The Strange Economics of Space Travel in RPGs

[eledonecirrhosa]

I’ve been doing prep work in anticipation of running Terracide in a few weeks. The players will have a starship, and are likely to be carrying cargo and passengers around. So I’ve been reading those sections of the rulebooks in Terracide, Traveller and the like. But I’m having a lot of WTF moments…

Comments

[history_monk]

How large is that 100-person passenger module? And how much does it cost? If one can really carry 100 people in it, that's $3,360,000 gross income for one round trip!

I've never actually encountered an interstellar trade RPG where I could suspend disbelief, and this one doesn't seem any better.

[eledonecirrhosa]

It doesn't actually SAY what size the modules are. But the ship they are designed for is 25.4m long x 12.7m wide x 12.7m high and it can have 4 of those modules "attached outside its main hull".

So unless the modules stick out beyond the prow and stern of the ship, or are bolted on perpendicular then they can't be that big.

I think I may have to adjust sizes/scales to make sense... Or rule that "100 passengers" was a typo for "15 passengers" or something.

Though $3,360,000 gross income for 100 passengers will be needed when you reach the running costs for that round trip! At $82,000 per light year for that tonnage of ship, it will cost the crew $688,800 to get there and back. You need a minimum of 20.5 passengers (one child fare?) to break even. Assuming the crew don't want any wages!

[philmophlegm]

The Traveller you-might-die-in-Low-Berth-and-statistically-lots-of-people-do-or-at-least-should-do thing has a literary inspiration - E.C. Tubb's Dumarest of Earth series.

But yes, I take your point. Admittedly I'm prejudiced here, but my explanation is that most SF RPGs were developed by engineers and science graduates - not enough economists and accountants. That leads to silly SF RPG tropes like the free-trader-buys-food-on-agricultural-planet-and-sell-on-industrial-planet-for-a-profit thing*.

I can think of one good exception to this - GURPS Traveller Far Trader, which had the trading system written by an Economics Ivy League postgrad.

I actually created my own Traveller trading system for use my own campaign. It got more and more complicated, and the final spreadsheet is over 21mb in size. Yes, I have a problem.

* If it's so easy, and so permanent, why doesn't everyone do it? And if everyone does it, then why doesn't the price go up on the agricultural world and down on the industrial world?

[eledonecirrhosa]

So can you get travel insurance in the Traveller or Dumarest universe? :-)
"I'm sorry Mrs Smith, but there is only an 84% chance of you surviving your planned trip to Proxima Centauri, so we can't insure you. Have you considered war-torn Syria or this imminently erupting volcano on Iceland as an alternative?"

I may have to look out for the GURPS supplement.

My main problem with interstellar trade is no-one seems to factor in how enormously frakking HUGE planets are, even though they are sitting on one when writing the games. It get that a closed system like a space station would be using its available matter to make basic food, not to make fur coats or caviar. But on planets with a biosphere, those fur coats and caviar make themselves for 'free' - you just have to catch the buggers!

The whole 'agricultural world', 'industrial world', 'pleasure world' annoys me if the planet is one you can walk around in the outside air without protection!

Hercule Poirot in Spaaaaaaaaace!

[eledonecirrhosa]

Actually, the low passage thing would make a great murder mystery plot.

Hercule Poirot: So Mr Heir-to-a-Fortune, you say your skinflint mother won a low passage trip in a competition?
Heir-to-a-Fortune: Yes.
Hercule Poirot: She won such a trip... let me see... five times?
Heir-to-a-Fortune: Yes. She was very lucky.
Hercule Poirot: And then you bought her another one for her birthday, and for her Christmas?
Heir-to-a-Fortune: Yes, I did.
Hercule Poirot: Tell me Mr Heir-to-a-Fortune - what was it that you studied at Cambridge?
Heir-to-a-Fortune: Statistics and probability. Why do you ask?

Phligm Phlagm

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