On 17Aug2017 1600, Christopher Sean Hilton wrote:
> Here are some questions that should have jumped out at me 20 years ago
> when I did programming/industrial engineering for a medium sized car
> company? [1]
>
> What's the operational lifespan of a starship?
>
> How many Type S Scouts have ever been made?
>
> At the time of the typical Traveller campaign, how many Type S scouts:
>
>       Exist?
>
>       Are operational?
>
> My point is that I'm thinking that there's a fairly large amount of
> handwavium keeping player characters away from starships in
> Traveller. Or, when one considers that the Type S is both ubiquitous
> and really really old. A group of player characters should be able to
> acquire a handful of them from which they could build a working
> example for a lot less than the 27 MCr that a brand new Type S costs.

Type S scouts remain the property of the IISS, so far as I know (which
does raise the question of where prospectors get the hulls for their
Seekers), so the IISS may recycle or destroy most of the older Type S
ships, if only to keep value in their retirement incentive program ("Be
as good little Scout and you'll get your own Type S when you 'retire'!").

Now, Type A and A2 Free/Far Traders, those I can't explain away like
that. Even with the apparently quite low expected ROI banks and other
businesses accept in the 3I they have to retain a fair bit of their
value by age 40, given the terrible profitability they have while making
the mortgage repayments. If the buyer of a new ship makes no net profit
or loss over the 40 years the loan lasts, for their initial 20% down
payment to be worth as much as if they'd just invested it into starship
loans for other people the ship would have to still be worth 50% of it's
initial value at 40 years age, assuming it was properly looked after, etc.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>
Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief