Playable approximation for Buying a Spaceship

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

Kirk wasn't a 2000-point captain who paid points for the Enterprise. The ship was effectively on loan to him by his patron. He probably paid points for his patron though,

Kirk didn't have a Patron. He just had Rank. Starfleet did not come when he called.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

In many settings, like Star Wars, owning a ship is no more costly than owning a car or truck. If you want to support the buying of spaceships with starting cash, simply price them as cars and trucks. If you want to distinguish them from actual cars and trucks, make them a little more expensive.


GURPS costs for spaceships are realistic (more or less). Less-than-spectacularly-rich individuals owning spaceships is not realistic, but it is cinematic. In cinematic settings, drop the price of spaceships.

For Star Wars specifically there's Other Games that list prices that you could simply use. Another idea is to define a few of the iconic ships in Spaceships, check the Other Game prices and find a divisor to make ship prices fit.

More generically, decide how much you want ships to cost, find a divisor to make the Spaceships price come into line with it, then apply consistently... or not and make certain types of vessel inexplicably cost significantly more than others despite similar specs. That might mean a SM+8 Hercules-class tramp freighter costs $50,000 while the SM+8 Plenty-class Fleet Replenishment craft somehow costs $7.6 million with minimal difference in specs.

In my tramp freighter game I tend to reduce the price of the ship, then make the player buy it with the options in SS2. For military games I assume it's part and parcel with the player's Rank and role in the game (fighter pilots or "Honor Harrington" style games) or simply a backdrop (Star Trek style game where PCs are senior officers, but not the captain).

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

For Star Wars specifically there's Other Games that list prices that you could simply use. Another idea is to define a few of the iconic ships in Spaceships, check the Other Game prices and find a divisor to make ship prices fit.

I was thinking you could just identify your ship with a type of modern ground vehicle and pay its cost. A tramp freighter costs as much as a semi-truck ($60K); a teaser's ship is like a sports car ($85K); a low-cost cruise ship is like a bus ($120K).


Or, as in your divisor suggestion, you could simply read all Ms as Ks.


If you balk at the idea of reducing prices of arbitrary items, how about increasing the spending power of money on arbitrary items? Your star freighter is still worth $100M, but when you spend bucks on spaceships, they become Space Bucks, worth a thousand times more than Planetside Bucks.


It's completely unrealistic, but then so is the idea of your average slob owning his own spaceship.

[schmeelke]

Originally Posted by SCAR

Why does a Multimillionaire want to fly around in a beat up old tramp Freighter, scrapping a living transporting cattle and/or wobbly headed dolls?

"Madness? Have you looked at this scan carefully, Doctor? At his face? It's love, in point of fact. Something a good deal more dangerous." (Firefly FTW!)

[SCAR]

Originally Posted by schmeelke

"Madness? Have you looked at this scan carefully, Doctor? At his face? It's love, in point of fact. Something a good deal more dangerous." (Firefly FTW!)

Strictly, that's from the movie 'Serenity', but Touché!
It is not his ship though, Simon did not spend his millions buying the ship.

[ericbsmith]

I've played with the idea of just making the spaceship cost 50 points, split between the players however they want. If one player wants to be sole owner he can pay all 50; if they want to be even partners they can split the cost evenly. If they want to let one person be "captain" but everyone else still has a say then the captain can pay Y points and everyone else pays X points, where Y > X.

It's completely arbitrary, but no less so than arbitrarily adjusting the cost of ships to allow one, or several, of the players buy one.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

GURPS costs for spaceships are realistic (more or less). Less-than-spectacularly-rich individuals owning spaceships is not realistic, but it is cinematic. In cinematic settings, drop the price of spaceships.

The Star Wars setting has been the same TL for thousands of years. There are a lot of spaceships around that are old but can be overhauled again and again.

[panton41]

Originally Posted by ericbsmith

I've played with the idea of just making the spaceship cost 50 points, split between the players however they want. If one player wants to be sole owner he can pay all 50; if they want to be even partners they can split the cost evenly. If they want to let one person be "captain" but everyone else still has a say then the captain can pay Y points and everyone else pays X points, where Y > X.

It's completely arbitrary, but no less so than arbitrarily adjusting the cost of ships to allow one, or several, of the players buy one.

Or taking the points needed to buy enough Wealth for the ship, call it "Unusual Background (Ship Owner)" and split it between the players like you described above. Then again I've always viewed Unusual Background as a catchall point crock for character details that can't otherwise be justified as costing points. At least this way would make it variable based on the cost of the ship and allow some "arms control."

[thrash]

Originally Posted by SCAR

It is not his ship though, Simon did not spend his millions buying the ship.

Neither did Mal. Best guess, based on in-context clues from the scripts, is that Serenity cost the equivalent of a hundred thousand current dollars. This is about what a surface ship of the same displacement and age might cost, but an order of magnitude less than a similar-size aircraft and perhaps two orders of magnitude less than its Spaceships analogue.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Kirk didn't have a Patron. He just had Rank. Starfleet did not come when he called.

It probably did at times. But generally Rank comes with your hierarchy caring about your existence, so that still works.