Hans:
>>[About the problems of disguising a pirate as a merchant]
>
>I still think that part is not such a great problem. Still, even if
>you're right, there's nothing to stop the pirates _being_ merchant
>ships and then hunting in packs. The pirate ships would individually be
>as weak as the next merchant, but a group of 4 or 6 could still capture
>it (in fact, in some ways they would be better suited than a single
>large ship).
Does the word "convoy" ring a bell?
Besides, if the pirates are merchants in a pack, your original
assumption that the pirates are too tough for the Navy to deal with goes
by the wayside. Then Gazelles will be sufficient for anti-piracy
patrols, and the problem will still be solved.
>I'm working on something. I'll get back to you on this in a
>couple of weeks.
Good. I appreciate that...
>>If [the pirate] takes out one ship in three hundred, then
>>Imperial trade will collapse.
>
>Are you sure about this? I remember once trying to work out the annual
>return on a subsidized liner, and I got the figure of 3%. Not that I
>mightn't've worked out my sums wrong, I admit. But didn't we decide a
>few months ago that the 2000 Cr per week overhead on occupied cabins
>were silly? That will help the budget a bit. And then there's
>speculative trade. My own experience with speculative trade was with
>the basic book 2 rules, so things may be different with MegaTraveller,
>but I remember myself and 3 fellow players making ourself billionaires
>in just 3 evenings play. It was all a matter of having enough capital.
>Mind you, the referee played strictly by the book and let us get away
>with quite ridiculous things (hey, we were young back then ;-). His
>initial mistake, for example, was to allow us to unload 89 computers at
>300% on a population 4 planet. I've often wondered what they wanted the
>things for... (No, come to think of it, his very first mistake was to
>offer us as many computers as we could afford at 30% standard price
>when we had the cash to buy two; we then took a small loan with our
>ship as collatteral and bought as many as our hold could hold :-).
>
>Be that as it may, my impression is that you can make some pretty hefty
>profits with a starship if you have the capital. Has this all changed
>with MegaTraveller?
An annual return of 3% represents 25 voyages. If a ship makes 3% per
year, then if more than 3% of the ships were lost every year things
would collpase. 3% losses per year translates to one ship in every 821
in any given two week period.
And, yes, it is all a matter of starting capital, which is why none of
my characters buys a ship till he has MCr3 more than the required down
payment. I just buy cargo and ship it on someone else's ship till then.
That way my ships always make gobs of money, and my characters typically
are multimillionaires. Right now, one has a net worth rather more than
a billion, and one slightly less. The newest one is worth more than the
other two combined.
BTW, to change the subject (almost) entirely, I would like to suggest a
new topic for discussion on the List.
How do any GM's who feel like commenting deal with the tendency of
people with expensive, new ships to want to keep their ship in a safe,
money-making situation? That is, how do you get the guys who just
bought a merchant ship on Rhylanor to leave the Rhylanor-Porozlo run,
which is arguably the safest and most profitable place to stay? How do
you convince your players to go out into the frontiers where money is
hard to come by, and foreclosure is all too close? Notice that GDW,
over the years, has suggested a great many adventures where the final
reward doesn't even make expenses, and at least one (the Traveller
Adventure) where Barratry is a way of life for the adventurers. The
only adventure I recall where the effort was worth the reward was
"Prosperity for the Taking" which went a little overboard in the other
direction.
Later...
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I have learned to use the word "impossible" with the greatest caution.
--W. von Braun