Just measure the debt in Build Points and off you go. In which case I would the optional rules from Galactic Trade for using a more interactive BP economy.
Just measure the debt in Build Points and off you go. In which case I would the optional rules from Galactic Trade for using a more interactive BP economy.
I agree this is the easiest way to go, there are rules you can use for earning BP for your ship, and you just start out with a debt.
If you need some further explanations why it isn't just some 'flat amount of credits' you owe, you can point to things like various permits, docking documents and such that can have been solved/issued by some of a variety of partial ownership/partnership stakes, and potential owing of favors, or ending up owing someone for a favor they are owed by someone else. The recapture of various goods and jobs over time help represent you paying these things off, even potentially to paying off others stakes in your ship, at which point future BP and such goes to paying for the various fees and registrations. And you already have the ship and the relationships with the various docks, so things are easier for you as you go forward.
If you jump ship with the ship and refuse to acknowledge partial ownership debts for the ship, people start looking for you and people may refuse to do business with you because of the risk of you being caught with their goods in your hold and having them 'taken' to pay your debts.
While there is an AP where the players are carting around in a stolen ship, that ship hasn't been reported stolen, because they don't want to admit it is stolen, so for a long time they avoid what might otherwise be the ramifications of failing to deal with debts on your ship.
So I'd suggest you stick with starting with a BP debt for your ship, using those rules, and let them pay it off over a few levels. (let them save some BP to advance their ship with some of their BP)
But keep the ship's BP limited to within the recommended BP limit for their level/tier. (I think there is a recommended amount that you can allow them to bypass their ship's normal BP, which I think is something like 5% over the given BP for a given tier.) Any BP higher than that that they get, they can kept for a buffer, or they can be spent to pay off their debt, or could be spent on insurance, otherwise they list optoins for expanding their fleet or 'burning' it on heightened lifestyles.
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Yeah, ship costs are intentionally kept separate from the rest of the economy so player's don't decide "we'll just sell this ship for 10 million credits, but awesome gear, and just hire a transport when we need it".
Does the player's debt really need to be specified? Can't it just be thematic? With the player working to either send back some of the trade goods they manage to grab during their exploration (for which there isn't really a robust system) or scrap from captured/destroyed enemy ships.
If you absolutely feel you need a system to track it, then the BP suggestion above probably works best.