Affording a spaceship?

[Stormcrow]

The trouble with owning a spaceship in GURPS is that space settings tend to treat ships like cars in outer space. Realistically, spaceships are way more expensive than that, and the GURPS prices reflect the realistic cost, not the trope.

If a character takes the usual settled lifestyle of 20% of starting wealth, then you can simply consider a spaceship to be a car in space, and ignore its price as part of the 80%. An Earthbound character of Average Wealth has a car; why shouldn't a spacer of Average Wealth have a spaceship, if they're as common as cars?


If, on the other hand, the character is a wanderer and starts with 100% of starting wealth, then simply reduce the prices of spaceships to that of cars.


Summary: spaceship prices are realistic; expecting ordinary individuals to own them is not. Change to cinematic prices or ignore them.