Traveller: Starship operations

I’ve decided to invest in one of Traveller’s Type A 200-ton Far Traders. Can I make money from it?

TL;DR: Goodness, yes!

Far Trader from Traveller's core rulebook

As an investor, I’m not going to run the ship myself. Instead, I will hire a crew and let them do it for me.

I am based in Mora/Mora and my ship will make a regular run between Mora and nearby Fornice/Mora. Back and forth, until the ship is paid off.

So, how does that work out?

Fixed costs

According to the Traveller Core Rulebook Update 2022, costs are calculated per four-week maintenance period and consist of:

• Mortgage: Cr222,169  (assuming I don’t put up any of my own savings, which I haven’t)
• Maintenance: Cr4,443
• Life support (Cr1,000 per stateroom): Cr10,000
• Life support (Cr1,000 per person): Cr10,000 (assuming 10 people aboard, four crew and six passengers)
• Life support (Cr100 per low berth): Cr600
• Salaries: Cr18,000 (crew of four: pilot, astrogator, engineer, medic/steward)
• Berthing fees: Cr8,000 (varies, but both starports are class A, so we’ll assume Cr4,000 per week)
• Power plant fuel: Cr100 (one ton unrefined)

So that’s Cr273,312 every four weeks.

Some of those costs aren’t strictly fixed. Berthing fees may change, and if we don’t carry any passengers, the life support costs will drop. (And life support costs are for the full period – there may be savings when at starports as passengers aren’t living aboard. But I’m ignoring that for the budget.)

And if I combine the pilot and astrogator roles, I only need three crew. But I’ll stick with four for the moment. (From an operational perspective, I’d like one crewmember to be berthed near the passengers. According to the Far Trader deck plans, three staterooms are on deck 1, near the bridge. The other seven are on deck 2.)

Per-jump costs

The main cost that changes per jump is fuel. At Cr100 per ton (unrefined), the cost is Cr4,000.

If we assume a jump every other week, that’s Cr8,000.

Running total: Cr281,312 running costs, assuming a jump every other week.

That’s how much I need to cover before I make a profit on my investment. Nearly 80% of the running costs is the mortgage on the ship. When I pay that off, I’m sitting pretty indeed!

Income

So how about income: freight and passengers. I’ve deliberately chosen my shipping route carefully: two high-populated worlds.

Freight: With a combined +13 DM on the freight table (from population, starport and tech level), there should be no problem filling my Far Trader with 81 tons of freight. (I’m not speculating, just shipping.) So that’s Cr100,800 each jump, or Cr201,600 per four weeks.

Passengers: Similarly, with a combined +9DM on the passenger table (from population and starports) there will be plenty of passengers to fill the staterooms and low berths. While I suspect I can often fill the ship with high passage passengers, I’m assuming for my budget four high and two middle passage passengers. So for two jumps in a four-week period, that brings in:

• High passage: Cr112,000
• Middle passage: Cr40,000
• Low passage: Cr15,600

Overall income then is freight + passengers, or Cr369,200, which works out at a monthly profit of Cr87,888, or an operating margin of an almost obscene 31%. (And which, given I didn’t put up any of my own money, nor am I doing any actual work, sounds like a bargain!)

And after a few months, it’s enough to give me a cushion to cover those occasional lean times (and bad rolls).

An assumption

I am assuming that the passenger numbers do not include everyone planning to travel between Mora and Fornice that week. Instead, they represent the number of people who are prepared to travel on my Far Trader. (The same goes for freight.)

So I could run a second ship, probably without affecting my first.

GURPS Far Trader has more to say on this and is summarised on the Spinward Marches Sector trade map, which shows Mora-Fornice as a blue route. The key explains that blue routes have an average of one million dtons of cargo and 20,000 passengers per week. So I think I’ve chosen well.

(And can I just tip my hat to the creators of tools like the Traveller wiki, the trade map and the Traveller Map. You are wonderful, crazy people.)

An aside: This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. In places with a lot of traffic, I would expect most passengers and freight to be taken by huge, regularly scheduled freighters and liners. As a result, there would be no room for a little guy running a tramp trader – I’d be reduced to picking up scraps and serving less profitable markets.

Squeezing operating margins

I’ve already highlighted where I can save some costs (salaries and life support). Other potential savings might include:

Preferential berthing rates: Given my long-term repeat business, I might be able to negotiate preferential rates on a berth at both starports.

Fuel: Fuel is already pretty cheap – particularly as I’m buying it unrefined and processing it on board. If I was prepared to refuel at the gas giants, I’d save more, but I might prefer to buy the fuel rather than add skimming time to my operations.

Minimising downtime: Do I need to spend a full week between jumps? If I allow a day’s travel time each way (to and from jump points) and two days in the starport (to unload and load freight, clean the staterooms, and refuel [including processing]), the turnaround time becomes 11 days per jump instead of 14. That’s a 20% improvement, which works out at an extra Cr36,000 (20% x Cr184,000 freight and passengers less Cr4,000 fuel) every month.

(My assumption here is that onward freight and passengers can be arranged and booked whilst travelling towards the starport having arrived in system. Both Mora and Fornice are at a high enough tech level for that to be doable – and routine.)

Reconfigure the ship: Swapping out cargo for more staterooms would generate more money but isn’t convenient. If I wanted to concentrate on passengers, I should have bought a different ship.

Risks

As a cautious investor, it would be prudent of me to consider the risks.

Theft: Perhaps my biggest risk is my crew stealing my ship. Obviously, I’ll have hiring procedures and contracts and the like, but ultimately, I will probably have to travel with the ship before letting anyone go it alone. Of course, that means I’ll occupy one of the passenger staterooms (I have no useful ship skills) so that will eat into my profits. I think I can afford it, though. 

Maintenance and misjumps: Assuming a competent crew and regular maintenance, then my ship should be reliable and I shouldn’t have to worry about misjumps.

Competition: Given this is such a lucrative route, I should probably worry about competition (something the Traveller rules don’t really cover). That’s both competition in availability of freight/passengers available, and also prices. Maybe there’s a union fixing prices for freight and passage – that certainly saves me worrying about other ships undercutting me. Instead, if rates are fixed, I will need to compete on things like reliability and customer service.

Lean times: Occasionally, there will be times when I can’t fill the cargo holds and passenger staterooms. As discussed above, I hope that the margin is high enough to cover that risk.

Tax: Happily, Traveller doesn’t worry about tax. If it did, I would expect things like passage, fuel, and shipping to be heavily taxed, say at 25%. We then have the tricky question of who pays the tax. Does the price for a Cr16,000 high passage include tax (in which case I pay the tax and my income is Cr12,800), or does it exclude tax (so passengers actually pay Cr20,000)?

If I apply a 25% tax rate to all my income, that would be about Cr73k tax – leaving me about Cr14k per month in profit. But as I said, Traveller doesn’t care about tax.

Piracy: Piracy is a risk, but it’s an extremely busy trade route, and I would expect there to be plenty of patrol boats.

War: The Fifth Frontier War is brewing, but Mora and Fornice are far enough behind the lines that I should get plenty of warning. If things start looking dicey, I can move elsewhere.

Given the risks, I should probably take out an insurance policy for my Far Trader. This will eat into my profits but will help me sleep at night.

Summary

So it turns out that if you have a good route, then investing in a starship is a good way to earn an income (provided we don’t consider competition or tax and ignore price fluctuations due to demand and supply).

I can’t promise similar riches if you decide to use your investment as a base for adventuring, but if you stick to where the trade is, you shouldn’t go wrong.

(I first tried this with a J-1 Free Trader jumping between similarly populated systems, but it’s not quite as lucrative, with only a Cr35k profit each month.)