Hi there,

I thought I would finally sit down with the rules to get my head round the trade rules in the 2nd edition Mongoose book. Accountancy never was my strong point, so I'm afraid I've got a few questions if anyone has the time/knowledge please?!

1. Am I doing something wrong? Even ignoring speculative trade, I easily seem to be able to make a profit just on freight and passengers. I thought this was supposed to be marginal to drive PCs to speculative trade? (Workings below)

2. Am I missing something, or surely I should be taking four Basic passengers in a stateroom (paying Cr2200 each for 8800) than a High or Mid (for Cr8500 or Cr6200 respectively). Assuming they're available. And assuming Jump 1.

3. I'm sure this is right, but might as well check, the Passage and Freight Costs table (p.207) are what the PCs are *getting* not spending on those for a Jump?!

4. I'm not sure I understand the Mail 'Freight Traffic DM' (p.209) at all. I've been adding up *all* the DMs from my Freight rolls - for Major, Minor and Incidental Lots - which seems to produce sensible numbers. Or am I missing something.

5. Freight is per ton, isn't it? Not per lot. It doesn't say anywhere I can see and I have to go back to 1st edition rules to find a statement on the subject. But if I'm wrong, that would help make cargo more marginal, but not entirely.

6. The passenger and freight DMs are dependent on the *origin* world, aren't they? not the destination world? The logic of some of them seems to suggest that (e.g. an Amber Zone increasing passengers wanting to leave), but surely the destination world should figure somewhere in desirability etc?

OK, here's my working,

I'm assuming a standard Subsidized (p.184) (400 tons, Jump 1, Thrust 1).

Cost: MCr81.2683 (I'm assuming the comma in the book is a typo)

Cargo 199 tons, 19 staterooms, 9 low berths

Crew: Pilot (skill 3), Astrogator (skill 2), Engineer (skill 2), Medic (skill 3), Steward (skill 2). None are ex-navy or ex-scouts.

So I figure monthly costs as:

Mort: Cr338,617 (total cost of ship / 240 months)

Maint: Cr6772 (as per p.184)

Fuel: 83 tons x 500 = Cr41,500 (Here I assume the monthly fuel costs are the 3 tons as the Jump is 40 tons, and we'll be making two Jumps in the month)

Life Support - this is complicated by the fact it varies per Jump depending on the number of bodies you carry and how many you put in a stateroom but the p.145 gives monthly figures which is unhelpful. So I'll take the higher of the two values. (Anyone do it differently?)

So:

Life Support: Staterooms: Cr19,000 for the staterooms on the first Jump and Cr34,000 for the second Jump (due to 12 Basic Passengers - although p.145 charges Cr3000 for double occupancy, it doesn't mention four people in a stateroom as allowed on p.206, but let's be mean and double it again to Cr6000 per stateroom)
Life Support: Bodies: 19,900 for Jump 1 (full staterooms - 19 sophonts) and 9 low berths. Cr28,900 for Jump 2 (16 staterooms with 1 person, 3 with four people) and 9 low berths.

Monthly life support (highest of the figures above): Cr62,900

Crew salaries: Cr20,000 (Pilot 6000, Astro 5000, Eng 4000, Medic 3000, Steward 2000) [didn't there used to be a differential for skill levels?]

Berthing fees: Palindrome Cr500, Theev Cr5000

TOTAL COSTS: 475,289

OK, because I couldn't be bothered to get another book of the shelf, I just used a couple of worlds in Core Rulebook. First Jump of the month from Palindrome (B433334-B Po Ni Lo G) -> Theev (A434500-E Na Ni Ht Amber G)
Second Jump of the month Theev -> Vume. I'm assuming a week on each world refuelling and finding the passengers.

So if I've got this right, with Broker 1 as best skill of crew and each of the 5 crew occupying a stateroom each:

Palindrome: Passengers Available

High - roll 7 (DM +1 Broker effect, +2 Steward, -4 High Pass, +1 Starport = 0) = 3D = 6 high passengers
Mid - roll 6 (DM +2 Broker effect, +2 Steward, +1 Starport = +5) = 4D = 11 mid passengers

Basic - roll 5 (DM -3 Broker effect, +2 Steward, +1 Starport = 0) = 2D = 2 basic passengers
Low - roll 3 (DM -1 Broker effect, +2 Steward, +1 Low Pass, +1 Starport = +3) = 3D = 9 low passengers

Now, as we can't fill a cabin with Basic passengers, I think the best option here is:

5 staterooms for crew

6 staterooms for High passengers = Cr51,000

8 staterooms for Mid passengers = Cr49,600

9 low passengers = Cr6,300

Passengers = Cr106,900

(oh, and rolling on the 'exciting passengers' one of them is a Bounty Hunter)

Palindrome: Freight Available

Major lots - roll 6 (DM +1 Broker effect, -4 Major lots, +1 Starport, +2 TL = 0) = 3D = 11 major lots of 50 tons
Minor lots - roll 3 (DM -2 Broker effect, +1 Starport, +2 TL = +1) = 2D = 3 minor lots of 20 tons
Incidental lots - roll 4 (DM +1 Broker effect, +2 Minor lots, +1 Starport, +2 TL = +6) = 4D = 15 Incidental lots of 5 tons

I can't see a better way of filling 199 tons of cargo space than

3 Major lots = 150 tons

2 Minor lots = 40 tons

1 Incidental lot = 5 tons

195 tons = Cr195,000

No mail available

TOTAL RECEIPTS 1st JUMP: Cr301,900

Threv: Passengers Available
High - roll 9 (DM -3 Broker effect, +2 Steward, -4 High Pass, +2 Starport, +1 Amber Zone = -2) = 3D = 12 high passengers
Mid - roll 4 (DM -4 Broker effect, +2 Steward, +2 Starport, +1 Amber Zone = +1) = 2D = 9 mid passengers
Basic - roll 9 (DM -2 Broker effect, +2 Steward, +2 Starport, +1 Amber Zone = +3) = 5D = 13 basic passengers
Low - roll 6 (DM +2 Broker effect, +2 Steward, +1 Low Pass, +2 Starport, +1 Amber Zone = +8) = 5D = 17 low passengers

This time we could take 12 Basic passengers in 3 cabins as most optimal:
5 staterooms for crew

3 staterooms for Basic passengers = Cr26,600

11 staterooms for High passengers = Cr51,000
9 low passengers = Cr6,300

Passengers = Cr83,900

(rolling on the 'exciting passengers' one of them is a Hijacker! yay!)

Threev: Freight Available
Major lots - roll 6 (DM +1 Broker effect, -4 Major lots, +2 Starport, +2 TL, -2 Amber Zone = -1) = 2D = 5 major lots of 60 tons
Minor lots - roll 11 (DM -1 Broker effect, +2 Starport, +2 TL, -2 Amber Zone = +1) = 5D = 12 minor lots of 20 tons
Incidental lots - roll 5 (DM -1 Broker effect, +2 Minor lots, +2 Starport, +2 TL, -2 Amber Zone = +3) = 3D = 8 Incidental lots of 4 tons

So we can take:

3 Major lots = 180 tons

4 Incidental lots = 16 tons

196 tons = Cr196,000

No mail available

TOTAL RECEIPTS 2nd JUMP: Cr279,900

TOTAL RECEIPTS for the month: Cr581,800 against total costs of Cr475,289

Profit: Cr106,511

Or am I doing something wrong?!

many thanks for any help or pointers.

Tomorrow - speculative trading if I feel well enough...