[Spaceships 2] Maintenance on Cheap Ships

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by JMason

I get that, it just seems a bit excessive. I mean with the current numbers the maintenance on a very cheap ship will exceed it's purchase price in less than 2 years!

Tack on bank payments, and a group that couldn't afford to buy a new ship, can't really afford to maintain a used one.

I think the rules do exactly what they set out to do, to wit:
"Thus the total operating cost, including financing, should be roughly constant regardless of original condition." - Spaceships 2, p. 27

If you run the numbers... lets assume a $100M spacecraft base price. This requires a ~20% down payment (Financing, p. 27), or roughly $20M. The other $80M is financed at 1% per month for 12 years (Financing, p. 27), or $800k/month. Thus the total cost per month is $800k.

Take that same ship as a used ship, at cheap it has a base price of $50M, down payment is $10M (cheaper to start), $40M financed at 1%, or $400k/month. Monthly Maintenance is also 1% per month, so that's $500k/month, making the total cost per month $900k.

Now make that ship Very Cheap. Base cost is now $20M with a $4M down payment and $16M financed at 1% per month, for an expense of $160k/month. Monthly Maintenance is now 4%, so that works out to $800k, which makes monthly costs to operate $960k.


Now, you may say that that doesn't make a lot of sense, but in reality it actually does. If the monthly operating costs of an older Cheap or Very Cheap ship were dramatically reduced then nobody would buy new ships if they didn't have to, and they'd just let their ships fall apart because maintenance costs are less than finance costs of new ships. At the same time, the value of a used ship will rise to the point where the total cost of buying or financing it roughly balances out with the cost of operating new ships. It's basic supply/demand curves, the price curve tends to move to the point where all the costs balance out.

The main difference between the Very Cheap, Cheap, and New ship is that the initial investment cost is much lower for the cheaper ones - a down payment of $4M or $10M instead of $20M is required.

Originally Posted by JMason

And... working out the trade details on my current game... it looks like there is no way (without fudging the numbers) for my group to make a profit. I'm still trying to figure out how to best tweak things to keep the feeling of a run-down old ship, barely making ends meet... but still not going bankrupt in a single month.

Nobody says that real life bulk shipping is a cheap business to be in. On top of the required maintenance and financing costs, you've also got port fees, fuel fees, registration fees, taxes, and a myriad of other costs. To make a profit you either have to make a lot of short runs stuffed to the gills with cargo or fit some very expensive cargo in there and charge an exorbitant price for shipping it.