GM Tarondor's The Pirates of Drinax - Traveller (Inactive)

Game Master Tarondor

Nemesis carries a 42-ton fuel tank. It requires 20 tons per parsec to jump (so 40 tons for a Jump-2) and the extra two tons is enough to run the ship for two weeks if no extreme maneuvers (dogfights at Thrust-6, for instance) are required. In most civilized systems, refined fuel can be had for Cr500/ton (so Cr21,000 for Nemesis.

In addition, Hilfer high port charges Cr1000 per day for berthing and administration.

What does your transponder tell the high port that you are?

"Hmm, what shall we be today? Rich man's yacht from ... I don't know ... what would be a good system?," asks Jerry. "Should we just stick with Drinax?"

Is it safe to use the holographic hull when we are in port? Or would it be noticeable for what it is at such close range?

"Do we want to use the system if we are planning on being upright businessmen? When we get to port they will know what we are for sure and word might get out that we have the projector." Byron tosses out his concern with over using the system.

Ray groans. "Unloading, not unloading. Merchant ship, Yacht. Ugh, make up your minds." Ray rolls her eyes. "Let's go with a merchant ship called Treasure Trove from... I don't care where. Not Drinax."

A merchant ship called Treasure Trove sounds good. I guess nobody has to know we stole those fine spirits if we can get away with that. Ray were there any ID tags on the crates we need to modify or remove?"

Ray hops to her feet. "I'll find out." She stalks off to investigate any potential packaging problems.

"I know when I am out-voted. We are the Treasure Trove hailing from .... I guess, Oghma. If we are asked," continues Jerry.

"So, land and re-fuel. Get some news. Maybe sell some liquor. And, the big question - do we allow shore leave? Would anyone even be interested?"

"It would help with making good inroads with the locals. We may want to select a system or two not to raid and instead to drop some coin and be liked." Byron tosses out.

Daneel nods. "Tresure Trove...I like it." After a pause, he looks around at the others and says, "We are going to need to be very careful if we are going to try and offload the booze. We are only 1 jump away from where we swiped it and if word of what's been stolen is going to get anywhere, it's here." He shrugs, "Maybe we should hang onto it a little longer."

"What do you say, Ray? Will we be able to hold our booze for another couple weeks?," asks Jerry.

Jerry wiles more time by spinning his chair.

"Take it in slow and easy. Keep the hologram off - we'll look different, but not unusual. When the station hails us, route them to the command deck."

Ray grins, "Ha! I'll happily hold it -- in my stomach!" She chuckles and goes back to leaning against a console. At the thought of shore leave, Ray looks more than a little hopeful. "Well, which is it? Do I get to stretch my legs out there, or what?"

I'd vote no shore leave this early into the trip, but Ray votes OMFGYESNOW, so I'll roll with whatever you guys want.

"I still think we need to get in and out fast. Daneel has a point. We are only one jump away. I'm inclined to hold on to the booze until we're a little further away, and wait on the shore leave."

"Ugh... fine!" Ray groans. "Just a stop-over, then."

Is it safe to use the holographic hull when we are in port? Or would it be noticeable for what it is at such close range?

Holographic hulls are noticeable up close. They're not unheard of, but they're not common, either. It's a stupid rich-kid toy, usually.

Yes, cargo without proper ID tags needs to be fenced, not sold on the open market. The percentage of value for which you can fence a cargo depends on your status in that port. In a Neutral port, you can get about 10% value, and even this will require a Streetwise or Admin roll.

"That sounds like no shore leave. Let's get on the ground and see what its going to cost us for fuel," states Captain Jerry.

"Who knows? We'll see what the yard workers have to say."

Jerry begins to fiddle with his rapier, rattling it up and down in the socket on the side of the captain's chair.

"How long until we are on the ground?"

Many advanced starports have both a high port and a down port. The high port is an orbiting facility for ships that are merely passing through and the down port is a planet-side facility for those intent on making planetfall. Cargo vessels can usually save time and money by leaving cargo intended for the planet at the high port and allowing local haulers to bring it to the low port. So most spacefarers rarely set down on these planet unless they have a connection with it or desire some Rest and Relaxation.

It is forty minutes until Nemesis bumps gently into the docking station aboard the high port. It is another ten minutes while clearing security and customs.

The port is large, with many restaurants, hotels and bars as well as maintenance and fuel facilities as well as the offices of various corporations and business people. The crowd is mostly human with a large minority of aslan as well as a sprinkling of Vargr and stranger folk.

Ray is practically bouncing by the hangar door while waiting for dock and clearance. When they ship ramp finally unlocks, allowing her to step out onto High Port, she's off in a flash. She walks the main thoroughfare back and forth, enjoying the change of scenery -- all in her clothing-like vacc suit. One could never be too careful!

Not wanting to park herself anywhere now that she has an hour or so of freedom, Ray grabs some grub from a street vendor, and continues her walking tour. After half an hour of walking she turns and makes her way back to the ship.

"Captain do you want to make refueling arrangements or should I work on that?" Steph asks as she pilots the ship into the doc safely. She'll head out if given leave and try to find some fresh food, and some cards and games to share with the crew when they get bored.

Byron stands and stretches and heads to a place where he can at least get a view of the port.

"How about you make fueling arrangements, Steph?" asks Jerry. "Let me know when it is time to play the bill."

"I won't go very far, not right away, at least. Might as well allow the crew some time off-ship. Let them know that and I will speak to them before they disembark."

Jerry tries to be stern, instructing the crew to stay out of trouble and to not mention anything about piracy. Absolutely nothing about piracy.

"I'll do that." Steph contacts the port and uses her knowledge of administration, and persuasion to get them refueled as quickly as possible.

Administration and Persuasion: 2d6 + 1 + 1 ⇒ (1, 5) + 1 + 1 = 8
Just guessing here.

It's always one skill and one ability. In this case, Admin+EDU (I'd have also allowed Admin+INT). So your roll was actually a 9. Good!

While out and about on the Hilfer Highport, Ray and Bryon see a group of perhaps twenty young Aslan males pushing their way through the crowd. They tower over the humans and others and move with arrogant purpose, pushing lesser beings out of their way as they head for a casino on the station's entertainment deck.

While arranging for fuel, Steph learns of an opportunity to haul water ice asteroids to to Hilfer. It's slow and dirty, but the world is willing to pay 30,000 credits plus fuel for the job.

Steph shares the job opportunity with the Captain and the rest of the crew when they return to the ship.

"At this point I don't think we can turn down jobs, and it gets us fuel for the job. What do you think?"

Byron sticks mostly around the dock. When they are back on board he hears Steph's proposal and says, "That sounds time consuming and not necessarily what the crew signed on for. The only reason I could really see to turn to that is if we want Hilfer to be a place where we sell goods. If that's the case getting into some good graces by doing hard labor for the people here makes sense. But we should probably look over the map and pick which systems we want to get in good with and which ones we want to willingly target first. Hilfer could be that place although I think Sink makes more sense. Hilfer is kind of close to home for that. Tech World or Ego, Cordan or maybe Acrid, Blue and Marduk. Those are places that we need to get to safely taking a double jump and so we will need to refill before moving on."

Raising his defenses to deal with crowds, Daneel makes a quick foray onto the high port to pick up some materials for minor maintenance issues that have cropped up over the past few weeks, such as the plumbing.

Stuff that I assume would be covered by our monthly maintenance upkeep cost

When Steph broaches the offer to wrangle ice, he weighs the option.

How long would the ice trucking job take? And, for comparison, roughly how much do we reasonably calculate we will make from the sale of the haul of liquor?

Steph rejoins the others on the docks as they chat. "Not the kind of work the King's asking us for. I say we skip it."

I was thinking the job would cover the refuel, and save us the cash.

"How interested did they seem?", asks Jerry. "We need to know more about whether we will be actually ahead if we take this job."

Jerry starts to make some calculations, determining how many credits are needed each month to keep the Nemsis running and the crew paid.

Your expenses are laid out on page 9 of the Harrier e-book.. Maintenance (which includes life support) costs are Cr28,630 a month, to say nothing of fuel, berthing, crew and all the various repairs you still need to make.

Maintenance: 28,630
Engineer: 4,000
Medic: 3,000
Marine: 1,000 each (3,000 total)

Total fixed costs: 38,630
Variable costs: fuel, berthing, repairs.

Nemesis holds 41 tons of fuel. Refined fuel costs Cr500/ton. However, you have fuel refiners and fuel scoops onboard. If you don't mind spending a few days harvesting hydrogen from gas giants or water worlds, you can get your fuel for free.

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On the open market, your six tons of fine liquors would go for approximately Cr20,000 per ton. However, you are smugglers. The price you can get depends on the loyalty to you of the port at which you sell it. Neutral or Suspicious ports will give you 10% if you don't get caught by the authorities. A tolerant port will give you 20%. A friendly port will give you 25%. A haven (the very best you can get) will give you 30%. You'll note port statuses are listed at the top of the page. So far you have only two. Maybe hauling some ice here can improve your status?

So... Depending on the Admin roll you make, you could expect something in the neighborhood of Cr12,000 for all six tons of liquors here, but approximately Cr36,000 back at Drinax.

Also, the trip to the system's oort cloud is about 130 million kilometers. At 6G, you could get there and back in under 6 days, but that would demonstrate your true speed capabilities. At 2G you could make the same haul in 11 days. At 1G you could make it in 15 days. Rigging the asteroid to the ship would take a day at any acceleration.

"We could gain ourselves some status here. That could get us a better price on the liquor. Byron does have a point. This isn't exactly what the crew signed on for. Shall we just refuel and get out of here?"

"Anyone see anything interesting while they were off the ship? You never know when interesting stuff might show up."

Ray shrugs. "Just some big shot ****s making a spectacle of themselves. Nothing special." she heads back inside, clearly assuming we're going to refuel and leave.

"If they need water now and will pay for it, then they will need it in a few weeks. We could come back later if we had to. We also might want to refuel off of gas giants for a while until we have some more credits." Byron heads back in to look over the nav charts.

"I really don't like the idea of hauling icebergs from the oort cloud. The only thing worse would be hauling trash to ... I don't know ... wherever. But we are partners in this," continues Jerry.

"It sounds like Byron and I vote no. What do you think, Daneel?"

Daneel runs his hand through his beard, "Well, Captain, the King really wants us to get Nemesis' cosmetics fixed up, and hauling ice might get that done quicker. But Ray's right - ice hauling's definitely not on the King's list of things to do with his ship. Let's leave jobs like that for if we are desperate for cash."

"Should we ask Ray?," wonders Jerry. "I think her comment was pretty clear."

Jerry moves to a comm station. "Complete re-fueling. I will settle accounts with the dock. We will be lifting when everyone is back on-board."

Ray finishes eating her street food -- some kind of spiced meat on a stick -- and paces around the ship, already getting antsy at being back inside.

"I'm ready when you are Captain." Step runs some calculations while waiting for the fueling to finish and the crew to be ready to leave.

"Any suggestions on our next mission?" she asks while eyeing the ships readouts.

"We should pick a system or two to target and get enough that its worth finding someone to sell it all off to." Byron throws out. "Planning which system we want to work on building up support in should be a priority. We don't want to start raiding somewhere and then find out it would be a good tactical place to set up shop and get some contacts in after the fact."

"I already have a contact on Paal from when I was with the Diplomatic Service," replies Jerry. "And, it's a wealthier place than this. And, a bit closer to the area where we were planning on operating."

Jerry waits for a response from his companions.

"It's only one parsec away but it has a gas giant, so we can fuel for free. What do you say?"

"I'm in. Let's get this show on the road."

"That sounds like a good plan. I like saving money where we can. Running this ship is expensive. Let's head that direction. Everyone ready to fly?"

H[[oc]ilfer has no gas giants and no water, so frontier refueling is out. A full tank of refined hydrocarbons and a day in the berth totals Cr22,000. How do you pay that? Let's start a running tally.[/ooc]

As I understand it, although you could make the two-parsec jump to Tech-World or Ergo, you're going to make a side trip to Paal, one parsec away.

Having paid your bill, you set out for the 100-diameter limit and jump to Paal.

Byron's Astrogation roll (Easy 4+): 2d6 + 1 + 1 - 1 ⇒ (6, 2) + 1 + 1 - 1 = 9 (Effect: +5)
Daneel's Engineer (J-Drive) roll (Easy 4+): 2d6 + 1 + 1 + 5 ⇒ (2, 5) + 1 + 1 + 5 = 14

Another week in space goes by, the third since leaving Drinax. Life's getting a bit dull on board the ship. Next week crew pay is due. So's maintenance.

You drop out of orbit at Paal, some 2 million kilometers from the main world. A rich agricultural world with a near-perfect environment for growing crops and other foodstuffs, Paal relies heavily on interstellar trade to bring it advanced technology, vehicles and other niceties of modern life. It has a main sequence yellow star, no asteroid belt and three major gas giants. According to the data stream, it supports six million people (mostly humans, with some Aslan) and has oceans that cover some forty percent of the world's surface. There are two dozen nations scattered across the globe. The Tech-level is pre-stellar and the law is very strict. No weapons are permitted on the planet's surface.

Paal is an important link on the trade route between the Imperium and the Heirate. More than two dozen ships are moving about the system. With the exception of the powerful system defense boat, the ships are a mixture of freighters, couriers and liners.

"A bunch of options. We might want to set up shop as far from the defense boat as possible and then strike when one or more interesting ships come close to our location." Byron looks over the scans to see which vessels might have the most cargo.

Jerry settles with the Hilfer port facility, using his own money for the timebeing. He makes a point of mentioning the ship's name and his own, since he is paying on time and with easy to spend credits.

Once in space, Jerry calls a meeting of the partners. "We need to determine how we will pay for this - I picked up the fuel and berthing costs on Hilfer from my own money. Once we get flush, it should not be a problem but we need to determine how we are going to cover the bills when we have to pay the crew and maintenance on the ship."

"I have some contacts on Paal - I will see if we can sell the liquor there. First priority is to fuel the ship - let's save some cash by fuelling from one of the gas giants. We have a week before we pay the crew and need to berth for maintenance. We can also see if there is any chance of upgrading the ship, too."

Jerry allows his companions to think about how to fund the partnership while he returns to his study of Tactics.

I will volunteer do the running tally of costs and income.

INCOME - 0 CR
EXPENDITURES - 22,000 CR
ASSETS - 6 tons of fine liquor

Ray groans aloud at all this talk of credits, and upkeep, and other boring ****. "Tell me there's something good on that screen, Byron."

"I agree with topping off the tanks at one of the gas giants. We should do that first, so that if we need to leave in a hurry, we will be ready to go. We can analyze the potential marks while we refuel."

Daneel gets to work. He tries to ID the various ships in the system as well as assessing their defensive capabilities.

"Wait a second. Jerry has a contact on Paal. I don't think we should "piss in the soup" as they say when he has a good contact that might get us some work. Thieving this close to someplace we might want to work out of is reckless."

"Let's scoop from the gas giant for fuel. I'm all about saving some money right now. I funded some of the marines and the doctor out of my own funds. I'd like to sell the liquor here, and see whats on the table for work."