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Old 09-06-2021, 06:16 PM   #21
Polydamas
 
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Default Re: The Tramp Freighter Campaign

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(As far as I can see, what Traveller assumes is the default, speculating on cargo with ship's funds, was vastly less common in reality than taking a contract to haul a load of A from B to C.)
I think it really depends; a good keyword is cabotage. Early Medieval laws often envision revenue-splitting partnerships between a captain with a ship and a merchant with capital, I forget what Attic and Roman law envision. In the Mediterranean and the North Sea in the 2nd millennium CE, a common perk for crew was being allowed a certain amount of space in the hold to trade on their own account (eg. one standard-sized box for ordinary seamen, two for specialists like the purser and the carpenter).
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Old 09-07-2021, 06:56 AM   #22
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And ships are part of the same universe as cars, guns, houses, restaurants, robots, etc. If ships get cheap, what happens to everything else? A car must be much cheaper than a ship for example. What does this mean for living standards on planets?
This is a bit of a sticking point for me in designing my Harpyias setting, which is meant to support a Tramp Freighter Campaign (indeed, the intended "adventuring party" would be one that did a combination of tramp freight, speculative cargo, passenger transport, and various flavors of mercenary work). I want ships to be readily affordable, but don't want an incredible standard of living (in fact, I think a standard of living a bit below that of the modern first world may be ideal for the setting), but those two are... difficult to reconcile. I'm considering having spaceships be heavily subsidized by the various governments involved.
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Old 09-07-2021, 07:21 AM   #23
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Default Re: The Tramp Freighter Campaign

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I'm considering having spaceships be heavily subsidized by the various governments involved.
One possibility is that governments want a lot of ships in service. The ship's captain may actually just be leasing the ship on very good payment terms, but the ship remains government property and could be commandeered in case of crisis. A lot of the heavy equipment US law enforcement uses is actually Department of Defense property.
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Old 09-07-2021, 01:35 PM   #24
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One possibility is that governments want a lot of ships in service. The ship's captain may actually just be leasing the ship on very good payment terms, but the ship remains government property and could be commandeered in case of crisis. A lot of the heavy equipment US law enforcement uses is actually Department of Defense property.
The Royal Navy used to subsidise a number of merchant craft - including fast liners - which were pre-fitted with design features that made them easy to militarise as naval auxiliaries. Although privately - or at least corporately - owned they existed on the understanding that they would be first in the queue to be taken up from trade in the event of war.
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Old 09-07-2021, 01:52 PM   #25
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Default Re: The Tramp Freighter Campaign

That also parallels the US Civilian Reserve Air Fleet.

In most of Traveller canon, this is covered by the existence of subsidized merchants. Interstellar Wars specifically expected that most Terran ships would be provided by an outside agency and not expected to turn a profit as such, working mostly for the intelligence (military and commercial) benefits.
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Old 09-07-2021, 07:20 PM   #26
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Default Re: The Tramp Freighter Campaign

Ashen Stars uses a similar idea which I was quite taken with; the PCs are regular contractors to (not employees of) the Ministry of Justice. You take an incident report and go handle it. It pays crap because it's a government job and you're a contractor. While there, you need to be looking around for side gigs and cargo to haul, because if your Justice work is your ONLY revenue stream you'll go broke. Generally, solve the case, decide where you're going next, see if you can get a cargo or passenger that's going the same direction, but it doesn't always work out like that. You need a list of gigs that players will rank in order of fuel and other expenses, and perhaps a good map to go with it, but some players really like that sort of thing. And of course, if you find something really lucrative you can always pass on Justice jobs for a bit.
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Old 09-07-2021, 09:45 PM   #27
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Default Re: The Tramp Freighter Campaign

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Small nit: speculative cargo isn't the default even in classic Traveller, although it gets by far the most discussion.

The rules for cargo are on pp. 8-9 and 11.
Having run quite a bit of Book 2 campaigns... 30% of the money is made on that 10-25% of the cargo hold that is speculative.

This jumps much closer to 90% if one adds the character gen and skills from Bk7 but not the Bk7 trade system.
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Old 09-07-2021, 10:46 PM   #28
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Default Re: The Tramp Freighter Campaign

Tom Scott very recently did a video on the flights to and from some of the tiny airports in the Orkney Islands, which would not be profitable without subsidy from the British government. Things like nine seats on a flight that spends less than two minutes in the air.

Perhaps tramp freighters can get subsidized loans in exchange for providing a certain amount of service to otherwise unprofitable routes on the frontier, which the big shipping concerns generally just don't bother to bid on. They can run their own game when not fulfilling those obligations, or with excess cargo capacity above their contract.
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Old 09-07-2021, 11:50 PM   #29
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Default Re: The Tramp Freighter Campaign

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Perhaps tramp freighters can get subsidized loans in exchange for providing a certain amount of service to otherwise unprofitable routes on the frontier, which the big shipping concerns generally just don't bother to bid on.
A tramp by definition does not provide "service to ... routes," but this is, again, otherwise similar to how subsidized merchants are described in Traveller.
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Old 09-08-2021, 05:58 AM   #30
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Hmmm... this discussion gives me a good idea behind the government subsidies. Harpyias is a setting with FTL travel but no FTL communications. I had considered the idea that ships could carry news reports and the like for a small profit, but now I'm thinking they are legally required to transmit publicly-available data when they travel, essentially downloading it on their way out of the system and broadcasting it once they arrive to the new one. That's probably not enough to justify the sort of price reduction necessary, so requiring them to do a certain amount of government work each year should help with the rest.
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