I have been thinking about the pricing structure for travel and shipping costs, and have a suggestion: Cheat (or at least use a shortcut.)

SVC has often implied that interplantary travel is very like modern trans-oceanic travel. This means we have a ready template for prices/availablity that we can use to reverse engineer the costs of various ship components.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 09:48 am: Edit

Flipping through Module J2 the other day got me to thinking...

As an adjunct to the civilian info, mayhaps an expanded shuttle article? J2 has several shuttles that are basically a curiosity in SFB, but would be primo for GPD (recovery, salvage, rescue). Have an article with a bit more in-depth info on the ubiquitous admin shuttle, racial variations (and civilian service variations), some of the fun mission variants from J2, simple set of mini-deckplans, etc.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 11:12 am: Edit

I remember SVC created some deck plans of a Admin. that had sides drawn flat. After you cut it out you could fold the sides up for a complete shuttle. It was very cool.

Actually, I have a copy of it if SVC can't find it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 11:39 am: Edit

I actually do know where it is.

By Robert Gilson (Bobcat) on Friday, December 19, 2003 - 12:05 pm: Edit

I think a shuttle article would be very useful. Maybe a adventure about a shuttle needing rescue. Maybe even fiction dealing with shuttles. Maybe we can make MPB a shuttle and civilian theme.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 01:23 am: Edit

Ken, I took a look at going that route and didn't make it very far, why don't you try it and see if you can get results that make sense

By F. Douglas Wall (Knarf) on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 04:16 am: Edit

GURPS Space p51: Price of interstellar transportation.

Luxury: $2,500 per person per day of travel

First Class: $500 per person per day

Standard: $250 per person per day

Steerage: $150 per person per day

There are more details involved, but my hands are not up to that much typing.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 01:19 pm: Edit

It's a starting point. The big question is, what constitutes what?

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 02:07 pm: Edit

I would think there would be a sliding scale. No one would pay first class prices to go to a outer world that takes months and the trip at Standard or Steerage would be about unbarable for many.

Unless standard is at least as comfortable as your average Star Fleet officer.

How would these accomodations compare to Naval accmadations? It's realevance being that we have a good idea of what the military ones are.

I might suggest to comparison on a Naval ship:

First Class: Captain, top officers and VIPs (Ambassitors)
Standard: Officers
Standard-B: Crew
Steerage: No personell or brig.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 07:39 pm: Edit

I don't agree -- a trip taking months would be MUCH more tolerable if you do it First Class or even Luxury!

Department heads would also be First Class. Move VIPs and ambassadors to Luxury class, also Admirals.

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 09:52 pm: Edit

Top Officers=Departement Heads

Just couldn't get the right wording. It was a rough morning.

One point I was making is there might not be anything compairable to Luxury accomodations on a CC, DD, or FF but maybe on a DN. But first class is probably a given for the upper echelons.

By Gary Plana (Garyplana) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 02:11 am: Edit

Mmmm ... yeah, probably no Luxury quarters on a stock DD, FF, etc. But on a Command ship (CLC, CC, etc) and all capital ships (DN, CV, etc) that normally carry a Flag officer, those would have some Luxury quarters as standard.

Wait we already did the Klingon ships ... oh yeah, that's right: Klingons aren't interested in luxury like those soft weak Federation sissies. Half the time, the "flag officer" aboard a Klingon ship is the senior captain in the group. (Got out of that one!)

By Loren Knight (Loren) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 03:18 am: Edit

Somewhere I remember there was mention of Klingon VIP quarters being pretty cushy but then cushy for a Klingon is probably about First Class for a Fed.

Klingon Captains probably have something just above Standard and not quite First Class as compared. In keeping the Standard Klingon quarters are probably similar to Officers quarters on a Los Angeles class submarine. Very small and probably shared two or more to a cabin.

Anyway, just trying to give a comparison to something we've seen.

A CLC or a CB might have one such accomodation but the old CC would likely have just a double wide room just a step up from first class (but not quite Luxury). Capitol ships would definately have at least two or three fully Luxury quarters akin to a penthouse suite.

By Ken Humpherys (Pmthecat) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 08:21 am: Edit

Steerage is barracks style bunks that Marines get when on a Commando ship.
Also note that the above prices are for a full day. IIRC, Earth to Vulcan(or Rigel or Centaris) is less than a day on a standard freighter.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 05:54 pm: Edit

that brings up a good point, what speed do you travel for these rates?

we have 9 travel speeds available

type	warp	speed (c)	F&E hexes/turn	% time at speed
shuttle	2.5	1000	<1	100
freighter	4.5	5832	2	100
fast freighter	5.5	10648	3	100
early warp	6	13824	4	100
standard warp	7	21952	6	100
fast warp	7.25	24389	7	100
aux dash	8.5	125000	12	31
dash	9.25	512000	100	66
fast dash	9.5	551368	120	66

fares will not increase linearly with speed (especially when dash gets involved)

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 06:46 pm: Edit

What speed would represent strategic movement speeds in relation to F&E?

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 06:51 pm: Edit

Dash speeds being sustained over long periods of time.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 06:52 pm: Edit

Christopher, the dash speed lines are F&E strategic movement

for those not familiar with F&E speeds

tactical warp as used in SFB combat has a max speed of 32 times the speed of light (32c) which is not fast enough to get anywhere interesting at the strategic scale, so all F&E movement and the high-warp factors listed above are 'strategic scale movements' but F&E has a movement mode specificly called 'strategic movement' that basicly allows you to move a ship as far as you want to, this is extremely limited (the feds and klingons can do this with no more then 30 ships at a time and it's REALLY expensive to do even that) but is letting those ships use dash speed extensivly.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 07:15 pm: Edit

Ok, thanks. That is what I thought.

Now, not to make any trouble, how expensive can it be if repaired ships can move for free?...I think the most ships I have moved in that manner are about 100 ships. Also, where did you come up with the numbers for 100 and 120 hexes per turn?

Just curious.

By Alex Chobot (Alendrel) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 07:26 pm: Edit

If you're looking at the free startmoves a repaired ship gets in F&E, consider that factored in the repair costs.

The # of hexes per turn came from the fact that, during development of these numbers, it was clear there had to be some upper limit on the distance a ship can move in a finitie time,a nd these were chosen such that they wouldn't have nay meaningful impact on F&E play (as any situation where one is trying to stratmove a hundred hexes or more is pretty conrived).

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 07:59 pm: Edit

most of the free strat for repairs may be going away in the future (it is being abused to the point of damaging game balance) it's not definantly going to go away, but it's an idea that SVC has talked about.

during the development of GPD SVC redefined F&E strategic movement from 'unlimited' to 100 hexes/turn so as I was figuring out the speed definitions it was figured with that in mind (dash speed actually works out to ~150 hexes/turn, but you need to stop and refit every 6 hexes which takes ~1/3 of your time which results in ~100 hexes/turn) fast dash is just a little faster then dash and it just so happens that the multiplier between GW ship speeds and their dash is the same as between fash ships and their dash which results in 120 hexes/turn

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 07:59 pm: Edit

Hmm, ok, but if it is part of the repair cost then it is still really cheap, and sometimes it is not used, so I don't think that would really work out.

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 08:02 pm: Edit

Oh, did not realize SVC had put a number on it for GPD.

As for the FRD thing, it was talked about, and nothing ever said on it other than it would change the dynamics of the game. So that really does not explain the in any case, as there are many many bases that could make repairs.

By David Lang (Dlang) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 08:02 pm: Edit

remember that strategic movement is 1 EP per ship, repair strat was intended to get the ship back to the nearest frontline, not to have it cross the empire to a new front (which is the reason it's being considered for change) so they would be useing it a lot less, makeing it cheaper

By Christopher E. Fant (Cfant) on Sunday, December 21, 2003 - 08:04 pm: Edit

David, it is not on the books to be changed, only discussed and so far nothing has been decided. Again, it does not explain the situatioion.

And strat move was never intended to just get a ship back to the original front. It is designed to move ships to another front, that is the entire purpose behind it.