # 16):

The bunk is always full, in shifts. Submarines are that way, or, were in WWII.
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:05, Fri 12 Mar 2021.

Well, I'm sure you'll get many suggestions from the rest of us on how to  fill the gaps, so you'll just have to decide which suggestion works best for you!

On another note... about the ship...

There are actually 8 crew/passenger berths. Technically, I'm guessing three of them are supposed to be crew and 5 of them are passenger.

Since some of us are experienced Travellers (literally, not just because of the game's name), it shouldn't be a problem for four of us to share a quarters. It's up to the captain to make sure we stay on different shifts, though.

It's always possible to put a few passenger cabins in the Cargo Bay. They are modular and can easily be installed. Intelligently-designed ships allow for that. Not so much military ships, though.

I also notice that there isn't a Medical Bay, so no one get hurt!

I also don't see anything that looks like a galley--a place for preparing food!

Because the Cargo Bay is on the lower deck (?), besides the forward, port and starboard cargo airlock/hatches, there is probably also a ventral (bottom) hatch for loading bigger cargo.

Sadly, the game map deckplans don't have any numbers or key with it letting us know what area is what, such as weapon's locker, ship's locker, or vacc-suit storage.

I'm OCD that way, so if this doesn't matter to anyone else, we can let it slide.

I think those are good points Yuri.

They help to build a living, breathing setting.

In reply to Yuri Argonov (msg # 18):

There is a med bay on the deck behind the captains cabin, same deck as the bridge. Galley is situated on the deck opposite the bridge, between crew quarters, they're there.

Are we looking at the same deckplan in the Game Map section, Yuri? 8) (I just discovered it) ;)
I can count 6 cabins and 8 cryotubes (on deck 2) :) I also see what looks like a galley on deck one, right hand side, between two cabins. (the L shape of the thing discards for me the possibility it is the medical bay).



Is this the military campaign? ;) I thought we were going to get comfortable and live a luxury life in a big big ship, not share submarine bunks! ;)

Seriously, I feel the 6 cabins are quite large actually, if you fold the king-size bed. So the cabins could be converted to accept 2 roommates. Each one his bunk ! (comedic routine ON : will the countess have a cabin for a single person, who's going to share their cabin and with whom?) ;)



Absolutely. I even quoted the book's passage about that, in my reply to you in the other thread :) "areas in the cargo bay or engineering will be set aside for very basic accommodation and services. This requires 2 tons of spare room on the spacecraft, a resilient personality on the part of the passenger, and comes with a 10kg baggage allowance."
This message was last edited by the player at 18:44, Fri 12 Mar 2021.

Without being labelled, I have no idea what some of these spaces are supposed to be, but you got me on the galley, Beto. Don't know why I missed it.

I counted any space with a bed as quarters, so there are five on Deck One and three on Deck Two (though, yeah, one of them looks like a med bay... for sardines.

I don't think any of the normal bunks are intended to be king-size; why else show a double wide? But, the general idea is that they are all bunks with the upper bunk being able to fold up against the wall when not in use.

Discounting the med bay, that's still 7 quarters, though the one behind the bridge doesn't have a fresher in it, so I suppose that doesn't count. It appears as if there is a 'community' toilet off the hallway on that side of the ship.

The med bay doesn't a fresher.

Yeah, I read your quote from the other thread, but I don't think it meant the same thing to me as it did you. I took it to mean that you could hang a hammock up in the space, not that you could put an entire cabin (2 squares x 3 squares, with fresher) there. There's certainly no place in engineering for one to fit. I also took it to mean that there are wall or floor hook ups for power and plumbing, as well as built-in attachment points (bolts and such).

You could put 4 cabins in the far corners of the Cargo Bay, but nowhere else where they wouldn't interfere with access to the Cargo Bay. You could add 2 more but they'd interfere with the access ladder.

I'm still not sure which deck is supposed to be the upper deck--is it Deck One or Deck Two?

In reply to Yuri Argonov (msg # 22):

It doesn't say which is upper and which is lower.

You can go jump 2, raise cargo to 120 tons, reduce fuel to 66 tons. You want that instead? I figured jump 3 would be better out here.

In reply to Yuri Argonov (msg # 22):

You got me on the 7th cabin. Why does it have a table and four chairs? Is it the crew union's meeting room? ;))

my view is "uses 2 tons" means a 1x2 square. A closet for 1 passenger; they use the common toilet. The cargo bay is an adjustable space full of hooks and such, to install various modules - absolutely! :)

I would stay with Jump-3 since : 1-we're getting the ship "as is" and have to deal with what has been given to us by the Almighty, and 2-we couldn't reach Floria - the League capital - in one jump. :)

In reply to Beto Arark (msg # 24):

The room behind the bridge with a bed and a table with 4 chairs is the Captains day cabin.

Captains cabin has the queen size bed, the room behind it with the blue floor is the Med bay.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:30, Fri 12 Mar 2021.

I've gotten a headache every time I try to figure out how to transfer x tons of ship into deck squares. Every publication seems to have a different system.

Two deck squares was supposed to represent 1 ton (and don't get me started on displacement tons versus mass). That was also two deck squares high, since each deck square actually represents a cube. The extra height was supposed to cover the subdeck infrastructure, where the conduits and such ran.

This gets a bit wacky with jump drives, maneuver drives and power plant, since the picture for them always looks like a 3-year-old's scribbling.

Excellent : it could be used as
*a guest room,
*the place where Beto shall agonize,
*a discreet meeting room where
** the captain yells and castigates culprits,
** Charmichael haggles with a patron
** Beto and a few select people play bridge games quietly ! ;D
This message was last edited by the player at 21:38, Fri 12 Mar 2021.

In reply to Beto Arark (msg # 27):

Canasta!

May be we could push Mail a few spaces up... :)

Mail containers take up five tons of space, and the Travellers will be paid Cr25000 for transporting the container [regardless of the distance]. There will be 1D containers available to transport and the Travellers must take them all or none at all.

So we charge Cr1000 a 1-ton 1-parsec freight. The same transport of a 5-ton mail container gets us Cr25000 - Cr5000/ton

Now let's see if we are selected to transport mail :

1) Seeking Mail from Nora'a
Mail DM for freight traffic's DM (say minor) : +1 (I already calculated the traffic DM was +5 in msg #2)
Travellers’ highest Naval or Scout rank : that's +5 for Baris
Travellers’ highest Social Standing DM : that's +2 from Daphne's "E" SOC! (we may want to roleplay the countess pulling strings to obtain the mail contract) ;)

Beto Arark rolled 15 using 2d6+8.  mail transporter selection.
We have been selected to transport 3 mail containers, occupying 15 tons of our cargo hull.

What I do not know, and I'm asking for all participant's appreciation here, is whether the mail is paid Cr25000 per container, or for the whole set.

2) Seeking Passengers from Nora'a
We have 4 lowberths to fill

We'll find 2D+5 passengers, (+1 for Steward skill, +2 for starport A; +1 for the population +1 for cheapest fare)
+modified by The Effect of a Broker, Carouse or Streetwise (who gets to roll what skill? Last time it was Oscar, but Khor'rhun has more streetwise)
+modifiers by the GMs. Any modifiers, Nerull? :)

3) Seeking cargo lots from Nora'a

We've got (92-40t catnip-15 mail=) 37 tons left to fill.

traffic DM : +5
+1 for the ship's good reputation (so far...)
* -4 for major cargo roll on table p.208 : DM+2
* -2 for minor cargo roll : DM+4
* +1 incidental cargo roll : DM+7
+The Effect of a Broker or Streetwise check (who gets to roll what skill? Gladys gives you +1)
+modifiers by the GMs. Any modifiers, Nerull? :)

of course we're not only looking for cargo to deliver to Iryao in 11 days, but also cargo to deliver on worlds within Jump-3 from Iryao in 3 weeks. :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:19, Thu 01 Apr 2021.

Regards the mail container(s), my reading of it is Cr25k per container

For passengers or cargo, Baris has +2 total to either Carouse or Streetwise rolls - or +3 if he engages his Intellect computer software for Brokerage

Couldn't find a link here on this board but found one on-line. Too many parameters either way. Why can't the Broker roll just take all that into account?


Okay, we've got three 30-ton freight units going to Vadada. Assuming you don't want to haul untrained riding animals (to a near-vacuum desert world? Not bloody likely! Though I suppose they could be transshipped farther down the line), that gives us:

30 tons of vehicle components
30 tons of marble/potassium/titanium
30 tons of fiber-optic cable.

Each pays 48,000.

No room left for mail.

We can throw in 2 tons of prescription medicines and surgical supplies. Pays 3,200.

Lots of cargo and passengers available.


PASSENGERS:

22:29, Today: Carmichael rolled 7,5,3,7 using 2d6,2d6,2d6,2d6 ((5,2,2,3,2,1,5,2)). Passenger check: Low, Basic, Middle, High.

22:33, Today: Carmichael rolled 11,11,8,8 using 3d6,2d6,2d6,2d6 ((2,6,3,5,6,6,2,4,4)). # of passengers available.

11 Low Passage, 11 Basic Passage, 8 Middle Passage and 8 High Passage want to use our services. We however can only transport 1-2 High, 2-3 middle, 4 basic and 8 lowberths
of course we favor couples (since they fill one cabin but pay two tickets) -> all filed
2 high
3 middle
4 basic
= 9 living passengers and 8 icecubes

MAIL: 6 containers for 30 tons, 150,000Cr.

FREIGHT:

22:46, Today: Carmichael rolled 5,8,6 using 2D6+1,2D6+1,2D6+1 ((2,2,4,3,2,3)). Incidental Freight, Minor Freight, Major Freight.

22:49, Today: Carmichael rolled 11,14,7 using 3D6,3D6,2D6 ((3,6,2,5,4,5,4,3)). Major, Minor, Incidental.

So, there are 11 lots available of Major Cargo of anywhere from 10 to 60 tons. That easily gives us 60 tons of Freight at 180,000 Credits.


SPEC CARGO: Not looking for any.
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:15, Sun 03 Sept 2023.